early

Again I have to start the day early. I watch for the first signs of light outside as I flip through pages of papers. There are strands of mist in the hills to the south of my windows. And it looks cold. And wet.

Most often I don’t leave until just before my first morning class, but today I decide to get to campus with an hour to spare.

I’m on the bike, still feeling the wetness of the receding mist. The street looks like it’s been hosed down with water. It’s cold, but on these morning rides I’m rarely cold. I’m not tired yet. It makes a difference.

Of course, this early, the light is exceptionally enchanting. I take the longer path – the one that makes its way past Eagle Heights, past the woods leading up to Picnic Point.





Picnic Point. There’s an idea. I have time.

I detour even more and take the path to the tip of the peninsula.





To me, Picnic Point has always felt just a little too city park-like. The garbage cans that line the path. The clearings with log benches. The chain fence a long a good stretch of it. But on this morning, all I can see it its simple loveliness! And I can look at the morning lake from this very different perspective.





It’s very satisfying to take a morning detour. It puts you in a good place – ready to face the relentless string of classes, student requests, papers to grade. (And to face the plummeting stock market – of special interest to me now that I own stocks. At least I think I own stocks. See previous post.)





I’ve come to understand, too, how really wonderful it is to live in a place with four seasons. I know, our fall this year has been in the category of “best ever.” Still, I watch the last of the gold on the few trees that haven’t quite let go of it and I think (I'm back on the lake shore path now) – cool! but I'm also okay with the bare limbs.





In fact, I am extremely enthusiastic about the snows that are about to come. And the ice on the lake. And then the thaw. And then -- ferns, flowers, daffodils. Yes, it’s good to be in Madison and to have a bike with a fresh tire that I’m hoping will keep on spinning.

stocks, loons and yellow flowers

I think it astonishes Ed how much I do not get the American way of making money. I tell him that I am not exactly economics-challenged -- indeed, I was, for nearly three years, an econometrics major at the University of Warsaw before I moved (as it turned out) permanently to the States. He’ll shake his head and attribute my ignorance to learning economics over there, under that regime. People raised under communism are without entrepreneurial grit and savvy.

Today, I made (yet again) one of those errors in dealing with my accounts that shows how I just haven't yet grasped the details.  [In case you’re curious, I thought that merely having a brokerage account meant that I was riding the stock market -- with its downs, sure, but also primed to make a killing in the months ahead. That is, insofar as a $1000 investment - that's all that is at stake in this story - can make any kind of a killing. I thought it might. I didn't know you had to buy something with it first. Like stocks or funds. Such a complicated system you have going here...]

Ed’s reaction? He looks at me, stunned, then offers the gentle comment – your grasp of capitalism is rather modest.

So now I know. And I quickly purchase stuff -- stocks, I think, but who can really tell what it all means, and, with great excitement, I monitor my modest account for the rest of the day.

It sustains a loss. What a surprise.


In other news – I’m still biking to and from work. I have no interest in taking the bus. How can you not bike when, on the ride back, you witness sights like this -- a loon, doing a water walk?





Otherwise, please know that it is a supremely busy work week for me. I take note of small pleasures. The lake shore bike path, always that...





...and, at home, looking up from my work, I appreciate what's in front of me: flowers, in harmony with the the surroundings.





Small pleasures.

Sunday

I can’t mess too much with a Sunday line up. Morning spent on cleaning, a few hours given over to work, a few to the great outdoors if the weather obliges. Then it’s a race: pick up the groceries, fix the Great Sunday Meal, tidy up, write the post and finish whatever work remains for the day,

That’s the goal.

If one thing takes a tad longer than expected, the castle crumbles.

Today, I am off to a good start: the house is scrubbed and ready for the week ahead before noon. Even seizing the great outdoors takes a reasonable handful of hours: Ed and I set out for a lovely mid November hike along an old segment of the Ice Age Trail (it’s close – just due south of here, near Belleville)...





