that overused word

How I love a morning espresso with a wallop of hot milk! And this, too: muesli with chopped fresh fruit (mangoes are available) and kefir! (Note the exclamation marks.)


It’s the middle of November. In Wisconsin that’s about as interesting a time as oh, say the middle of March. Naked raw earth, bare limbs. Yawn.

I don’t think Ed minds, or even notices. Every day is your birthday...

Do you want to bike from McFarland to Lake Kegonsa? Oh... I am completely in love with the idea of biking somewhere that is not work!

It’s gray and the forecast says “showers later.” Later. I’m okay with that. Later. Not now.

We leave our bikes by the McFarland Town Hall, where farmers are selling (against all odds) roots and apples and hemp bracelets.





We buy apples. You can always use apples. Ed’ll eat five at a sitting and consider it a fine meal. Fresh and honest.



The twenty mile bike loop is easy (Ed’s evaluation). Just small hills. I love how small to him is strenuous to me. And how my cold is his toasty. And how he can push the pedal down so hard that one stroke will put him miles ahead of me.

The scenery is pretty in spite of November's best effort to make the world bleak. You can always count on cows to add life to a toneless landscape. Ed watches as I step down to take photos. Run from her! She’ll eat you tomorrow!





I briefly consider giving up meat forever.





Close, but no. Maybe next year.



The air is pungent with the smoke of burning leaves. This is autumn as you want it to be: smoky, woodsy and slightly threatening (with rain).

We come to the point where the Yahara River runs into Lake Kegonsa.





We were here four years ago. Kayaking. I remember iy well: we landed here.





The me of November 05. The Ed of November 05. In those days, I still showed off my perky and robust ways. Now I grumble about hills and steep inclines and cloudy gray skies.




A few tentative drops of rain hit the windshield as we eventually make our way home. Okay, not home. We part ways: Ed is off to get a beard trim, I’m off to work at the shop.

I think about how hard it is to love mid November. Except that today, it's sort of easy.

three weeks

The end of the semester is in three weeks. It is, therefore, within my imagination: I can envision three weeks. Three weeks. When I was pregnant, three weeks ‘til birth seemed very real. A short period of time within which to get ready. Not quite tomorrow, but still, within spittin' distance.

When you intensely want something, three weeks seems interminable. But I am not needy. I merely want time. I can wait. Time will come.


Though, I have to say, this fall has put time on a roller coaster. The days have been a blur.




Today was no exception.

vignettes

My good camera continues to dangle from my neck on both the morning ride in and the evening ride back. I hear it muttering there, as it bounces against my coat: come on, put me to good use! We can do better!

I ignore its voice. I hate cameras that whine.

Ed, my occasional traveling companion, and I have come to an interesting crossroad: how do you eek out companionship when one person works 1.5 jobs and the other person doesn’t work at all? (Ed is retired.) In addition to my 1.5 jobs, I have set myself the goal of figuring this one out. The motto of an immigrant is this: surely there must be a way.

I don’t use the bike today. Fighting the cold in the morning and evening hours seems just too hard. I take the bus.





But I’m home – for the first time in many many days (or, more accurately – nights) I do not have to work after work. I am a different person tonight. I am normal.






Ed is at the cusp of round two of trials in New York. I am working to preserve my trust in the judicial system.

Evening. Quiet. Time to let go. Isn’t it ridiculous when people say that? As if you can let go.

the line

It is near closing time. A woman comes into the shop where I moonlight. She is accompanied by a dog. A medium sized one. I notice that the dog is wearing a pooch sweater. Odd... It’s unseasonably warm outside.

I hesitate about letting the dog in, but then I think – in France a dog would be welcome. We sell French products. I’ll make the dog and owner feel welcome. Especially since we have been put on notice that sometime this week a secret shopper will be making the rounds. I don’t want the shop to lose points (secret shoppers rate the seller and shop on any number of performance variables) just because I wasn’t friendly to the dog.

Still, the pooch is off leash. As its owner chats, he darts in every corner, in the back room, too. I’m getting nervous. The shopper appears oblivious.

I try to assess her shopping needs. They appear to be zero. Killing time, she tells me as she leans on the counter. In the vernacular of my youth, I would say that the woman is clean cut. Her hair is styled, her complexion looks healthy.

