The Other Side of the Ocean

Suddenly, there’s very little time. Exams to hand in, student letters to write, seedlings to plant, house to prepare, hikes to plan – this is just the beginning of a list that I set for myself for the next few days.

I could, of course, do none of it now. I could take things in stride, in a Mediterranean fashion. Spring could be, for me, a time to sit back, to exhale, in a leisurely manner.

I could, in other words, fold my paws and hang back (for the mouse to spring out of the wood pile), like Larry here:




But that’s not me.

I figure – Larry, he can wait. His mice come randomly, year round. Mine do not.

Tomorrow, we leap into May. Madness for me. A wonderful, busy, risky, adventurous, lemon budding madness.

The difference between being 56 and 26 is that at 56, I finish a good book and I think – hmm, let me send it to someone who may enjoy it. At 26 I would have thought – a nice addition to my collection. I’ll savor it sometime in the future. (The adding of books to your collection was very very cool.)

At 56, there isn’t much that I want to collect. Living in a very small condo leads me to buy only things that someone can swallow and digest, hopefully within the next week. Sometimes, I imagine that I could purge even more of the nonessentials that I have and that my closets would become almost bare and I would live out of the equivalent of a suitcase. Okay, two suitcases. Winter clothes use up space.


I like small, empty spaces. With sunlight streaming in.

Which, of course, brings me to the matter of the writer's shed. For newcomers to Ocean – Ed has been building a shed for me on his property, where I could spend long stretches of time writing. Last summer we cleared space, and with the help of Amos, the shed went up. Here it is – a simple, airy building.





The shed project was stalled because Ed began to understand (finally) that this particular writer is attached to the concept of running water within the premises she inhabits. It could be that the first years of life, spent in my grandparents’ house in a village in Poland (where there was no electricity, no running water, and certainly no WiFi) really took its toll. And so now Ed is lost in the slow process of imagining how water might be introduced without great cost or effort. Everything is on hold until the creative juices push him forward. I understand that. My own creative impulse is equally unpredictable.

Meanwhile, I noted that the truck farmers working the land next to Ed's are also in the process of putting up a shed. Daughter passes nails to father, father hammers away.





The difference between the farmers’ shed and the writer's shed? Well, of course, there’s the intent behind it: ours is for daydreaming and, when the impulse strikes, writing. Theirs is for storing tools and creating shelter in case of a cloudbreak (I’m guessing here). Still, to me, the overriding difference is this -- theirs will be done much, much faster than ours. Which is a good thing, considering.

Ever since my grandfather gave me a book of Polish songs in 1960 and said to me – sing from it when you’re away, I’ve been inclined to fall back on the advice when I’m not quite ready to pop back into my life in the new country.

But, the truth is, I can’t mope much on a Tuesday. Especially the last teaching day of the semester. Time is tight. Can’t indulge emotions and ephemeral desires.


I bike to work (against a piercing wind and unexpected road closures) and give a fleeting thought to how pretty a lake looks when it’s choppy.





Less pretty are the trees, which still seem to me more bare than not bare. I miss the blooming chestnuts in Lazienki Park. And there’s no point in looking for forget-me-nots. They don’t grow wild here like they do in Poland. They don’t even grow unwild. People here mustn’t like them as much as I do.

One has to make do with Virginia bluebells.





I teach two classes of dedicated Family Law students, go home and collapse.

Sunday in the city. I will be seeing my friends in the afternoon, but the morning is my own.

I had meant to walk past my early childhood apartment building. It’s actually quite dilapidated – even worse looking now than fifty years ago and it was pretty sad then. (Caveat: for a post-war building in Poland, it was fine. “Sad” is a relative term.) I had walked past it occasionally before – it is so centrally placed! It virtually sits of a tram stop that is definitely at the navel of the city. But it seemed like a fine idea to start from its entryway now, so that I can retrace my childhood Sunday strolls.

But I didn’t do it. I got side tracked by a café/bakery. I think it has the best pastries and coffee cakes (such an American term!) in town and so you could say that food trumped sentimentality.















From the café, I make my way to the parks.

We used to say, my sister and I, that Poles used Sundays for dress up. Americans dressed down on the week-ends, Poles dressed up. “In their Sunday best,” we’d chortle. But the fact is, when we were little, we were no different: out came the dresses, the white anklets, the ribbons for braids and pony tails. We fit in.

Oh, things have changed, of course. I watch Warsaw pick up habits from elsewhere and I understand. We are a global society. Still, on this spring day in the park, there’s not a grunge in sight. People look well. And happy (even as I don’t know if they realize that they are, indeed, exuding happiness).

Example: older women, animated, on a bench in front of the Chopin monument, discussing who would share in a piece of cake.





And young families -- so many young families! It’s what parents did fifty years ago and they’re still doing it now – taking their kid to Lazienki Park. In the more please-the-child America, you think of what activity to do on a weekend that your kid might enjoy. You strive to amuse your child. Not in Poland. Lazienki doesn’t have a playground, It’s a place to stroll and kids learn early that life includes a good deal of strolling.

And here’s another thing I learn about my heritage on this day – I know why I am so sensitive to cold. I was raised like these kids still are – to avoid The Chill. It is seventy degrees outside (an unusual April warm spell). I’m down to short sleeves. And in this way, I do not fit in. Everyone is still in wraps and most every kid is in sweaters, jackets and always, always, with a head covering.





I remember this! If the wind buffed your head around too much, you were more likely to get a head cold. That was the theory then and even though communism fell, the head cold theory held.





In the States, kids would surely protest and start climbing out of their clothes. That’s America for you. In Poland, kids are adored to death, but they are compliant. They know that they are small pegs on the planet. They know that parents rule. Moms whisper sweet, tender pet names, dads issue directives and little ones toddle along, waiting for that kind word, the kiss, the pat of praise.





The adored children catch my eye, of course. But so do the old people. And the young. I think, from the perspective of the social world, it’s lovely to be a teen or young adult in Warsaw.

Young people have the freedom to develop their own love for the city. (And I had that freedom too.) They move independently, they walk the parks in groups or pairs and they discover the world through conversations and escapades with others.










That youthful freedom is enchanting. From strong parental attachment the child morphs into an independence that comes much much earlier to a Polish kid than to an American. (I’m thinking of independence of movement; financially, it is exactly the opposite: American kids break away earlier.)





And for the old person? Oh, there are so many in the park! Groups, pairs of pairs, they’re all here, animated, engaged in life. (I know one older adult who is not so engaged. How sad that these generalizations don’t apply to everyone.)





I watch the people, sure, I love that – listening to their conversations, starved that I am for the publicly held conversations (our cafes in Madison are so damn quiet that if you go there to talk, you worry that someone will say – shhhh!). But I also can’t take my eyes off of the beauty of the vast green spaces, with summer palaces, peacocks, red squirrels, blooming flowers. It is a heady, sensual Sunday morning!




















I was equally happy as a kid here. Feeding squirrels and ducks, holding my father’s hand, skipping rope ahead of him. It was, for me, one of the most valued of my many memories of a man who flitted in and out of my life in much the same way as he flitted in and out of the country, the engaged diplomat that he was. (But on this Sunday, when I stopped at his place, our former home, he did not want to take a walk outside. I’m not sure when he was last outdoors.)

