rituals of autumn

Each year now we drive north. Not too far. Half an hour maybe. Pumpkins? Yes, there are those in various sizes.





But in truth, we go for the apples. No, actually for the cider. Ed freezes quite a few gallons for the winter. This year daughters, too, pick up a number of jugs.

The skies turn mostly gray, the air is brisk. The colors are just emerging now -- the apples, sure, all amber and gold. And of course, the nearly spent leaves on the trees in the distance.
























Ski Hi orchards. There was one year in the last half dozen when we missed the Fall visit here, even as this year we're so determined to do the cider run that we're on the early side of fall.





Medium early.






Oftentimes, on the return trip, we take the ferry across the Wisconsin River.  It's a simple and quiet run. My daughters remind me that we never took the ferry when they were young. I try to think of a reason, but none comes to mind. Routines evolve. This one evolved (for me) only in the last half dozen years.

I watch a family with four sons climb every conceivable rail and shake anything loose that a kid's hand can grab and I think about the different energy levels and exploratory styles of children.







Ed tells me boys at a ferry landing inevitably will be out of the car, searching and probing for clues on the mechanics of the passage (this ferry is towed by a rope). Maybe. It helps if your blood is forever pumping hot stuff through your veins so that you never feel the chill in the air. I'm pulling tightly on my scarf even as I note that Ed is only in a t-shirt and appears not to notice the strength of the wind during the river crossing.



And now we are again on the south side of the river. We meander toward Gibraltar Rock. Ed and I came here five years ago, when we first began our occasional traveling together. Since then, we've come back now and then, always in the Fall, always looking for the twisted curvy trunks and the waves of harvested fields below. The trees are barely golden up here, but even so, it is a splendid view onto a  truly Wisconsin landscape down below the wooded hill.


















We get lost heading home. That's not unusual. Ed and I don't pay attention to roads and directions. And of course, it's always nicer on the quiet back roads. And the sky... oh, you should have seen those strips of deep blue at the very last hours of daylight!






I remember one autumn of some years back when it rained nearly every day. And once, on October 9th, I recall there was snow. Those are the odd years. Most often, autumn is like today -- brisk, sharp and deeply satisfying. As if it signifies the end of nothing at all. On days like this, one forgets that right before us we have November.  And March, too. Remember March? No? Me neither. Not today.

the first of the month

Dreamy October days... when every wisp of cloud and gust of warm air are perfectly situated.

Hearings, meetings and then slam, the work day is over.

A coffee meet-up...










A late bike ride to the farmette...





An even later motorbike ride into the countryside...





Then home. To make chili. When all is said and done, there's chili.

a thought

Do people choose places at cafés near artwork depicting people who resemble them? Or at least dress like them?










I didn’t really stay at this coffee shop – I was merely accompanying someone who was picking up an iced tea, but it struck me that we really strive to hang close to (images of) people who are in even the most superficial ways like us.

Which makes me completely befuddled (not bothered, merely befuddled) as to why I would have as an occasional traveling companion someone who thinks working on a John Deere tractor does not require a change of clothing afterwards. You know --- for dinner, or for an evening with his traveling (occasionally at least) buddy.


We are on the couch now, ostensibly watching a clip on nut production (he likes these clips, I like, instead, movies that make me laugh or cry -- either one), but really not paying attention, as he is asleep and I am posting. He is in his post John Deere garb, I am in my post teaching three classes garb. We look very mismatched.

But we both are drawn to a good baguette and a perfectly ripened apricot, so that counts for something, no?

lovely

Think beautiful fall day. Nothing more nothing less. Library Mall's cleaned up and quiet, especially between classes. A person here, a person there, bikes in racks,or leaning against lamp posts, leaves turning, still warm though, very warm...





Walk home late, in near evening light. A glance up at Picnic Point, so pretty now, in the pale colors of early fall. Breathe deeply, exhale.





Lovely.

virgin

Hard to believe, but I am that. A virgin. Or so I was told last week and I’ll admit that it was doubly true today.

