Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser « Hilltown Families

Affirming What’s Essential ❥ Love in Western MA

May 14, 2012 at 10:00 am (Contributing Writer, Northampton, Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser)
Tags: LBGT, LGBTQ, Pioneer Valley, politics, western massachusetts

Note 13, Civil Rights in Lesbianville

The other day I was at our co-op and listening in at the checkout on a conversation between friends about exercise classes. The two women were lesbians and here, where we live in the town that earned its Lesbianville moniker long ago, that’s unremarkable. It struck me that I really like lesbians. Considering where I live, this is a good thing, right?

For 18 months, my dear hubby and I lived in London. It wasn’t until I began to fabricate lesbian status for a couple of fellow gym-goers that I realized I’d attempted to fill a quota I understood as true ratio of lesbians in the population, period, rather than true ratio of lesbians in the population, Northampton, Massachusetts. I missed my lesbians.

❥ No question, our little corner of the earth cheered when President Obama uttered these simple words: “At a certain point, I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”

No question, we have many stories (I shared some in a recent Mash Note) about the ways our kids already demonstrate full embrace for love-makes-a-family.

No question there will be more great photographs and memories from Northampton Pride 2012.

Sometimes, I think to myself that I’ve opted for such a gentle, little (read, unreal) spot to live. I have to remind myself that for all the ways we feel relatively safe here and cushioned by the lush green landscape and the earnest students and the even more earnest longtime lefty activists (and by the way, my kids’ school has someone they’ve dubbed “resident hippie” in the building, with a car he painstakingly continues to paint a psychedelic design), we have this amazing ahead-of-the-country’s-curve understanding here, too. We get it: to love whom you love and to be who you want to be is truly, deeply essential.

Eventually, we’ll look back upon all the questions about gay marriage or transgender identity and realize civil rights are just that. Our jaws will (and won’t) drop, much as they do when we realize black and white heterosexuals could not always take marriage for granted. And again, I’ll be very glad to have lived here, with the lefties and the hippies and the lesbians and the F to M’s and the M to F’s and the not checking the gender box folks and the farmers and the professors and the artists, lawyers and therapists and bicycle trash service workers.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser

Sarah is a writer, who lives in Northampton with her husband and four children. She contributes to Preview Massachusetts Magazine, as well as other publications and writes a parenting blog Standing in the Shadows at the Valley Advocate. She moved to the Valley to attend Hampshire College—and found the Valley such a nice place, she stayed!

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A Year And Today in Paradise ❥ Comfort Spots in Northampton

April 9, 2012 at 7:00 am (Contributing Writer, Northampton, Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser)
Tags: Massachusetts, Northampton, Places to Dine in Northampton, Places to Visit in Northampton, Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser, Travel, western massachusetts

Note 12, There’s No Place Like Home

Sushi at Osaka. (Photo credit: Sienna Wildfield)

The twelfth Mash Note to Paradise! Really? Over this past year in these notes I’ve loved our bike paths and our college town-y-ness, our farms and our farmers’ markets, our give back mentality and our reverence for all sorts of families and our indie vibes. Much as I don’t love winter, I even embrace the weather. If you were to read these Mash Note to Paradise in a pile and you didn’t already live here you’d probably want to move here, right? You would. So, I find it unsurprising that I know quite a few wonderful realtors.

In honor of this year of Mash Note to Paradise, I want to share a few handy links that might make life (or a visit to) in Paradise that much more enchanting.

I think I’d have to say River Valley Market (the co-op!) is the friendliest store I know. Like Cheers, everyone seems to know my daughter, Saskia (and ask after her if she’s not with me).

Most people find a few comfortable spots to frequent. I’m sharing mine not because they are the very best ones, but because they are the ones I know and love. I am at the moment crazy for the half-and-half ice tea at Woodstar Café—half black tea, half herbal lemon honey ginger, all yum—and I will trump up excuses to go there and happen upon a glass of it. To my surprise I have become devoted to yoga at Yoga Sanctuary. As my friend (met at yoga) notes on her blog: “There is no photo available to show you how the individuals doing downward dog in the photo above would be facing a gigantic window looking across the street to old brick buildings and blue sky.” After class I love the quick GoBerry stop. If I’m with Saskia and following her lead we will end up in the frozen treat Mecca of Herrell’s. While I’m a half-and-half drinker, my writing group meets at Sip, and I love hanging there (and my eldest texted me a tantalizing find—their macaroons are delicious and gluten-free). I may not go out much, but my restaurant of choice is most certainly Osaka, except I have begun a lunch date tradition with a friend at Moshi Moshi and it, too, is terrific. You get the idea, yes?