And here I am, in 1958, happily feeding a red squirrel. I'm with sturdy shoes and ribbons in my hair.






I leave the park satisfied. I felt it. I remembered.







In the lesser park (next door), I pick up the pace. My friend is to meet me at the hotel soon. I can’t be late. These friends of mine look after me in Warsaw, however I show up at their doorstep – with Ed, with my sister, with both, alone – they’ll take me in any fashion. That I showed up now, on the week-end of their daughter’s wedding doesn’t phase them – it is a cause for celebration, not an interruption at all. That is their way: whatever tumult I bring with me, they are there to provide the peace. (Here they are -- the photo is from the last minutes of our time together)





But in the lesser park, I cannot help it. I pause for a while at the scale. It’s an old one – from 1912 – and it has stood in this spot all through my childhood. This time, too, I allow myself to be weighed.





The woman beams. A hair below sixty! Good! -- she says. Ah. Weight with commentary. But, these are kilos. I have no perspective. I know it’s more than when I weighed myself here last, at the age of seven. I smile at the little sign attesting that the scale has the stamp of approval of the Ministry of Health. I ask her to take a photo and she does. Let me take it from far – to show the whole set up. A sweet, character of a woman. With ideas!


And now it is the wonderfully long Sunday lunch period and I am sitting at the table with my pack from many decades ago: pals, past crushes who later became friends, a spouse or two – all here, friends with whom I studied, kayaked, skied, camped, hiked and of course, strolled.

Of course, in Poland, keeping old friends is old hat. Poland is one of the least internally mobile societies I know. True, my youthful pals don’t see each other that often. When I come, they remark on how rare it is that they get together. But they all know that they can. And if it’s important, like a wedding of a daughter, they do.

And so do I. You do a lot for those you love, if you can. Good friends and family matter.

And in Poland, good men friends are endearingly chivalrous. So that when the sun hides behind a building, and the air feels again more like the early spring that it is, they wrap you in their jackets. Protecting against, of course, The Chill.





We’re not ready to call it quits yet. Someone proposes a stroll and so we head out – to the new Economics headquarters at UW (I was an economist back then), to the new-ish Supreme Court building… (Most people know the front of it:





..Few know that the most beautiful part is behind.)





And eventually, we disperse. We are at various levels of affluence, but no one is hurting for work. One goes off on a fold-up bicycle, one drives off in a Jaguar, two walk back to their apartment, others drive off in vehicles of lesser distinction.





Me, I walk back, lost in thought, trying to ease the churn, so that I can start the process of adjusting to the trip ahead, and to work the next day, and to being an American again.

I’ll leave you with photos from that solo walk. Along the bricks of the fortified wall, Where lovers and friends find peace and quiet.

My second and last day in Warsaw. Sunday in the city where I had so many Sundays a long long time ago. Most often, when I was very young, my father would take his two daughters to the Lazienki Park.

What has changed in life since childhood Sundays? You can’t answer this unless you go back to your childhood home and roll the time in your mind from then to now.

I want to do a longer post (watch out, quick readers!), but it’s late again and I have to be up in a few hours to catch my flight out. On the long flight(s) home, I’ll take out my baby Apple and give you my take on it. With illustrations for those who like them. I’ll publish at the end of the day, when I get back to Madison.

In the meantime, let me post my blow up for the day (the trip?): a photo of Chopin under his statuesque willow. My friend in St Paul wished me my moment with Chopin in the park and I had it. If you like his music, play a Nocturne, sit back and roll into your own past.

In my life, I will probably never again have this confluence of meteorological and seasonal facts, all working so well to create a visually stunning day in my city of birth. Indeed, I muttered to myself early in the morning – Warsaw, I’m sorry I was fickle: I’m sorry I briefly expounded the virtues of Krakow. You are the fairest! You are! (Which is the way I used to feel when I lived here. I've come around again.)

But really, it’s not just the weather and the spring blossoms. The city has been getting a facelift (thank-you, EU support for infrastructure! America, come visit Poland to experience what an infusion of infrastructure funds can do to a city!) and it shows. True, so many people are still poor, life here is pretty tough for most, but you can suffer amidst great beauty, because Warsaw is buffed and sparkling!





I spent the morning walking. Endless walking through the new old town (for those who do not know this – few structures are authentically old, since the Germans did a pretty good job leveling the city during the war; Warsaw rebuilt herself according to her past; Warsaw is the glorious story of the beaten down soul rising again), down to the river and up again.

It's way past my midnight, but let me put up just a few photos for you, to give you an idea of this city that's always looking at rubble and imagining how best to transform it into something fresh.



In my childhood, this was a common scene. It's rare now. But, some patched buildings had to fail and this, I suspect is one of them.





New! Not here a year ago.





Reading about literary icons: we have many and places where they lived are well marked.





The buildings around my UW: that would be Uniwesytet Warszawski




Only Rome has more nuns out and about. Okay, maybe Krakow has more.





Going down toward the river (or biking up from it).





Mariensztat: the first planned post-war residential community; note woman with chicken!





Classic view of the old town.





tending to his horse





With the highlander moustache: waiting for a wedding





Syrenka: she stands as a symbol of Warsaw


And because it’s Saturday, I discover a small market of Polish foods. At the side, there is a stand with Polish scarves and folk costumes for kids. Fifty years ago, I proudly owned one. We all did. Little girls in glittery vests and flowered wreaths and ribbons in our hair. Giddy with pride.




















And I retrace my steps, all 594,245,895 of them, back toward the hotel.





In the afternoon, I hike again to the Old Town for the wedding that brought me here this week-end -- a civil ceremony at the Palace of Weddings. I’d only been to one Polish wedding before this (my sister’s). In the years that my friends got married – all within a few years of each other – I was too poor to travel back. And so this was the trip that would put to rest all pangs of sadness for not being here before.

What stands out now? Well, first and foremost, it was a beautiful wedding ceremony.





And, because no one moves in this country unless they emigrate out of the country (and only one or two of my high school and university friends did that), they were all there today.

I wont post much by way of photos or stories. Most of my Polish friends do not read Ocean, but those who do have mixed feelings about it. Here's why: they knew me before I wrote so much, so openly (I was a closeted writer in those years) and I think the image hasn’t yet sunk in. Maybe it never will.

Back in Madison, my friend Chip said recently (on the occasion of his wife’s entry into blogging) that when you start to blog, or write, and publish stories about your life, the following will happen: some friends will accept this about you, some will be indifferent, and some will run an hide, perhaps never to be seen again.

Ethnographic blogging, autobiographical writing – these are antithetical to the psyche of my generation of Poles. And the generation before them. And the generation before them. Etc. Putting forth ideas publicly, ideas and chapters that are written from the very best material in the world – your own life, in a forthright manner no less (even as my American friends accuse me – rightly! – of not being transparent at all!) is completely befuddling to people who have spent centuries writing in allusions and metaphors. There is a distrust of the voice gone public that cannot be erased in my time. It says a lot about my confused cultural heritage that I can write as freely as I do and not worry too much about whether writing a column, an autobiography, or a blog are good or worthwhile enterprises. I simply can’t imagine not writing. The worry stops there.