I’m taking steps to close. I’m sweeping, I’m bringing papers from the back room. I try to direct her to a shea butter hand cream – everyone in Wisconsin needs a shea butter hand cream in the winter. She looks at it, tries a little, then returns to resting against the counter.

By now, I’m wondering if she is unstable. Or lonely. Or the deliberately difficult secret shopper. Her dog is bored. He’s sitting by the door, looking out at the dark, empty night.

So, what is it that you teach? I already told her what I teach. I repeat the list, offering no detail. She describes a problem that she has that may require legal intervention. I’m used to that. Tell someone you’re an attorney and they dig out every miserable mishap from their lives.

When she starts probing more about my law school classes, I decide she has crossed the line. It’s bright and visible, that line between shopper and seller. You can exchange stories: you can say where you’re from, what you do, you can talk about your children and grandchildren, you can flatter the other with praise for their choice of jewelry. But at some point, you have to know that it can go no further: the transaction will end, the customer must leave, you have to return to closing the store.

Shea cream. Consider getting some shea cream. With essential oils from the south of France. She shrugs her shoulders and lets herself out. The dog trots dutifully by her side.

stories

It’s no secret that I believe I have in me a book. I also have in me essays. Unlike the book, these have been coming out in a fairly steady stream over the past decade. Less so in recent years. But certainly something that I took seriously in the last years of my marriage.

I pulled out some of those essays this week. I could have thought: splendid! I must do something with these! But I didn’t. Instead, I thought – what a bunch of amateurish crap.

This is not unusual. Tearing apart my own work is a fairly common event for me. I go through so many drafts before I stop and think – why am I doing this? Why am I reworking stories that will never be audience ready?


I’ll leave you with this day – told in four pictures: morning (familiar, no??), noon-ish, evening, and nearly night.















Yes, and night... or nearly night...

ad for iphone

If the world imploded on a Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday, I would not know it, were it not for my iphone. The tiny NYTimes icon on it allows me to remain confident that we are all in one piece. So far.

It’s not that I am completely out of the loop on those days. I know, for example, weather patterns very very well. It was fairly mild this morning. Biking to work past the lake was deliciously warm...





...but by evening, a chill crept in and I could not pedal fast enough to overcome it.


I know, too, how long it takes to microwave a frozen Kashi or Amy’s dinner and that, too, isn't knowledge gained from the iphone. There, I would be pointed to the nearest eatery and if I chose that option, I’d lose all that I earned at the little shop that evening.


I installed an app on my iphone that identifies (just by listening to it!) the song that’s playing out there. On Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday evening (or Sunday or Saturday...) I can thrust the phone in the direction of the music playing at the little shop and it will identify the piece for me. In case I want to listen to it even more, beyond the hours when I hear it at the shop.

The iphone has a camera in it, but I never want to use any camera during these days. It’s too awful to search out interesting ways to photograph the same old lakeside path, especially when you are in a hurry. Some days, this is the best I can do:







There is email on the iphone, but most of the hours I spend in the classroom or at the shop – neither of which permit email. But I do click on it when I am in the bathroom or on the bike. Yes, I use the iphone while biking. I endanger noone (but myself) with it and it helps me keep up with details of work, so that they all don't hit me in one fell swoop when I get home late just before midnight.

Yay iphone. I could not manage without you.

Immigrant

Three women from a southeast Asian country (not positive which one... China maybe?) came into the shop this afternoon. After much consultation and mutual prodding, two bought lovely boxes of wonderful items. They were happy, I was happy. As we were finalizing the sale, one of them asked – where are you from?

I told her, but I looked puzzled. Their English was not perfect. Most non-native speakers cannot tell that I have a slight accent. Oftentimes, I cannot tell that I have a slight accent.

She noted my quizzical expression and said – you have a most melodic voice! Up and down! Most people here speak in a flat tone.

I didn’t tell her this, but she was, in reality, paying a compliment to herself. I have this trait (my daughters first alerted me to it): I pick up the speech patterns of my audience. If they are melodic, I, too, become melodic. If they have a Scottish clip, I will, within a sentence develop one in response. Right. A bit of one.

It cannot be helped. Most likely, I developed these strategies of coping when I first came here as an immigrant. I wanted to fit in. To become like you.


