You’ve probably never been to the Catskills. 

I know. You live here. But hear me out. 

There are two Catskills and depending on which side of the equation you landed on, you may have only ever experienced one of them. 

I was reminded of all of this Saturday night, sitting in the audience at Resorts World Catskills while Colin Jost — the Saturday Night Live comedian perhaps best known for co-anchoring Weekend Update — closed out his set, telling the crowd he had fond memories of coming to the area as a kid with his parents. Raised on Staten Island, Jost used to spend summers at the Concord Hotel. He said the word “Concord” the way people say the name of a place they carry with them like a talisman, a piece of their childhoods that will never be forgotten. 

It’s the way I find myself referring to the set of Cape Cod cottages where my family would vacation in my own childhood summers. Just saying its name is enough to send me hurtling back decades to August mornings spent standing in the laundry room across the street from our rental. The scent of laundry detergent and linens tumbling in the dryer come together, and I can almost hear the staff of women in their bright blue smocks chatting amiably in Portuguese as they count out the right number of washcloths and towels to replace the bundle I’d just carried in the door. 

It’s only as an adult that I can see why those laundry runs have held so fast in my memory. What was yet another menial task for an adult was a big deal for us kids. It meant you were big enough to cross the busy street alone and trusted enough to make the trip without any trouble. Taking the towels back was a tiny taste of freedom, and you gobbled it whole. 

That's what vacation does — it hands you a world with the sharp edges filed off, where even the laundry is an adventure. Colin Jost got that version of the Catskills as a kid, the laundry run version where everything feels a little bit larger than life. We got the other version where we had to do all of our homework and eat our vegetables — even the ones that tasted like poison plants from Jupiter. This is the secret double life of Sullivan County. 

We are the place people go back to in their minds when they want to feel like kids again. 

And we are also just ... here. Getting stuck behind the guy who insists on driving 35 on 52. Taking our garbage to the transfer station on Saturday morning. Doing our own laundry. Building the backdrop for other people's golden memories.