The Great Two-Day Escape
Therapeutic Journaling #2
Mary and I limited ourselves, as I noted in the Christmas Day post I wrote yesterday, to a relatively frugal exchange of gifts for this holiday season. There was nothing under the little tree Mary put up a week ago that cost more than $20, I think. Which on one hand proves that expensive gifts are not needed for a great and wonderful Christmas. However, if you scratch the surface of that sentiment, it’s also true that we’re spoiled, and if we want something we generally don’t wait for Christmas to arrive in order to obtain it.
But there’s something else a little less frugal in the works.
About two weeks ago, Mary asked me what I “really wanted” for Christmas. I told her nothing at all other than our planned repeat trip to Prague in March, which has already been mostly bought and paid for. But that led to a short discussion about maybe doing a mid-January getaway, and I ended up booking a couple nights in what appears to be a little old charming-looking 2-star travel-court style of motel in Williamstown, Mass, for the MLK holiday weekend.
It would surprise me if anybody not familiar with this little corner of the world would even recognize the name “Williamstown MA.” There’s not much to it, after all, and its only real historical raison d'etre is William's College, a tiny but lovely little Liberal Arts school … well known, according to a blurb I read on the internet, for its fine arts department.
Somewhat more recently and more famously, however, is that adjacent to the campus is the Clark Art Institute, which is a world-class art museum as well as a renowned art research and teaching center. Well known for its French impressionist collection … and for its collection of paintings by Americans like Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent. It's always a pleasure to go there to revisit those works. I have a particular fondness for some of the Degas stuff, including an iteration of the ballerina bronze, which never fails to impress. And after having recently read very fun reviews in both the New Yorker and The New York Review of Books of a book about Sargent’s friendship with the Wertheimers, a wealthy turn of the 20th century Jewish family in London, I’m really looking forward to seeing his works again.
The Clark also has really nice special exhibitions. The last time we went, in fact, there was a fantastic exhibition of classical Greek and Roman art that rivaled the huge exhibit at the Boston MFA (which in fact loaned many of the artifacts to the Clark for the exhibit). After having decided to center a weekend getaway in Williamstown, I checked out the website to see what’s on special display now, and got excited about at least one of the exhibits … a relatively small one, I think, (but I could be mistaken about its size) on modern (mid-20th century to present) of textile arts – tapestries, to be precise – from what’s described on the site as something of a mid-20th Century tapestry renaissance in France. Photos are very cool.
But we’ll spend two nights in Williamstown … I'm thinking that the first day we'll drive right on through Williamstown, less than 10 miles down the road to North Adams, MA, and visit the Mass MoCA museum. This is a large old repurposed Industrial Revolution era mill that was converted into a “Contemporary Arts” center that is really notable for its large art installations. To be honest, some of this kind of thing fails to grip me. But on the other hand, when it's really cool it's really cool, and the Current Exhibitions page makes it look fun.
We've been to the Clark a good number of times, but this will only be our second time at the MoCA. I’m sure the art will be wonderful, but in truth, we're going more as a getaway than to specifically see the art. Williamstown is just so, so New Englandish. And the little hotel actually gets very good ratings. There's a small number of good enough mid-priced restaurants – a couple of well-rated Mexican restaurants, as well an upscale kind of pub, a slightly higher priced ‘bistro,’ and a Korean restaurant, all right there in tiny Williamstown. Meanwhile, right down the road a mile or two is one of my favorite bakeries anywhere … a tiny cash-only little A-Frame building called, appropriately, the A-Frame Bakery.
I’m perhaps inordinately excited about this little two night trip. I think it will be fun and restful, and the fact that it's only like 40 miles from our house is absolutely part of the appeal. I mean, any one or even two of these places could be a day trip from where we live. But the notion of going there and having a leisurely, low-mileage couple days away from home, just makes me feel good. And the idea of a weekend getaway coming in at no more than, say, $300 or so, absolutely has its own appeal.
Our trip will definitely take the edge off my travel lust for the moment, and I can see us doing something else like this again.