But, I’ll say this much – I am amazed and gratified to see that time, over all, has eased the edges and made gentle people of so many. Our children are grown (I’m the youngest of the set and predictably have the youngest children, but hey, mine are out and running as well!) and so the greatest challenges are behind us. It makes us a rather mellowed out bunch.

After the wedding, I sat with one friend for a long time at an outdoor café. The sun was so warm that I let my shoulders go bare. It was hard to remember that really, these people were no longer part of my daily world. That in all honesty, I am more American than I am Polish. That my family is there, in the States, not here, in Warsaw. It was hard to stay focused on this – I am not back for good, I don’t live here, this is not my life.

For those few hours at the café, this was my life.


I walked back through the Old Town…





…picking up tulips for my evening visit, passing the Palace of Culture along the way (Stalin's gift to Warsaw; once the second tallest building in Europe -- now either an eyesore or a dignified historical landmark, depending on your level of anger).






In the evening at my old home, at the place where I lived during my high school and university years, I sit back and talk again for many hours. We are not lighthearted with each other anymore, my dad and I. Life has not been light or boring for him. He’ll call himself lucky, but I wonder sometimes if he wishes he’d been just a tiny bit more lucky.

He serves me little quail eggs and flaczki (tripe).





Did you cook this?
No, not this time. The woman that comes here to help – she likes to cook the traditional dishes. But you know, next time you come, I’ll make it myself!

We exchange doubts about either of us being alive for there to be a next time. This is how we talk. There’s a lot of Polish character in it and I think -- maybe I'm not so completely American yet.

As Barbara, his steadfast partner for years and years, brings Polish pickles for me to try, I think – Ed would appreciate this, he, who loved so much New York pickles in his childhood, purchased on Sunday outings with his dad. The best! – he never fails to tell me. Except that I do believe that Poland has the world’s best pickles. Ed is just plain wrong in the matter of pickles.

Before I left, Ed said to me – you realize you’ll be traveling almost 20 hours to get there?

Oh, I realize it. But mostly I don’t think about it, so that I can take in each hour as it comes. Unless things get tense. Then I fret.

Things got tense on the trip over pretty early in the game. I wanted to save money. And so I bought two separate roundtrips: One from Madison to the east coast and one between the States and Warsaw (via Paris).

Now, I know that’s not a good idea. If something goes wrong with the first leg of the journey, you’re dead meat. The trip will get the hatchet, because the second leg wont honor your first separately booked segment nor any delays thrust upon it. But the price of doing separate itineraries was SO much better, that I took a chance.


Sure enough, my flight from Detroit to DC Dulles was unexpectedly canceled. The only cancellation out of maybe a million flights that day. Oh, the worry! I wont bore you with the desperate scramble that followed. I will say this – to the gentleman who saved me by zipping me on his account to the desired airport in DC – thank you. I will always honor you and your company. (Even as I type away on this Apple -- the competition.)

In all, it was a tedious trip with multiple negotiations, tense agents, crying babies – you know the kind: you get there, but your sanity is severely disturbed.


I did not pause in Paris. Even though flying in during early spring is always so beautiful!





I ignored it and ran for my flight to Warsaw. It’s on this flight that I always get the first blast of my home country. Inevitably, I will right hear the wretched curse words (in meaning, it's somewhere between “bitch” and “whore,” and it's always tossed around by men, to each other. For some reason it always offends me, and I am by no means a lightweigth in terms of curse vocabulary).

And I’ll see the full, bushy mustache on men. And there will be women who will be impeccably dressed. And sweet, precious, adored children. And this is a new one – there will be affluence. A guy carrying a Prada shopping bag to take back home. Designer this, designer that. To me, it just wrecks havoc with all my memories of a very designer-free society. Of course, my countrymen and women should have access to the poshest consumer goods! Of course! Earn more, spend more. And for a small minority, Poland is like that now.

The flight to Warsaw is not full at all. A (French) toddler screams the entire two hours, but by now it just doesn’t matter. I’m tired but I am here. Little small fields outside. We’re landing in Warsaw.





I take a cab from the airport. I push down the window and watch the people go about their daily errands.





And I suddenly understand why Wisconsin springs (or lack thereof) bother me so much. Here, where I grew up, spring is in full swing by now. Shrubs and plants are blooming , the flower ladies are out with their buckets (tin has morphed into plastic). The chestnut trees are on the verge of showing their petals, It’s gorgeous now! How could I not remember??




A woman urges me to go into a flowershop, because what's inside, she says, is even better than the balcony plantings. But I'm transfixed by these: daisies, forget-me-nots, stokrotki -- flowers of a Polish spring.





I’m trying out a new “old” hotel – this one, the Rialto:





It’s beautiful inside and out and it’s four blocks from where I lived as a preschooler and five blocks from where I lived as a highschooler. (If you want to stay here inexpensively, look up their rates on priceline.com).

It’s almost evening when I check in. I’m hungry, tired and sticky, but I set out anyway, just to get that Warsaw stuff into my head, so that I can try to get back the feeling of being of this place.





I pause at a tram stop on Marszalkowska Street. How many times did I jump on and off tram cars here?

On the side streets, I come across the occasional small hut selling the basics that I knew from childhood: sorrel for soup, flowers, pickles, and sauerkraut with grated carrot. And young beet leaves for spring borstch.






Eventually, I make my way to the "lesser" park – Ujazdowski. A handful of steps from my childhood home (I’m saving the gem for Sunday morning). A lot of work went into replanting some of the areas and it looks absolutely gorgeous. Poland does parks better than probably any country in the world. And this is the season to stroll. Hello, willows.





In the past, I’ve rarely eaten out in Warsaw. Friends or family cook for me most every evening I am here and so I actually know very little about the Warsaw restaurant scene. But today I am on my own and I pick an artsy place just at the edge of the park. (Named Artsy Kitchen – or Qchnia Artystyczna, and no, there’s no letter Q in the Polish alphabet; they’re just being clever.)

I picked something from the “Polish dishes” list. I suspected it might be heavy, but for the one meal, it can hardly matter. It's so very good! Potato placki with creamy Polish mushroom sauce.





At the table to my left, three women linger over coffee and gossip. For a minute I am one of them. Meeting for tea. And hours of talk. High school years, university years, spent reviewing everything. From scratch. And starting afresh the next time.





I stroll these very familiar blocks and I teeter between my childhood and the new reality here: there’s plenty of evidence of the old stuff, reestablishing itself in my psyche. Small grocery stores that look like this:





…except now, if you look inside, you see a good assortment of foods and not just candy and canned products.

Or, note this flower lady:





She’s selling bananas. I never saw a banana in Poland the first two dozen years of my life. And here she is, telling me that she sometimes takes photos of her own flowers too. With her cell phone camera.


But it seems to me that things haven't sorted themselves out yet: that people who live here are still straddling different worlds, uncertain where to get off. I get the bill for the restaurant. It’s a usual little sliver of paper printed out from the credit card machine. And I draw a blank – I don’t remember if tip is included in the Polish bill and so I ask. And I am told -- no it’s not. Okay, no big deal, I hesitate to do the math and start to write in what I think must be a nice tip.

