Rather than taking the easier paths, I chose to scale the difficult hills. After all, our ancestors struggled a long time to get there. The Blackintons were rich and powerful, but their lives were full of tragedy. The gravestones circling the monument tell of a baby dying in the first few days of life, two children dying by the age of two, and a young mother gone in her twenties. Disease and bad luck sometimes even the score.
Biology is stronger and more certain than economics.
I sat up there and stared back down at the bright foliage, the cars going by, and the clock tower at MASS MoCA, which peeks over the landscape. I could hear it ring several times during a welcome lull in traffic. I sat there for over two hours, letting the spirit and the unrelenting beauty and strangeness of North Adams take me in its arms. Everyday, people drive in and out of the Kmart parking lot. Car doors open, and the occupants streak to their destinations with heads down.