❥ Maybe though the main point isn’t this series of Mash Note to Paradise to this one place but the Glinda magic invoked in the writing of these loving missives. Tap your heels together and say, “There’s no place like home.” The more you take note in what makes where you live a real home, the more you can revere that home. Tap-tap-tap.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser

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Gender, Family and Love in the Pioneer Valley

March 12, 2012 at 1:00 pm (Contributing Writer, Northampton, Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser)
Tags: Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser, western massachusetts

Note 11, Openness About Gender, Family & Love

(Photo credit: Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser)

Although Northampton Pride is a ways away, there’s an admirable flexibility about how we think of families and love and gender and identity in these parts that I can’t take for granted. Every single time my preschooler is playing family and says something like, “I’ll be the mom. And you can be the mom,” I know I should be counting lucky stars.

Overheard: one friend’s preschooler asked, “When am I getting another mom?”

Another friend’s child was preparing to study Billie Holiday for a school project. Child asked whether Billie Holiday is a man or a woman. Parent replied, “She was a woman.” Child followed up, “So, she used to be a man?”

Having created a family tradition of attending Northampton’s Pride event each May, in the elementary school years, each of my boys has asked some version of this question: “Why is there a march about this anyway?” The sense that standing up for LGBT rights is necessary didn’t even register. Acceptance is a beautiful thing, even if, in truth in terms of LGBT rights, we still have quite a ways to go.

❥ But here we do have dads staying home while moms work (and vice versa and other combinations, as well). We fill a book with images of families formed at least in part by adoption (and then some; it could be books, plural). Family Diversity Projects began in this part of the world and spreads the simple truth that love makes a family way beyond this charmed spot. We have a whole community supporting families with kids who have lived in foster care. We have an organization supporting children with different needs to participate in activities, which their families thought might remain beyond reach. We come together in the thousands to run and walk on behalf of a women’s shelter (in December, no less).

That is not to paint an idyllic picture and say there’s nothing more to be done, not at all. It is a pretty amazing foundation, though, what’s going on here—and how much more committed we seem to be to the notion of love and family getting to be love and family than many other places. My fondest hope for my kids—and yours, too—is that they carry these beliefs with them and spread this celebration of love and this dedication to supporting families to enjoy that—love—above all else.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser

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Valley Famous Residents Give a Little Love Back to Paradise

February 13, 2012 at 7:00 am (Contributing Writer, Northampton, Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser)
Tags: John Hodgman, Pioneer Valley, Rachel Maddow, western massachusetts

Note 10, Our Famous People are Cool (& Give Back)

John Hodgman at the Amherst Cinema on March 11th, 2012. (Courtesy Photo)

There’s little question that Rachel Maddow’s rise is something many Valley folk feel a kind of personal cheerlead-y excitement over. I mean, she’s smart and funny and we loved her first. She brings some of our real politics into the mainstream (by real, let’s say progressive and a little wonky, the National Priorities Project and Free Press angles of seeing the issues writ less about political parties and more about issues of access and spending and information sharing). Her love story is pretty quintessentially a Valley one; she met Susan when she knocked on the door to fix something and you know, lesbians in love, happens all the time (around here).

She’s even been Tumblr’ed to better that oft-memed Ryan Gosling—what’s not to like?

Part of what makes it that much more fun to live here is that the people who somehow collide with fame and Paradise or its environs, before, after or during really do give back.

Case in point: Rachel Maddow helped raise money this summer for the Cummington Creamery (also, she and her partner are generous more generally around here).

❥ Next month, John Hodgman will offer his witty brand o’expertise to a Movie Trivia Bee for our (fabulous) independent movie theaters, Pleasant Street Cinema and Amherst Cinema. The event will be at Smith College (Weinstein Auditorium) on Sunday, March 11^th at 3 PM. Bill Dwight, formerly the world’s oldest video clerk and now City Council President in Northampton (that’s how Northampton rolls) is emcee. Rather than glitz, we have cool, sharp and funny going—and gracious and loyal. Love of place and community, baby, that’s the bomb diggity.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser

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Work Places in the Happy Valley

January 9, 2012 at 6:00 am (Contributing Writer, Northampton, Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser)
Tags: Northampton, Office Spaces, Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser, western massachusetts, Work Force, Work Places

Note 9, There Are No Office Buildings

❥ At some point during his early elementary years, Lucien, my second boy, wanted to visit an office. You know, a real office, the kind of place that has an elevator and desks and chairs that spin and maybe free pens or little bowls of candy. Offices, like that, in big buildings, places where people—not just one or two, but the people—dress up for work, what about those places? We could not think of one.