The waitress stops me. No no! We don’t use that portion of the bill for tips.
But – there’s a space for it, with the Polish word for “tips”!
Well yes, but we don’t use it. It would be taxed there. People just leave us tips in cash.

Ah. Tips, but no taxes. Poles love eating their cake.


I take the road past the embassies. In front of the Swiss, the pink blooms are magnificent!





And the American – what’s this? A sign on the embassy fence with info on how to obtain a tourist visa. Am I reading it correctly? Make a personal appearance appointment with the counsel… Pay $5 per minute for phone call to make appointment with counsel. Pay $130 for processing your application (no matter what the outcome)…. Fill out this, wait here, do that. You’ve got to be kidding! Why?

When I came off the plane in Warsaw, for the first time in my life, I did not have to go through passport control. If you are coming in from an EU country (in my case France), you don’t need to take out your passport. Refreshingly open, at least in Europe.

...Even as I watch a handful of old men set up signs and distribute leaflets in support of Polish nationalism. They remind me of the sings on Indiana highways that say -- get America out of the UN now! Except here, we've substituted Poland for America, and EU for UN.

It's cool in the evening. I am barely awake as I type this, but it's now or never. Tomorrow is the wedding, followed by dinner with my father. Minutes ago he happily proclaimed over the phone that he has made me that favorite Polish dish of his -- flaczki (a.k.a. -- tripe. Guts).

After class today, I fly to Detroit. Then DC. Then Paris. Then Warsaw. It’s the best sequence I could put together, given the circumstances.

Last night, Ed and I watched Vicky Christina Barcelona. Five minutes into it, he said – I’ve seen this! I remember now – we both saw it. On the airplane. The last flight back from Europe. And then -- Remind me again why you’re not going to Poland with me?

Ed rolls his eyes. The idea of spending so much time getting to Europe just does not appeal to him. Not for a week-end anyway.

I wonder what movies I’ll have on my flight over...
Can you check ahead of time?
I wouldn’t want to. You have to create some pleasurable anticipation for the travel time: the moment of lifting the AV program out of the seat pocket as you settle in, looking at the dinner menu choices, and hours later -- lifting the shade and spotting the shores of Great Britain, and finally -- seeing the narrow and irregular farm fields just on the outskirts of Warsaw.


The weather is cooperating. I’m hoping to make all my connections.

Next post should be from Poland.

Come to the farmette. It’s beautiful outside!
It’s cold.

(We’re both right. Sunny, but cool again. Transitional stuff. Though the cloudless skies are predictable. Skies clear on April 21st every year. By the 22nd the heavens are a deep blue. That’s the norm. At least it’s how I remember it!)

I’ll buy you a latté.
It’s tempting, but I am swamped. I have the usual end-of-semester flood of work and in addition, I’m skipping out right after class tomorrow. To return Monday. Not likely that I can get much done Saturday or Sunday.

Take a break, why don’t you. You need the exercise.
Oh fine, you win. But just for an hour. No more! (Ed knows where the weak spots are. And he's persistent. It's a killer combination.)

It’s a short but beautiful trek to his farmette. Across the road, we watch cranes search for their meal. (What do cranes eat?)





We pick up the rackets at the shed (not the writer’s shed; that project is waiting for a design solution to the water issue). I do think that this is the best time to stroll through Ed’s property. It’s not overgrown. It’s gentle and sweetly innocent. Not aggressive, not overwhelming.





The breeze kicks up the willow and again I am reminded of Poland. There is the statue of Chopin in the Warsaw Lazienki Park – he’s sitting under a willow, getting inspiration from nature. It’s a beautiful image.


I’m going to Poland tomorrow. Just for a couple of days. But they’ll be sunny days. And I am surely ready for them.


In the meantime, we volley the tennis balls back and forth at the secret tennis court and I laugh heartily at our mistakes.





P.S. Many, many thanks for the good wishes on the previous post. Every message there and on email is a treasure. And it speaks of your good hearts. Again, thank you.

Uncomplicated. Pretty: always full of buds, beginning to show color. Cheerful. With rays of sunlight, if I’m lucky.

I’ve always liked April 21st.

Not too long ago, we’d make such a terrific fuss on April 21st! It was a well-planned day. I’d insist on time outdoors and most certainly we would begin and end the day with great food. In the middle, there’d be ribbons and sweet things and if this all seems terribly playful, I’d have to say that indeed it was!


I knew from the first day that I met Ed that to him, April 21st was going to be as significant as October 20th. Meaning not very significant at all.

No matter. For me, it will be a day that stands out.

This year it’s a workday, yes, there’s that. And I swear I’m seeing snowflakes outside! But, I will have some significant back and forth with daughters, I’ll pick up a small bunch of spring flowers [UPDATE: no I wont -- thank you!], and I will go out for an early dinner with Ed (the man plays volley ball Tuesdays – can’t bump into that).

I’m 56 today.

And then I’ll go back to my condo and give out my own birthday gifts to people very far away*: Fuya Mensah in Togo who needs rice, soap and sugar to replenish her store, Suweni in Indonesia who needs cacao seedlings for her family farm, Sarmes Takhmazov, a displaced person, living with his two sons in Azerbaijan, looking to buy calves.

I may browse the community of others who chose to sponsor Fuya, Sarmes and Suweni. We’re a diverse handful, but we have these people in common now and together we watch the progress they are making in their lives.

At the end of the day, I plan on popping the cork on the New York fizzy wine we bought back in March and I’ll drink a toast to their success. And to my family. And friends. And to Ed’s volley ball game. And to the year ahead.

* Microfinancing, through Kiva. Click here and take a look at the possibilities.

Laughing at someone’s mishaps is a delicate matter. Ed will stand passively as one of my tennis returns flies by him (not today: I had no time for tennis today). I’ll ask – why did you ignore that? He’ll say – I had no idea you’d hit it back at all, let alone within range. Ha ha ha. I laugh. Had he pushed it further (had he said, instead -- woaaaaa! You returned that? Really? Unbelievable! Woaaaaa, that’s beyond incredible!) I may have walked off the court and told him to find a different tennis partner.

Of course, one could argue that some of us (me?) are hypersensitive on some issues and some of us (Ed?) are hypersensitive on no issues. Life is very complicated in this way.


I brought Ed along to yoga class today. It was his first time.

Now, Ed is plenty athletic and strong. I was sure, for instance, that he would not faint right there on the purple mat.

But he’s a big man and so you have to believe that flexing a 6’4’’ body that is used to unloading a truckload of woodchips but less used to greeting the sun with arms extended is going to be a challenge.

Our instructor, little Nicky (she is almost 80 years old and certainly no more than 5 feet tall and 100 pounds thin) tries to help Ed stretch back as he drips with sweat and reaches for the sky. Except not really. When Ed reaches, the ceiling tiles move.

The woman on my other side whispers – he seems in pain… tell him not to over do it.

Indeed, Ed is moaning. And then he topples to the floor and everyone laughs in relief.

