A Sunday in Cold Spring
We found ourselves en route to Cold Spring last Sunday hoping for the same mild weather we had been enjoying for most of the week. Halfway through the trip though, the clouds had started to set in and the drizzles began to invite the chilly breeze in. And so amongst mountain views of landscapes slowly greening, the Hudson brought us to this town that was almost always picture perfect.
It is not my first time here. My friends and I have travelled here often to enjoy Robert's house with a deck that look onto the grand Palisades and the Hudson River. In the summer the guys would play baseball on the diamond across from the house while the women either cheered them on or drove to the outlet malls to shop. In the autumn when the mountains became reallife postcard shots, we mingled on the deck and talked about all the mundane things.
What fascinates me about this old town, though is that everything is an image worthy of a picture. Brightly painted shutters on buildings in bright red or purple, bright red fire hydrants with wild daisies on its side and pastel colored porches.
Streets that are quiet, always with a light breeze and in the warm summers, the shops put out their wares to spill on the steps to their doorsteps or outside on the sidewalks to attract the attention of the people strolling by.
The life is more laid back than the city from where we all work and live in in the weekdays. Air that is so fresh and abundant that it almost drowns the soul in ecstacy and clears the mind of the stresses of modern life. The pace is slow but not drudgingly. People stop to smile at each other, make small talk, laugh. Birds that sing tunes that perfectly blends with the hum of the bees and the rustle of leaves against the breeze. The Hudson so embraces the shores, kisses the breakwater.
Sometimes when you walk through the streets in Cold Spring and you wonder if it is a dream. But you do not pinch yourself because you just want to bask in its serenity, its beauty. You float along, skip a heartbeat now and then as something beautiful catches your fancy: a tiny hummingbird, fresh smell of coffee brewing from a nearbu cafe, the chatter among locals. Wish that the day will not end and that Monday will not announce its return so that the roads will not take you back to the city and away from this picturesque town.