I had the weekend’s most beautiful birthday celebration in Williamstown with Maria. We saw two excellent productions at the Williamstown Theater Festival,  a 90- minute stand-up comedy performance by a brilliant young comic, Alex Adelman; this was a belly-laughing wonderful, and a touching new play today.

Adelman’s show, Just For Us, is touring the country and got raves from Jerry Seinfeld and the New York Times. He’s going to be big.

I haven’t laughed that hard in years.

Today, we saw a new dramatic world premiere by playwright Harrison David Rivers. Rivers combined race, sexuality, religion, and family into a powerful and authentic story about real family life, not the movie-TV kind. The acting was terrific.

This play was one of the best I’ve seen in a long time; it’s about a young professor named Simon and his mother, who has always championed him until he comes out as gay, and she also has to deal with his diagnosis of Aids. It’s a compelling and wonderfully acted play that left both of us are in tears at the end.

(Madonna One, a new interpretation called Oh, Mary, Don’t You Weep,” by Animah Brenda Lynn Robinson of Columbus, Ohio. This one caught my eye. I loved it.)

I love theater (our local theater company and former opera house has become an education and youth center, there are very few plays to see here now. ) The Old Castle Theater Company in Bennington, Vt. is coming on string with some new direction, and that can get me through the Fall and part of the winter.

Maria has become a theater lover, just as she has made me into an art lover.

The absence of theater and excellent restaurants is the only thing I miss in our wonderful small town and farm-perfect life.

We also had two excellent meals, one at a Japanese-Asian restaurant called Blue Mango and the other at the Mediterranean (Persian) Cafe (I had chopped lamb (burger) and a wonderful watermelon/mint salad.

Maria had falafel and Spanokopita. At the Blue Mango, I had fresh vegetable rolls with lettuce, shrimp, Edamame beans, and a Garden Salad with Tofu. Maria had zucchini chive cakes and vegetable rolls.

It was surprisingly comfortable in Williamstown. And we got to sleep late.

Everything we ate in Williamstown was delicious, and everyone we met was friendly. To make it sweeter, I love the two books I brought and started to read: Great Man Theory by Teddy Wayne and The Angel Of Rome, short stories by Jess Walter. I’m going to be up late reading one of them tonight.

We stayed in a wonderfully clean and friendly motel called Cozy Corner and spent hours reading, talking, and snuggling. Just after dawn, Maira snuck out and brought me some fruit and half of a bagel to hold us until lunch. I got up early and spent hours reading.

Maria is so easy to be with, I can hardly believe it. I’ve never been loved like that before and never loved like that before.

Williamstown is the perfect place for the short getaways we love to take once in a while. The Williams College museum is free and always worth visiting. The art students put on the most impressive and inventive displays, and the museum has a permanent collection that is constantly shifting and always fresh.

(Madonna Two, Mater Domini (Mother of God), creator unknown.)

It is a joy to watch Maria in a museum; she is so happy and emotionally attached to sound art.

Sometimes she cries because she is so moved by what she sees. I like to go off by myself and meditate in the museum library so she can have some space and time to wander the exhibits and not worry about me or how tired I am or bored (I am never bored there, but her passion for art is more profound than mine. TheaterTheaterlove, and movies.)

Watching her in a museum is a great joy and something I never tire of. She is never happier or more at peace. I realized early on that she must get some time along in any museum we see. She never asks for it, but I can tell it’s important to her. So I always find a corner to go off and meditate in.

I love studying what I call “Madonna Art,” which is so varied and beautiful. Mary has sparked the imagination of great artists for thousands of years, and I took photos of Three Madonnas at the museum this morning with my Leica. I’ve scattered them throughout the piece.

 

(The Immaculate Conception, Juan De Savilla.)

 

I love trying to follow the different interpretations over the years of Mary Magdelene, a mysterious and mystical figure that has mesmerized artists for centuries. There is always something new and compelling.

I spent 20 minutes meditating in the quiet, beautiful museum library tucked off the corner of the second floor. It’s a beautiful space to sit in and think.

Maria came for me when she was done, and we headed out for lunch the theaterTheaters brutally hot also today, but Williamstown is a compact place; almost everything we were doing was within easy driving or walking distance.

There is something about college towns inspiring and uplifting for me; I suck up the energy there. And there is always good food and some good theater around. Apart from the Williams College Museum, the most peaceful museum for us to visit, there is also the Clark and, down the road, Mass MoCa, the remarkable museum in a giant former mill.

But the Williams museum seems to be the one we often go to. We are never disappointed.

 

We love this museum not only because it displays fresh and imaginative art (the student’s work is stunning) but because it has a quiet, contemplative feel to it. It’s soft and peaceful, we can think there and absorb what we see, and my meditation time in this always empty library means a lot to me. I always look forward to seeing it.

It is often crowded, chaotic, and overwhelming when we go to Moma, or the big New York City or urban museums. It’s hard to think, let alone appreciate the art.

This museum is always a pleasure.

Maria is threatening to take me to Bennington tomorrow, which is actually my birthday, for a Lobster Roll at Billy T’s Northside Dairy Bar. But it’s a work day, and I have to get over to the Mansion for a portrait of Gerry, “The Reader.” We’ll see.