Laughter is wonderful. Had they laughed when Ed fells asleep during the last ten minutes of relaxation, I would have felt protective. Don’t laugh! He’s exhausted! But, take a self-proclaimed fit man and put him on a yoga mat in a child's pose and he’s fair game.



The air outside is cool. And truthfully, the blooming season hasn’t quite burst forward. But, as always after yoga, the world feels like it has a lot of potential to be a good place.





In the late portions of the day, I work and Ed recovers under a warm quilt, with a bag of chips and a carton of ice cream. I’d say it is a very typical kind of April day.

It’s good to know how to proceed with recovery. To act deliberately, with method rather than madness. So that in the end, you’re fine. Maybe even better than before the fall. That’s the hope. The American Dream relies on this.

Though truthfully, I never much bothered with thinking about the American Dream. Because for an immigrant like me, that dream was anyone’s dream and success was not promised here or elsewhere. Indeed, when I came to the States as a young adult, with a job but no money with me, I learned about falling flat very quickly. I got sick. I got better. I got married. I found work. I lost work. I found better work. I got divorced. I got sick again. I got better. I found an occasional traveling companion… and so on.

The savvy and the lucky can recover. For me, the American Dream is the possibility of recovery.

I’m keeping this in mind as I bounce through this housing madness that threatens to either put me out on the street (owing more for your condo than its assessed value - so the city told me yesterday - can do that to you) or, in the alternative, push me forward.

Now, what is it that I have to do today?

Let me start by looking at the market flowers now growing on my condo balcony.

I think I have run through my share of sinful emotions (behaviors?) in life. But I’ll say this – I am not especially prone to feelings of envy. I like it when people fare well for themselves. That they travel, have summer cottages in beautiful places, eat well, write books, look beautiful, have perfect dogs, perfect aunts, nieces and nephews – all gathering together for large Sunday meals, preferably outdoors under a grape arbor, at a long table covered with a red-checked tablecloth – fantastic! I could watch a movie about other peoples’ happiness again and again.

But sometimes, at rare and odd times, the green-eyed monster pops up. Here I am, ready to torture you!

Take today: I wake up, step out on the balcony and I am absolutely joyous at seeing the first market of the year (both the downtown Farmers Market and the Westside Community Market began their outdoor sales on this day).





Ed and I cross the street, my Pierrerue basket swinging with us, and voila, there it is! My very own, very local Westside Community Market.





I emphasize “local,” because our farmers markets sell only local, Wisconsin grown and produced foods and plants.





And this “only local” rule is great. At least, it’s great in April through October. The tradeoff is that if you don’t throw some California or Florida produce at us in winter, we get almost nothing that grows (I say almost because the cold spell does still give us hoop spinach and greenhouse tomatoes), unless you count mold grown on cheese and I haven’t seen much of that either in this otherwise cheesy state.

By contrast, French markets are year-round. But they are not local. You can tell where each product is from (there are signs) – what region in France, or perhaps Italy, or Spain – but you definitely get an infusion of the more distant stuff. Local stands are mixed in with stands that sell south of the border fruits, and local cheeses are supplemented with the usual Roqueforts and Reblechons from the other parts of France.

Is this better? I’m not saying that. We couldn’t have outdoor markets in Madison anyway, so why create a winter “grocery store” of produce and cheese once a week indoors?

Here’s why: because the produce is so limited in the winter, I don’t bother going to the indoor winter market in Madison. But I would go if it had just that little more for me to buy. It wouldn’t be my local across the street market, true, but I’m willing to drive a little to buy a lot. Or, a lot more than I see myself buying now at the “only from Wisconsin” winter market. From November til mid-April, I stay home and mope and wish we were more, well, France-like.

Or maybe this is simply too big a country. Zipping up Florida oranges to Wisconsin seems a bigger deal than zipping up Spain oranges to France. Or am I wrong? We already get a shrimp guy driving up once a month from the Gulf and he seems happy with his sales in Madison!

All this to say that the farmers markets in Madison are superb. And they conjure up in me that green-eyed monster as I think how those who have bountiful, or even halfway bountiful markets every week, without pause are so damn lucky! Simply put – I’m jealous.





But not for the next six and a half months. Right now, I’m in my joyous mode: the markets have arrived. Including my local one, just across the street. Bliss.

… a day so full of sunshine? Who would not be made happier by it? It’s ridiculously easy to let loose. All the negative ideas, thoughts, grumblings that I hear daily, in the same way that we all do (probably because it’s not as fun for people to push the upbeat as it is to remind us of life’s hazards)? I know you don’t mean them. Not today.

(Damn sun! You are so powerful!)


Late last night I lay awake thinking about my office neighbor and colleague – a woman who has an astonishing ability to describe things (inadvertently) in ways that invite peace and gentleness. It is not surprising that I nearly always stop by her office before I enter my own. (She doesn’t read my blog and does not know how much I treasure those quick visits.)

I thought what a gift it is to make someone feel upbeat and how tight we (the rest of us) are with our reassurances. As if we don’t really believe them. As if we think that if we warn of pain, that pain will leave our own backyard and migrate elsewhere!


The sun is strong. So strong that for our game of tennis, I am down to my undershirt.





Ed and I volley balls for two hours and slowly I dissolve in the warmth. If yoga was like a massage, today’s sunlight was like a week-long yoga class.


In the late afternoon, Ed zips me on his ancient motorbike over to La Baguette (for a baguette, of course; and a coffee and brioche). I watch people deliberate and select and I think -- that's right! Your moment here, at La Baguette, may be one of the very best, in ways that you (we) don't even realize!





Maybe it’s the sun. Maybe. Or maybe it's a moment spent over food and drink...





Maybe it’s the daylong massage of warm air that makes it possible to love the ordinary again.

All year long, it’s been a challenge to post on Thursdays. I come home late and I’m beat.

But April has this way of pushing things to a close really fast. From snow on the ground on April Fool’s to the end of the semester – time rushes, as if we can’t stand the pace of winter, as if we need to sprint to the academic year’s end.

Today wasn’t really the end of the semester – a week and a half remain. But it’s the last ordinary Thursday and so I’ll do what I always want to do on a Thursday evening – post a few photos and call it a day.

But what photos! Not exciting in their beauty, but exciting in what they stand for – the beginning of Madison’s best face – the face of warm, sunny days, by the lake, in green spaces, against the irrepressible blue skies of the Midwest.

So, here you have it, the perfect, if still ordinary Thursday:

… early morning bike ride on the lake shore path…











…up Bascom Hill to my office… (already a gaggle of girls congregates on the grasses of Bascom Mall, even though there’s still a nip in the air)





And the day of lectures begins. Classes keep me indoors. And when I do finally take an afternoon break and head outside for an espresso, I see that in these few hours, the campus (and therefore Bascom Hill) has moved into that wonderful presummer pink sunglasses mood. Relaxed, unclothed, happy.





And no place demonstrates this better, that Madison mood of outdoor pleasure, than Union Terrace. Predictably, it’s starting to fill.






I’m back in class for the rest of the afternoon and then, suddenly, the hands of clock slide all the way down and I am done.

