When I first moved to the country, I ached a bit for New York City, and the theater, movies and culture so readily available there. Maria and I were struggling with a number of things when we first got together, we tended to stay at home and talk and read.

This year, we are finding culture all around us, and we are enjoying it very much. We have been to three plays in the past month, several movies, and a half dozen music performances at the Round House, we  saw “Stories Told” with Gary Moon and Alice Jenkins tonight.

It sounds almost biblical to me, but my idea is that what we must do today and every day is appreciate the day itself and all that is good and promising and beautiful in it. In the Bible, God instructs us to do this, but even if you are not religious, good sense and a grounded disposition tell us the same thing.

Maria and I were talking the other day about the good things we are finding to do all around us, the Round House, the Williamstown Theater Festival, the Images Independent Theater, the Old Castle Theater Company in Bennington, for some reason we avoid Sarataoga (it’s getting to be too much like New York City) but there is much there if we ever choose to tap into it.

Tomorrow, we are taking Maria’s mother to Hubbard Hall in our town to see their much loved opera company perform “Madame Butterfly.” In September, I’m having a portrait show at the Round House Cafe.

Sitting in the cafe tonight, listen to the sweet music of Moon and Jenkins, I reminded myself that this is not New York City, of course, and will not ever be. But there is culture all around us, our days and nights are filled the intimate sense of art and community, all finding one another and keeping culture very much alive.

You don’t have to go to Broadway to appreciate the driving creative spirits that mark humanity wherever it is.