I am looking for ghosts. I am seeking mystery. Close to the Greene County trail of Rip Van Winkle, I hope to hook into some magical vision of my own. The sleepy protagonist’s story only became fabulous when he was faced with the phantoms of Henry Hudson’s crew and sipped at their liquor. Forget that Washington Irving had never been to the Catskills when he wrote the classic tale; the origins of the best stories are always based on some enigmatic fact belonging to the collective unconscious. As a descendent of the esteemed author, I believe this link can only serve to better my chances of discovering magic today.
I wait in the cold outside the Ace of Clubs. Not a car passes; no face appears at the door. Across the street, the Big Belly Deli stays quiet. But there are miles of exploration to go, so I hop back into my salt-coated RAV4 and proceed to the Greene County line.
Palenville is the site of the first American arts colony. So says Harry, a retired truck driver, as he sits at the counter of the Kindred Spirits Steakhouse & Pub, enjoying a refill of coffee. Prints of the 1849 painting Kindred Spirits by Asher B. Durand are on the restaurant’s sign and wall and menus, which explains the origins of the name. The painting depicts 19th-century poets Thomas Cole and William Cullen Bryant discussing something surely mystical and literary on a rocky ledge of Kaaterskill Clove.
“Why name the place Kindred Spirits?” I ask owner Kathy Guart, a South American beauty and former registered nurse who came to these parts with her family for the fresh air and the views. I think she might reveal a profound and personal link to the poets who balance on a precipice on every one of her menus, but her answer is simpler, more practical.
“Kindred spirits are happy, loving people who take care of each other,” she says. “The way we take care of our customers.”
She offers me a coffee as her three-year-old daughter comes out from the kitchen, dressed in pink and dancing coyly at the sight of a stranger.
“What’s your name?” I ask the girl.
“I don’t have a name,” she says.
Harry and I nod, and he tells me of his coming out East after the war in pursuit of a Kingston girl he still sleeps next to at night, six decades later. Greene County used to be farmland, he tells me. Now Story Farm down the road is the biggest farm left around. But Harry doesn’t mind being left around still.
“Where else is there to go?” asks a man who spent his working years driving from state to state, coast to coast.
I sip my coffee, happy for the warmth of the liquid. Rip Van Winkle might have had liquor as his magical elixir, but black coffee will work fine for me.
My story has now been furnished with ghosts. William Cullen Bryant and Thomas Cole speak of iambic pentameter and the Holy Ghost in the back seat of the RAV4, as we glide along Route 23A. We enter Catskill Park. The road narrows and winds. We traverse Kaaterskill Creek. A historical marker along the edge of the road conjures the legendary Rip Van Winkle and reminds me that he was accompanied by his faithful dog, Wolf. I miss my own dogs at this mention, and I wonder if their presence might have increased my chances of finding magic even more. Of course, it would also have made it more difficult to fit my dead poet friends in the back of the car.
The ice on the cliffs is magnificent as I head toward Haines Falls, great torrents stuck in arctic mid-motion. I look in my rearview mirror to ask Cole and Bryant for words to describe this natural wonder, but they have vaporized as ghosts are wont to do. I am on my own as I turn into the Mountain Top Historical Society’s lot.
There is only one other car here, and, although the center is closed, its doors are open. The car belongs to Mark Batista, owner of Batista Tiles in East Greenbush. He doesn’t live in Greene County. He doesn’t know anything about Greene County. He tells me this politely, seemingly not flustered that I have interrupted his work in the building. There is an alluring scar above his left eye, and I want to ask him about it. Instead, I point to the floor.
“Nice tiles,” I say, although there are no tiles down yet, only their foundation.
When the RAV4 finds Peace Village Learning and Retreat Center, I am impressed by its intuitive spiritual prowess. I go inside and meet Sandra. She wears a white sari and a pin on her white cardigan that reads “Om Shanti.” From Edmonton, Canada, originally, Sandra was a manager in a public accounting firm until five years ago, when she retired and came to live the teachings of raja yoga meditation. I ask her if she enjoys the area.