I bike home. When the semester started, I would stand at the bus stop and count each second, willing it to be the last one of waiting in the cold. Now, I zip past the stop on the bike, enjoying the spin so much that I even take a detour to Centennial Gardens, where the pink buds are about to burst into bloom and the birds dart in and out of the branches, excited and as pleased as I am that we have sprung into a summery spring.





And the two girls on the grass smile and smile. And my ordinary Thursday suddenly is feeling very very bright and beautiful.

The day is destined to be big. Not insignificant, or lost in the detail of work and food preparation, or wiping wet dishes that should have dried in the washer.

For the first time since January (when I was so close to Venezuela that it didn’t count) I am warm outside. A turning point. A huge step into the next stage of life. In which I am going to take endless big steps and finally move forward.

Ed nudges me to play tennis and I do, but I get distracted. By the conversation of two older East Asian men (there are many East Asians here, just up the street, and they come to the tennis courts often and they play integenerationally and very well)…





…By the school class that takes their tennis lesson here (and they all play badly but with such energy that it doesn’t matter)…










…and finally by my own poor plays that rise in frequency with each degree added to the thermometer. At 59 degrees, Ed suggests we stop for the day.

We pick up odds and ends at the grocery store and I return home to work.





Want to go on the bike ride later? – he asks.
No, not tonight, I have big things to do today and I expect I will be doing them all the time. (He does not press for detail and that’s good, because right now, all I can see are the contours of greatness. Magnificence without specifics.)

At 63 degrees, but really in the sun it’s almost 90 (I know because my outdoor thermometer is poorly positioned), I stop working, go out on the balcony and sit, thinking big thoughts.

It is so beachlike out there that I reach for sunscreen. I read a New Yorker story about twin brothers, both writers, and I think about my daughters – neither would call herself a writer (I don't think) and they are not twins, but they are twin-like in their closeness.

Inside, I take one more look at my work notes, close that page and open a new one for a blogpost.

Later, I take an evening walk and watch a young woman walk a tightrope. Made tight in partnership with her friend.










Do all spirited days have warm beginnings? Looking forward. It’s so important to look ahead to even greater days.

...It’s never uncomplicated for me. I want to think that upbeat people thrive on mornings and I am one of them. Wake up with energy, plans, enthusiasm. Retire with doubt.

Except on summer days, when the bike ride home on the lake path is brilliant and delightfully buoyant…










…and the light fades only after you’ve eaten dinner.

Today may as well have been a summer day in Madison (though a cool one; I still wore my pea jacket). It’s hard to fault an evening when you bicycle past flowers that bloom with colors of Ocean...





...and bees emerge from inside the bluest petals.

I’m in a beautiful, modern house, shaking on a mat – one of ten purple and blue mats, laid out neatly in two rows on a wooden floor.

Or at least, my leg is shaking. It’s telling me that it’s not used to me placing demands on it in this way.

It’s a yoga class. People think Madison is a yoga kind of town. Is there anyone within six miles of the isthmus who has never done yoga? I’ve certainly dabbled in it. Really, most everyone has.

But forty or fifty years back, you could not find a decent yoga class here. That's what Nicky Plaut tells me. She moved here from Belgium to marry a Madison man. She came with a love of pilates ("since I was six!"), dance and yoga.


Fifteen degrees in! Your other foot needs to be at that angle, she tells me now. Nicky is tough. Nicky wont let you slouch. And by the way, in three months, Nicky’ll be celebrating her 80th birthday. Last month, she left Mounds Yoga (after 26 years of instructing there) to open her own business from her home. Ah, the entrepreneurial spirit: it can strike at any time. ("I don’t have to drive to work in snow anymore!") Many commute a long way to get to her new studio. Me – I’m barely half a mile down the road. And I’m a brand new fan.

Hang your head. Let it go now…

Nicky wants me to hang my head, but I want to keep my eyes focused on her. So nimble! How does one get to be so nimble at that age?

Is there any doubt? After class, she shows me her own quiet space upstairs. This is how she begins her day…



























Release between the shoulder blades…

We are in the final minutes of the 90 minute class. A pillow under my head, a warm wool blanket covering me (“you can’t relax if you’re not warm…”). Nicky talks about relaxing different parts of the body. It’s like a complete mental massage. But so much cheaper! All this and a nimble body for $10?

The class is not easy. She holds us in position for a long time (“you should release if it’s too much!” Maybe you should, but I’m too competitive; I’ll hang in there until my muscles scream). But at the end of class, I am completely mellow… at peace with pretty much everyone and everything.

Drippy cold rain outside... Nice... It’ll make the flowers grow.

[If you need to be inspired, stretched, relaxed, call Nicky at Hill Top Yoga – 233-8406. Tell her I got you to pick up the phone.)

A beautiful holiday, if you think about it. Sort of like a springtime Thanksgiving, but with a more upbeat, forward looking punch to it. I’m thinking of the renewal elements, the egg dishes and pastel colors. Yes, I know – that’s a limited repertoire of associations. My parents gave some attention to Christmas (at least during my childhood) but they neglected Easter. I don’t know that my mother quite knew what to do with it. Bunnies? Baskets? Not in our house.

My kids were probably shortchanged as well. St Matthew’s Passion doesn’t have the zip of Santa Claus is Coming to Town. Yes, there were Easter dresses and early on, we even took them to church (see? This is what it’s like; these are your roots…). There were egg hunts in the backyard – a laughable thing, given that Wisconsin in March is so, well, traumatic. And there was a spring feast of sorts, but I struggled there as well. I don’t like to roast lamb or pork and so we’d have chicken and mashed potatoes. Served on better china.



When, in an outpouring of generous spirits, old neighborhood friends invited me to Easter brunch and newer but no less special friends invited me to Easter dinner today I was thrilled.

Ed stayed away. If my family didn’t do Easter well, his Jewish family, who acquiesced to having a Christmas tree in December, did not go along with an Easter Bunny motif. And so he is both clueless and fairly indifferent to it all. He’d rather be pruning his peach tree.

After a rousing game of tennis, where the balls reminded me of Easter eggs…





…and I bounced around the court in my finest Easter attire…





I waved Ed off and pedaled to the old neighborhood…

…to enjoy egg dishes and Easter decorations with friends who were no strangers to this holiday.











Later, at home, I thought more about Easter and families and spring and renewal (again, a very limited repertoire of associations), then got back on my bike and pedaled in the opposite direction to the home of a lovely family who were at least in cahoots with the Easter Bunny. It was wonderful to watch their kids search for hidden Easter treasures (and to see the brother peek into his little sister’s bag to make sure the loot amounts were equal).





You could say that I am hijacking the holidays of others. Maybe. But then, aren’t holidays supposed to be borrowed and shared? Fact is, every day is not a holiday. And every day is not a day of renewal, eggs, asparagus and chocolate carrots.

Your friend did that to you? That’s just wrong! After all you’ve done for him! You’re mad, aren’t you?
No.
Why? I mean, it’s maddening, anyone would see that…
Look, I’ve got what, maybe five, ten years of life? (we like to exaggerate imminence of demise in this household) Why would I waste them on feeling mad at stupid things?



