ANYTHING THAT LIFTS OUR SPIRITS

 

Mt. Washington, NH

This blog began in 2017 on our first Princeton, New Jersey adventure.  This is our third.  We all need adventures, small and large.  I count almost anything.  Anything that lifts our spirits.  It can be a day kayaking, a pile of new books to read, some new spices to upgrade my cooking, you name it.  

We just came back from the nicest road trip.  This was something I yearned for pre-vaccine.  I wish I could say post-pandemic, but we reached a new milestone of 711,522 US deaths from Covid as of today.  The last 21 hours added 2,522 deaths; 97% were unvaccinated. That's 2,446 preventable deaths in less than a day. In my home state, 133 North Carolinians were added to the tally.  An unhappy thought. I can't fathom not being vaccinated.  We all need a spirit boost.    

For my husband and me, our two shots of Moderna are holding steady and we are grateful.  We felt safe to plan this trip to Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine and Connecticut.  I  never saw New England in the fall before. The leaves are a palate of their own, the reds sharper, the russets deeper, the yellows brighter. We live in the Piedmont North Carolina woods where autumn is not this luminous. No wonder the rest of the country descends on New England this time of year.  And yet it isn't crowded.  Plenty of countryside.  

 

Dickinson Home, Amherst, MA

Emily Dickinson Grave with Offerings

We began in Amherst, MA where Emily Dickinson lived and died.  We sat in her garden and visited her grave.  We saw the church her family attended. My life would be less without her poetry.  The world would be less.  Perhaps you feel the same. Surely those who left sweet offerings on her tombstone do.  Even now, remembering her everyday realm feels momentous.  Reading her poetry always lifts my heart.  We don't need to travel for that.  We can find the world in her poetry. 

 

Frost Home, Franconia, NH

We also took a road less traveled, overgrown and untrodden, high in the New Hampshire hills to see where Robert Frost lived and wrote.  When you're there it feels like you can hear his gravelly voice reciting "The Gift Outright" at President Kennedy's inauguration.  Later we hiked the Flume Gorge in Franconia Notch State Park, the most rigorous part of the trip for me.   

Flume Gorge, Mt. Liberty

The Gorge extends 800 feet horizontally with walls of granite that rise to 90 feet and are as narrow as 12 feet apart, with roaring cascades and waterfalls. A loud chasm with board walks and railings.  Tiring but not unsafe. When we came once decades ago my husband and I were both more agile.  Aren't places like this wonderful?

Do you love traveling in this country?  I do.  Day trip, road trip, camping, a weekender, a local get-away, a mini-break.  All of these lift our spirits.  Being so far from home and long-planned made this a bigger than usual adventure for us. I know life can be hard.  Mine often is.  But somehow after this I'm feeling like there can always be something good around the corner.                   

                                            Nina Naomi