the brave, the hardy, the few

It struck me that it had been a while since I went by way of the bike path – the one that takes me past the lake to campus. Since the first snowflakes touched the gravel road. Half a year maybe. Or more. We’ve had snow forever.

And it also struck me that the prettiness of winter (which has left me uncharmed now for a number of weeks) is soon to be a thing of the past.

So I took a detour in the late afternoon.

It was a desolate place. A few hardy souls. That’s it. Here they are, refusing to give in to The Chill. Bundled up and bracing the wind. And looking not unhappy with the ice and snow. Heroes, all of them.



one has fur, the other has a very big scarf





forging ahead






the ice fishers: they've figured it out and for that, they get my top honors

men ingesting

I walked up State Street to get an afternoon cappuccino and I thought about how people who are preoccupied (obsessed?) with March weather are not all that interesting and I should take note of something other than meteorological nuances of a day.

And I did. I took just a handful of photos and after I came home, I noticed that there was a unifying theme: they were all of men ingesting beverages or food.

Conclusions? None. I think, subliminally, I was still pursuing the weather theme. As in – why would anyone eat ice cream today?





On the other hand, this guy, with the Izzy – oh… he was my favorite. He reminded me of (sunny) Italy. They may not have Izzy in Italy, but isn’t Orangina the same? And, isn't he longing to be elsewhere? With someone who cares, deeply?






I left my office when it was already dark (no great feat – it still gets dark early). I passed through the student area, noting the sole person there, eating and working. To me, that’s a very sad combination. Each act deserves its space and time. And the empty chair… can’t someone come over and sit for a while?





Outside, I felt the snowflakes. I hadn’t bothered with a hat. A shame.

waiting

If you love sleeping and if you love waiting, then you have life sewn up, because the vast majority of your living hours are spent on one or the other.

Sleeping… it’s clear when we sleep. Eyes closed, a little snort now and then, tuned out.

Waiting. For the shower to warm up. For the coffee to pour into the little cup, for the light to change, for the bus to come, for the computer to fire up.

…for the votes to come in, for the weather to improve.

For the weather to improve.

No photos today.

change, continued

All this talk of change! Will the real leader for change please stand up? Oh, and the weather? It’s about to change! Time as well. We’ll trade in an hour of time for the perception of the arrival of spring this week-end. Postage rates – I’m at the post office and the clerk is warning me of an imminent change (not so soon! It’s in May and it’s only a penny!). And my age – I'm reading that a local bowling alley offers discounts for seniors, i.e. those 55 or older. That’ll be me next month!

I can’t say that I moved to contribute to this universal shout-out for change. I can offer a very ordinary comment: some change is good. In political leadership, for example. Does anyone doubt that? “More of the same” has never gotten anyone elected, to my knowledge. People always want things to be better. Even as, at this point, people (me included) are desperate for things to be hugely different and therefore, by definition, better.

But walking home this afternoon, I tried to not think about how change sometimes does not happen even as we are ready for it. The melting snow, made mushy by the rains last night, is no longer so mushy. Footprints have turned solid. Sort of like the footprints in concrete at the Grauman's Chinese Theater in L.A. And the idea that we’ll lose our blanket of white became… just an idea. (This week, we can expect more snow.)





And in trying not to think about how cold that 21 degrees felt, what with the wind and all that snow, I thought, instead, about a comment on Ocean – the one about how the reader misses posts about people.

Even though to me, Ocean has to be multifaceted, because life is that way, still, I miss those posts too. I remembered what I jotted down to myself at the age of twelve – I want to be a journalist. (Where did that come from? I was sort of a math nurd.) And still later, when I decided on grad school, it was with the idea that I would become an ethnographer.

Ocean isn’t journalism or ethnography. But it lets me dabble with my unchanging love of the snapshot. Of a life in progress. Preferably not my own. Though, of course, as it presents itself to me.

Anyway, nothing has changed there. Even though my brownie camera and my Smith Corona are no longer trusty nor dusty. They’re just gone. Did I mention that technologies have changed in recent decades?

finding history

I know what you’re thinking. Madison hasn’t a personality. Rip out the Capitol and the campus and you have anytown, USA, with the requisite sprawl and a downtown that, on a winter Sunday, looks hollowed out and, well, dull.

