Town of Natick

We arrived in Wellesley, MA yesterday after having a relaxing morning catching up with Aunt Jane who lives in the The Village, where we had brunch. Jane has lived in Greenwich Village for 25+ years (not to be confused with the East Village, both are the area between 14th and Houston in NYC but roughly divided by Broadway). The Village has not changed much from the days when I grew up in NY except that it used to be inexpensive to live here and not “the most desirable area” and now its unreachable by most with 1bedroom apartments starting at $2M. In the 50’s, rents for a 1 bedroom were about $50/month and now they start at $4,000 /month. That’s painful to write. We sat at a coffee shop on busy 6th avenue and enjoyed the City and talking about our trips.

Then we began the saga of renting a car in NYC (that took 2 hours) and then we (Karen) began driving to Wellesley (200 miles but over 5 hours). BUT we soon arrived at Serenity, Neal and Tina Moskow’s Lake (well, maybe it’s not “their” lake but they have a beautiful house we love to visit, on the lake). These photos are from the evening we arrived and the next day where we talked and laughed and enjoyed each other’s company as we hung out at the lake, went for a long walk, ate and drank a lot. Most people think of the Serenity prayer as the definition of serenity:

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference”

Knowing how to maintain this state of mind is the goal. Serenity, tranquility, quietness, calmness, harmony, and peace comes from the absence of stress or anxiety. This lake always takes us to a place of peacefulness and showers us with a blanket of serenity.

Serenity & Peace are synonyms in Hebrew
Most people know the Hebrew word for peace – שָׁלוֹם (shalom). The word for tranquility or serenity is: שַׁלְוָה (shavah). Two of the three letters in each of the two roots are identical: ש and ל. And the third letters are pretty close.
May there be peace within your walls and tranquility within your palaces (Psalms 122:7).

THEN, we went to dinner at Lockheart in Wellesley. Fun time and we competed in a very challenging 5 rounds of trivia against 12 other teams of "cut-throat" players. In the end, WE WON!!!! The prize was not quite enough to buy a home for us ..but maybe a snack.Read more