As a small number of folks know, I had a “mystery date” this weekend. Yes, it was with redmed. Duh. Basically, she had told me to pack an overnight bag and be ready to go at noon yesterday. There are only a few people who I would allow to totally surprise me. She drove, I chilled. We drove west, to the Berkshires. I was relatively sure that I had it dialed in … I was guessing an overnight with a couple of classes at Kripalu.
We drove up and checked into the Baird Tavern. This is a building that pre-dates the revolutionary war by a few years. The hostess was pretty cool. While chilling with iced tea and admiring her astonishing bird feeding program (titmice, goldfinches, nuthatches, cardinals, evening grosbeaks, hummingbirds, and more) she asked if we were going to go see Yo Yo Ma at Tanglewood that night.
Say what?
So yeah, that was it. Surprise blown, but only once we were within a 20 minute drive of the event. We had shed tickets to the greatest living instrumentalist of our time, performing an all Dvorak program with the BSO, including the New World symphony.
redmed had also arranged for a pick-up meal on the grounds, so we sat overlooking some stunning western MA mountains, getting a little tipsy on a bottle of wine, and then enjoyed the concert.
Today, on the way back, we stopped off at the Hancock Shaker Village. I have many thoughts on the Shakers and their early model intentional living, co-ed monastic practice, meditative, contemplative, co-housing innovations. That, I will save for another post.
Got back around 5 this evening, put in a couple of hours fixing the gutters and weeding the flowerbeds … and I’m willing to call it one of the best weekends I’ve had in a long, long, time.
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