like the wind

When the seasons change here, in Madison – from fantastically wonderful (summer) to dismally bare (everything else) – you start looking out for the exceptional days. The ones where you can truly enjoy the changes in the landscape. Good weather days.

Ed, I think this is a good weather day. I know I should work, but I need the break. I need to be outdoors, moving, moving...
How about a butterfly and flower walk in the Arboretum?
Sounds like something for very old or very young people. I need to spin!
A fungus spotting walk hike to the Picnic Point? -- He’s reading off events in and around town.
No, let’s head out! Let’s splurge on the good weather! Something exhilarating!

We pack our bikes and drive to Evansville, some twenty miles south of here. This is the week-end of the Harvest Windmill Festival. In the early afternoon, we can join others for the Ride Like the Wind bike tour of some of the old area windmills.

Windmills are big in Evansville. Not "big" as in "huge." The ones lining Main Street today are actually quite small. "Big" as in "big deal." These models have been worked over by area artists. Today, they're auctioned off to the highest bidders. (The most admired one sold for $2000 and the second best went for $1700).










Fine, there was an auction. Earlier, we had watched a local band – just so you know, the drummer also yodels – inspiring a few to dance.





(Others preferred the funnel cakes. There wasn't a line at the funnel cake trailer.)





And we made our way to the cemetery, where some very animated performers recounted stories of the lives of some of Evansville’s past everyday heroes (a painter who traveled to Giverny to befriend Monet, a soldier who died in the Second Battle of Bull Run (1862), a woman suffragette who had Susan B Anthony come out to Evansville to give a talk, and so on).





It was at the cemetery that it struck me that this day is no good-weather miracle. The wind whipped through the fabric of inadequate jackets, the clouds covered any pretense of sunlight. The handful of spectators stomped their feet. Yes, we truly are at the cusp of winter. Even if it looks like fall.





I insisted on hot coffee and Evansville does deliver a mean espresso. Revived, Ed and I set out on the (not too long) Ride Like the Wind adventure.

We were some two hours late for the official event, but Ed likes to avoid crowds. In Evansville, crowds never seem to exceed a count of a dozen or so, but still, it is pleasant to bike in solitude. And to pause at the first wind mill (by the high school)…





…and the second, amidst late autumn prairie pods, flowers and fruits…










… and the third, rising above the brick buildings of the Baker Manufacturing Company.





It is this third that seems to me to be most evocative (perhaps because Baker was once in the business of manufacturing these tall mills that powered water pumps).





Yes, it’s me, in a Rike Like the Wind t-shirt over a jacket, sweater and two other shirts. And still cold.

We ended the day over sandwiches with a retired art teacher and his teacher wife at the Main Street sandwich shop. We had run into friends earlier – Madisonians who now live in Evansville and miss being closer to the city. Not these teachers.

Love it here. The changes to Main Street – wonderful. Used to be bars. Now – a café, a sandwich shop…





Great place to raise kids.

Of course, that’s what I say about Madison. And we have significantly better public transportation! Still, I can imagine the sweetness of life here. Where teachers pool their money to buy a artsy windmill for their school. And old couples dance while the drummer yodels.

there’s always a good minestra

One glance and I can see it's that kind of a day: cold, damp. I have a load of work. More like two loads.

Isn’t it a good time to think about Italy? (Ed: I like where I am.) I don’t even want to be in Italy (necessarily), I just want to put myself there in my thoughts right now.

Of course, last December, Italy was rather gray and wet (Ed reminds me). But warm and spirited! I could use something warm and spirited. (No, sorry, no wine allowed just yet.)


As it's Saturday, I do have the Westside Community Market. (May I state my deep appreciation not only for the foods you bring to us each week, but also for the seasonal, colorful, thematic clothing you wear? Okay, at least the women. The male vendors appear to be indifferent to issues of wardrobe or weather.)















So now I have my basket full of vegetables for a minestrone. Out comes the pot, in goes the olive oil, the onion, the carrot, garlic, celeriac, then broth, then peas, beans, chard, cauliflower, Romas, spices….






I’m in my Italian bubble. Tally forth, October. I’m indifferent to your somberness.

a pass

There isn’t a lot that can be said about a day where your jaw is manipulated by a person with power tools that make big noises. Even the laughing gas wasn’t that funny.

Moreover, in a very selfish vein, I had been hoping that the 2016 bike race would be down Commonwealth Avenue in Madison (which would have happened had Chicago won the bid for the Olympic Games). Not that I think bike races are necessarily fun to watch from the sidelines (you see bikers speed by, big deal), but the idea of having an Olympic satellite village here was sort of charming.