...and the weather turns. From brisk but dry, to brisk and wet. The kind of tingly wet that makes you realize that you're just a degree or two away from snow.

I have to say, it takes a while before we admit that it's too wet to continue. Because even in mid November, it can be quite magnificent out there, along the mildly hilly landscape of south central Wisconsin.






The hardwood forests are bare, sure, but the berry canes haven’t quite shaken off this year's growth and the grasses range from pale gold to vibrant copper. With a shake of chili pepper over it all.





We pull up our jacket collars and persevere (just a couple of miles, before one of us, I wont say who, suggests that we turn back).

Looking around, I think how we’re working with a different palate now than, say, in spring or summer. But different does not mean lacking. Even when the naked trees seem disturbingly close in color to the darkening gray skies around us.





And the fragrance! A damp, spent forest in November, wet prairie grasses -- oh, it's hard to make yourself turn around and head home. Indeed, we run into a foursome that has no intention of calling it quits (well, the older duo does seem to be trailing...)





But, when your jacket is starting to feel waterlogged, and wisps of hair are sticking to your face, you know it's time to reconsider.

I note that there are two other cars at the place where the trail crosses the county road. Hunters. They're out for birds today. Not much luck, one tells me. But as his setter shakes off the wetness, I think -- luck is relative.


 


After the hike, I cook. Daughters come, with friends again, and it’s impossible not to let yourself get carried along with their youthful energy even as you know that when the last dish gets scraped and loaded into the washer, you have absolutely no oomph left.


Sure, an Ocean post gets a tad delayed then. But consider the up side:  house is clean, work is nearly done, lungs are cleared, stomach’s full – really, could anyone have a more satisfying Sunday?

a walk along Lake Mendota Drive

Drizzly, cold. The way November typically presents itself. Mostly somber and without color. Mostly.





I go for a walk with my younger girl and it’s supposed to be a quick walk and it’s not supposed to rain, but I seem to be wrong on both counts and by the time we emerge from it all it is quite dark.





And wet. And actually sort of beautiful.

flat

Surely this is the end of the biking season for me. Once the ground freezes, I lose interest in speeding to work along the lake path. It's slated to freeze soon.

And so it is unfortunate that after leaving PT, I feel the drag that comes from a flat tire.

Threadbare – the man at the bike shop tells me (how lovely that I should go flat just a quarter of a mile from a bike place). Your tires. You need new ones.

He’s right. I've ridden on these tires for nearly five years now. But who installs new tires just before wheeling the machine to its winter resting place in the garage?

And yes, tomorrow we’re getting that favorite stuff that comes in transitional months here – a seasonal mix. They don’t mean of music and spices. They mean of snow and rain.

So what: it's been a grand ride! The poor weather comes in on November 13th... My tire explodes at the end of it all, during an unhurried and inconsequential ride back home after the PT... Who can complain??

... and so I spin (after the tire change) -- through Owen Woods, just for a little pick me up before hitting the books and papers waiting at home.

a patch

At two o’clock in the morning, I down one, two, three ibuprofens. No effect. I’m up pacing. I’m reminded of labor. Or a gall bladder attack. Times when pain pushes thoughts of any better world aside.

Ed suggests we search the Internet for some late night distraction. I don’t know. Maybe with an ice pack on my shoulder? He rolls forward an episode of Two and a Half Men. I smile. We watch another. I find that if I don’t move at all, the ice does the job. A few hours later, just before daybreak, I doze off again. For a few minutes. Classes start early today.


I admit it -- I am tired. Three classes to teach and I can’t quite write on the blackboard yet. Too much motion with the troubled arm.

But the pain’s receding and the day’s progressing and I actually dare bike to and from work, even as one hand is hardly functional and the wind is ripping at me right through the threadbare fleece of both jacket sleeves. (I should have taken the warmer coat.)


And now, in the evening I’m sitting with a friend over a glass of rosé, reflecting about all that lends itself to an evening of reflection, and I’m thinking – wow, it’s as if the Night of Pain never happened.