Sure, we know lawyers and insurance people, doctors and dentists. Sure, his papa has an office. But his office is in an old mill building and he sells antiquarian books. There is no dress code at his workplace and while he’s got an alarm and there is an elevator that goes two floors in the building, it’s not the bustling work world a book might describe. It’s a quirky, somewhat esoteric office in a quirky, somewhat esoteric building. It’s a lovely place to work. When I visit, I get office envy. But it’s not “office,” the way the then-seven year-old wished to see.

I remember tucking away that notion: I live in a place where there are no actual offices of the housed in tall buildings variety. I remember thinking that I was extremely fortunate to live in a place like this, a place where old mill buildings house artists and artisans, movement studios and therapists, a place where lawyers and doctors can opt for niches rather than big, boxy buildings. I am fortunate to live near a passel of colleges, which do provide employment—much of it quite flexible, or flexible in comparison to many other kinds of places of employment—to so many. I’m fortunate to live three minutes by car to a hospital and just a few minutes by foot to a wonderful museum. I remember thinking that I live in the oddest little place.

I certainly think that the number of slashes between my friends’ work duties is rather astonishing. I have a therapist pal who arranges flowers on the side. I know a personal trainer turned housepainter, two woodworkers turned body workers. Psychologist, body worker, consultant or dancer slash yoga teacher is more common than simply yoga teacher. I know people who were social workers and now are other things and people who were other things and became social workers. Teachers morph to tutors. Ballet dancers become ballet instructors. A former lawyer recently opened a café with his wife. You get the idea. Even me: for no ostensible reason at all, I’m a writer who also marries people.

❥ It’s no surprise then that back when my big kids were young, I realized the stay-at-home dad phenomenon fits rather seamlessly into a community without a dominant corporate culture and where striking a balance between work and the rest of life is considered laudable. Even our new mayor took on the primary caregiver role for a number of years.

While I’m not sure how the “real world” looks to kids raised in a place that is so unconventional, given that the workplace and workforce seem to be changing in ways that require entrepreneurship, flexibility and creativity, I guess, perhaps, our odd little conglomeration of workplaces and the workforce that fills them is as good a launching pad as any.

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Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser

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Nifty Living in Paradise ❥ Sharing the Love!

December 12, 2011 at 6:00 am (Contributing Writer, Northampton, Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser)
Tags: Pioneer Valley, Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser, western massachusetts

Note 8, Friends Who Also Love Paradise

When 5,500 come out early on a Saturday morning to run and walk in support of women who have experienced domestic violence, you know you're in a pretty unique spot on earth! (8th Annual Hot Chocolate Run. Photo credit: Ellen Carter)

Amongst the nifty things about living in a nifty place is this one: you are not alone in your love of the place and its people.

No question that when I first saw the slick jewel tones on the trees (it was pouring) during my first visit to Hampshire College, I thought this was a very pretty place. I don’t remember much more than that. But pretty quickly after turning on Robert J. Lurtsema early in the morning during that first semester, as directed by my mother’s dear friend who was at the time living in Hartford, I began to appreciate that I’d moved to a charmed area.

Way back then, I liked the bus system between the colleges, the Yellow Sun Co-op in Amherst and the fact that I could partake in a volunteer task force endeavoring to secure free after school care for children in the town of Amherst. I could not tell you how I found my way into that group, now; I was perhaps the only college student amongst the adults. But they were extremely welcoming. I went on to do plenty more organizing on campus and off over my decades here (I still do). What hasn’t changed for me is that this is a place where getting involved is truly a matter of course.

As recently as this last election, I was out there with my family holding signs for our mayoral candidate of choice.

❥ These days, my middle kids use the PVTA bus and I’m more likely to rave about my pal Monte’s morning radio (or on Saturdays, Bill Childs’ Spare the Rock Spoil the Child) and we heart our co-op, River Valley Market.