It wasn’t really a completely drippy day. Oh, well, yes it was, in that it was cold and wet. At least at the times I was walking to and from connecting buses.







But I’ll pass on posting in favor of watching scenes from our National Parks. Soothing stuff. Almost as good as the glass of wine that, unfortunately, I'm told I cannot have tonight.

Ah well. Not all days can shine.

fresh and honest

What do these three photos have in common?














For one thing , they happened within a brief period of time of one another.

Then, too, they’re all about one evening meal.

I happen to spend many hours with a person who doesn’t come to the table with the love of an evening meal. And so I make small compromises. For example, I don't insist that we come to any table. (He prefers a lap, with a pot positioned precariously on it. He settles for a plated meal and I settle on the lap and the juggling part.)

I also spend a lot of time defending foods that are prepared and presented in a fresh and honest manner. It seems to me entirely doable to be fresh and honest and fast and easy (though if I'm including shrimp, I must admit that the cleaning of the shrimp, especially the smaller, less expensive shrimp, is not easy).

So this then was my evening: an evening bus ride from work to Whole Foods, a search for very honest and somewhat fresh tomatoes, a walk home in the rain, and then finally, the preparation of the lap meal.

None of this was, in my estimation, perfect. But it was very very good.

moments of nothing

At the end of the day, I stopped by my colleague’s office. Having the room right next to mine forces her to listen to my sudden and extravagant recounts of … whatever I need to recount.

She was sympathetic. She admitted that I had a lot on my plate. I felt better and retreated to my own room.


What I think is toughest for me right now is that I have no time just to stare and interpret. It’s my way of passing time. Many watch mindless TV or do Sudoku. I would if it would calm me. What does calm me is doing absolutely nothing at the same time that I throw an occasional glance at others doing something.


Tonight, I have my chance. My classes end at the usual evening hour and for the first time in months Ed and I have arranged to eat dinner out. (Lest you think this is a sweet moment of romance, think again. It is merely the 30th of September and our coupon for a free entrée at Brasserie V expires after today.) In between, I have time to kill.

I stroll (briskly; it continues to be rather chilly here) to the café-bar on Monroe Street and settle in for a period of watching.




After, I walk over to Brasserie V and, while waiting for Ed, I look around some more. I make mental notes of one thing, then another...





All this isn't perfect. My head doesn’t clear, the work for the rest of the week doesn’t diminish, but I feel I have had at few profitable minutes of doing nothing at all.

Really. I highly recommend it.

I did it, but I can't say that I liked it

In searching for a bit of information about my last year's schedule, I looked back on an Ocean post from last October. I was shocked to see there that I had biked to work throughout October. Whereas this year, I take one look at the chilling readings on the thermometer today (low forties) and automatically assume that I should take the bus.

What happened between last year and now? Is someone telling me I should accept old age? Accept the fact that I do not want to bike beyond September 30th? And next year, will I be using a cane? With mittens pulled tight by September 15th? And a hearing aid turned to loud?

Oh, I haven't a problem with any of that. In fact, I'm slowly imagining myself giving Jason notice and embracing speckled gray as the hair color of choice. Old is good. Less fickle, less anxious to please. But old is not good if it means giving up on training for the Olympics or failing to engage in vigorous physical activity. (I mention the Olympics just to let you know that I am waiting anxiously for 12:30 EST on Friday. I think an Olympic biking event in Blue Mounds, Wisconsin would be fantastic!)

So I took the lake shore path to work today. In my black coat. It brings forth an image of a flying nun, or the devil, depending on your inclination toward me, or Ocean, or both. And it felt very very cold.

deconstructing food criticism

I know I’ll get rapped for this post. I always do when I venture into the jungle of “the critically inclined.” But I can't take the safe path here. I feel I should speak out. On behalf of all the cooks out there who try to do the right thing but fail with the unforgiving public, for (according to me) all the wrong reasons.

Here’s my point: it's too easy to lay on the negatives onto a dining experience. Admittedly, we all like to stab away at someone else's craft. It makes us appear that much better at our own.

And we all want to be the ultimate judge, the critic par excellence. We never understand why the newspapers don't want to pay us for our brilliant insights on what we eat. We can find fault! Just listen! (And suddenly we imagine ourselves to be quite in league with those who are paid to come up with something that is off-putting about Le Bernardin (top rated seafood restaurant in NY). We forget that there's good reason why you and I are not paid to offer our opinions on Le Bernardin.)


