Priorities

                                                      Priorities

     This was way back in fall 2002.  My daughter was in Pre-K and my son was a toddler. We lived in an apartment complex in Beacon, a city in the Hudson Valley. We couldn’t see the Hudson River but knew it was just beyond the woods. Several children from our neighborhood went to J.V. Forrestal Elementary School. Several were in the same class. 

      We mothers stood chatting as our children played together in the neighborhood park or played by the brook in the woods. During weekends and winter holidays, the kids were in and out of each other’s houses. We, mothers became very good friends. The school district would send warnings home to keep our children safe whenever local child predators were recently released from the Beacon Correctional facility. Even that never stopped our kids from playing outside or running to one another's houses. 

     Our priority as parents was to watch them carefully. We never took our eyes off them.

     From 2002 to 2005, we chaperoned several of our kids’ school field trips. We’d volunteer for every opportunity.  We walked the Beacon Main Street to the art museums for book signings and gatherings with artists. We escorted them to the Hudson River picnics, and the Glass Factory lodged inside an old firehouse to watch artists demonstrate the glass blowing. Along with my kids, these field trips introduced me to American culture.

      Memories of Beacon’s Main Street are plenty, but never for it’s aesthetics. The exception was Mount Beacon which stood tall, guarding one end of the street. 

      There were many dilapidated buildings strewn on either side of the main road. The waterfall at the end of Main Street was hardly in view back then. The walls which surrounded the waterfall had definitely seen better days. The estate that once housed a lawn mower factory was overgrown and in a sorrowful state. The Main Street was definitely in the decline. 

     Still, that did not matter. The joy of chaperoning the tiny, lively group was too overpowering.

      Beacon had several hat making factories in the 1920s. The brick buildings that once housed these successful factories were now falling apart.   Every year, to date, the town celebrates their hat making legacy with a hat parade down Main Street. I’ve even participated in the parade wearing hats my kids made in school: paper hats, straw hats, hats made of twigs, all such creative hats.

       Dia, a museum with a collection of art from the 1960s to the present, opened while we were still living in Beacon, and the Main Street saw a further surge of artists putting up their art in galleries which sprouted up and down this long road.

     Every Saturday I’d take my daughter to Yanarella School of Dance for ballet class. Afterwards we’d go to the Howland Public Library to borrow books, read some, and then go home.

     I cherished every moment. I savored and tasted the joy and experiences of their growing up. That was always my priority.

       We moved to nearby Fishkill in the fall of 2005. We lost touch with Beacon’s Main Street but we kept visiting the city for various reasons: trips to the railway station to take the Metro North railroad to New York City, attending the Beacon Sloop Club festivals --strawberries, pumpkin and corn festivals. I put up stalls in the festival grounds, selling Indian art and fabrics but never earned a penny. All the money raised were spent on the kids for rides, food, and shopping from other stalls. Profits had to wait until my kids grew up. My daughter would bring a friend along with her, and I would have to pay for the friend and her. I accepted the deal because it was good to have help. When they left the stall to roam the festival, they left together, which left me, the boss with no help.

     My son, his feet on wheels, was never at the stall except to ask for more money when the allowance I gave him had been spent. I was worried he would get lost in the warren of stalls. Once I even had to leave the girls alone to check on him, but he was playing on some ride with new- found friends. When I told him, I was looking for him, he smiled back with insouciance. 

       From 2005 to 2018, our priorities included driving our kids to classes, sporting games, and various school events. We drove to Beacon High School for their swim group practice for two years, but then the kids became interested in other activities. 

     Learning to channel them through their teenage years was a challenge. We couldn’t take our focus off them. We mothers were learning to be concerned without controlling, to be involved without interfering. I was never prepared for these teenage years.  Loving unconditionally was just not enough. Practicing patience became priority. 

     In 2015, I visited Beacon’s Main Street to taste the donuts from Glazed Over Donuts. They were the talk of the teenage children in our community.  Immediately, I noticed how the once depressed town was now renewed. Totally impressed, I started taking all of my visitors and guests to Glazed Over Donuts and to see Beacon’s Main Street.  I spent an entire evening with my daughter walking Beacon Main Street and was astonished at the once unglamorous waterfall now glorified with colorful lights. The once forsaken estate developed into a picturesque restaurant. It was ingenious how the crumbling walls and the old lawn mower factory were aesthetically remade for guests to enjoy their food looking out over the magnificent waterfalls. 

     By September 2018 all of our kids had left for college. The little playmates have now grown up to become soul siblings and friends. Most of us mothers had become empty nesters. Initially, our hearts and our homes, along with the streets, as well as the neighborhood, seemed barren. On the other hand it was like a vacation had begun. Household work, cooking, driving around, grocery shopping all drastically reduced. Was I actually relieved? I was not going to brood. I had put my heart, soul, and might into my children. Now I’d do whatever I was going to do with that same fervor.

      I left to India to help my parents move out from their old ancestral home in the countryside to a small house in town. My mom underwent eye surgery. I helped them out as much as I could. Their comfort was now my priority. 

     I settled them in their new home. My husband missed me terribly, and so did my kids when they came home on breaks.  I missed my home in the Hudson Valley, my writing group, my friends, and my long walks. After six months away I returned to New York.

     It was the weekend after Labor Day weekend. The kids had gone back to college after their summer break. My husband had to work that Sunday, and my friend’s husband was away in India. My friend and I decided to spend our Sunday in Beacon on Main Street. By now Beacon Main Street had become completely gentrified. The architecture varied from archaic to contemporary. The Howland Library, post office, a mosque, some old shops, a gas station, and the glass factory remained the same. Bright pink petunias in decorated pots adorned the lamp posts. Sculptures and paintings were placed randomly along the sidewalks. Old doors were festooned with artwork. Chic boutiques and a cornucopia of eateries had sprouted on either side of this main artery. Sophistication emanated from good old Beacon.

     We walked the streets, soaking in the perfect late summer weather. We shared a small veggie sandwich. That was enough for a healthy meal. We stopped at the marshmallow place and savored the s’mores and sampled customized ice creams.

     The crows were young and stylish. As we talked to a few of the shopkeepers, we figured out that some of them couldn't afford Manhattan, so they shifted here. Technically, Beacon was an up and coming miniature Manhattan.

     My friend and I explored all the dessert places and did not tire until we were satiated with the delectable sweetmeats. The trip ended with us buying rich, honey-soaked Baklavas for home. but we had to eat them before our husbands returned.

     We were once again savoring Beacon’s Main Street.  Our priorities might have changed, but we were, as always, getting it right. For now, we were satisfying our sweet tooth to the maximum.