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My wife and I recently took a long weekend to visit Hobart, New York in the Catskill Mountains. Why Hobart, New York (population 397)? Hobart, New York is made up almost entirely of bookstores (hobartbookvillage.com). My wife is bibliophile who is not in treatment. She reads nearly 150 books a year. So, Hobart was a dream destination. While we thought our trip would focus on browsing the many bookstores in Hobart, it turned out that the real focus of the trip became the people that we met and the beauty of the Catskill Mountains.
Hobart (and the surrounding area) is not a place one would simply stumble upon. As someone that we met in Hobart put it, “People choose to live in this area. It is not somewhere that someone would just ‘end up’ in.” That sentence stuck with me throughout the trip. I found myself wondering about how often we passively “end up” somewhere in life versus being very intentional about where it is that we are. My wife and I became very curious about the people that we met and how it was that they settled in the area. That curiosity energized us to ask those whom we met how they came to be in Hobart. Virtually everyone had a story and were happy to share it with us. The conversations were rich, authentic, and meaningful. Diamond moved from California with six family members to purchase one home in which they call could live. Barry and Tracy were authors and artisans who moved from Northern New Jersey to the area because of the sense of community and the artistic vibrancy. Esther was an author/poet from New York City who was in town for the Festival of Women Writers. I purchased two of her books of poetry. I never read poetry but enjoyed them immensely. Another woman whom we met recently moved from Rhode Island to live with her mother who owned the Hobart Country Store. She plans on opening a bakery in the store within the year. Charlotte moved from New York City to help her family run the family farm where they serve breakfast on the weekends and tap their own maple syrup. We also met Teddy the Brewery Cat at West Kill Brewing (westkillbrewing.com) – See below. Judging by the signs and flags in the area there is a broad political spectrum present in the area, but we didn’t hear any polarizing conversations. We heard a lot of talk about the community. Every restaurant that we visited sourced most of their ingredients from local farmers.
The trip reminded me that we all have a story and most of us are happy to share that story with someone who possesses an authentic spirit of inquiry. The telling of the story may prove to be a blessing to the listener or the storyteller…or both. Thomas Moore wrote in, Soul Therapy, that society’s soul can be healed when we listen to one another, speak with one another, and support one another’s dreams. Our trip to Hobart, New York turned out to be healing and revealing. And, oh yes…we strolled through every bookstore in the area perusing thousands of books.
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