Maybe you are different, maybe you want the world on your plate every time you eat out. Not me. I want this: I want the cook to use fresh ingredients as much as possible (so I hope you'll feel free to criticize places that use canned or processed foods, unless we’re talking about very cheap meals). I want the cook to offer me something that I cannot easily whip up at home. And here’s the final one – I want to enjoy the meal.

Now, granted, I have been a relentless critic of the American dining experience and so who am I to now plead with others to lay off a bit on the knocks and punches?

I think it’s for this reason: I wish we would be in agreement about the basics! I wish we would judge eateries first and foremost for the ingredients they use (and if the place doesn’t measure up at this level, I wish we would explore the reason why – because often times it says more about us and what we have come to expect, than about the restauranteur). After that, I wish we were more forgiving.

In years of travel, especially within France (you know France: that ridiculously fussy country as far as food goes?), I have rarely seen anyone show signs of displeasure when eating out. Maybe it’s the wine that knocks out their senses, but really, I think it’s something else: the French seem to approach things with perspective. The food's not good today? Well, does the cook shop at the local market? Yes? You’ve seen him there? Then we won't complain. We'll eat and enjoy and look forward to an even better meal tomorrow!

I like that attitude. It’s filled with hope and compassion. Of course, if tomorrow it all tastes wretched again, and the week after he (it's rarely a she, but that's another story) fails yet one more time, then there’s the ultimate revenge – the patron doesn't return. The place stands empty and eventually the cook will try his hand at something else. Maybe basket weaving or velo maintenance. But until that day, he’ll have had the locals stand behind him. Willing him to do better.


Uff. That was hard. I hate to sound so critical, even if the criticism is against those who choose to write critically about the efforts of others. Let me finish off with something innocuous. Like the weather. Sure was windy today. At the bus stop, I watched her amply twirled and twisted hair blow in every conceivable direction.

redirection

If I ever look back on this week-end, I’ll recall it as a time when I did what I long believed needed to be done: I latched on to a useful narrative and stayed with it.

It was, thank God, handed to me by circumstance. Ed wanted to work on the Ice Age Trail. I like the Ice Age Trail. I will, this week-end, think about little, beyond the Ice Age Trail.

Yesterday, we worked on building it. Today – well, actually today I cleaned the house and then worked at the little corner shop. But for an hour stuck between the two, and for several hours after work, I thought about National Parks.

Let me just focus on the noon hour. A brilliant noon hour. Almost threatening in its strength and magnificence. Still, anyone can tell that we are way past summer. The air is moving from warm to crisp. I feel the desperation that fills me when I am about to leave a place or time frame: is there something that I can do to keep a fragment of it after today?

It’s a good day, an important day, and it’s passing me by.

Noon hour. Ed and I drive west. Toward the narrow rural road that I regard as near-perfect. If anyone were to ask where, in rural Wisconsin, would I agree to live and prosper, I’d probably say somewhere close to here. (Alright, forget about the prosper. Prosperity is ephemeral.)





A few more twists to the road and we come to a place of future Ice Age Trail activity. And on the other side of the road we find a path leading … somewhere (not clear where).

We haven’t much time, but we follow it. Because, well, there’s so little of the good season left.





Yes, the emergent rusts and reds are beautiful…





…but the meadows are dry, verging on overpowering you with too many earthy tones. Still, can you see the goldenrod? The little daisies? The bee on the violet thistle?










This is where I want to hide, in days that I am running away from all that I should run from.

swinging high, straight down

Don't you now how to carry a pick mattock? Sharp side down!
(Later) can you run over and get a McLeod? And a sledge? And a bucket with a couple of gallons of water for the cement?

My day.

Maybe you're not tool-savvy? Maybe you don’t fight forest fires or break up roots of invasives?


Earlier, my morning began at the Westside Community Market. Truly, I feel a gut-wrenching sadness at seeing the stalls now. It'll all be over so quickly. And how can that be, given the load of strikingly beautiful food on display on this end of September market?
















After filling my basket, I hesitate. Should I work? I have no corner shop hours today, but I have lots of law work on my plate.

Or maybe not work? Or maybe work in an entirely different fashion, alongside a group of volunteers building the Ice Age Trail? I’d done that once before, clearing brush, but today’s agenda for the Ice Agers is way more ambitious.


We're southwest of Madison. The rain that was to hit us today stayed away. I mutter -- You don’t carry the pick on your shoulder? Like in Soviet Russia?

I notice that I am the only one in regular old running shoes.

Are you able to swing a pick ax over your head? You can’t swing sideways, because if you miss, you’ll take off both your legs. Right above the ankle. Next time wear sturdier boots.