(later)
I have soaked the pot in water. I have squeezed orange rind into the potting mixture. I have rinsed the roots of the orchid in grapefruit dishwashing suds. Still, the ants keep multiplying and spilling out onto my condo floor.

That’s it. Out it goes. I wanted to wait until the frost date, but this plant has pushed me over the edge. It stays on the balcony, frost or no frost.
Put it in a basin of water overnight. The ants wont be able to leave. Let's think about it.

(the next morning)
Any ants out and about ?
No, they’re probably having a town hall meeting in the root ball, thinking of the next move.
Put the plant outside for the day.
Yes, just that. It’s never coming back in.
But the water basin worked, no? The ants were contained?
Yes, but the roots don’t like to be placed in water…
Then put the plant on a platform, above the water. The ants wont be able to get out to the condo. They’ll farm aphids, or whatever the hell it is that they are doing in your orchid.
So, I should keep the plant inside like this?
..with a moat around it. Ants are happy, your condo’s happy. What more could you ask for?


Keeping happy.

It can be a moat around an orchid with ants.

It can be a game of tennis on a cool but sunny Saturday afternoon.
You're getting better! Fewer Nina hits! (He means fewer totally odd body contortions on my part.)

Phone calls from loved ones? Yes, those too.


(later)
I read an article in the Isthmus (our weekly alternative paper) about the appearance of loons on Lake Monona. It comes as a surprise: loons don’t like cities, they don’t like people, noise, they don’t even like to share a lake for mating purposes (odd thing, considering Lake Monona is bigger than a bed and loons are smaller than humans). Yet, they’re here, several dozen, passing through.

Ed and I head out to the lake to see if we can spot them. Black beaks, red eyes, darting underwater for minutes on end – they’re easy enough to separate from, say, the common duck. There, see it? A loon.





Shy, but daring, at least when in the company of fellow loons. But spooked by noise. And, over by Monona Terrace, on a sunny Saturday, there is plenty of sound. Out would come the loon, floating, as if on a forgotten Canadian lake…





…and back underwater it would retreat. Again and again.





The water hides them for a while and I never know where they will emerge next.

Ed lies down on a stretch of grass and dozes as I lean on the edge of the terrace wall, waiting, watching.

It’s funny how a new face can get your attention. The local mallard reminds me that he, too, is not without beauty. Yes, you’re right, you duck…





He paddles off to play with his mate on the silky waters of Lake Monona.





So happy. So very content to be following her this way and that.

You don’t need it. Your hair looks great, you’re hair looks great.

Nah. I can’t buy it. For one thing, half the time he’s saying it, his nose is buried in something or other.


It’s nippy again. The sun is deceptive. The thermometer is telling me 43.

That hair that looks great is getting in my way as I swing my tennis arm. A little wild, but I need the extra motion to keep warm.

Kids at the next door court are half volleying, half talking. It’s cool to see that: two young boys toying with the game, with the afternoon.





I have to go. It’s a 6 mile ride for me – I tell Ed.
I pedal to Jason’s.


Happy New Year – I tell the color genius. I haven’t been here that long. He’s got a new tattoo. He’s into yoga more, too. There’s growth in my hair and growth in his life and on balance – I’d say we’re chuggin’ along in our orbits just fine.


I bike home more slowly. It’s near evening and I’m not in a hurry. Friday at dusk is a no hurry time.

Your hair’s okay, Ed tells me. At least he’s consistent.

There is so much to be said for a Thursday in mid-April (I’m fudging dates a little). The teaching week is over for me. The days are April days, which, no matter how cold, smell differently. Of thawing earth. Somewhere between rotting wood and forsythia. Probably closer to rotting wood as forsythia hasn’t yet made an appearance here.

But here’s the downside of any Thursday: it’s a long work day. Bike to campus…





Look out office window (with a smile)…





Finish up, bike back.





A good day. Yes, and awfully, awfully full.

From the beginning of April until the end of September, Wednesday evenings, for Ed, are bike riding days. It's befuddling how he can stick with this, given that the man does not like scheduled commitments. He rebels against excessive travel planning (“let’s just fly somewhere cheap in Europe and then decide…”), he shies away from setting any long term goals except in the vaguest way (“someday, we will go sailing along the coast of Central America…”), he loathes the predictability of meals (“why wouldn’t you eat marinated mushrooms in the morning?”). But, I learned early on, that Wednesday evenings are for bike riding. Always.

I joined him once (the Wednesday rides are a big deal here: hundreds participate in each week’s chosen loop), but only once. I thought then that I held him back. Put Ed and me at the bottom of a hill facing up, and you got the classic snail chasing the hare. And the hare has added leg muscle, just to make it totally unfair.

But this year I’m kind of revved up. And so, after a 45 minute warm-up round of tennis at the still cool (low fifties and falling) and still secret tennis court…





… we set out.

Or, rather, I set out. I need a head start. I take hills slowly. I stop for photos.

Groups of cyclists pass me. Black spandex stretches across bulging muscle. Me, I’m wearing jeans with the right cuff rolled up.

It’s cold, but the sun is still out. The landscape is pretty, in a very Dane County, Wisconsin way. Cyclists and pickup trucks, passing through.















But the wind picks up as the sun scoots down. It can’t be more than 40 now. I’m doing the short loop – a mere 20 miles, but the hills are coming on strong.

Ed catches up. You don’t want to finish the short loop with me – I say, hoping to hear the Ed that loves to contradict: yes I do.

He doesn’t say it, but he stays behind to keep me company. I’m averaging only 12 mph. That’s slowpoke speed for Ed.

The sun is just about gone. A pony watches as we pedal on. A goose pushes away from the water bank.










See that car with the boat? I ask.
Yeah?
How can people afford boats?
They’re not much if you buy used ones. Guys buy them from each other… They’ll go out on the lake, maybe with a six pack, almost always with a buddy.
Why? Guys don’t really have conversations with each other.
Grunting counts.

He tells me about Sundays with his dad and his dad's friend, out on the Sound, in a boat with an outboard and a bag of sandwiches and soda for the long day on the water. This is my favorite mood of his -- the one that recalls with affection something from the past. In my mind, the happiest people are those who have a truckload of such good memories.


We roll into Cottage Grove, the end of the loop. It could be that I am the very last one in. I don’t know.

The moon is large. I turn on the heat in Ed’s little Geo to full blast. The old car can only do full blast or no blast.

Late in the evening I made chili. I had spent a good part of my free hours talking to various family members about weighty family issues and making chili seemed the right way to close the day.

My cooking has been growing increasingly simple – nudged in that direction by Ed who prefers simplicity over anything fussy.

We eat the chili late into the night, keeping a half eye on the TV screen and another at our laptops.

In my mind, I am contrasting my very, very quiet life to the one described in the previous post, where tumult is the order of the day.

Ed is drifting off and so I flip off the DVD. It is incredibly still in the condo. I finish writing and go to sleep. Only to be awakened in the middle of the night by someone helping himself to a second bowl of chili.

A conversation today with someone far away lead me to think about how people change as they grow old. Yes, for reasons of health, there’s that. Beyond that – there are personality issues. I know people who mellowed as they grew old. Maybe the gruffness had lost its potency and so they let it go. Others – well, they got more cantankerous. More snippy. Angry even.

