ah, life!

Every once in a while, I want to write a post that merely says – ah, life!

Because it is just so unpredictable and haphazard. You think you’re on this course and then you learn that no, you are not. Major adjustments need to be made. And then you end up in being elsewhere, completely elsewhere, and hey! That’s not so bad! Or, is it where you were to begin with?

Anyway, it was a beautiful day. We were sprung a spring day – the type you would call average for May, but unbelievably special in March. It is relative, after all.

I biked to work. Sure, diehards never stop biking, not even for the winter months, but I’m not a diehard, I’m a softy at heart. I take the bus when it gets too cold.

It was a fantastic first ride to work of 2010.




Even though in the morning, the air is nippy enough for me to feel cold through the slits in my bike helmet. Or maybe my scalp simply hasn't properly dried from the morning shower.

The lake, still frozen, but just barely, causes me to stop and admire it so often that I am almost late for my 8:45 meeting.






After, in the late afternoon, I catch a few glimpses of the good life...









Am I envious? Nah. Soon. I'll be out strumming chords soon. In the meantime, I wallow in the unpredictability of each day. From good to disappointing to ... well, you never know. Ah life, right?

consider the good times

At what point do you get tired of recognizing all the obstacles, the impediments, the forces working against you? When do you stop wanting to hear about the differences between you and ...the other person?

A friend once told me – consider nothing of consequence in February. It’s a terrible month and we just don’t think straight then. Well fine, but it’s March.

I had warned my occasional traveling companion that we should not let this Sunday go to waste. It is, in fact, the last weekend day when we will be in Madison together and neither of us has to work. That confluence of good things will not happen again until mid May, at the earliest. And add to it splendid rays of sun. It’s obvious: on this day, we should head out.

But it’s not easy to jump into fun when you have been outside of it for days on end. Many procrastinate when they have work to do. Ed and I so often procrastinate when we have as a goal nothing more than the pleasure of exploring the world. Just let me finish this article... Sure, yes, but first let me ...


In this kind of a mood it’s so clear that we need to work off our pent up ... something. A bike ride? Surely the movement will be good for us.

We pick an easy twenty mile ride. Just a few hills, nothing taxing. There’s a wind out there and it is our first ride of 2010.

We swing by Ed’s farmette to dewinterize my bike and to pick up his. And here you can see that my occasional traveling buddy does have an affectionate side... As demonstrated toward his greeting to Isis...




We drive east. Past the pig farm (greetings from Wisconsin!)...










...then on to McFarland. Yes – the starting point of our last ride of 2009. How different it is now, at the cusp of spring! Oh, it’s still gray and nothing is budding yet, but there is that feeling that we are on the verge of something brilliant. Any day now.





We need this ride. Believe me, we need the reminder.





(Even if every few miles one of us throws out a punch at the other.)





We circle Lake Kegonsa, mount the final hills, pause to watch the sandhill cranes pick whatever is left in the fields after last year’s harvest...










... and face the last stretch against the wind toward the village where we left the car.

Do you have to drive with your knee?

I'm in control...

Oh, how wonderful it is to be on familiar turf again!

random thoughts

Loneliness is not always pushed aside by the presence of others.

You can be a kid at home with your sulky, troubled parents and feel excruciatingly lonely. Or, with friends at a dinner and suddenly you feel the ache. Piercing.

To me, all three in this photo (young woman, sitting alone, and father and daughter at the bar), encountered on my way to the shop, appear lonely. I could be projecting, but this was my impression.




On the other hand, it is also true that loneliness can be puffed down by non-people things. Flowers, for example. Anything else? No, can’t think of anything else.

days of wine and coffee

I’m the kind of friend who, when asked to go out for a glass of wine these days...





...orders coffee. It has come to this. Sandwiched between law school work and moonlighting, the welcome pause brings the unwelcome realization that I cannot show up at the shop after a glass of cabernet.

Oh well.

(Ed comments – I have never seen you order red wine for yourself. That’s because cheap white wine is ok, whereas cheap red wine is undrinkable.)

I leave the shop tired, but very aware of the fact that I am just heading home, while so many others are heading out.




I'm glad that I am heading home.

rolls

At the end of the day, the door opens and we enter the world of sushi.



An easy tonic, packed into a small tray which we carry up to the condo. So satisfying to the person who prefers his foods simple. An asparagus spear, maybe a piece of shrimp. And so pleasing to the one who likes things complicated – a little of this, a little of that. But it must be pretty. At the very least, lovely to look at.





I can deal with small portions, but please, make them pretty. And clean. No, I will not live in a place where the ceiling is unfinished and window panes are leaving the frames behind.