“Yes,” Sandra says, eyes round with sincerity. “It is so pure and pristine. It attracts people who are pure and pristine.”
As I leave Peace Village and am pulled toward Tannersville, past the Snowed Inn and Grateful Bed, toward the lumbering Hunter Mountain ahead, I wonder if I am being pulled toward a deeper sense of purity. I wonder if I will find my heart more pristine when I finish my Greene County journey, my slate cleaned as if I had slept for 20 years and returned to a world free of conflict and foes. I decide it is possible, and when I see Village Candle, Pottery & Gifts in Tannersville, it seems a stupendous idea to go inside and buy a candle so that I might later light it in honor of my January afternoon epiphany. I leave the store with a soy-wax candle that supposedly smells like Kaaterskill Falls. Like purity itself.
Driving through the town of Hunter, I go by the Washington Irving Inn, where tea is served every Saturday and Sunday from 2 to 5pm, and I wave at my ancestor’s name as I continue on 23A. When I see flags whipping in the frigid air—representing the United States and New York, Sweden and Italy and Canada, Brazil and Britain and Germany—I steer down the drive they line toward the famous Hunter Mountain ski resort.
The main building is cavernous and loud. On the wall, a poster asks what kind of skier I am. Am I cautious and slow? Am I average, preferring a variety of speeds? Or am I aggressive, craving speed and steep slopes? Although I have never strapped skis to my feet, I decide that I am aggressive.
I walk boldly behind the counter where skis and bindings are rented and fixed, and I introduce myself with aggressive friendliness to a man whose name tag reads “Chuck.” My poet ghosts may have vanished miles back, but my purpose feels stronger than ever, and now I have purity on my side. Chuck has worked at Hunter Mountain for 10 years, and he serves as a volunteer with the Hunter Fire Department. He is a decent man then. He will want to help me locate a vision.
“What is it about Greene County?” I ask him. “What makes it special?”
“We all work together,” he tells me. “Also, it’s the bears. They’re everywhere.”
Passing the Rip Van Winkle Service Station in Catskill is a good omen. I have strayed from the legendary drunkard’s trail, but he is with me in spirit. I watch for Chuck’s bears as I wander down Main Street in Catskill, but I am too hungry to look for long. I step inside Retriever Roasters, order tea and a croissant, sit beside a thin man in green-striped pants and a sweatshirt that demands “WHY?” in white letters.
“You look like a rock star,” I say, finding the courage I lacked earlier when I wanted to asked the tile man about the scar above his left eye.
“He is,” says a woman nearby, fresh-faced and sarcastic. “He’s the drummer for the Turtles.”
“Well, Turtle,” I say. “Where should I go to find my vision?”
The Turtle points me to the store City Lights, and I brave the cold again to make my last inquiry of the day. It is flurrying now, and my fingers are gloveless and numb. I feel the hope burning inside me regardless. The footsteps of Thomas Cole and William Cullen Bryant echo alongside my own. I enter City Lights, and there I meet Natalie the Actress.
It’s a marvelous shop, full of light fixtures contemporary and classic, funky and unique. The place glows; Natalie glows as she asks if I need help. Michael Solomon, the owner of the store, has been in business for over 25 years, she tells me. But I want to know about her. What brought her to the pristine Greene County? Her answer is simple: a boy. Natalie was living in Hartford, Connecticut, when she met her future partner online. She moved to Athens two years ago; her satisfaction is palpable. I know now why I needed to venture past the trail Washington Irving set down for his Rip.
As usual, the magical vision I seek turns out to be all about love. About connection. Rip Van Winkle missed it in his inebriated stumbling. The Ace of Clubs, where I started my journey, just reaches toward it. The pristine Catskills can only reflect it. The greatness in Natalie’s story lies not in that she is still with the Athens man she met on the Internet, but that she met him at all, that connection happens frequently and perfectly. There is greatness in my connecting with Kathy and her daughter with no name. That I met Harry, Mark, Sandra, Chuck, and the Turtle, and that connecting with them brought me to exactly where I needed to go in Greene County: a magical shop full of light.