I don’t have trail building boots. And I’m not sure I can now, at 56, effectively swing an ax. But I hardly ever say “no I can’t” and so I do.





And I dig holes.





And cement poles. And break up roots. And when the going gets too tough, Ed takes the pick mattock and whacks away. So that his t-shirt clings in wet strips to his back.

The people working here today – they’re a pack that has labored on this project together before. The Ice Age Trail is a work in progress and someday the IAT will be as much part of your vocabulary as the AT (Appalachian Trail) now is.

Easements through farmland join parcels of state land to form one beautiful path through Wisconsin.










Built for your pleasure. To encourage you to hike the land. Through forests, past cornfields, up hills, across streams (they're building the bridges for you!). The undulating land that is so familiar to us, here in the upper Midwest.





Ed asks Tim, the man in charge (catch him tomorrow – briefly - on PBS, as part of the great Ken Burns epic on the National Parks) – so is it tough for you these days? To keep the project going? Given hard times?

Tim is a cup-full guy. We have the biggest volunteer base, and the hugely important recent cooperation of the National Park Service – he says this with a wide, happy grin (as opposed to the frown earlier, as he assessed our work on the small trail fragment that veers off the Badger State bike Trail (you couldn’t finish the wiring today? The man’s standards are exacting.)

You eating dinner with us? At the campfire?

We almost camped with them. Almost. But, there were veggies from the market at home and, well, an Ocean post to write.

We’ll see you on the next segment. (Before winter. Join us. Find out when and where here.)

on the bus ride home

Another lovely evening with students and another late return home.

It’s rare that I’m downtown past dinnertime. I know that this isn't anywhere near the witching hour, but I have adopted my grandmother’s hours and so I start dreaming of flannels (her preferred sleeping attire) in the hours far in advance of midnight.

My grandmother, of course, was also an early riser and now I am that too. If at 30 I forced myself out of bed in the morning, these days I force myself to stay put and try for another few minutes of sleep. It rarely comes. Forcing sleep is like forcing fertility: the more you want it, the less likely it’ll oblige.

Because there was a threat of rain, I had taken the bus rather than the bike down to the pizza place.



ah. my bus is coming down state st.


At least two of the students had parking ticket violations and hefty fines because they failed to drop small coins within seconds of when the meter did indeed run into the witching hour for them.

Sad. But I am among the lucky few who can ride home on a bus. Tonight it was one that takes the long route and I can’t tell you how pleasant it was to sit back and close my eyes and worry about nothing at all during the entire ride home.

Week well spent, family sagas (temporarily) resolved, love still felt, work still has meaning, the cold spell still not arrived.

One student commented that I give long answers to questions. A habit of a blogger – one who is used to answering even when a question isn’t as yet posed.

night

It’s been a long time since I biked in the pitch black night.





I really somewhat like it. On a warm night, the darkness is rather inviting. Speeding up one hill and coasting down the next, I’m thinking – this is what running away must feel like. Mmmmm…

But, I haven’t much to run from. The day was so full of good work and good encounters with students (yes, the annual pizza night at Uno’s: one section today, another tomorrow) that really, if I were to run toward anything at the moment it would be toward more work. It can be that intense. Or distracting, depending on what else you want to accomplish during your time on the planet.

I wont post photos of the evening with students – there are too many lovely faces out there and I don’t want to pick and choose. But I’ll put up this – of one waiting for the doors of the Karaoke place to open. If he looks worn and tattered, it’s because it was an even longer, even harder day for him. I at least get to declare recess when I need a break. The students have to wait. Until recess. And for the karaoke doors to open for them.

flight

I can’t say that I am one of those who looks for “signs.” As in -- "if the sun shines in the next minute then I will get mumps"… Strange reasoning. I avoid it.

Still, what would you think if, on the way to your Torts class, you had to slow down your bike in order to avoid hitting the white-clothed men and women?





I'm biking, as usual, past the hospital and I understand that there was an emergency drill today, so, of course, there is an explanation. But I have to wonder. Is it coincidence that I am racing to be on time for my class on medical malpractice?

Whew. Too much seriousness for Ocean.

I'll switch gears:

I have been (cheerfully?) complaining about how housebound I am this fall. I'm certain that I need flight in the same way that you need air conditioning (all Americans appear to need air conditioning). Let me say this: it is easier to turn up air conditioning than it is to put in place flight when your income dwindles (it’s the economy, stupid!), and supplements to it are, well, meager.