Here’s a truth to hold dear: behind your own door, you can always control the chaos. Eliminate the dirt. Fiddle with the ugliness. Oh, but we do love swinging our own doors!



And so there you have it: sushi. Rolls of great elegance, rolls of utter simplicity. With seaweed salad on the side. At the end of a very long string of days.

traveling companion of an occasional sort

In a fair recount of the day, you could say that Ed and I squabbled over a definition: of what constitutes “an occasional traveling companion” – a term I apply to him liberally throughout Ocean.

I could see this coming. Ed and I are as different as, oh, I don’t know – a pea and a calculator. It should not shock anyone that we disagree about definitions. We can’t even agree on how to pronounce words. I’ve played the Merriam-Webster audio of hover dozens of times and he still won’t fully buy into the fact that it is not the same as Dover or clover. Here, click and listen: hover.

Most of our disagreements of this nature take place at the occasional times he happens to drive me to work. This is, of course, unfortunate, as one likes to enter the classroom with a clear head, rather than with definitional quandaries of monumental significance. Because I’m sorry, but it is important if you want to define OTC as someone you occasionally ring up and ask – say, are you game for a trip to Sardinia? – that’s quite different than the OTC who is, among other things, your occasional traveling companion.

Still, I am like the person who has a pocket eraser – a magic one at that, like the tool you’ll find in Photoshop: it blurs the rough edges. I reach for it and, before I take the last step into the classroom, all traces of the definitional differences are gone.

Sadly, after the two hour seminar, I realized that the definitional squabble meant that I forgot to send myself the next lecture. In my office, I draw a blank screen when I try to access it.

And so, in the middle of the day, I take the bus home, pick up my notes and catch the next bus back, just in time for class.

After, I promise myself two things: no more bus rides for the day, and no more discussions about definitions.




I walk home, pick up CSA spinach and various other vegetables for a green soup. I call Ed, my occasional traveling companion, and tell him --  the soup is ready.

cafés in the fog

Well, you can write loving tributes to outdoor café life in places that can afford it this early in the year, but today I’ll stay with a nod to those who try to make the best of a tough situation. We are not Nice, we are not even Washington D.C., we’re Madison, Wisconsin and although it is no longer shockingly cold outside, it is also not pleasurably warm.





So I applaud you, you season-busters! Amidst the dirty melting snow mounds, there on a foggy March day, you sit and each lunch. Impressive.

end of D.C. days

We’re watching the Oscars. As usual, I sleep for a whole chunk in the middle, only to wake up for the major awards. Most people actually sleep when you think them to be sleeping. I have some little spirit standing on guard, ready to shake me free and get me going again when the need arises.

We’re both tired this evening. It is the second day of our mega walk through Washington. And we’ve been eating well – brunch, dinner and somewhere in between – a cupcake break in Georgetown.





As always, every Sunday I am here it is like this. Eggs and grits at noon, a walk toward the Washington monument, and then a cut to the other side – away from the Mall, past the World War II Memorial, past the cherry trees, the Jefferson Memorial, and along the river to Georgetown.

















The sun is brilliant – it is their first day of total spring here. I have a jacket, but more out of habit than need.





There is a feeling of total contentment (aided by an early call from a cab driver who found my daughter’s iPhone). Job well done. Adventure finished. This is a final glance, a long goodbye, but not to her, to the city that was her home.







That same little spirit who kept watch over the Oscars for me, now shakes me free of sleep again. Even early in the morning, I have never needed an alarm clock. He’s there, pushing me out, telling me it’s time to get going – I have a flight to catch. My girl is still asleep when I tell her – see you back in the Midwest. I slip out the door and wheel my suitcase to the metro.

I get off the Blue line at the airport and pass through the ticket gate. A woman in an army uniform is studying the Metro fares. Here, I tell her. Take my ticket. It has some dollars on it. I don’t plan on every using it again. Are you sure? – she asks. I’m sure.

D.C. scrambles

You hate it when your daughter says “oh-oh.” And you kick yourself for being relieved that it’s only a matter of a lost phone. Especially when it sinks in that a lost phone is a huge headache and a not insignificant expense. So you volunteer to retrace your steps for the evening – so that you can be the gallant one who, at the end of the day, reemerges with the lost phone and makes things right again.

How many times in their lives have you wanted to make things right again for them?! And how many times – as in this case – did you know that you probably would fail?


I reenter the bar where we had spent time earlier that day. The Passenger.