But I digress: the sense that we live in a special place for all sorts of reasons (including the high level of community engagement) is one I regularly know others feel, too. It’s nice to share.

I’ve been meeting somewhat regularly recently with three other writer types—idea sharing and cheerleading and holding one another accountable. It so happens we are all four of us besotted with this place.

My friend Amy wrote an essay about a roundabout search for an oven to bake a loaf of Mark Bittman’s No Knead Bread during the snowstorm and power outage event of October in which her love for this little spot she recently began to call home (again) shines through. Note: my kids are the Baskinettes.
My friend Naomi shares her small town amour on her blog.
My friend Megan’s blog is entitled Life in the Little City. Her focus is essentially to highlight her particular fondness for Paradise.

❥ Heck, when over 5,500 people participate in a run and walk to support women, who have been experiencing domestic violence, you have to know you’re in a pretty unique spot on earth, right?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser

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Local & Independent ❥ Shopping in Western MA

November 14, 2011 at 3:00 pm (Contributing Writer, Northampton, Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser)
Tags: Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser, Shopping, western massachusetts

Note 7, Buying Local, Fairs, Markets, Stores

Artisans selling their locally made products at the Hilltown Spring Festival. (Photo credit: Sienna Wildfield)

❥ By the time this goes up, the fall’s Twist Fair will have taken place. Don’t worry, though, you can still buy local crafts. If it seems like this is a valley teeming with artisans (okay, and therapists and cafés), I do believe it’s been proven true in the census or something, that our general lofty crafty factor is not just a figment of your imagination.

Peruse this wonderful Hilltown Families resource to see that you can buy local all year round—and certainly in the coming weeks.

Both the Arts and Industries building in Florence and Easthampton’s One Cottage Street have long had open studios. Eastworks got into the act, too. In fact, there are so many I can’t list them, the open studios, the crafts fairs and such. I love RED, though. I have hosted a little home craft show that seemed to mushroom over time into an actual thing. And of course there are two pottery tours each year that feature amazing work, Asparagus Valley and Hilltown 6.

Then, in Northampton, things like the Cup and Mug Invitational at the Artisan Gallery always makes my ceramic-loving self start to swoon.

Plus, having become a Hilltown Charter school family, I learned last year how totally fun the winter craft show there is: it’s really a hands-on for kids (and their grown-ups) event. About sixty-hundred-and-ten other schools have wondrous fairs, too (see listings on Hilltown Families why don’t you?).

❥ I remember when a friend first moved here from Manhattan years ago. She said, “The good thing about living here is there’s no shopping. The bad thing is there’s no shopping.”

There is shopping, local shopping. There is less shopping perhaps than one might find a Gap and Abercrombie-lined street. I fall on the good thing side of this lack of abundant goods to purchase, sure. I love so many of the local businesses here and I feel so good buying local. From River Valley Market to farmers’ markets to Impish and Jackson and Connor (not so many mums can peruse the racks at both stores for their kids!), I prefer fewer options and knowing the owners to an anonymous stampede of consumerism. Even if I’m wearing both an Old Navy skirt and an Old Friends Farm t-shirt while I’m writing this.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser

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Northampton ❥ Life in a College Town

October 10, 2011 at 7:00 am (Contributing Writer, Northampton, Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser)
Tags: Pioneer Valley, Smith College, Western MA

Note 6, Living in a College Town

As a neighbor to Smith College, such things as its museum, botanical gardens and the rarely crowded post office in its campus center are features I benefit from in daily life.

In the mornings, I drop my kids off and walk a loop around the Smith College Campus, passing Paradise Pond and continuing up the hill toward the chapel. One morning last year, I realized that amongst the things I’m grateful for living here is this one: I will always know what an 18-year-old looks like.

❥ The rhythms of Campus Life—how every school year includes a big reminder of newness in the form of orientations and parents dropping kids off for the very first time and new Smithies navigating their way downtown like schools of fish and signs of welcome on bed sheets and flash mob traffic—define everyone in proximity to the campuses. Even if the terrifying jaywalking tendencies of otherwise smart college students are vexing, so much about living in a college-rich area delights me. I have become accustomed to things that might have otherwise caught me off-guard like visible piercings, tattoos and any color hair (or none).