You’re so wrong.

But maybe Ocean hasn’t helped much in creating a richer texture to this town. Maybe my preoccupation with work (hence the stream of campus photos) and my photographic laziness (hence the Capitol, shot from all angles) have lead you to think there’s not much more?

Today – a day as gray as they come – Ed and I set out to walk in the footsteps of Madison’s first settlers. Ed loves reading historical plaques and boards almost as much as reading Wired Magazine and the New Yorker (in that order), but on this walk, we had to rely on notes from the Net. There are few commemorative markers indicating the rich heritage of downtown Madison.

How old is this place anyway?

In 1846, the population of this, well, village, was 626. Perfect for locating the capital of the territory of Wisconsin here. I mean, why not start out small? But as the construction of the Capitol building began, the neighborhood just east of it hummed.

And part of me wants to be in that Madison now, because it grew as a town of family grocers and bakers and saddle makers (I’m talking about a very small part of me, since they had heating issues then), with a rail connection to the north and to the south, a large train depot and several adjacent hotels and dining rooms (is a saloon a dining room?).

In just a small handful of blocks, we saw not a small number of the houses from this early settlement. It’s a terrific stroll to take if you want to get to know the town better (you can find details of the historic neighborhood here). Probably even more terrific on a summer or spring day. But forget the grayness. There’s enough color in the red Madison brick and the sandstone used for construction back in the late 1800s. Take a look:

[East Main Street, as it hits the Capitol Square:]


possibly the oldest commercial block in Madison, circa 1847: once home to a newspaper

[King Street, fanning away from the Square:]


to the left, the building with the turret: a Schlitz saloon, in front of modernity




a detail of a building once housing newspapers and harnesses (and on the left, the Capitol)





once a hotel and livery





began as a grocery, then a bread bakery...


[East Wilson Street, as it runs into Williamson Street:]


former hotel and saloon





once a depot, now not much of anything; though the tracks do swing by the Frank Lloyd Wright Monona Terrace




former warehouse


[the residential South Hancock and South Franklin Streets:]


1853 home of a marble cutter




they made horse collar pads





"downtown" hotel owners


And think how gorgeous it’ll be once the dirty snow disappears. Which, my commenters reassure me, will be very soon.

change

I need a diversion. Can’t always write about the dreariness of a never-ending season. Let me pull out two recent comments and use them as threads for today’s post.

First – on the theme “how Madison has changed!” Oh yes it has. Or, is it that I look at it differently now that I live closer to its nervy center, with more time to poke around there?

Of course, this year, people are preoccupied with the huge amount of snow. A winter like no other: cold, blustery, slippery, snow encrusted. There’s a change!

Oh, sorry. I meant to head in a different direction. So, let me take note of what’s cookin’ in this town of mine.

Any closings? Any hot prospects? (I mean hot in the nonseasonal sense, really I do…) Would you believe that the area around Hilldale Mall has become downright bubbly? Today, you could not find a parking space in the three story ramp adjacent to it and believe me, it wasn’t for the stores at the Mall. It has to be the food. Pasqual’s was packed, Dane Brewery is never quiet, Muramoto – I swear, New Yorkers will travel here for what it does with sushi. Oh, and there’s the 608 Bistro and the Flat Top Grill. Did I miss anything?

Downtown? It’s a never-ending shuffle board over there. Opened: Willie Street Co-Op; closing, or rather, transforming: Cocoliquot Restaurant is to become the new Downtown Muramoto; closing: Scoshi Women’s Apparel; opened: Sucre pastries and edibles on the Square; moving: Little Luxuries, down to where Puzzlebox used to be, etc. etc.

I admit, it’s not a great shake up at the core, but you get the feeling that Madison is like plates of rock along the earth’s faults, constantly shifting things around. But no earthquake over here. Just an ice quake. Oops. Sorry.

Second theme – how the patterns of my social life have changed. How true! And you’re surprised? Settling into a pattern is not something I do well. I can go from being out and about every night for years – to being a total recluse for even more years. I only appear to be hugely social. But you have to wonder, would a hugely social being travel alone as much as I do?