We had sat at the counter at a time that is apparently early in the life of a bar – between 6 and 8. And so we could sit and talk, and, as it is a place where you tell the bartender your dream tastes and she concocts a drink to suit your fancies, I could pour out my wishes and she poured them into a glass that had elements of fruit, but not sweetness, alcohol, but not gin, and a splash of color with homemade Grenadine. Or, was it home made pomegranate juice? No matter. Drinks should not be that tasty. Because it leads you to order a second.





Now , closer to midnight, the Passenger is so crowded that it’s not clear how anyone can spell out their dream beverage and be heard over the raucously told stories of fellow bar hoppers. The gentle voices may as well stay in the off mode.

Oh, and by the way, have you found an iPhone? No?

I move on to the restaurant – Central – a wonderful place with everything from gougeres to fried chicken. I had eaten a most wonderfully modern shrimp remoulade earlier...





Now, there is a late night hush. A few strands of conversation, the clatter of collected plates... No, no phone left by the table. None in the bathroom, none under the feet of the couple who had replaced us at our spot in the corner.

Outside, I realize that I had flown out of the house without my coat. One of those gestures born of haste and greatly regretted. I hail a taxi and give myself a good moment of tears. Failure is never pleasant and not especially at the end of a day, where you wanted to lull your child, even though she is not really a child, but you can pretend, to sleep with sweet thoughts of beautiful scenes from a day well spent.  

Mom, it’s only a phone, for God’s sake.



It had been a day well spent. And for once, the often fickle weather of a DC March played along.

Waking up, I looked out on clear skies. Warm enough to allow these two to take their break on the rooftop.




We walk up to St Ex on 14th, past this guy, setting up pansies for you to take home. So tempting, Only my home is not here and in any case, it’s probably too early for pansies in Wisconsin.





We sit at the counter by the window and eat eggs over cheddar grits. Why are grits so perfect here?





Fortified now. Off we go. And it is a long long walk, one that makes the leg muscles pleasantly ache at the end of it all. But we have so many places to recall and remember!

...from the Washington Monument, piercing and wonderful against the blue skies...





...up the Mall, past museums, were families pause for the warm sun. Or snacks. Or maybe both.





...to the Capitol, yes that one, that place of gridlock and scandal and occasionally something more palatable, but now blissfully quiet on this week-end day where surely everyone must be enjoying the peace and quiet of a perfect spring day.





...round to the back, past the Supreme Court. My daughter says - did I tell you? I went to hear an oral argument last week. Yes, she wore her gold bracelets and hoop earnings, and asked lots of questions. But today, only a sole fellow goes up the steps, up to the top and back again, as if this climb put him closer to the truth, or maybe just closer to a good view of the Capitol across the street.





... and onto the Capitol Hill blocks of older homes, made beautiful now, especially now when the first spring branches are getting ready to explode and the crocuses win the race for the speediest and the freshest flowers of the season.









We finish at her newest favorite – a place where she comes on trivia night, right here on H Street, in the Atlas district. In ten years, when I come back to D.C. to visit, this will be completely different, she muses.





Abandoned houses and storefronts even now are being gutted and taken over by enterprising types. A sandwich shop there, a coffee house across the street...

We pause over an espresso and hot cocoa. We call her sister up in Boston. Same time zone. It makes her seem that much closer.





Leaving this new for me neighborhood...





...we return to the familiar. Union Station, the edge of Chinatown, and home again. Home for a little while. Just a few more weeks of D.C. life for her. And one more day for me. One last scramble to create a final D.C. moment.

DC pause

Lost phone, search is on, distractions abound. More tomorrow. Because this is what it’s like when your mind spins away from your own worries, only to fix itself upon the worries of another.

I’ll be back in a few hours.

sentimental journeys

If you look at the Ocean destinations of the past five years, you’ll notice that right up there in numbers, after excursions within Wisconsin, there is Washington D.C. And what’s remarkable is that had I blogged the five years prior, there would have been a zero next to the city.

But in these last years, I’ve had one daughter, sometimes two, spending time there. And so I went.

This week, my oldest, the one who has been in DC continuously for the past three years, accepted a job offer in Madison and so she’ll be moving back to her home town this summer.

And so I am on my last D.C. trip. Last one. Last chance to spend time in the place that I’ve grown to love, if only because my girls turned older here.

Oh, it’s been a good set of travels! In D.C., the metro is easy, the winters are (typically) gentle, the food is fantastic, the museums are free.

And so I fly the well traveled connection through Detroit, I run to catch the known metro line, I walk the familiar walk to P street. And now I have  before me DC. For two days.

For two days, I’m turning my back on this:





...and having my fill of this:













Ah, oldest girl of mine, I can't wait to have you back in the Midwest! Now, what foods should we eat tonight?