In this college-rich area, there are always more lectures, concerts and controversies than I can possible keep track of, let alone attend. I love that. I feel as if living here boredom isn’t an option. You can just go learn something new. I love knowing that some of my retired friends take classes and I love that Northampton High School Students have that opportunity. Case in point: my tenth grader anxiously awaited Mountain Day this fall. I live close enough to Smith College’s Helen Hills Hills Chapel to hear the bells at seven on Mountain Day morning. I have always loved how that campus ritual spills into the ‘hood.

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Western MA ❥ Weather

September 12, 2011 at 11:00 am (Contributing Writer, Northampton, Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser)
Tags: New England Weather, Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser, Weather, western massachusetts

Note 5, Weather

(Photo credit: Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser)

❥ I wrote myself a note about the next Mash Note a few weeks ago. I put down one word: weather. My thought process went I should write about my reverence for the seasons while the weather’s still nice. Because frankly, I can’t really abide by winter, since I don’t enjoy feeling cold. And still…

Having lived around here for the bulk of 30 years (!) I realize that while I really don’t live here for the weather, I do appreciate it. Why? The way seasons wrap themselves around the year marks time. It’s rings around trees in plain sight and stored into sensory memory. It’s the pleasure of being surprised each and every autumn by the leaves’ gem colors. It’s tastes and smells and even (sigh) the sense of relief when the snow melts and the sidewalks widen again.

Seasons bring the bittersweet and the sweet of life to the fore. While I’m not sure I’d miss them if I lived in a more monolithic climate, I have used them to train myself to appreciate what is. I am told that being happy in the moment, any moment, is really a good thing.

❥ Now I had this thought before the wild weather week that marked the tail end of August and beginning of September this year. Who would like a deadly, damaging tropical storm? No one could, obviously. And in a way, that’s why I decided to stick to my original idea; I wanted to add that climate change threatens these basic cycles and throws in more quote-unquote natural disasters and with every storm of the century, we should redouble our efforts to push for greater accountability to environment from our leaders, our corporations, and our communities.

From Green Teams in our schools to kids learning about recycling from toddlerhood to groups like Grow Food Northampton working to ensure 120 acres of farmland remain farmland to organizations like CISA supporting the local farm movement and local farmers to staunch protests against Vermont Yankee on out, this bit of paradise lives its values. And that’s another reason I love it here.

When the storm submerged a field at our CSA it was another lesson in how important weather—and the climate change holding steadier rather than progressing—really is. The farmers’ lessons are by extension the shareholders’ lessons and another call to activism and rethinking our ways in the world.

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Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser

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Voices in the Valley ❥ Local Radio

August 8, 2011 at 5:00 am (Contributing Writer, Northampton, Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser)
Tags: Local Music, Pioneer Valley, Radio, Radio Stations, WAMC, western massachusetts, WFCR

Note 4, Local Radio

When I go back to Philadelphia, my hometown, there are only a few things that make me the least bit wistful for the place (besides some people, of course): the Wissahickon woods’ walking path, the vegan chili at Jonathan’s, those generous stone houses fronted by neon stands of forsythia, and WXPN’s World Café.

I may have every Live at the World Café CD ever made. I’m a very longtime member (also of WFCR and WAMC, worry not).

WXPN love is a big deal for me. I listen to the station when I’m driving around Philly and I wish it were mine, in person, in the car, not streamed. How funny since I’m so entirely delighted by my radio here at home. I mean we’ve got NPR in spades. We’ve got our own college station, where my friend, Fern, plays great music. And we’ve got WRSI.

❥ One of the crowning moments in my adult life was the day I stopped automatically turning to Morning Edition or All Things Considered if I got into the car when those shows were on. It wasn’t that long ago. I listen to the news, sure, however these days, I tend to stay with music. I am a much happier driver, now.

❥ The River—in that old-school-Valley way I still think of as RSI—has had all sorts of great folks sharing their voices over its airwaves. Its mixture: catchy songs, older songs, homegrown songs—and if you listen at the right time—you can even learn a little bit about birds.

Unlike many stations, I am glad to happen upon the radio on Saturday morning for Spare the Rock Spoil the Child’s whimsy-through-kindie music or Sunday morning’s acoustic and homey Back Porch.

During farmers’ market season, you can go say hi to Joan Holliday in the WRSI tent on Tuesdays. Year-round, there are all sorts of fun live broadcasts. The ridiculous wealth of local talent, from locals who play on the street to locals who play in small clubs, to locals that are whispered about when spotted in cities far from here, all contribute to our local radio’s awesomeness.