Dinner parties? Why don’t I keep forging ahead with cooking up storms? (Not the winter kind!) Hey, there was the olive party and food was definitely on the table back in December! Sure, in years past, I cooked, therefore I was. I now regard it as my period of great debauchery and decadence (okay, mild, by most accounts, but as close as I’ll get in life to either). I was feeding and wining people every month, at least.

It took me a while to see that, with rare exception, the food was flowing only in one direction.

But more importantly – entertaining is a hobby that works well when you have, here and there, pockets of time to fill. I do not have many empty pockets of time, even as my financial pockets are pretty empty. When I am in town and not working on law stuff, I’m working on non-law stuff.

There you have it: a comment on how nothing is ever the same.

Except the winter cold, the by now tiresome black and white winter forest, the ice-crusted sidewalks and pot-holed streets. I can’t help it. I go out and that’s all I see. I t could be that it’s because I am cold right now, it is cold right now and I have a cold right now. Here’s to change.

in my way

Why did we get an extra day in February? I would have liked an extra day in the month of May – unquestionably the most hope-filled month. Adding a few more hours of hope sounds good to me.

Last night, I barely made it across the Square. My evening companions were hardly bothered by the sting in the wind. Making me wonder if I am in the wrong state, with the wrong people. Or at least in the wrong season.





Just to torture me, two eateries turned out to be closed. Perhaps forever. Still, we made our way to the third -- Muramoto, which is always special, always fresh and creative (and always just a tiny bit cold).





So on balance? I can't complain. Good will and good food trumped the cold.

But the next day? Well, as is often the case, if you start with resolve, you end with resolve and nothing much happens in between.

I worked at home and brooded. Looking out my balcony windows, I was at first buoyed by the blue skies. And then? Let’s just say that clouds got in my way.

what were they thinking?

It is an uncomplicated family. With just two sets of grandparents. No separations, abandonments, divorces leading to multiple sets, or additions. The two pairs? Different as can be. One set has stronger caregiving instincts. The other? Hard to tell. I’ve heard the words “selfish” and “difficult,” but really, who can tell.

They don’t get along with each other. Of that I am sure. I never hear sentences directed from one to the other. Think of all the possibilities: she can talk to the other grandmother, the other grandmother can talk to him and he to her, or to the other grandfather. But none of this happens.

And yet, to the amazement of all, the other grandparents, the ones with no caregiving instincts buy a cottage right next to the fence circling the home of the one set of grandparents. To taunt them? No. Too expensive a proposition.

What were they thinking?? Maybe – and no one thought this is possible, but maybe they had an itch. To be physically close, to their son, their granddaughters, even as nothing else in their nature, or perhaps in the circumstances, permitted the more intangible connection.

All four have died, some time ago, and so it's impossible to know for sure.


I was thinking of physical distance today. And of families. And of partnerships. And mostly of daughters. With whom I have multiple exquisite connections. But, because of circumstances, the physical distance is there. To taunt me.


No photos today.

work

A student comes into my office to chat. He looks over my shoulder – you have over 9000 messages in your Inbox?

I shrug. Sometimes life gets the better of you.


My day? Like countless others. Consumed by work and thoughts of work and worries about work and dreams of less work.

In between various lectures, I sit not too far from the broken fireplace at Acora coffee shop (off the Square) and stare at the logs that refuse to light up. Behind me, a picture with a peace sign feels like it needs a prop to the right.





Perhaps I’m not telling the story well. Okay. Start again.
The Square. Walking toward Ancora.





After, I cut through the Capitol to get to State Street. You know, the street that, in a straight arrow, shoots you straight to Bascom Hill.





Eventually, I lose any conception of time and place. Until the light fades and it’s time to leave and go home.





Long day.

thinking about value

I’ve been thinking a lot about accomplishments today (and lack thereof). Some people give years to this kind of pensiveness, but I gave it only about an hour.

It doesn’t take me long to sort through puzzle pieces – I either find good fits, or I don’t and then I turn to something else. But today, I’m thinking maybe I found some good pieces. Figuratively speaking.