On this (beautiful and warm) morning, following the usual house cleaning, my occasional traveling companion and I set out for a quick hike through the Pheasant Branch Conservancy. We’d been there briefly yesterday. Today, we intended to walk the long loop. We had two hours. Enough to do it if we picked up a sprightly step.

Hiking with Ed is comfortable for a person like me – I don’t have to strain to sound like him. We both like quiet and we often hike without words. When he does tell a story, it is animated in ways that are so specific to his culture and background that I don't try to merge with his pattern.


We hike in this sprawling park that borders the creek and even though the prairie grasses are dry and the oak trees look like they may never sprout a a bud again , it is a very beautiful morning.




















We pass by the creek and we pause. Do you see those gurgles? These are artisan springs, pushing water from maybe underneath this hill, or maybe Michigan. Or Canada.





Immigrant waters! Welcome, waters. You’re among friends now. Most of the time!

five hours

How do you approach a November Saturday that is off the charts toasty? So toasty that you could bounce around outside in a tissue t-shirt and still think you were overdressed?





It’s the last day of the Westside Community (outdoor) Market. Typically, you feel sorry for the vendors on this day. They freeze to give you one more chance at stocking up on turnips and beets.

Not today.





Warm, it’s so warm! Even as the selections of produce is predictably limited. I stock up on garlic and onions.





Weather confusion is not easy. You want to love this gift of warm air and yet you feel that it’s prank, a scam. Someone is cheating.

There have been years when I regarded these unexpectedly brilliant days as a mandate to head out. To go north, or south, to tug at Ed and urge him to go with me. He is, after all, an occasional companion.

That, however, was yesterday’s freedom.

Still, one mustn’t get all hopeless and despondent about the absence of uncomplicated time. Surely anyone can willfully create a block of free hours. We do it. We climb on board Ed's old Honda and set out.


A whirlwind morning (and early afternoon). We zip between Poland, France and the deep Midwest.

The Polish Heritage Club of Madison is in charge of Poland. We’re at their annual craft fair and the lunch crowd is packing in platefuls of cooked cabbage and sausage. The smell of the sauerkraut stew is potent.

We watch a wreath-maker weave flowers into a wreath, paper cutters cut patterns sketched onto colorful papers, and musicmakers play something that sounds vaguely holidayish.









And we get hungry. But not for sauerkraut and sausage. We head for the wonderful and not too distant world of La Baguette. I practice saying “this day is magnificent!” in many combinations of French words.









And now there are only minutes left to my block of free time. A handful of minutes is more than no minutes. Ed and I are determined to not waste them.


At the Pheasant Branch Creek Conservancy (just at the northwestern edge of Madison), we watch demonstrations of forest management.









And pfft! The hours are gone. It may as well be midnight. I have to change into my retail black clothing and head to the shop. The fragrance there is sweet and comforting. I try not look outside, where the day is magnificently radiant. Sweetness over radiance. I'll accept that. I'll not compalin. Radiance is overrated. Yes, it is. Yep. Uh-huh.

new world

A friend recently became a grandmother. Again. The world of babies is foreign to me right now, much as it was before I gave birth to my own. Definitely once mine were out of the crib, I lost touch with the baby world all over again.

But I do remember the handful of years when my infants were my universe. I immersed myself in baby literature, I considered every faddish idea. Like so many parents then (and now?) I obsessed about everything. When I heard that the famous pediatrician and kid shrink, Dr. Terry Brazelton, was fielding calls from Massachusetts General, I called. The renowned doctor picked up the phone. He had quite the bored voice. Or maybe it was my issue that was boring. But I wanted to know – am I wrong to pick up my baby every time she screams from her crib? Am I??

Somehow, I assumed baby care hadn’t changed much since those years. Oh, sure, I do recall reading somewhere that bright colors in the crib were in, and then suddenly they were out, and all mobiles became black and white, so that it looked like babies in their earliest months had cows spinning over their heads. But basically, I assumed my generation figured out this parenting thing and all subsequent generations would learn from us.

Not so.

My friend tells me that the boundaries between the baby bed and the adult bed have become more fluid. That a crib may even have only three sides – the fourth one staying open and merging into your bed so that you can reach out for the crying infant.

