Best of Worlds

  The one-traffic light town of Cambridge, NY seems like a metropolis compared to our neighboring village, but it wasn't until a year ago, when a new cafe moved into the building next to Hubbard Hall, community theatre and arts center, that it became a different world - one I'd been missing since we moved to Vermont from Germany over a decade ago.

Our tiny mountain town is so small we merge with 'historic' Arlington for a lot of our services.

Every town in Vermont is 'historic', but I come to love Arlington because of what it is now. Our kids know most of the other kids here. Drivers still wave as they pass each.  There's a predictable rhythm of clotheslines and gardens, carnival fundraisers and heated debates over deer hunting and the mud-rutted roads.  The cars may be modern and the glow of  smartphones can be seen at town functions, but time seems slower here.  It's mundane, but  as Thing1 was joined by Thing2, I've learned to appreciate the mundane.Hubbard Hall, a cauldron of creativity housed in a nineteenth-century opera house first drew me to Cambridge.  It pulled my husband into acting, my kids into theatre and music, and me back into art.   Regular workshops for me and the kids have made the cafe my favorite new haunt and, as much as I still love the mundane, there's something to be said for being able to live in two worlds.