Much of this is about the value of work (not only the wage-earning type) and about whether, at the end of the day, you know you have delivered something of worth.

But beyond this, it's also about how differently people approach value. And that it shouldn’t much matter how others judge value, so long as you can understand what holds value for you. (For a very random example, I see value in a politician’s work ethic and political and personal accomplishments. As opposed to, say, a convincing speech. And I’m okay with that. But that may be just me.)

All this thinking, coupled with a substantial work load (of the wage-earning type) left little time for much else. But I did take a photo. And it reminds me in some small way of a painter. And her paintings remind me of “my own demographic.” Which in turn reminds of me of how sad it is that important work (for a random example – ascribed to one gender, or in the alternative, most often performed by one gender) is so often undervalued by others (for example – by members of a different gender – the one with the louder voice).

So enjoy the colors of the tulip. Think spring. In the alternative, just think. (Maybe about value?)

leaving D.C.

I like planning a departure. I like arriving. I like staying. Leaving’s not for me.

Even though it is part of the American experience. Individual freedom, food in the grocery store and leaving. An American trilogy.

And so I learn to live with it.


The familiar wait for the Yellow Line (why is it always late?), the added burden of going to the barracks of the Northwest terminal, the delays, the flight over the city I’m leaving behind…





...the Detroit layover and the short flight into cloudy, cold and on the verge of snow Madison.

Work. It will take over my days and I'll forget all. Add that to the trilogy. Or does that make it a quadrilogy?

from D.C.: show or tell

Brilliant sky. Warmish even. A day for a long, scenic walk. Let me charge up the batteries.

Where’s my camera?

My last memory of it is when I used it to photograph a Georgia pecan pie. And shrimp piled on grits. And a pretty arrangement of roasted baby beets. That was last night.

So where’s my camera?

No one is picking up the phone at Vidalia (that’s right; the place is named after an onion). I set out to bang on some doors.

Lovely blue sky. Brisk walk. I knock on the front door. Nothing. I poke around the back alley and find their delivery door. Bang bang bang. Nothing.

Out front again, interspersed with lots of cell calls. The chef comes out. Big guy. Great talent there, in the kitchen. I tell him so. (Chefs make me feel small even when they’re short. This one – I can barely say one clever word, I’m so awed.) We poke around the office. No camera.

Maybe it’s in the safe. I don’t have the combo for that. I hope it’s here.
I’m totally apologetic for wasting his time. He should be slicing slivers of onion not searching for my little Sony.

I go out to brunch with my daughter. Great neighborhood place that serves eggs benedict on green tomatoes. With a side of cheese grits. I’ll order anything with grits.

Phone rings. My camera is safe, waiting for me at Vidalia.

Darn. I was getting used to imagining a walk without it. You take a disappointment, shake it around a little and adjust to the new parameters. Sure, I fretted. What if the perfect light threw itself at the perfectly expressive face of someone perfectly positioned before me? Eh, so what! I'll write it down. And I'll quit breaking the pace. I'll walk in step with my daughter. I'll be free!


Freedom is overrated. It’s good to reclaim my little guy. Nothing brilliant threw itself at me, but I could take out the reliable Sony and aim it straight at that gorgeous sky. And the still bare cherry trees. And the dad, sitting on the banks of the Potomac with his son. And the strawberry cupcakes. God, I love having my camera with me.

from D.C.: good things

People like San Francisco and Seattle and New York. I’m saturated with New York and I can’t relate to the west coast. They have weather superiority issues. Every time I talk to my own mother (who lives in Berkeley), I hear about how uniquely special the skies are over there. When I am out visiting, all I notice is how crowded it is underneath their brilliant skies. And of course, Seattle isn’t that brilliant. (I haven’t ever traveled there, so I shouldn’t comment, but I’ve heard enough about the problems with their leaky skies.)

But this year, I have come to love visiting Boston and D.C. It may have something to do with two of its inhabitants, but there’s more to it.

I gave Boston its fair moment here on Ocean a couple of weeks back. Let me focus on D.C.