And diapers. Yes, you can still do cloth – indeed, that’s the green path, but plastic cover pants are out. Maybe your grandson is unusual? – I ask. Maybe others are still in those things that resembled a shower cap? No no, she tells me. I would bet no one sells clear plastic cover pants anymore.

We commiserated about how fine the world was, how much better, neater, saner – with cover pants to cover the, well, mess.


Let me mention another highlight of this day (there were many). Picture this: it is November in Wisconsin. Feeling sorry for us? You shouldn’t. Not today. Record highs of nearly seventy.






Other news? Well, Ed is temporarily back, but the new world (can I call New York that?) will pull him back again in a few weeks. Perhaps I’ll tag along.

scrambled

There isn’t a good way to recover from an overextended week. Sleep? I can’t sleep. Not any more. I’m too tired to sleep. (A disinterested observer might suggest that I cut back on the Nespresso espressos I make for myself each day at home. To that disinterested observer I would reply that it’s either that or finding a device that would keep my eyelids from closing shut in the course of the day.)

I pedal home from work satisfied, but disappointed, too. Satisfied because the week went by and I did with it as much as I could. Not a minute wasted.

Disappointed because I still haven’t a clue as to how I should balance everything without winding up exhausted. And so I know that even if tonight I am free (from the shop, from class preparation), it is only a lull. The pace will pick up again this week-end and thereafter.


Still, it was a beautiful morning and I do love the ride, gusty wind notwithstanding.





And it was a beautiful afternoon, so that running down the hill for an espresso (no comment) was actually pleasurable.





And the classes were good, and the students were sharp and responsive. and I actually took the time to talk to colleagues at the Law School which, for me, is rare.


Still, that dusk, that awful dusk closed down on me again. It could be that it was the time Ed reached me to tell me the trial did not conclude on time and he would not be coming back today after all. It could be that I almost threw my hands up then, even though I don’t really throw my hands up, as I am not prone to dramatic gestures. It could be that I had no food at home as we were supposed to go out to celebrate his return. It could be that I wanted to tell Ed this, even as he was spinning on to the next sentence and the next one. It could be that I never had a chance to say that my day had gone reasonably well and that the students were sharp and responsive...


I stopped three times on the bike ride home. To take a few photos of the lake at dusk.










... And to pick up eggs for a solo supper of scrambled eggs and whatever.

... And to say hi to my boss and coworker at the little shop down the hill where I moonlight.

Because at dusk, being around people who track your everyday is a good idea.


At home, I ate my scrambled supper, opened a new box of ginger snaps and thought long and hard about whether the cookies pair well with the cheap box wine I’d poured for myself this evening.

motion sickness

When you think of New York, you think – speed. That city moves fast! If you'd watch people navigate between connecting subways, you' d be impressed. A mountain stream at spring time. After heavy rains.

And yet, in places, the city movement is painstakingly slow: Traffic at rush hour. Court proceedings at 31 Chambers Street. [For newer or erratic Ocean readers, my occasional traveling companion, Ed, is in New York, participating in ongoing litigation at said address.]

At first, I blamed it on the lawyers (ones on the other side!). They had at least three sitting there last time I counted. Ed, too, had three. Sometimes four. Attorneys (at least those on the other side, the weaker side!) make whimsical requests that need to be honored by her honor (for example: your honor, I need to give a speech tomorrow afternoon. Can we block out two hours for that? And, so long as we will recess from 2 to 4, maybe we should agree to simply come back the next day?).

Then I thought it was a function of the way litigation proceeds. Motion upon motion. To dismiss. To admit. To breathe. To go to the bathroom. (Or so it seemed.)

Finally, I thought it may be due to the busy court schedule. The judge set aside two weeks for this trial. For reasons that are mind boggling to me, that timeline proved unrealistic. And so I thought maybe it’s that the whole lot of them – judge, clerk, recorder, security guard – has other plans that they need to honor.

Maybe.

I do know this: the judge hearing the case is brilliantly with it (that is my perception, from reading the transcripts and watching her in action the first two days). She moves things along. So she is not the one applying the brakes.

Then maybe it is the fault of the court reporters. And lunch. Maybe it’s all about lunch.

Because how else do you explain this day, a typical court room day: Convene at 12 (late, for any of the above reasons). Break for lunch at 1. Reconvene at 2:15. End at 4:45.