A tiny patch of blue sky! Yes, thank you,  I’ll take it.

the psychology of pain

If you seek medical care because suddenly you have developed some disturbing symptoms, the diagnostic visit to the doctor is never without apprehension. You know something’s wrong and you'd like to be told that it's not life-threatening and that it wont require periods of debilitating treatment and years of anxiety about whether you’ll live beyond tomorrow.

You’re relieved when your doc orders tests, and then tells you – so far so good! [These days, this is as much as you can hope for. Gone are the blissful times when doctors actually say things like -- go home and relax... you’ll be fine... take it from me – there’s nothing wrong with you. Today, that kind of reassurance is a law suit in the making.]

But I find that, for me, it is entirely a different experience when I’m told to see a sports doctor. Wow, I am one of the super elite that challenges her body to the max! Sure, something snapped somewhere along the way, but hey, we are now going to figure out how to glue it back together! I am up there with football players and Tour de France riders! I am going to see a sports guy!

Actually, it turns out to be a woman. A professor, too. She's big stuff.

I immediately ask her – do you mostly see athletes? She acknowledges that they are a big part of her practice. I beam. There are posters of cyclists on the wall of the examining room. I am in a spot reserved for people with muscle and grit.

And I wonder – do people choose to practice sports medicine for the same reason an occasional student of mine will choose to go into entertainment law? Or animal law? Because they love the movie stars, the animals, or athletes?


My shoulder, which has been bothering me now for maybe half a year, receives a different and not altogether bad diagnosis and prognosis (I read up later that many people think they fully recover from this condition, because it gives the appearance of being healed, even as it really isn't... pain's gone, must be fine;  that would be a good things, as far as I’m concerned).

I take in her every word (as do her underlings – med profs travel with an entourage) and submit myself to a slight procedure then and there and then wave a cheery good bye. Feels better already, I say.

Wait until this afternoon, you’ll be less chipper – she responds.

Eh, these doctors – they like to scare you. She’s used to bringing down the inflated ego of a football star.

I pedal to class. Lovely day, la de da.






Also a long day. I have classes to teach and a long line of students during office hours.

I dash out for a coffee break. It really is gorgeous outside!
Even as, just at the entrance to the Law School, I see this bird – a hawk, laying in waiting.






Yes, there is some poor unsuspecting creature that is about to be clawed to pieces. There he goes!






And now I begin to feel something akin to claws tearing into my shoulder.  The aftermath of seeing a sports physician:  an evening of pain in order to get me past the hump.


I pedal home wishing I had many handfuls of ibuprofen pills in my backpack. And why is it so dark anyway?


 


I remain in pain. But I continue to imagine that I am in the kind of pain that belongs to athletes and sports fanatics.

And eventually, in time, I may reach a point where I'll be fooled into believing that I am done with this. An injury properly healed -- through will and grit. Yeah!

In the meantime, there's ibuprofen.

how about that

Everyone is talking about it. At the grocery store, at work – how about that! Isn’t it something?

I am, of course, referring to the weather.

(Yawn...)

(Yawn? Truly?)

This is top news! I’m sweaty hot biking to work today! In the future, I’ll recall that I was still riding my bike daily in November, and I’ll think – my, I was young and hearty. Not so, the truth is that the  weather has stolen the show. I’m stuck in a near perfect Fall. With late summer overtones.

What will be the price? What will be asked of me in the months ahead in exchange for this?

In the meantime, did I mention the weather? Amazing! And so very appreciated. Both coming and going.

a beaming grandma

If I think about my social contacts of ten years back – the people I saw on a regular basis here, in Madison – I think – wow. That’s a long list.

If I bring that list into focus, I note one startling reality: none of those people are still good friends (as measured by how often I see them). That is rather remarkable, considering I have stayed in the same town for more than thirty years now.

Divorce can do that for you: it can cut into your social network, ripping it to shreds with a snap of a finger.

