Dating My Wardrobe: Kaaterskill Falls

Well, if you have been reading my posts thus far, you’ll detect a sickening smidgeon of sadness in my narrative. Apparently, it takes about a year for my brain to process and come to terms with the fact that ANYONE would ever want to dump moi! How could they?! Fast forward to one year later, and I don’t give a damn…in the best possible way. I realized that, after a year of what I supposed was dating myself, was really a long romantic engagement with my vintage wardrobe. I hand-selected only the luckiest of my dated threads to accompany me on my journey to historic sites, beaches, waterfalls, you name it! My relationship with my vintage wardrobe has proven to be the most durable and faithful of all past relationships– weathering athletic trips over fences and guardrails, occasional mood swings, and loooong car rides, listening to Iggy pop’s “Passenger” on loop.

For date number 8 in June, I decided to wash away the old sad-sap Laura. Cleans myself of any residual remorse, or tendency to feel sorry for myself, and rise like a 1970s disco inferno phoenix from the proverbial ash heap which I had become. I decided that a world-renowned waterfall and some brightly-hued 1970s garb would be the perfect symbolic materials for my rebirth as a slightly cantankerous, but stylish lady of letters. Nestled somewhere in the Catskill mountains of New York existed my salvation!

Thomas Cole, oil on canvas, “The Falls of Kaaterskill.” 1826

Why did I choose Kaaterskill Falls to wash away my sappy sins? Because it’s an absolutely stunning place (if you can arrive early enough in the morning to avoid the crowds), and there are two tiers of deliciously cold, tumbling white water that spill from a Crescent-shape shelf of rock as if it were the rim of heaven! Artists, photographers, and writers were drawn to this area, centuries before I showed up in a ’70s crop top with a psychedelic peacock print. The Hudson River School of the 19th century was particularly fond of Kaaterskill Falls, with the likes of Thomas Cole capturing the falls in his oil painting, “The Falls of Kaaterskill,” 1826.

In 1836, poet William Cullen Bryant was inspired by the mists of the falls to write the romantic poem, “Catterskill Falls.” It begins quite accurately,

“Midst greens and shades the Catterskill leaps,
From cliffs where the wood-flower clings;
All summer he moistens his verdant steeps
With the sweet light spray of the mountain springs;
And he shakes the woods on the mountain side,
When they drip with the rains of autumn tide.”

Bearing the romantic words of Bryant in mind, I ascended the rocky, root-riddled trails– and eventual staircases– of Kaaterskill Falls, making sure to hike up the lengths of my 1970s vintage maxi skirt. As a word of advice and caution, always hold up your maxi skirt when you’re hiking up a steeply graded mountain. You’ll trip, and slip otherwise! So, proceeding in a romantic mood, and with safety, I finally reached the falls. Because I began my trip early in the morning, there were only a handful of tourists at the bottom falls. When I reached the rocky pool of the top-tier waterfall, I realized that I had entered into a prime area of passion: the waterfalls were heavy with rain waters, and I was all alone with my lovely vintage crop top and skirt set. Swoon!

Aside from taking a few photos of me flirting on the shores of the waterfall, I did eventually go for a swim, thus completing my ritual task of cleansing myself of sad Laura. The Laura who called her fiends-up late at night for consolation, after watching Steel Magnolias in her bed. The old Laura who felt foolishly sentimental every time she saw orange juice in the supermarket because it reminded her of her ex. The old Laura who was getting really exhausted by the full-time job of feeling sorry for herself. Bye, babe! Gone!

I emerged from those frosty June waters as a newer, wiser, wetter woman. And while the cotton of my vintage dress clung to my newly born form, I went out into the summer of 2018 with a vengeance!

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William Cullen Bryant’s Complete poem:

“Catterkill Falls”

Midst greens and shades the Catterskill leaps,
From cliffs where the wood-flower clings;
All summer he moistens his verdant steeps
With the sweet light spray of the mountain springs;
And he shakes the woods on the mountain side,
When they drip with the rains of autumn-tide.