Well, no matter. It’s over. At least this stage is done with (you, legal types understand, I’m sure, that there is always a next stage). Ed’s coming home tomorrow night. He did well in trial, the Yankees won and I think he ate more oysters than I’ve seen him digest in the period of a month ever. Even when we were in Brittany, the most oyster infested region of the planet, he showed restraint. Not this time. (So, I was at this bar, and the game was on in the background and the oysters were a buck and a half each... – is this the man I know? The one who pretty much never drinks, rarely eats oysters and has expressed nothing but antipathy for organized sports?)

People evolve.





In the meantime – I bike to work (we are so near freezing here in Wisconsin!), pausing for one quick look at the lake. Swans. That’s rare. Lake Mendota is not a swan haven. I watch, even though I’m late for a meeting. I can’t help it. Have you ever noticed the way swans move? It’s graceful and powerful, all at once. I admire that. They don’t rush to where they’re going. But they have such force that you don’t doubt they’ll get there, no matter what.





Companions on the lake, companions in travel. Tomorrow, Ed will be asking the same old questions to my face – why don’t we not fuss with dinner? Why don't we go sailing off the coast of Nicaragua or Mexico sometime? And I’ll give the same old true answer – I get motion sickness on ocean waters.

We’ll go over this a few times and eventually we'll settle into our tasks and maybe we’ll go back to the events of the past weeks and maybe not. You can’t tell. Life is hugely unpredictable. Except I can say one thing with utmost certainty: I do get motion sickness.

wound-up toy

In the morning, I am feeling mighty and omnipotent. As the sun moves up, I’m thinking – I can move mountains! I will improve the lot of others! I am like a wound-up toy at the moment when it’s ready to be released. I don’t just step out, I explode into the day!





Bright skies! Why not! Get out the bike! Ride to campus one more time!





It can be deceiving, that deeply blue Midwestern sky of ours.

But even as the cold hits me – in the feet, the neck (warmer scarf next time), the face, even as the tears of wind begin to push against the eyelids, I’m still bold, invincible! Warm inside! Glad I did this!


Then it gets tricky. Early afternoon, I waffle. I want that espresso down the hill. I make myself go, but I don’t like the effort. I have papers to read, but already, the concentration is teetering. A two hour late afternoon lecture and I am zapped. Tuckered out. Deflated.

When dusk comes (oh so very early now), the utter loneliness of a very busy week (month, semester) sinks in. The light is hollow, fading. I find it odd that this, in bars, is called a happy hour. Happy? At five? Maybe a long long time ago, when the kids were home. Maybe when I cooked dinner and watched them at the kitchen table doing homework, interrupting them, because I couldn’t help myself – I had so much to ask. Maybe then.


If dusk sucks, evenings are a time to recover. If I am at the shop (today, yesterday, tomorrow), I slide into an apron and become the person who’ll guide you through the essential oils from the south of France. The air in the shop is fragrant and warm. Therapeutic almost.



Late late evening. I’m home now. At this hour, chances are overwhelming that Ed will have fallen asleep, there on the wooden floor of an empty New York west village apartment. I Skype him. He’s been amply informed that I need pats today. That Ocean readers have stepped up to the plate. That he needs to step up as well. And now I hear it. Sort of. Pat... pat.... yawn.

In life, you have to know when to say "good enough."

For me, it is now getting awfully close to twenty-four hours of wakefulness. Still, I have a post to write and photos to inspect. I turn on the most perfect Italian music and get to it. With a smile.

time

You should take a walk where they once docked the big ocean liners... I hear they’ve made the old ports into a cool promenade.... You should go down on 3rd to the seafood place... You might want to have oysters or mussels. What bakery will you try tomorrow?

Ed is in New York. Ed is under pressure. I am in Madison. I am under pressure. I wish I were, at the very least, under pressure in a place where I could dash out for a fresh pastry with my latte, or, in the alternative, a plate of fresh oysters with a glass of chilled Chablis on the side. Ed's task is to survive life in the city and to endure day after day of sitting through a court proceeding in a suit and tie. Mine is much simpler: make it to the next day.


Last month, I was still a partner to an occasional traveling companion, worrying that his stress was going to take its toll. But now I’m asking – how come your stories have become more interesting than mine? Do I even have stories? Wont you ask anyway? How come you're laughing more? Where is the pat on my back for my making it from one day to the next?

