maR 2021 | words on nature

prattsville

A short from a short getaway to upstate New York in early November

Prattsville

Prattsville isn’t an especially pretty place. I wound up there with three friends because the most affordable Airbnb we found was tucked away in the woods across town. We spent a long weekend in Prattsville. There was a garden behind our cabin that was framed with a rickety wire fence and wintering flowerbeds. Beyond it was silent woods. It was late afternoon in November, about four o’clock and daylight already fading. I came up the gentle incline leading from cabin to garden and slowed to a halt. I stood with the dribbling creek and wind-nudged leaves, a creaking birch and flapping crow. Mist paved way for an oncoming cluster of cumulonimbus. The tree line framed the sky, giving the place a fishbowl bulge, and I was its tiny inhabitant. When the sky started to drip then drizzle then pour, it only made sense that I should be wet. There was no thunder, no lightning. The clouds entered like a blend of oozing lava and bleeding calligraphy. They came with the attention of a muffled horn, calling for a clash of heavens with a D-note hum. I had an urge to lay down on the muddy grass in my spring-green coat, but my good senses caught me. So, beneath the showering sky, I leaned back from my waist and crossed my arms behind my head, as one does when cloud-watching.