I had gone in to see my doc last week about a progressively dysfunctional shoulder. Perhaps you have such a shoulder? Not yet frozen but heading there? Her reaction  – start therapy! Immediately! Then she asks -- have you ever done PT? No... I say, ashamed. A right of passage into adulthood that has passed me by. Ah! A PT virgin! -- my doc proclaims.


Tuesdays are heavy teaching days for me – three classes, back to back, and even though I can no longer erase much of the blackboard with my right arm (yes, when it goes, it goes!) I postpone the visit with the PT (whom I would prefer to think of as a Personal Trainer – it sounds so much more athletic and that's not really a long shot, as he works out of the Sports Clinic) until late in the day.

Which is why I bike frantically (not frantically enough to put away the camera) to campus in the morning...





Then bike frantically back to the west side for my session with the PT... pull arm this way, stretch it that way, no, keep it at an angle...

...and then it’s time for the decision: bike back to campus?

Obama is to deliver a speech at the UW late today. Should I bike all the way down, even as chances of getting anywhere near the podium now, close to five, are so small, especially since the line to gain entry to Library Mall (place of the event)  has been snaking and waiting for miles, since three in the afternoon?





I think back and try to recall if I have ever witnessed the live presence of a president in my life. No, I have not. (A presidential sighting virgin!) I do vaguely recall handing flowers to Nikita Kruschev as he stepped off the plane on a visit to New York in the 60s, but that was entirely spurred by my parents’ preoccupation with a certain brand of politics then, and of course, he was not really a president, let alone this country's president.

And so I turn back and bike furiously back to campus. It’s now nearly five and I think I don’t have a chance of making it inside the privileged space where only about 15,000 will congregate (the spillover crowd will go to Bascom Hill where you can't see beans).

And lo, the line has shortened and I just make it inside.

And although the viewing options are terrible, I have enough Polish squeeze in me to get a spot where I can actually witness the sea of humankind before me...









...and more importantly, I can see this...





(and so can the men with weapons, from the roof of our library...)





Ahhh, to listen to the vibe of a different world than the one you read about in the everyday!


 


My viewing spot is not especially amidst students (even though students dominate the event I am told). I have a mother and child to one side, a grandma and daughter, a single old guy, and because we are a generous bunch, we allow a running mix of people from down there to join us up at the platform for a minute or two, just to see the guy. We extend our arms and we pull ‘em up and then they dutifully go down again and the next one comes up. To see the president.





Dusk sets in. The event draws to an end and we all disperse.  I bike home hurriedly, out of habit. It's been such a long day.


 


I am part of a mass exodus from a campus that has for the first time in my lifetime hosted an American president. Big deal, right?

Well, actually, it was kind of a big deal.

for the beauty...

And so finally I bike to work.





Ohhhh, I needed that. The slap in the face. Cold air. A reminder: this is how it is.

Flowers of September. I don’t remember there being so many asters here in the past! Does it change, along the shores of Lake Mendota? You mean things change? Oh, why didn't I think that before?


After classes I’m heading toward State Street for coffee. Preparations for tomorrow: it has been sixty years since an American president has visited the UW campus. Tomorrow, Obama arrives to speak here.





It’s not clear that I can actually witness this (more on that tomorrow), but today, I’m able to see how quickly a campus transforms itself into a secure zone. Suddenly our laidback Library Mall, where young men cavort in shorts and t-shirts almost year round, is dotted with small groups of a different type.





Men in somber suits and ties. They’re everywhere.





I bike home quickly. It's cool and I have work to do. And I want to take some time this evening just to think and mull.

At home, I put on music to help me with this and of course, it does just the opposite. I lose myself in the songs of years ago -- I'm sure everyone has their own cache. Would it surprise you to know that mine jumps the range from pop, to musical, to jazz, to classical and especially choral? Tonight was a choral night.