Ed’s not the pat on the back type. (In fairness, neither does he seek pats on his own broad shoulders.) But really, pats on the back – that’s all that we can expect from out friends and lovers and traveling companions, no? My shoulders ache for the want of a pat.


I set a record today. At least I think I did. In past years, I stopped biking to work by the end of October. Here we are in the second day of November and I’m still pedaling. To work, back from work. Even as this week, the sun is nearly gone on the return trip.




Did I mention how windy it was on this November 2nd? The feather boas off of State Street were flying with abandon.




Gusty times.

A friend tells me – your blog has been so much less fun since Ed’s out of town. I relay this to Ed during our numerous Skype calls. I imagine he’s grinning. (He himself doesn’t have to imagine: I have a camera on my computer. His cheap Toshiba can pick up my images, but offers none in return.)

Tonight I pout on line (it’s not hard!). Ask me about my day! Surely something in it warrants a question!

But honestly, it does not. I work incessantly. I see no one and I do nothing else. My meals are inconsequential. My days are as interesting as a never ending sitcom on TV, with the sound muted.

I tell myself that this is transitional, that I alternate between tougher times and easier times, but right now, I’m thinking the easier times have retired. Disappeared. Perhaps died?


The sun has set by the time I walk to the shop tonight. A customer comes in. It’s one of those rare moments where I admit to a shopper that this is my second job. That teaching occupies my primary waking hours. I’m not surprised to see you moonlight, she says. I was once a college teacher. Yes, I want to say, but where you like me? Did you work too hard and travel too much? Did you miss sitting back with your eyes closed? Did you never write your book?

She left before I could ask her. She wasn't in a hurry. I wanted for a moment to be her. Just for a wee second -- that moment of exiting the store without worrying about being late for the next place she had to go to.

collecting

I reach into my mailbox. Gone are the days when I enjoyed this routine. Mail is trash. Mail means bills or notices or reminders. Mail is a nag.

But this time, a puffy manila envelope fills the box (and I have a large mailbox). I open it. It’s a salmon mohair shawl. From my mother.

My mother is a generous person, but she is not a gift giver (see previous post). Besides, if there is a holiday to be had now, it’s her 86th birthday, coming up in a few days.

I call her. Mom, it’s lovely, but why??
You got it. Good. You don’t remember it? I don’t. I bought it when we were crossing the ocean, returning home to Poland (we did several crossings on the Queen Elizabeth in the 60s and I do indeed remember that she favored big puffy shawls to fend off cool breezes).
I’m still puzzled. What prompted you to send it?
The management here [she lives in an independent living senior apartment place in Berkeley] has given us several warnings: they want everyone to downsize. They’re tired of getting rid of people’s things when they die. I’ve been taking things to Goodwill, but the shawl seems too good to just give away. I sent you one and your sister the other. You remember the shawls, don’t you?

My mother lives in a little studio and she had already downsized so much that you could hardly think of her as being tied to possessions. My father, in our family apartment in Warsaw, has perhaps twenty times the stuff that she does. Still, when I last visited her place, I was surprised to see stacks and piles taking up most of her shelf and table space. Papers, folders, magazines, stacks of folded polo shirts and cardigans in varying shades of burgundy. Stuff grows. The seeds are there, we provide water.

They’re going to do inspections of our apartments to see if we got rid of enough stuff. They’re right. We’re all so attached to our small things, but who’ll want any of it after we’re gone? Young people (she lumps me into this category), they have their own stuff.


I’m not a collector. I dislike clutter. I throw away things freely and going through closets and pulling out rarely used items is, to me, as deeply satisfying as pruning an overgrown garden.

Still, I have my tiny things. The art on the wall. A beautiful painting that was in our home as the kids were growing up. Small paintings picked up in remote village galleries in France. But even here, I’m stretching. I love my soup pot. Does that count? A small bowl from my daughters. Yes, I love that little dish. And a cake plate. Juice glasses. Oh, oops – those juice glasses went with my ex.


Sunday. The day I clean the condo. I dust a shelf of things I’m determined to get rid of soon. I pick up a chestnut. I brought it over. A souvenir of sorts. From a walk in a park. But which park? Warsaw’s Lazienki? Paris’ Luxembourg Gardens? I don’t remember.

