It was because it was the holidays. Because the holidays happen at just that time when it’s getting colder and darker. It was because of the holidays but also because it is colder and darker than it was, though the holidays happen when it stops getting darker but keeps getting colder, because why it’s colder and why it’s darker are not the same thing. Because we can ride in the dark – that’s what lights are for – but at some point it gets too cold to ride. Because fighting the dark is easier than fighting the cold.
It was because it was Sunday, the day we ride and it’s now colder and darker than it was before, on Sunday as well as most other days, and we venture closer to home, foregoing the grand faraway rides of the warmer and brighter times. This often means the Weston ride, which is one of those closest to home. The Weston ride is not just Weston but also Wayland and Sudbury and Lincoln, with water views here and there because much of it meanders through the Sudbury River Valley.
It was because the Weston ride is closer to home but also because it is one of our favorite rides anyway for oh so many reasons, and reasons are all about because. Because it wanders through some of the richer towns, and richer towns have the fewest people and the quietest roads, at least in places. Richer towns also tend to have more woods and fields, always welcome on a ride, and the Weston ride offers more of these closer to home than the other closer-to-home rides. This is because metro Boston teems with people and houses and most of the woods and fields are gone, except in the richer towns, which is where we ride when we can. There are humble exurban towns that offer splendid woods and fields, Shirley and Pepperell to name a few, but they are farther away and this Sunday we needed closer to home.
The town of Lincoln might include the best parts of this ride because the Lincoln part of the ride not only has woods and fields but also agriculture, because they allow it there. Because they’re a rich suburban town trying to look like something else, perhaps. Agriculture that includes not just fields of brussels sprouts and blueberries and kale and whatnot but livestock: pigs and chickens and goats and sheep and turkeys sometimes, both wild and domestic, though never the two together. Because the wild ones are too smart for that, especially the ones living in Lincoln.
The Lincoln part of the ride is special in other ways, because it has the Codman Estate with its Italian garden, and the Gropius House, with its grand Bauhaus past, and maybe the most woods and fields of all the towns close to the city. A preponderance of the fancy houses in Lincoln look modern in a mid-20th century sort of way, almost modest except it’s clear they are original architectural designs that kind of blend into the landscape on the giant house lot, easy on the eyes and very Bauhaus, in sharp contrast to the showier grand estate styles elsewhere in these towns. Maybe that’s because Lincoln attracts a different kind of wealthy person than those other towns, but I’ve no idea because I don’t know anyone that lives out here. Bauhaus was conceived by Walter Gropius in Germany in 1919 when it was the Weimar Republic, but he came to MA a few years later because Hitler and the Nazis took over, and he eventually built that house in Lincoln, one assumes because he liked the town.
Besides the pigs and various turkeys in Lincoln there are the ponies which also happen to be in Lincoln, across from the sheep field. Are the ponies there because they allow agriculture? Because the ponies are not flesh and blood but wood and plastic and cloth and steel and whereas one might see a real pony now and then on Lincoln common because they allow agriculture and people in richer towns tend to love horses, everybody knows the ponies in question are not real but are children’s toys. Maybe it’s possible a town must allow agriculture just so that a herd of children’s toys can frolic in a pasture, because that’s the way it appears. Because it’s a very strange world, indeed, and most towns may have ordinances against public gatherings of children’s toys, for all anyone knows. We’ve never seen a herd of toy ponies anywhere but Lincoln, which should tell you something.
And because it was a rather cold Sunday during the holidays and we decided to do the Weston ride which is also the Pony Ride, we thought we might make it extra special to decorate some ponies in honor of the holidays, because the holidays are when people decorate everything, or so it seems. Because having holidays and decorating things is another way to deal with the dark and the cold, because just wearing warmer clothing doesn’t cut it. Because we are not just creatures of the flesh but creatures of the spirit, and some spirits find the cold and the dark a heavy load to bear, and celebrating and decorating are a good way to deal, at least for some.
We decided to decorate a few ponies because we’ve visited the ponies for many years and in all seasons and noticed that the ponies are subject to constant changes of appearance, in keeping with the times, which is part of their charm. We’ve observed this for so long in a passive manner we decided to play a more active part because it’s time we finally did something like that. And because it would be fun. And because we’ve boxes of holiday decorations in our cellar with which we don’t decorate much of anything any more, because those days are long gone, which doesn’t mean we don’t celebrate the holidays, far from it, because our spirits need a boost as much as anybody’s when it gets cold and dark, don’t get me wrong.
One of us rode a pony once, because it was adult-scale and looked sturdy though perhaps questionably so. And because it was there, though perhaps not in the way George Mallory meant when he spoke of Mt Everest. George Mallory died on Mt Everest, but think God I survived riding that wooden pony. What if it had collapsed under my weight? It didn’t of course but riding a pony is not the same as decorating one, as you well might know. As it turns out, decorating a pony is far more satisfying. That’s because you’re honoring the pony, and the holidays, and providing cheer for the next round of visitors to those ponies, out there in the agricultural suburb of Lincoln. Because that’s the holiday spirit, which is what we were expressing. Because that’s what you do this time of year, if you’ve got the holiday spirit, which is about expressing cheer and passing it on, probably because that’s a pretty good idea, don’t you think?