But when, in the forest bare and old,
The blast of December calls,
He builds, in the starlight clear and cold,
A palace of ice where his torrent falls,
With turret, and arch, and fretwork fair,
And pillars blue as the summer air.

For whom are those glorious chambers wrought,
In the cold and cloudless night?
Is there neither spirit nor motion of thought
In forms so lovely, and hues so bright?
Hear what the gray-haired woodmen tell
Of this wild stream and its rocky dell.

‘Twas hither a youth of dreamy mood,
A hundred winters ago,
Had wandered over the mighty wood,
When the panther’s track was fresh on the snow,
And keen were the winds that came to stir
The long dark boughs of the hemlock fir.

Too gentle of mien he seemed and fair,
For a child of those rugged steeps;
His home lay low in the valley where
The kingly Hudson rolls to the deeps;
But he wore the hunter’s frock that day,
And a slender gun on his shoulder lay.

And here he paused, and against the trunk
Of a tall gray linden leant,
When the broad clear orb of the sun had sunk
From his path in the frosty firmament,
And over the round dark edge of the hill
A cold green light was quivering still.

And the crescent moon, high over the green,
From a sky of crimson shone,
On that icy palace, whose towers were seen
To sparkle as if with stars of their own;
While the water fell with a hollow sound,
‘Twixt the glistening pillars ranged around.

Is that a being of life, that moves
Where the crystal battlements rise?
A maiden watching the moon she loves,
At the twilight hour, with pensive eyes?
Was that a garment which seemed to gleam
Betwixt the eye and the falling stream?

‘Tis only the torrent tumbling o’er,
In the midst of those glassy walls,
Gushing, and plunging, and beating the floor
Of the rocky basin in which it falls.
‘Tis only the torrent–but why that start?
Why gazes the youth with a throbbing heart?

He thinks no more of his home afar,
Where his sire and sister wait.
He heeds no longer how star after star
Looks forth on the night as the hour grows late.
He heeds not the snow-wreaths, lifted and cast
From a thousand boughs, by the rising blast.

His thoughts are alone of those who dwell
In the halls of frost and snow,
Who pass where the crystal domes upswell
From the alabaster floors below,
Where the frost-trees shoot with leaf and spray,
And frost-gems scatter a silvery day.

“And oh that those glorious haunts were mine!”
He speaks, and throughout the glen
Thin shadows swim in the faint moonshine,
And take a ghastly likeness of men,
As if the slain by the wintry storms
Came forth to the air in their earthly forms.

There pass the chasers of seal and whale,
With their weapons quaint and grim,
And bands of warriors in glittering mail,
And herdsmen and hunters huge of limb.
There are naked arms, with bow and spear,
And furry gauntlets the carbine rear.

There are mothers–and oh how sadly their eyes
On their children’s white brows rest!
There are youthful lovers–the maiden lies,
In a seeming sleep, on the chosen breast;
There are fair wan women with moonstruck air,
The snow stars flecking their long loose hair.

They eye him not as they pass along,
But his hair stands up with dread,
When he feels that he moves with that phantom throng,
Till those icy turrets are over his head,
And the torrent’s roar as they enter seems
Like a drowsy murmur heard in dreams.

The glittering threshold is scarcely passed,
When there gathers and wraps him round
A thick white twilight, sullen and vast,
In which there is neither form nor sound;
The phantoms, the glory, vanish all,
With the dying voice of the waterfall.

Slow passes the darkness of that trance,
And the youth now faintly sees
Huge shadows and gushes of light that dance
On a rugged ceiling of unhewn trees,
And walls where the skins of beasts are hung,
And rifles glitter on antlers strung.

On a couch of shaggy skins he lies;
As he strives to raise his head,
Hard-featured woodmen, with kindly eyes,
Come round him and smooth his furry bed
And bid him rest, for the evening star
Is scarcely set and the day is far.

They had found at eve the dreaming one
By the base of that icy steep,
When over his stiffening limbs begun
The deadly slumber of frost to creep,
And they cherished the pale and breathless form,
Till the stagnant blood ran free and warm.