Thirty years in the right place

Do we choose where we live, or does the place choose us?

As a friend described her process of buying a house on the Delaware River, years ago, I thought it could have been my own story, except for a few details. Sometimes, a place just fits us, and we know.

I remember telling our real estate lawyer—a Lander of the river Lander clan—how Narrowsburg felt like a “real town” to me. He scoffed at this description, coming from a city dweller. But I meant it.

It had the right combination of art, nature and real life. The feed mill at the end of town represented industry. Eagles on the eddy were more nature than most people see in a lifetime. The River Gallery, Margo Spoerri’s studio, and the vibrant arts center of the Delaware Valley Arts Alliance (DVAA), all together on Main Street, represented art and culture thriving in a stable community. To me, that was a “real town.”

This week, the DVAA celebrates 30 years of service to the community. Although its influence spreads far beyond Narrowsburg, it is hard to imagine our town without it. It was the cornerstone of Main Street, at a time when businesses were drying up or moving to strip malls, and now, it is a witness to a rebirth of that street.

Last week, my son Conor and his girlfriend Cait filmed a short movie in town. When they were finished scouting locations, I brought them in to the Alliance gallery to see the current photography exhibition of work by Greg Miller. I had seen the show and I knew that his attention to line and shape would appeal to my young visionaries. I was right, and like visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads, they imagined their own work someday gracing those walls.

It was the Arts Alliance bulletin board that first clued us in to New York State’s Summer School for the Arts. It was my son’s saving grace in high school, and his first chance to meet and work with other, equally talented film students in an academic setting.

In a similar bit of serendipity, we found my daughter’s voice teacher at the Arts Alliance. One afternoon, while we were driving through town, a band of merry singers accosted us, encouraging us to attend their recital later that day, at the Krause recital hall, upstairs at the DVAA building.

We did, and it was there we met Dorothy Stone, the opera diva who runs Campo D’Oro in neighboring Beach Lake, PA. We were impressed by her and by the young singers she mentored and trained. Now, our daughter Callison studies with her in the city and attends summer sessions at Campo D’Oro, where she is able to work with high caliber vocal and performance teachers and students.

The “Writers Among Us” series at the reading room has introduced me to some of my favorite local authors and given me many precious Sunday afternoons among like-minded friends and neighbors.

The first time I met Laura Moran, she was the featured poet in a series at the Alliance. She entered the room from the rear, parading through the audience reciting—no, performing—her poem, “Rich Lady Stealing Lipstick” and a new world, combining performance and poetry, opened up to me. I had never seen anything like this, and it felt like breathing for the first time. Now, I count her as a friend as well as an inspiration.

My husband, an early resident of SoHo, has rekindled friendships from the ‘70s with artists exhibiting at the Alliance gallery. Sometimes we feel like our city neighborhood has moved, en masse, to the river valley.

The DVAA website’s e-mail messages fill my weekend calendar regularly. And, there is no better destination on a weekday, after a cappuccino at Narrowsburg Roasters, than the Arts Alliance, where I’m sure to run into someone with something interesting to say.

I can imagine the Arts Alliance founders, Elaine Giguere and her husband Tom DeGaetani, coming to this town on the western edge of the county 30 years ago and envisioning a place to bring artists and residents together in a cultural alliance. I am grateful they chose this place. Or did it choose them?