There are many women who went through this transition with strong friends (verbally coaching them) at their side. I was not one of them. I went through my divorce (if not the period before it) quietly and after dismissing the involvement of attorneys, handled much of the transition myself.

It is, of course, true that I met Ed in the same season that I finalized my divorce. Ed, a socially quiet person, allowed me to feel equally comfortable with a more quiet existence.

With a handful of close “new” friends and a handful of close far away friends.

But you could not have convinced me ten years ago that I would be so, well, socially quiet now. And I suppose that when I do move to the farmhouse, I will grow even quieter.


On some days, I think – it cannot be! Did I really cook up storms so many times each year for others? Did I?





I think this as I stir foods for Sunday dinner. I am certain that as long as I am around, I will at least cook Sunday dinner. For family and their friends. Even without grandchildren, I have become a Polish grandmother: in my experience, old world grandmothers always cooked the big dinner for the family and their friends. In the course of the hundreds of Sunday dinners I ate at my grandma’s, I never once saw a friend of hers sit down with us for the meal. (Oh dear: did she even have friends? What happened to her friends? I'm told she was, in her younger decades, very social!) She stood near the table and beamed as we all ate.


I wish I had had the maturity to ask her if she ever minded the change to this type of existence.

and another

It’s like shaking loose your very last drops of that precious olive oil – the one you use only on dishes where it will be noticed. So, too, I squeeze out the last hours of brilliant warm sunlight, but with some regret, because you know it's the very last drop. It's over and done with. I understand. It is the way seasons work.

But then I give it one more shake and out comes another day that is as glorious as if someone forgot that we are deep into November.


First thing’s first though. Sunday is condo cleaning day. I am grateful for that extra hour of time today (Fall back!) – because any time spent indoors feels tragically wasted.

By late morning, all is squeaky clean. Ed and I have a good bit of time left, though not much enthusiasm for a long car trip. And so we decide to hike a stretch of the Ice Age Trail that is just to the north of us (some twenty miles, as the car drives). It’s not a long trail segment – maybe six miles ( and then, of course, one must do it in reverse) – but it is truly a gorgeous little hike (although, really, I’ve not yet come across an Ice Age Trail segment that is disappointing).

So much variety! We pick up the trail as it crosses the main road leading into Lodi (the town just to our north)  and we follow it past the fields at the base of the hilly ridge.





And then, it’s a straight up climb. Past oaks and hardwoods, bare now, allowing the sun to shoot straight at you.





And then it’s one great view after another.

We plop down at the ridge, by fields of dry grasses and take in the spread of hilly land before us.









Ah, Wisconsin! To live this close to a trail that is so removed from any noise or unnecessary disturbance -- how heavenly is that!






I comment that I am beyond surprised that we have the trail basically to ourselves. It’s Sunday! Where is everyone? I think how in Poland, a walk in the country is everyone’s favorite weekend activity. Why isn’t it ours here?










We do encounter one jogger and later, two gentlemen out for a late stroll.  And some non-hikers as well: men with guns.





It’s not the deer hunting season now, but as I’ve said before, a fall hike in our state means that you will hear gunfire.

Most often we don’t actually come face to face with the hunters, but this time we do cross paths with two sets. The first, a father and son team, looks so pleased and beaming that I didn’t have to ask if they’d been successful. Still, I do ask, curious, too, what could possibly be carried off in a little plastic bag.





Squirrels, the dad tells me. He got them! Two shots, two squirrels!
The kid is proud as anything.

So what do you do with them?

Squirrel stew.
Of course.

The second set is a man and his dog. They are making their way through the prairie and they pause when they see us – you can’t help but stop anyone within earshot on a day like this.

Gorgeous, isn’t it?

Yes! Absolutely! Any luck with the hunt?

Not today. We’re hunting pheasant. Saw some last week. Not today...

And still, no one who is out could be disappointed. We grin broadly at each other, wave and move on...





... following the path now back down again.

