At the height of this rainy verdant summer, Smallwood NY is a beehive of activity, particularly as a new and activistic Smallwood Civic Association (SWCA) Board of Directors pushes through many new initiatives and quality of life improvements.

Dear Smallwoodian! If you haven’t joined the Association yet, go ahead and do so now because your moral and financial support is important to our reawakening hamlet. (You can join by heading over to the Association website at SmallwoodCivicAssociation.org.)

It’s true that there are only about eight weeks to go until Labor Day—a paltry 56 days! But the SWCA is still planning a lot for high summer for our general communal enjoyment and delight. These are so many in number that I am forced to cherry pick and highlight only some of the fantastic new activities here.

So, Miss? Your aging joints are aching from pushing your heavy lawn mower up and down the greening hayfield that was once the manicured lawn of your property? Well, through the auspices of the SWCA, Nicole Chechile is holding regular “Mat Pilates” over at the Association Lodge. Online registration via the Association website is required.

The sessions themselves are a great bargain at only $10 per person per session. Likewise Cathy Gargiulo is offering “Yoga – Vinyasa Flow,” again a great bargain at $10 a session. Terry Gedan is offering Tai Chi lessons for those desiring to learn how to meditate in motion, and you can register for those lessons on the website. -- And what about you, Fine Sir!!? The deeply-etched lines and pallor in your face tell the story that you are pining for days of yore, when you would dress up nattily to attend a concert at Carnegie Hall or The Brooklyn Museum.

For you and yours, then, the SWCA is inviting members to attend two upcoming chamber music concerts featuring world-class performers. The Harlem Chamber Players and Sweet Plantain will be performing shortly at the Lodge; sign onto your Smallwood Civic Association account (or make one from anew) to snatch up some tickets for what will be sumptuous performances.

Finally, there is the Saturday, July 17th “Children’s Carnival,” a delightful 3.5 hour romp across the green Association ballfield by up to 80 children of SWCA members and their guests. Kids will be organized into age-consistent pods of up to 10 kids aged 4 to 14 years. The cost is a minimal $10 per child.

Carnival games will include water balloon toss, egg-on-a spoon-race, ring toss, sack race, and the (in)famous Smallwood tug-of-war, heave ho! The biggest thing of all will be the water slide into Mountain Lake. Sign up for this event (for which my business, Sticky Fingers Delectables is a sponsor) on the Association website.

We look around us this year in wonder. Everything looks like two summers ago. Under the surface, everything has changed. These changes cause hardness, acrimony, and pain. Let us not be hard with ourselves or others.

Let the growing verdant rain-fed grass and the sound of children’s laughter be our guides. Reader: be well and flourish.