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Summer Camp ❥ Valley Gems

July 11, 2011 at 5:00 am (Contributing Writer, Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser)
Tags: Pioneer Valley, Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser, Summer Camp, western massachusetts

Note 3: Summer Camps ‘Round the Valley

Biocitizen of Westhampton, MA takes day campers around the Pioneer Valley to explore the five ecoregions of the Nonotuck biome.

I can most certainly argue that one of the best things summer has to offer both kids and adults is time to do nothing much at all (even get, gasp, bored). Without a smidgen of contradiction, I can also argue in favor of the summer camp experience.

Around here, there are some gems.

Around now—July, in its ripe berry fullness—I am feeling the love for those gems, even if I don’t have current campers in every one of them. This is a short, entirely empirical list of some favorites.

❥ From for the youngest to for the oldest, I have an abundant number of warm (also, sticky) memories of picking my eldest boys up at the Montessori School’s summer preschool program with its expansive yard, toys on neat trays in the classrooms, and muddy grass by the wading pools. That new people adored my small kids (when I was a relatively new parent) gave me warm (not sticky) feelings.

This summer, none of my kids is attending Marion Abrams’ Summer Art in Hatfield—known to many as the Art Barn. Think chatty knitting circle punctuated by chase games at snack or lunchtime, the chance to make art all the day long with more emphasis on process than product. And tuck this story into your back pocket: one afternoon my second guy came home and I asked, Lucien, did you cut your hair? “Yes,” he answered, “to use as a paintbrush. Erin didn’t think her mom would like her to cut her hair so I cut some for me and some for her, too.” There’s a retro sense of freedom here few camps can claim.

Click on the banner to discover more summer camps & programs happening throughout the region!

Remy spent a week as a Biocitizen, a tiny camp in which the cohort goes exploring—high in the hills, low in the Meadows, off to the Peace Pagoda, or on the river—and while scampering across rocks (and other things like that some parents would rather not think about too much) learn about the local terrain. Once home and rehydrated, Remy would ask, “Did you know…?” every single afternoon.

For the tween-to-teen set there is DASAC (or, Deerfield Academy Summer Arts Camp), which is a friendly, creative community for young people and as close to overnight camp as day camp gets. Three weeks long, with ideas and hugs up the yin-yang and songs and inside jokes and just… bliss. That this camp was dreamed up in a Hampshire College dorm room makes it only the sweeter and that kids from all over the Valley meet here, well, icing on the cake. People started to tell us our eldest would love DASAC starting when he was still in preschool. Indeed, he did (now the second one is loving it).

❥ The chance to change it up offers unexpected discoveries. Remy, playing tennis with the Northampton recreation department befriended a boy (similar level player, similar age) from Europe. Quoting my eight year-old: “We both love devil sticks.” I’m so glad the school year is still a ways off.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser

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Pedaling About ❥ Valley Bike Paths

June 13, 2011 at 9:00 am (Contributing Writer, Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser)
Tags: Bike Paths, Bike Riding, Pioneer Valley, western massachusetts

Note 2, Bike Paths

❥ Relatively early in my pregnancy with my second child, I began to get just the littlest bit hooked on riding my bicycle on what we called the bike path. Back then, you’d have known what I meant, the one to Belchertown from Northampton. It felt shiny new and exciting. I was enthralled rolling along.

Somehow, rides like that seemed to fall by the wayside (mostly, time without kids like that fell by the wayside).

I’ve used my bike since then, and done some bike path riding, even, but not all that much. Still, I heart—big heart—the whole bike path movement. As a still-timid-around-cars biker, the bike paths seem exceedingly smart, in large part for the safety factor. But there’s more—on the bike paths, you can get places. You can get places and the route there is a pretty one and a cleaner one (free of exhaust). And by riding a bicycle when you are actually going somewhere (beyond a ride in order to ride, which is awesome on its own merits), you’re not polluting the area by one car less. However you look at it, biking is one of those win-win-wins.

A few weeks ago, my eight year-old and I took the bike path—for the sake of testing his brand-new bike (pictured in parking lot, thus no helmet)—almost to the center of Easthampton (it was dusk and we felt compelled to be sure to get home by dark or we’d have gone that much further).