I go outside to pick up a couple of steamy coffee concoctions and I notice that I am not wearing gloves and it doesn’t matter. The air reminds me of Paris – cold, but nothing a scarf can’t take care of.

Around me, there is light. D.C., unlike any other city in the States, has no sky-scrapers. I think the tallest building (the Cairo apartment house, built in 1894) is 13 stories high – that’s just one more than my condo building in Madison. It caused an uproar when it went up and since then, structures are kept to more modest levels. You get to see a lot of sky. I like sky.

Food? Oh, like Boston, it reeks of good food. Low-end southern tinted, high-end perfectly composed and, what I tend to sample on our nights out – excellent fresh and honest (they list the farms!) middle of the pocket-book stuff.

Like last night, here (and yes, we devoured one of those pies):





And did I mention museums? You know, the free ones? Where you can enter, not wait in line and walk straight up to a painting with your little ones and transport yourself to another place in seconds.





Or, come back years later with the now not so little one and take in a visiting exhibit of mid-nineteenth century British photography.






…And then watch a dad teach his kid to skate (in the Museum sculpture garden).





























You know, the sculpture garden with the big typewriter eraser. (Are you too young to have ever used these? Times were tough for writers of yore.)





We cross the Mall to the metro stop. The Mall. My office looks out over a mall back in Madison. Bascom Mall. But the D.C. Mall is huge. With room enough for a game.





In the late afternoon, we make our way back to Georgetown. Because it’s always so enchanting there. And because they have great cupcakes.









On the way home Im taken (for balance) to a "favorite" rat-sighting places.

So okay, there are rats. I do indeed see one. Squirrels with less attractive tails. An animal-friendly city! Me, I hate pigeons and yet I still love Venice.

There isn't a city in the world without issues. And still, they draw me in. Complicated places. But beautiful too. You can't get too lazy in life and hide. D.C. wont let you hide.

south?

It’s time to take a break. Wisconsin has forged some kind of weather alliance with northern Canada this year and I'm getting impatient with it all. Time to head south. Where a daughter lives. D.C. is south. D.C. hardly ever gets snow. D.C. is balmy now. Springlike almost.

I’m coming!

Say what? I'm bringing with me snow and ice to the east coast? I'm so sorry! But surely this would not include D. C… Could it??

The plane is full of people diverted from cancelled flights into New York and Boston. Lucky us. We’re heading south of that mess.

So it’s unfortunate to hear the pilot come on and say “folks..” (captains like that expression) “… we’re being diverted.” Why? -- I wonder. “Our landing gear isn’t working properly (something about no skid that or the other) and so we need an extra long runway. That means going back to Detroit or landing in Dallas. We’re choosing the latter.”

At least that’s what everyone heard. Dead silence. Then murmurs. (Wow, that’s really south!) Then another announcement. “Folks, there seems to be some confusion. We mean Dulles, not Dallas.”

The minute cell phones are permitted, the whole plane calls everyone they know to tell the story of Dallas, no, Dulles, and ha ha! isn’t it funny?

People like a happy ending.

But it’s icy and foggy here. I take the city bus from Dulles to DC downtown and I can barely recognize anything outside. The city is hiding behind a layer of cold, gray air.





I am a bad weather magnet!

Still, I'm not discouraged. This is daughter-land! And weather patterns change. And walking from the metro stop to her place I see this:





...and this:





Perhaps not balmy. But warm enough for someone to be sitting outside. How about that! How spring-y!

moon beams

Last night, I wanted to see my city bathed in a moonlit landscape of bronze and gold. I wanted to watch the skies warm up. I wanted to see the eclipse that was announced as being best witnessed from my home town. Not to be repeated until 2010.

I had a three-hour time span. The night was crystal clear.

I stayed home.

It's so cold outside!

But I did take a quick peek from my balcony. Good stuff. Up there, between my condo and infinity, there was a pretty moon all orange and, from one side, bright.





The next day (today), I was lost in a universe of work from sunrise to sunset. And I couldn’t be bothered with moons or stars or lights bathing landscapes, or much of anything else, really.

Oh, how quickly moon beams fade.