Local Opinion - An Ode to the WINDHAM PATH

WINDHAM - The Windham Path is unique among mountaintop towns. It’s a wide bowl with a 360-degree view and has sky, fields, streambeds, and mountain ranges as far as the eye can see. It is everyone’s path: solo walkers, serious runners, groups, bird watchers, toddlers, strollers, and bikers. This is a viewshed, unbroken by structures. It is a dear commodity in today’s world, a place to preserve.

Here’s why the Windham Path is so special:

Community:  

The Path gives us nature and peace, not far from friendly nods, neighbors, newcomers, dog walkers.

It is a magnet for visitors and leisure moments and errand-running.

It feeds into our businesses: pharmacy, bookstore, coffee shop, Main Street.

It gives people opportunities to come together: to talk, catch their breath, rejuvenate, rub elbows. 

Informal public gathering places are vital in communities. They have been called The Third Place. 

For example: the coffee spot, post office, pub, library, the public park bench. “The Third Place is not the home (first space). It is not work (second space).  It is all the other places. These are critical for a functioning civil society. It’s where people often create special bonds.”  (Ray Oldenburg, 1980s.)

Health, year-round : 

We are tick-free on the Windham Path.  

We have two accessible entry points and solid footing in all seasons, just right for the elderly and those with disabilities. The Windham Path gives us space for fitness and recovery—  our therapy for healing knees and hips, mental health, weight control.  

It’s a get-away for solitude, spirit, creativity and noticings. 

It grants us silence and the whoosh of wind and babbles of streams. “Peace comes dropping slow.” (Yeats)

Living and learning:

The Windham Path makes memories:  the cool of the foot bridge, stone piles, Story Walk, tree-trunks in a streambed.  For children and grown-up children, the intimate and open spaces prickle our 5 senses and wonderings: 

• What formed this land? Shadows and contours of mountain ranges give clues of ancient rivers carving this land and hints of sculpting (ancient or yesterday) by seasons, plants, erosion, and ice. 

• The path, like a sundial, teaches us how the sun rotates in the course of a day.  

• The play of light, shadow, or moon make every moment different.  It gives us the dramas of advancing weather systems. Our Hudson River and Catskill artists captured these on canvas. Here it is performed for all of us and in real time.  

• At dawn, accompanied by birds, the path ushers us into the mood of the day. At dusk, a streamer of peach or purple.  

• Here, we are small but also very alive. We are safe.

Join the discussion about the Windham Path, present and future. A viewshed is precious.