I set my internal alarm for an early wake up and toddle off to try for at least some basic number of hours of sleep.

spent stalks and old leather

Soy and corn... however we feel about this Wisconsin farmland staple, it sure makes for pretty fall colors.





Old barns, old farmsteads. Think of it: there was once a family farm – maybe owned by the Larsons, and then there was another – call it that of the Lalors. And they flourished and they prospered and before you know it, all land around you belonged to the Larsons or the Lalors.

What do I know about it? No, nothing at all. Just this much: one Lalor family member lived in an old house until she was in her nineties... Here, she lived, so far as I know, alone, here:





(Though her nephew lived just across the road. A Lalor in the land of Larsons.)

She died some half dozen years ago, but the house still stands, as does the barn.





With everything inside as you would imagine it must have been at the time that they raised cattle and kept horses.
















That was a long long time ago. You can tell just fingering the bits and pieces of old leather...





These are the folks that are (more or less) Ed’s neighbors. Within a stone’s throw of his farmette (where the barn is still standing though just barely).

In the Lalor barn, there are old corn cobs left from when animals dumped them on the wooden planks. And shit. There’s badger shit. Or some such animal droppings.

Surely many Wisconsin animals have made homes of the old barns that offer nothing more beyond shelter for the truly needy.



Nearly evening. I drive past a prairie field of gold and purple. Interspersed with spent stalks of something once beautiful but now so very close to moribund.

by the wayside

You cannot do it all. And if you think you can do even just most of it, you’ll wake up in the middle of the night and your mind will start racing and scheming, and before you know it, the darkness outside will turn into a golden light, touching momentarily the tree by your bedroom window.

I will miss that tree at sunrise (when I eventually move out of the condo).





You have to let go of things. With a shrug of indifference. Can’t fret. So you didn’t make it to the market until nearly noon, so what. There’s plenty to choose from at the tail end of the market morning.





And that’s one fine box of strawberries. Lonely there, on the table, but still delicious.





On the other hand, you can’t neglect the important things. Remember how my bike dominates my outdoor commute for a good part of the year? (Even as each year, I define the “good part” less generously...) Well, I’ve not had the time to replace the flat and so the bike has been hunched in its disabled state for three months. And sure enough, when I finally attended to it early this morning, it showed me how badly damaged it really was. Flat tire, yes, that. Add to it a missing screw here, a dysfunctional derailleur there....

Unfortunately I find this out just at the time I am to meet my daughter and her friend for a bike ride. A dozen miles to Ed’s farmette, another thirteen looping back.

Neglected bike – I let you down and now you’re showing your hurt and bewilderment.

I’m sorry.

We tweak this and that and I’m off. The three big gears are frozen, but the little ones still work. That’s okay. You can’t do it all, you can’t do it all...



And it is a lovely ride. I’ll just(!) post five photos, but a convincing fivesome, I think. My world is a painting and I don't need a brush to prove it.

























I'll attend to the larger bike issues soon, really I will. Maybe.

traveling companions and pumpkins

I’m sitting here listening to Ed read about the moog synthesizer. I don’t really know what it is and arguably, I’m not better off knowing anything about it. But Ed’s voice can be soothing when he reads snippets of what he considers to be interesting information out there.

I think about how odd it must be to one looking in on this association that I have with my occasional traveling companion. The moog synthesizer story is one of several I am likely to hear that I would not have tuned into otherwise.

And, by the end of the moog run, I will know a lot about moog – and then, too, how there is something about the manufacture airplane components (the F-35 joint strike fighter – joint, Ed explains, because many countries have a piece of it), and how they have their headquarters in New York...

They bought one of our machines – he tells me. (Ed is a partner in a CNC milling machine business.)

I tell a friend today over coffee that I am happy. Creaky shoulder and unsold condo notwithstanding. Of course, this is before Ed tells the waiter at the restaurant where we go with my daughter and her friend -- ok, never mind, you really don’t want to know what he said.

Ed is Ed. Once you accept that, you can continue.