Town and Country: It May Soon be Spring, But Winter is Still Rich with Possibilities. Stay Connected! Explore!



Fleecy clouds and clinging ice, UNH
-- on this bright, crisp day in February,
both insist on equal time in the sun...

 Berwick, Maine: February 8th, 2011.

It's always tempting to shut down at this time of year as a defense against multiple snowfalls, rivers of slush and what we know all too well is the imminent approach of Mud Season here in New England. 

 Of course, we're only human, and yet what seems in our darker moments to be the relentless onslaught of bone-chilling weather and all that comes with it was never really meant to be the only digestible food for a hungry soul.

 Better to accept what is on our plate, give thanks, and instead of digging out, dig in for a change!

The Brook down by Paul Arts
Center at UNH may appear to be
hybernating, but it is no doubt
busy preparing to burst forth
into another glorious Springtime...

Snowshoeing is one fine way to engage with the magic and mystery of our late-winter days. Last week I snowshoed on Four Tree Island in Portsmouth Harbor. This afternoon I'll find a place by the sea -- perhaps in Wells or Ogunquit -- don my funny, clown-like shoes, dig my poles into the deep crust of snow everywhere around me, then glide contemplatively across a snow-blanketed beach, watching, listening, and taking in the distinctive perfume and special feel of winter by the Atlantic.

I used the Museum of Fine Arts at UNH
 Paul Arts Center as a welcome oppor-
tunity to come in out of the cold...

The campus at UNH in Durham is another ideal location for wintertime walking and careful observation. I started my snowy Mini-Odyssey yesterday at the UNH Dairy Bar, a beautifully refurbished restaurant-by-the-train station and a prized destination for students, faculty, visitors and university employees of every imaginable stripe.



The sidewalk at the rear entrance
to Paul Arts Center at UNH
Became an instant, environ-
mentally conscious Marc Rothko
On this February morning...

Cities are fine, and a university campus can have a very special feeling, becoming a badly needed oasis from urban life, inviting one to assume an almost  Zen-like contemplation.  But the country his its very own nobility -- a quality that ought never to be willing to play second fiddle to the treasures of either city life or the refinements of a university.



No matter what the season,
UNH Thompson Hall  has
learned just how to
demand Center Stage...

  It is often the fundamental visual qualities of country life -- with its flowers and animals abundant, its serenity, its light and shadow or the play of an early morning horizon against a cloud-filled sky -- that have within them the stuff of artworks thought to be possible only in the cities of the world. Samuel Johnson made a big fuss in his writings centuries ago about the superiority of life in the city. I saw his home in London on time, and while I greatly admired the man's expert writing and imaginative thinking, I wondered if I could ever have been happy growing up in what even then must have been a highly congested, fume-saturated existence in the bowels of a teeming and often unsanitary environment.

I spend a great deal of time traveling from country to city, and while I often wish I could be nearer to the urban architecture and treasure-filled art galleries that mean so much to me, there is something about country life that offers a healthy, invigorating counter-balance to the roar and congestion of a world-class city.


Just another day of
Wintertime Lawn Mowing
here in Berwick, Maine...



Why does the magical appearance

of a Wise and yet inscrutable Owl in
one's back yard cause such a stir in the
hearts of people? Perhaps this magnificent

Sudden Guest knows the answer.

Fortunately, my camera decided

to actually work today...



For me, driving away from the country, through difficult wintertime conditions and into the city where my beloved cultural energy lies -- and then back again to the supreme quietude of the village I live in -- make both the city and the country experiences richer by virtue of their delicious contrast. Each is a reminder, both of its own great dignity and the dignity of the other, competing human experience.



In the midst of a late-January blizzard,
this little church on Salmon Falls Road in Rochester,
NH  brings both dignity and serenity
to the countryside.



So all of you big-city dwellers,  feel not sorrow for those of us who live in towns with few if any street lights and a nearly non-existent nightlife! For you see, we carry our sophistications with us wherever we go, the same as you. Yes, it's true: we can really quite easily put village life behind us -- for a day, a week, a month and more. We can come into the cities of the world and take appreciatively from their cultural Horn of Plenty -- then travel back into the more convivial, toasty warm cuccoon of country life.

And here, where forests and water and birds and animals are so wonderfully accessible, we can find rest and contemplation within the arms of the less hurried, less frenetic pace of things. Before you know it, we're ready again for another foray into city life. For neither life-style is superior to the other, and a well-rounded person would be wise to take advantage of both, as often as possible and as long as their legs will take them there.  


  -- Ross Bachelder   February 8th, 2011 (and three more images from this afternoon...)





Cold and a Biting Wind began to set in while I snowshoed
at Whaleback Commons, New Castle, NH this afternoon...



One of the Fabled Portsmouth Tugs Passed Whaleback
Lighthouse at the Commons,  no doubt heading out to shepherd
Another Freighter into Portsmouth Harbor from Some Distant Country...



A Fierce, Bracing Wind Carries a String of Ominous Clouds
Out to Sea This Afternoon at Whaleback Commons...