I toss it. I never want to be attached to anything again. People. Just people. And my laptop. I’ll make an exception there.

fungi, holidays and burak

It turned cold. Suddenly, everyone at the Westside Community Market wants to hurry up and be done with it – the shopping, the selling, all of it.

I’m thinking of turning on the truck to warm up. I have three layers of socks and still my feet are cold – this from the mushroom man. I call him that because he is the one vendor who’ll always have some form of fungi on his table. Beautiful oysters and shitakes. Ed likes oysters and so we always buy oysters. Today I buy shitakes. Such an empty act of defiance...





It’s Halloween. I’m scheduled to work at the shop and if I am lucky no one will trick the place or show up in a gloomy costume. I’m only mildly amused by this day. I think holidays that weren’t yours during childhood continue to escape you when you’re an adult.

You would conclude, therefore, that I would have become like Ed – scornful of all celebrations. My grandparents had no time, nor use for them, and my parents attempted repeatedly to cut out Christmas and birthday fuss once I reached what they must have believed was the age of reason (thirteen). But actually even then I fought them on this and I continued to haul trees into the house and my sister and I took over hosting birthday parties for each other. Both Christmas and birthdays remain as important for me as any milestone out there. I’ve added Thanksgiving, too, even though we did not ever celebrate that one in my Polish childhood home. Another empty act of defiance...

[I do have to give my mom credit: her sense of duty forced her to drag in a holiday tree in those early years. And the few birthday parties she organized for us in that first decade after the war, were full of pizzazz – she was good at that. Her friend would bake us a cake (my mom, to my knowledge, never baked) and we would play the very American games of pin the tail and musical chairs. I laughed so hard and with such merriment at my own seven-year-old birthday party that I bit the glass with kompot in it (kompot was the drink of choice in postwar Poland; it’s a juice made from cooked fruits). I remember that the adults screamed in horror. In an empty act of defiance, I continued to laugh...]



My only photo attesting to the spirit of this Halloween day comes from the market. Here you go, the colors of October 31st :





Otherwise – what can I say... It was cold and so I hurried. It wasn’t hard to zip through the market. I have seen enough squash and pumpkin to satisfy me for a long while. Not much else by way of color. Oh, wait, excuse me. I did buy this. For the name alone. Rainbow swiss chard.





No, that’s not true. Not for the name. For the taste, the hope, the health – yes, na zdrowie! For the childhood memories of botwina and burak. I write this with a smile. Burak – beet – is absolutely the only food I refused to eat as a child. Ah, defiance...

played on a solo saxophone

A mood is like the economy. You’re not really sure if you’ve bottomed, or if there’s a way to go before you can start the climb.

I say this because I find myself in a year of great challenge. And I knew it would be thus. Or close to thus. As my teaching load has skyrocketed, my earnings have plummeted and so I spend free time trying to compensate for both.

At the same time that life at home has been extraordinarily demanding (see previous posts).

Of course, it could be worse. I could be sick, my kids could be sick, I could lose my health insurance, we could all be denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions and the insurance policy could max out. Or, any one of us could be in a car collision. So I do know this: it could be worse.

But it could be better.


I reel back tonight to summers spent at my grandparents’ village home in Poland. There was an orphanage not too far. I used to watch these kids and think – should I reach out? Eventually I understood that this kind of imaginative benevolence was pointless. There is an insurmountable chasm between those who feel loved and those who do not.

And I wonder: could it be that the trial I had been following in New York has elements of this? It's sad (oh, oops, this post is already about being sad; let's say especially sad) to think that there are ravines and chasms, and one day one person tries to cross them and another day another person tries to cross them, but they never seem to be exerting an effort at the same time, and so it all sort of falls apart.



Things worked backwards today. I had enough to do a home that I did not go to campus until late.

The rain had stopped. My bike slid across a pavement covered with wet late autumn leaves.






Half way to campus, I came across the band practice. Usually I hear them when I am pedaling home and so I associate their music with the joy of returning home. Today, they are merely trumpeters and tuba players and who knows what else, playing (better than yesterday!) tunes from Miss Saigon. Song, played on a lonely saxophone... (played on a trumpet).





