End of The Reunion

Good morning, world!

(this one is for my friend Regan, who loves Gauras as much as I do!)

And it is a good morning. A beautiful morning in south-central Wisconsin! 

(Tuxie, in the barn, taking in the sun...)

First order of business: check in with my docs at the clinic. Lovely people, all of them, though I have to smile at the tennis game that we are playing here: it was a bacterial explosion! No, it was a viral menace! Maybe even Covid! Though maybe not! Well, I'm okay with any of these, because so long as the ball stays within the court and doesn't land in some stratosphere of scary places, it doesn't really matter to me whether it's on this side of the line or the other. I'm well at the moment and that week of feeling ill is getting to be but a memory. 

Next, I meet up with the Polish group downtown. Gosia, Piotr, Inga, Jacek. There, on the last day of their American visit, I decided to put names to the faces that you will have seen here the last day or two and then before. We are old enough now that total anonymity wanes in importance. What matters more to me is that I love my friends, I grew up with them, and more were added and they deserve something other than a pronoun in an Ocean post. (One of them did say that visiting the farmette was like stepping into a movie set -- so much of my days here have been played out over the years in Ocean writings, that it's all so familiar, even as none of these friends have ever been to Wisconsin, let alone to the farmette.)

We start off by doing "lite shopping" at Little Luxuries. This small, esoteric gift shop on State Street had been my go-to shopping place for when I needed wee gifts for important to me people for a very long time, but I haven't been there in years! It was sentimentally sweet to be with Polish friends there today.

From there, it's a hop skip to the Capitol. 

(we wait for the other shoppers to catch up with us... my friend is enamored with all the flowers that grow in our city center...)

Here they are -- the traveling foursome, together.

They'd poked around inside the Capitol on their own. Our goal today is to do something else -- have breakfast. For this we go to Marigold Kitchen...

My head has been swimming with ideas on what "typical American" food I want to introduce to these people. How about blueberry pancakes with maple syrup? A hit!

It really is time for them to drive off to O'Hare. Their return flight to Poland leaves in just a handful of hours. But we make one more stop and because of the weather, the flowers, the occasion, the significance of it all, it is a beautiful stop -- at Frank Lloyd Wright's Monona Terrace.

("the girls")

You can't help but be reflective.

("I met you in your Warsaw apartment on Aleja Roz, more than fifty years ago...")

The span of years, the decisions made, the wide gully between their lives over there and mine over here... and yet, despite everything, we remain friends. This is the stable element through it all, against all odds, despite our profound differences in lives lived, paths followed.

And then after many many hugs, they turn toward their return trip and I turn toward the farmhouse. And I think how at the end of trips, visits, events, after incredibly packed and beautiful days you return home and you either feel a let down or you feel quite the opposite -- uplifted by the memories, and for me it's always the latter, perhaps because I love my memories, but I also love, love, love my home.

Hi Ed...

Afternoon? It's with Snowdrop who is out of school today because there's some reason why schools are closed and so she comes here and now we are back in our life of routine and that's just fine too!

(Loves to pluck fruit from the trees; right now we're flushing out decent apples and okay pears...)

(She was curious today about how much rubies cost... I have no idea what brought that on. Ed took it upon himself to teach her how precious stones are priced. Basic math quickly convinced her that her allowance would not permit for a purchase of anything that even looked like a ruby. Ah well. Kids switch focus with lightening speed. Rubies are so yesterday!)

Evening: I hear my friends got on their plane without fuss or issue. They're halfway across the Atlantic already. 

The moon shines brightly over the farmette lands today. I hope it shines brightly over you as well, wherever you are.

With so much love...