Greetings from New Paltz, New York, where the Munsee Lenape lived until the early 1600’s, when the British, Dutch and French followed a man named Henry up the Hudson River. The only fox news here today is that I caught sight of one this morning - it fixed eyes with me from the corner of a clearing - along with the usual squirrels and deer, from my perch on a porch at the foot of the majestic Shawanagunk ridge. Last weekend here, a frenzied chorus of coyotes cried thrice in the night, and a large black snake watched us prepare supper from atop a pipe in our laundry room, before sneaking quietly back outdoors.

I’m writing to report that life goes on in other parts of the country, as simply and strangely as ever; that the high desert landscape of the Ute mountain people is more beautiful than you can imagine, towering in technicolor and changing with the limitless sky; that the rodeo is alive and well in Colorado, where pre-schoolers from Texas and Georgia, with helmets and kevlar vests, hold tight to trotting sheep til they’re shaken to the ground; and that there are tractor tires in Kansas that are taller than me. We saw unbelievable flocks of hummingbirds in Boulder, Utah, and gas in Missouri for $1.75 a gallon. In a matter of hours, we drove from 12,000 feet of elevation, at 50 degrees with patches of melting snow, down to Denver’s 5,280, where the evening temperature was 95. And we drank a Cour-Cheverny and an Occhipinti Nero d’Avola in Baker, Nevada, where a man named Jake, who - luck would have it - used to sell me wine in Brooklyn, runs a joint called Kerouac’s beside Great Basin National Park.

I wish I could send you some of the rain that has made the east so intensely green this season, but all I have to give today is the certain knowledge that traversing the land we call home has been more instructive than the spectacle of national politics, more wondrous than monitoring rates of infection, and more nurturing than the anger, despair and finger pointing we so easily fall to. In short, the world is very large, and we are very small; do what you can to make it better, and cultivate the little things that make it not just bearable, but joyous and fortifying, like hummingbirds, harmony, hugs, and a fine glass of wine with a dear friend, and as long as you’re sporting a mask, you may come find the latter this week at Oakland Yard.

Cheers,
Max