I wake up leisurely and finally feel rested for the first
time in a few days. I take my time eating breakfast at the hotel and head out
just before the official check out time. I’m wearing my hiking clothes
anticipating a long drive to upstate New York during which I am allowing myself
to impulsively pull over and check out anything that appeals to me. I take my
time and decide to check Long Island out a little bit more, since I haven’t
really had the energy to get a good pulse on the place just yet. I find Lake
Ronkonkomo, the largest lake on Long Island. It’s frozen over, which dumbfounds
me.
I head back to Northport, where the VA is, and discover it’s
a quaint, upscale little coastal town. I find a bakery with some of the most
amazing pasteries I have ever seen in my life, and ask the Danish woman behind
the counter to pull whatever her favorite is. She nearly dies just thinking
about the giant pecan-chocolate cruissant she hands me. It doesn’t end up being
my cup of tea, but just seeing her get all excited makes me happy. I walk along the coastline and notice
Victorian houses lining the hills along the parks. It reminds me a bit of
Petaluma.
I continue North and arrive in Peekskill, New York by around
3pm. When I booked the reservation, I had low expectations of Peekskill (pretty
much just based on the name and it’s relatively small size- about 20,000). I am
shocked when I get here. The Hudson River Valley quickly becomes one, if not
THE, favorite place I have visited in all of my travels. Peekskill is a small
artist town that sits right along the river, which more like one of the great
lakes than a river- it’s huge!. My hotel room has a view of mountains, river,
and trees.
I’m not sure that words can really do this place justice, so
I will supplement here with more pictures that my other posts. The place is
truly magical. I make it to the Blue Mountain Reservation just in time to get a
good walk/hike in for about an hour. I weave through barren and ice-capped
forest and watch squirrels skip across frozen over streams and ponds. I see a
father help his daughter put on her ice skates near a frozen lake. School kids
play on the playground, but are soon out of site as I enter the magical forest
and stay there, listening to nothing other than my own breath and the crunching
of the leaves.
I head out feeling refreshed and decide that the secret to
health is being in nature. One hour of nature truly heals and restores me in
ways that years of therapy never have. Even just thinking about it now makes me
want to move to a mountain and become an ecopsychologist.
I thank the park and
head out toward the river, another breathtaking view as the sun is setting in
between the mountains, and birds are flying over the water. I spot the train,
which I am told later is a commuter train that goes right into New York City.
What is not to love about this place?
I find the Peekskill Brewery and try some stout, which is
delicious. While I’m there, I hear the bartender having the same conversation
he had with me at the end of the bar (“clinical psychology?”). The man and I
make eye contact and wave, and I ask if he’s here for the interview. He is, and
comes and sits down to chat.
Steve is a cool guy from Colorado who wants to be a
geropsychologist. We have an easy time at conversing despite the initial
awkward, “where are you applying” topic. We chat for a couple of hours, and
it’s another moment of connection in this process. As my interests in the field
continue to narrow, the VA world becomes relatively small and I find it easy to
connect with folks who share my passion for working with vets.
I leave Steve around 8:30 and head out to find some food. I
end up at the quintessential New York pizza shop, where using the bathroom
requires you to climb over a bucket of water, dodge the steel counters in the
kitchen, and make sure not to step in the wet spots of the newly mopped floor.
An Italian-looking high school teenager takes my order in a thick New York
accent and recommends the onion-tomatoe-chicken pizza. Sounds good enough to
me. I take a few bites and am not sure if the chicken is really chicken (did she say ‘tofu’?) Eh, the experience
here is worth it.
Her high school friend walks in and starts complaining about
drama with her parents, and the girl behind the counter tells her that she MUST
go to college and must NOT let her parents get in her way. I listen to them for
awhile, and on my way out I quietly say to the girl, “Good thing you have
friends, huh?” to which she replies “I don’t know what I’d do without her.” I
tell her I was once the same way when I was her age, and we exchange reassuring
glances at one another.
I walk out thinking about how opportunities to connect with
others present despite geographic, cultural, or time restrictions, and we never
really know the impact of those opportunities after they occur. I felt oddly
connected to this troubled young woman in the pizza shop, and I hope that she
could feel my message that everything is going to work out okay for her in the
end.