The last of the glorious weekend days. Shake that bottle, shake shake, a couple of hours more, and then it’s gone. I don’t expect another for a while.  Yeah, I know we've been lucky. Good days aren't typically clumped together in this way. Yes, sure, I know that the rotten stuff is about to come down hard. (May I suggest a few more days of respite? Do your dirty work in December: it's expected then.) But these past weeks -- whoa, it's been grand!

long and winding

Sometimes, the thing to do is just to head out. And walk. For a long long time.

We did that today, Ed and I, and it was the good thing, the right thing to do.


We hiked one of the southern most portions of our state's Ice Age Trail. A six hour traipse (three hours one way and three hours on the return).





I suppose from the camera’s perspective, it was a very ordinary hike. The leaves are mostly down, the prairie flowers are spent, the colors are muted.





But in my mind, there isn’t much that you could improve upon today: the sky is brilliant, the air is nippy but still in a gentle way.


This segment of the trail eventually catches up to the southern tail of the Kettle Moraine and so there are the usual dips and climbs and the wonderful mixed vegetation along the way.










And a handful of lakes. Every good hike needs one lake. Or more.
















We cross a few bucolic roads and pastures...






 



... and we seem to spook a few red breasted pheasants.

Mostly though, we hike in silence. We like it that way. And every now and then we stop: to rest, but really just to take note. If you're absolutely still, you see the small things. If you're moving, half your attention is on keeping upright, on not stumbling. (Predictably, I stumble more than Ed does.)






We encounter no more than a handful of other hikers. And we cross paths with these two – and their dogs (and horses, though you can't see them here).





Recreational pups? I ask. No – just pets. They like to come out with us when we ride. Yes, I can see that...


One more look, one more deep breath of fall...





Did I mention how terrific it is to crunch on acorns and rustle the brittle leaves on a path that you know continues for a long long while? One that, every few miles, offers you this -- a wooden bench, in a clearing -- a place to rest, sure, that. And to stretch, and to clear your mind.

even earlier

One way to lengthen a day that doesn’t have enough hours in it is to get up even earlier. To set your appointments for before light takes hold. And indeed, to be done with them before the sun fully swings over the horizon.

This is my Friday.

The good thing is that I have, with my early gallivanting, a chance to see the world (or at least Madison) in the shriek of early morning color.





Gorgeous stuff. So, no lake shore bike path photos for you today. And in fact, it is a good thing that I put away my camera during the actual ride to campus. The wind was brutal then!

...While in the earliest hours I barely noticed it. Wind? What wind? Shhh, sit back and be quiet, and watch the stroll of the wild turkeys. They know how to take in the best light of the day.












Almost as good as watching the robins bounce around the crab apples at sunset at Ed’s place. Almost.

life and law

Life

Who can make sense of it anyway.

One minute they tell me it’s good out there – go out and bike, the weather is good, yes, it’s good...

And then it’s not so good.





And in the evening it gets worse.

Push, push, forward, forward... where has this wind come from? Has November always been this fierce?

November. So that’s what it is. I bike in the morning and I am in such a rush that I notice nothing beyond the lateness of the hour. And at the tail end of the day I am so tired that I notice.. well,  the lateness of the day, the cold air, the regret that I never had the time to stop for lunch.


I teach three classes and I say the same to each, and I say it here, on Ocean too: my littlest one was sworn into the Illinois bar today. For the first time ever (so far as I can recall) I could not be there for her. All those damn concerts, recitals, show and tells and childhood moments, I somehow managed to leave all and be in the audience. But not today.

Funny how that can happen.

The wind whipped and tore at all that was in its path. I remembered a calmer night, when my girls and I were on the Capitol Square listening to Hayley Westenra sing (at a very young age). I thought then that at some point, Hayley's family would not be there to witness all her successes.

I pedaled home, put down the bike and took the bus right back downtown. We had a family celebration to attend to. Three attorneys now. Me, older daughter, younger daughter.

Congrats, little one. Welcome to the world of law.