Are you sure that’s a change? – a friend asked when I got into my speculative mood on this later in the day. Strikes me the person you’re talking about was always a little… difficult. I suppose I knew that. Still, what if "a little" suddenly becomes "a lot?"

What do you do with that? I’ll say this: it’s easier to confront “difficult” if you don’t live with the bitter old grump. But what if you do?


I rode my bike to campus. It was cold and terribly windy, but the absolute promise that this would be the last of the transitional cold days had me motivated. You can take a lot if you know the unpleasantness is fleeting. Scheduled to disappear tomorrow.

There was a goose on the large field that separates UW Hospitals from the lake shore. His partner goose was sitting some feet behind him. Maybe they weren’t liking each other at the minute. Maybe the old goose had become too grumpy, too difficult to sit with.





I’m thinking about Warsaw now. My father still lives with his wife (in most ways she is that and then some) in the city of my childhood. They’re in an older apartment building (when I lived there as a teen, it was already old) and most everyone in it is a generation older than me. But the apartment windows look out on a small park and there are always young voices down there, beneath the branches of the chestnuts. People walk their dogs, children jump rope, young couples hold hands and stroll. Shouldn't that make you smile?

I’m thinking about this as I sit yet again at the infusion center at the hospital. Several stalls down, an older woman sits at the side of her husband. She has to be the most agreeable white haired person I’ve come across. Is her husband equally so?

Who can tell.


As the sun retreated, Ed and I went out to the court. We played a medium good game.

[UPDATE: The post is about conversations with people who live far away. Ed, I am happy to say, has never had grumpy leanings. Mellow to the core.]

Two more days and then I promise I’ll stop whining.

Waking up to snow on the ground was dismal. Knowing that the temperature would never climb out of the thirties today was worse. Hearing that tomorrow will bring more of the same was enough to make me dislike Wisconsin spring, period.


But, one must look forward.

Photo-wise, it was an irrelevant day. Housecleaning and errand hopping do not inspire a point and click. I went to the rooftop of my condo building, pressed once and retreated.






Back downstairs, the phone rings. My water polo was canceled. Want to play tennis?
Are you serious? (I ask, remembering that it did not ever pass 37 today.)
Good exercise…

Ed knows how to get me going. Ever since an MD told me I have the heart rate of a runner, I like to keep the pretense going.

I approach the court warily. Note the apparel on the kid. April? Huh. It’s that cold.





We go forth nonetheless. It’s a wild game. I actually return hits that, two weeks ago, I would have deemed unreturnable. Getting better, Ed tells me.

An hour later, we head back. Most of the snow has melted. Most of it.

My occasional traveling companion, Ed – he’s just not a big pruning guy. Cutting off live branches seems, to him, cutting off life. So imagine his three-acre farmette: home to every exuberant plant and all their kinfolk. (Except quack grass. Ed has a thing about quack grass.)

But in his small orchard, there is a peach tree. Deer have gnawed at the trunk, and still it keeps on chugging along. And so Ed has taken a special interest in preserving it and tending to its needs.

This week, he checked out a Hometime video from the library on pruning. It was a very dated video – where the woman was deferential and the guy was domineering. You don’t see videos these days where the guy bosses the little lady all hour long. (Art, typically, outpaces life.)

The video had a huge impact on Ed. (Not the part where the guy bosses the woman – he didn’t notice that.) Today, we drove to his farmette and he handed me three variously sized clippers.

We went to work.

Scaring the birds with our efforts.





In the late afternoon we take a break. For a tennis round or two at our secret court. And then we go back to pruning. The door has been opened. We hack away.






You may not think this was big deal day, but in pruning, I saw Ed step out of his element. So that by dinner, I decided to let him climb back to the world he knows and loves. (Cheap and simple.)

We drive slowly, watching the winter storm sky roll in. The sun is low but visible over a string of empty rail cars.





We buy frozen X and frozen Y at Trader Joe’s. And we watch tennis videos over this imperfect or very perfect meal (depending on whose shoes you're in).

I’ve tried many approaches to the slow coming of good weather: complain, sulk, ignore, deny, look forward. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not.

Today, the tactic was to deny and I biked, for the first time, along the Lake Path, pretending it was a reasonable thing to do.

Several comments: It was reasonably pretty.










…but, the dirt segment was dry. That means that I waited longer than last year to begin using the path, because I really remember muddied slushy patches that messed with my first spring bike ride back in Spring 08.

…so I have to conclude that I am getting more fussy (and less adventuresome) about weather.

Which brings me to the point of age. I entered a colleague’s office the other day almost panting after class. Don’t know if it’s animated lecturing that does this… pant pant.. or age. Age – he said with a smile.

So, it’s tough to stay animated when you pass 55 and it’s colder along the Lake Path and weather occupies your sensibilities (and therefore your blog) more than you would like.

Great.

Not all feel this way. This dude is happy to sit tight, winds and cold air notwithstanding, as ducks swim by.





On the up side – like so many hobby growers this year, Ed and I are (for the first time for us), rushing the planting season by sowing seeds into little peat cups.

Mine are doing okay. I think. No?

Riding the bus to work this morning, I thought about how incredibly friendly the drivers are. Good morning! Have a wonderful day! – to every one who steps on or off. Most often, they don’t even get a reply.

The short walk from bus to school is terribly plain. I rarely take out my camera. My mind is on classes and I have no patience for finding elements of beauty in very ordinary city blocks.

But today, I did notice that we are finally catching up with the crocuses I saw on the east coast several weeks back. They deserve a spot on Ocean.






After the last class, I walked to a meet-up point with Ed. A terribly plain walk. Made plainer by the slowness of the coming of spring.

Except, at the meet up point, there was this handful of purple. So you get this as well.





Crocuses coming and going. A purple majesty, though without the mountain.

Other thoughts on the day? It was cold enough that when Ed generously hauled me off to a dinner out, I opted for a steaming bowl of fish soup.

First, a reminder: I have been getting a trickle of comments (some nice, some not so nice; a shame, but there you have it: there willl always be those, who hang on blogs they don’t much like and scribble animated thoughts on other people’s wrong turns in life) without names attached to them. I make no exception here: no name = no publication, and no kindness = no publication. I only listen to nice people. Others? Nah... they mess with the psyche. (I mention this because I do understand that especially new Ocean readers do not rush to read blog clutter on the sidebar, so you may have missed these rules of mine.)


It is, of course, April 1st and I have always, always attempted to prank my daughters on this day. For the most part, this stopped being successful decades ago, but sometimes I get them just when they’re waking and so they do not yet remember the date. For a second, I’m in fool heaven.

But today, I think I outsmarted them. I wrote an email with something so outlandish that I am sure they dismissed it instantly as an April Fool’s mom-is-at-it-again thing. Except that it was the truth: daughters, I wrote them, I’m off to Poland soon, for a Saturday afternoon in Warsaw.

Now, here’s the thing: is it a fool’s gag? And if so, am I teasing Ocean readers as well? Given yesterday’s post, you may think yes. Or... no.

Time will tell.