My Suburban Escapes

“Do not forget that the value and interest of life is not so much

to do conspicuous things as to do ordinary things

with the perception of their enormous value.”

Teilhard de Chardin

I began to ferret out adventure on the mean streets of Rye, exploring on foot the landmarks I’d seen only as blurs from a moving car.  I had rushed past an old fallen log on the edge of a salt marsh hundreds of times saying “that looks like an alligator,” so I stopped…..

and turned it into one.  I painted the body green and the mouth red, hammered in nails for teeth and glued on plastic eyes. I kept a gator repair kit in my vehicle and loaded up kids from all of our different neighborhoods to dress her up on holidays. For ten years she rotated as a New Year’s baby, Cupid, Mardi Gras reveler, leprechaun, Easter bunny, patriot, student, witch, turkey and Santa until she finally fell apart. But not before she became a touchstone for our town. Taking action, albeit small, had begotten joy.

I bought a cheap kayak at Costco and started exploring Blind Brook which runs through town. I was curious as to why it would periodically rage, ruining homes and threatening real estate prices. I loaded up a topo map and started connecting the dots. I discovered that Rye and Westchester County were not immune to the laws of nature, even though highly developed and densely populated.  Land rose and fell.  Water flowed to the sea.

I started exploring from its source in the Westchester airport and followed it to Milton Harbor where it meets the Long Island Sound. I found an ally in a neighbor who served on a committee formed to study and mitigate flooding in our area, the New York Rising Community Reconstruction Committee. We walked alongside it or paddled through it the whole distance in the respectable name of “research” and made amazing discoveries.*

The brook runs through large corporate campuses along the 287 Corridor which were built in the 70s in a beautification trend. It is retained in concrete ponds with fountains and walking paths in several spots to create the effect of serene lakes among the bland buildings.  The water flow was regulated by Bowman Dam, first built in 1900 and rebuilt in 1941, but the flood gates were inoperable (they have since been repaired). There were tremendous blockages of age-old timber and construction debris in a secret dumping spot obviously used for years. I paddled right through a crew doing their dirty dumping and waved as their jaws dropped open. We discovered obvious and fixable reasons for the flooding through hands-on exploration.

As summer faded to fall and my friends played paddle, I paddled the brook.  I wore my waders and brought pruning shears to clear a path through the dense overgrowth.  At high tide I could go where no man had gone before: up from Milton Harbor through a forest of phragmite, under Playland Parkway, past the high school, YMCA and library and under I-95 where the water became too shallow to navigate. I had amazing backyard adventures. I was attacked by nesting swans, found a 150-year-old tombstone which we unearthed and took to the local historical society, and paddled white water right through town after heavy rains. I’d launch in my neighbor’s backyard, run the brook to the nature center, throw my kayak in my vehicle and begin again and again until it was time to pick up the kids. I had found my joy again. Hallelujah. And the answer had been right under my nose.                                   

Newly inspired, I looked closer and found more and more possibilities for adventure. I brought my old beater ski boat up from Texas and began exploring the Long Island Sound and the Hudson River, often with my daughter asleep in a lifejacket in her car seat at my feet.  I skied past West Point and lunched in Cold Spring.  I hung out with salty seadogs at the local marinas, scraped barnacles off boat bottoms and disassembled docks as part of my contract to store my boat.  I pitched the idea of a fall festival to a local county park then worked my butt off to create one. I was appointed by the mayor to a deer management committee and dutifully explored deer paths at dawn with a local biologist and hunter.  I helped create an adventure camp for teens at the local nature center and worked as a counselor for it every summer, leading groups on hikes and paddles. 

In short, I took some action.  I leapt and the net happened.  I met people and discovered things off the well-trodden trail yet right under my nose, realizing just how much beauty I had taken for granted.  There were trails to blaze and water to paddle.  There were so many things to do that time to do them became the issue. I slowly extended my perimeters and took notes, thinking maybe one day my rambles could help another homesick soul get her bearings. And over a course of fourteen years, I have collected what I now share with you:  the gift of adventure in your own back yard.

*Apparently I wasn’t the only one making amazing discoveries about the brook. In March of 2016, the brook’s dam computer system was hacked by Iranians. One can only assume they mistook the brook to be bigger than it is, looking to weaponize it.  From The New York Times, March 25, 2016: “A Dam, Small and Unsung, Is Caught Up in An Iranian Hacking Case” by Joseph Berger.