Spend your miles! – someone might say to me. (I accumulate miles in the way that people accumulate junk: constantly, without ever throwing anything away.) No! That’s for the ultimate rainy day -- when I can’t moonlight anywhere at all because I am so old that my joints don’t permit me to open the door to anything that doesn’t have a push button attached to it.


Late, on my way home, I bike to the grocery store to pick up veggies for supper. Hi, Ocean, says a fellow shopper who knows me pretty much exclusively through the blog. Going anywhere soon? I've been wondering... Funny you should ask, just on this day!

So, today, my occasional traveling companion and I purchased flights. Indeed! All those hours of post-work work (“Hello, how are you? What brings you to our shop this evening?”) have given me a flight.

Even though the flight isn’t until December.

In the meantime, I take great great pleasure in watching the flight of other winged ones. On that same bike ride to work this afternoon, I notice this guy take off. Happy travels to you. I know how cool it is to push off and head elsewhere.

kormorany, in english

A commenter asked for a translation of the song in the previous post. I was going to do this in the comment section, but then I realized that it's Tuesday, for God's sake, Tuesday, my awfully long day, a day that is so consumed by work that I cannot write anything here at all because everything has to do with work and, well, I don't write about work.

You could have had here a post about rain. Because there was plenty of it. But that's too simple. Let me add a layer of emotion by providing (some of) the lyrics from yesterday's song. Interspersed with photos from today (hello, autumn!). A very very wet day. So wet, that no one's shoes were adequate. Sit back and just look at this (very wet) landscape as if you were Polish. Take off your socks. They're wet. I peeled off mine. And I let myself lean back into my chair, immersing myself in the words before me:

Kormorany. The cormorants.

Dzień gaśnie w szarej mgle
The day disappears into a gray mist

Wiatr strąca krople z drzew
The wind shakes off raindrops from trees

Sznur kormoranów w locie splątał się
A string of cormorants, tangled in flight

Pożegnał ciepły dzień
Said good bye to a warm day

Ostatni dzień w mazurskich stronach
The last day in the Mazury region [the lake region of Poland, where so many set sail during vacation]

Zmierzch z jezior żagle zdjął
Dusk took the sails off the waters

Mgieł porozpinał splot
That's a toughie: it's about dusk taking apart the tangle of misty air

Szmer tataraku jeszcze dobiegł nas
The whisper of sweet flag reaches us

Już wracać czas
It's time to return home...





Even pop music could not shake the poetic impulse. Songs of the sixties in Poland, even the late sixties, were so full of metaphors and poetry that the heart just swelled.

kormorany

Has anyone become tired here of the ending summer theme? Really not? Honestly?

With the official close of summer (tomorrow afternoon), I put a close to brooding. The seasonal malaise, fueled by wistful rides past yellowing fields of soy has to stop. You can’t in one breath say you’re all about the colorful, changing landscape (I love a crisp fall! I love the new school year! I love living in a place with four seasons!) and in the next – tear it apart (I miss summer! I hate the gray of November! Look one last time at the barefoot women and shirtless men on the UW campus!)





Though really, I'll admit it, change is difficult. Only spring manages to gallop in without so much as a shrug of concern for all those who happened to have loved February or March.

So, let me stumble along, as I become, with each day, more and more accustomed, as we all will be, to the shift away from summer, toward the dull, cold, bleak, gray days of late fall. Can’t wait.

In the meantime, I'll be listening to Kormorany, A Polish song that I learned to love in 1966, when I returned to Poland from the States. It speaks of the shift from summer to fall. Kinga, one Polish-American reader who occasionally checks in here, this one’s for you. The rest of Ocean readers, well, you may enjoy seeing what was hot (music-wise) in Poland in 65-66. Not up to the standard of the Beatles? Oh, how little you know about what pulls at the Polish heart!

a cigarette break

I like the idea of stepping outside for a few minutes to take stock of what you’re doing and where you’re heading. A cigarette break sort of, minus the cigarette.





I also like the idea of sitting down at a café, over a beer (or glass of wine) before a sensible hour, because it suggests that nothing else has to be done that day,

I did neither. Though I did jump out of the ordinary for a bit (even as I spent very little time outdoors). Instead of receding into my usual ’09 antisocial demeanor, I drank coffee with friends, first, at brunch, with my very kind manager (from the little shop where I moonlight)…





…then at the place of the cigarette and beer photo.

It’s a bewildering day in a calm sort of way. One can invent drama in one’s head even when nothing’s happening.


Maybe it’s time to step outside again. No cigarette, just a break from an evening of thinking.

It’s truly beautiful outside – summer, masquerading as fall.

A very long goodbye to a sweet and gentle season.