I was reminded of this: biking with someone you enjoy talking to can be really pleasant on a bike path. There was a way that we’d removed ourselves from the constraints of everyday obligations—and the road.

The next weekend, we biked to Hadley—smack into the town’s Memorial Day festivities. That ride, for my eight year-old, was all about crossing the Connecticut River. We feasted with our eyes on the view as we made our way across (and back). Then, we detoured from the bike path just far enough to enjoy a feast of a different sort—at GoBerry in Northampton (author’s note: I could write an entire essay about my love of GoBerry and its delightful owners Molly and Alex).

❥ My practical goals this year include equipping my bike to haul a bit more (including possibly a three year-old) and then to ride that much more than I used to (I might even get comfortable on the road this year). I anticipate using the bikes paths frequently.

My fantasy has to do with a short spin I boldly invited myself to take on an incredibly fun machine: a tandem recumbent bicycle. Its owners bicycled cross-country on it last summer (and kept a blog). This summer, they are having twins, a far longer journey. Although we just met, I’ve offered up my baby-holding skills. I have no fantasies of a newborn pair over here. My dream after the tandem recumbent bike is a tag-a-long once the littlest gal is big enough for one (on my bike, not a recumbent tandem). At that point, I imagine you’ll find a good portion of my crew on those paths a good portion of the time.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser

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Think Globally, Hug Locally ❥ Tuesday Market

May 9, 2011 at 5:00 am (Contributing Writer, Northampton, Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser)
Tags: Farmers' Market, Local Food, Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser, Tuesday Market, western massachusetts

Note 1, Tuesday Market

Here’s my one-time awkward greeting: I’m a local writer (and blogger) and community-minded do-gooder besotted by so many things about this place I call home. For Hilltown Families, I’ll write a monthly series of mash notes (love letters) focused upon this groovy spot on earth. Here’s mash note numb-ah one.

(Photo credit: Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser)

❥ I got an email today from an old friend and this was his sign-off—Think globally, hug locally.

When the global scene—wars, oil spills, religious standoffs, poverty… okay, you get where I’m going—is one that overwhelms, it’s no surprise the sweetest and most tangible victories are just that: so close they are palpable. One of the places I feel most certain hope is the place to dwell is sandwiched between the back of Thornes Market and the parking garage on Tuesdays from May through October.

That’s when Tuesday Market brings its tents and vegetables, bike trailers and musicians out to transform an underutilized bit of not-quite park-like space into a pop-up festival week after week. See the baby goat. Hear the music. Test a broom. Taste some maple cream. Buy berries, greens, jam, cucumbers, and all types of squashes. Cool off with shaved ice. Drink in the flowers’ colors. Ogle the pastel shells of eggs, the shapes of local mushrooms, or the spectacle of chocolate goat cheese truffles. Smile at your friends and neighbors. Be waved at by a small child.

Ben James, old friend and my farmer (we have a CSA share at Town Farm, which he and his wife, Oona Coy, own and run) is the beaming engine behind this swath of lively Tuesday activity. His express goals include creating exactly what I describe—a thriving community—and to make fresh, local food accessible. To that end, Tuesday Market not only accepts SNAP benefits, in conjunction with Grow Food Northampton (another tangible victory to talk about another day) an effort is underway to raise $12,000 so that SNAP benefits at Tuesday Market can be doubled. That’s all good, right?

Maybe because Ben and Oona have young kids—Wiley spent a good deal of last spring and summer and fall’s Tuesdays in a carrier on his papa’s back, there’s a real attentiveness to ensuring that Tuesday afternoons could be fine with small children if your sole “plan” were to be Tuesday Market.

(Photo credit: Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser)

❥ I’ve got four kids—15, 12 (almost 13!), eight and three—and sometimes Tuesdays are a family affair. This first week, there was a nap (phew), a playground hang afterschool and the bus ride home to keep three of my kids from the inaugural visit. My eldest and I walked downtown, though, obtained asparagus grown right in town, plus leeks, and burdock root (for stock made by the aspiring tweenage chef) and arugula (for me). I managed to conduct a little interview for a forthcoming story I’m writing (that is some satisfying multitasking), greet friends including farmers I’d missed seeing, snap photos and return to the playground to fetch the second grader.

The tween grilled asparagus and leeks for supper.

No question, Tuesday Market and me, we’re on hugging terms.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser