Williamstown 1

May 5, 2013

The Williams Inn in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It’s roomy but by no means over-luxurious. Passed through Vermont getting here, passed through, in fact, ravishingly beautiful countryside, more “finished,” somehow than North Carolina. My hostess Patti took me on a tour of Willamstown (which is practically co-terminus with Williams College) and North Adams, both postcard-worthy New England towns. While I was checking in, the desk clerk said, “Harumph, There are two people with the same name.”

“You have another person with my name here at this hotel?”

“Yes. He’s from Maryland.”

I asked if she might bill my room to him. She said that wasn’t the usual procedure.

On the flight from Asheville I sat beside an architect and restauranteur from Palm Beach, Pete, who was also an excellent photographer and showed me about a million shots he took in Mayanmar and India and Morocco and all places he claimed nobody else goes, They were truly beautiful photos, and he is gathering them together in a book. His last conversation was about how he was not ashamed to be a success. I wondered who said he should be. Delta delays cut my thin margin of connection time, and I got from Concourse C to Concourse A in Atlanta in what passes these days for a dead run, arrived at the gate at the exact instant they were beginning to board my group. I was angry, but the run did me no harm, and I’m going to count it as yesterday’s work-out. My seat mate to Albany was an actress who lives way up in Harlem but works building costumes for a dance company in Brooklyn. She was coming from Mexico City, where her backpack had been stolen, her passport and ID and phone and everything, except for a clearly beloved teddy bear which rode on her lap.

Patti and I talked theater in the ride from the airport. She made her husband, David, and me tacos for dinner. David is a historian of the origins of wars, which I think is remarkable. They move to Boston on Thursday, and their house is empty but for, it seemed to me, a dining room table and enough groceries for last night. I did force the issue of coming to a hotel instead of staying with them, for which I am grateful on every possible level, especially for knowing there is another version of me in Maryland.