I’m doing a lot of thinking these days. Everyone does this when they feel pushed and plummeted, right? So I leave you with the photo of a heron that I spotted on my late ride in. My buddy. My solo friend.

downhill

At 4:25 p.m., the pressures of the week let up. No, let me correct that: they disappear. I had accomplished all that needed to be done, against all odds and, if I may say so (because I am proud of this) – without a mental breakdown.

But, here's an admission of failure: I did not bike to work this morning. At home, at 9:02, I understood that things were getting tight for a 9:30 class. I chose the bus.

I caught the best possible one – number 15. It’s closest to me and it runs without local stops. I always enjoy this morning ride (on days when I do not bike to work). It’s full of Asian graduate students (I live close to a cluster of apartments favored by foreign students, especially from southeast Asian countries). They’re animated and engaged (with each other, in languages that I do not understand) and they mostly disembark at engineering (two stops before mine). During the ten minute trip, I think about how it is to be them – here, in a country that is not their own, in a state that could not be more different from places they would call home. Maybe I see a little of me, the immigrant, in them. Maybe.


In my office, I work with such intensity that I almost cannot imagine pausing for my late afternoon espresso down the hill (on my long days – Tuesdays and Thursdays – that espresso is the highlight. Hands down).

Except that I do stop just before class. And I run down for the espresso, with the lecture notes that I want to review one more time.

But it’s raining. Not drizzling, raining. My notes get wet, I get wet, my camera gets wet.


woman at library entrance


And then, class is finished and it’s over. I’m on the bus, empty now at this later hour...





...in a dreamy daze. Nothing (except this post!) has to be done before tomorrow. Sure, sure, the transcripts from today’s New York hearings – I want to read those, And I want to talk to my family. And I have emails that I’d like to attend to, but this is my choice. I could go read a comic book at the water’s edge for the rest evening and it would be okay.

I go home and attend to transcripts, student emails and this Ocean post. But I'm okay with that. I know I didn't have to do any of it.

where hunger disturbs clear thinking

Just so you know, you, who remain patient throughout all vicissitudes of this blog and its author, the last time I was so short on sleep for days on end was when it was determined that one of my daughters (I wont say which one) was described by me, by her doctor too, as being very colicky.

No such issues are before me now.


I thought when Ed left for New York that I would “catch up.” You now how it is: you have an occasional traveling companion hanging around, all spare time disappears. Free time (meaning: time not spent on teaching or moonlighting) becomes his time. It’s just the way things work with occasional traveling companions.

But shockingly (or is it really shocking?), with Ed embroiled in never-ending litigation in New York, my free time hasn’t gone up to, say, 20% of my waking hours. It has gone down to zero.

Take today.

I wake up. Four hours of sleep. Damn. Still, I have class preparation and exam grading. I touch base with Ed. We review the forthcoming proceedings. He’s off to the courthouse, I’m off to campus.

And I work on my classes. Thankfully, all three classes that I teach are with magnificent groups of students. Life at school is less stressful than life after school.

Okay. Class is done. No moonlighting tonight! Finally – a free evening.

Free? I’m behind in reading the transcripts from yesterday’s proceedings. I catch up with those as I throw brussel sprouts into a pot. No fuss, no dice, just cook ‘em up quickly because I am hungry.

So hungry that I cannot think about what I am reading.

Ed is phoning on Skype. He has now a new day’s transcript of the court case. I listen and eat the stupid brussel sprouts. [Sorry, but eating a caseload of brussel sprouts reminded me of this morning’s article in the NYTimes, where one person, addicted to a sugar diet, commented that many people pretend they like what is good for them; I considered for a good five minutes whether I was lying to myself about loving brussel sprouts. I came to no firm conclusions there.]

We hang up. I read some more. I call back. We discuss. I read some more.

And now it is near midnight – the time of attending to Ocean. The time of fighting the droopy eyelid, the hazed over mind that refuses to focus. That time.

I know what’s ahead: I’ll fall asleep in the middle of a sentence, wake up with a start at two in the morning and force myself to rework the grammar of a very simple, very ill-constructed thought.


biking to work


Here it comes, I feel it! A dream laden moment of sleep. Don’t wake me if I doze off! Let me drift, let me think I have nothing to do when I wake up. So beautiful. So untrue.