from Cascais, Portugal: break

We got it today – a greatly appreciated pause in the rains (to resume tomorrow, and the next day...).



 our guest house against a partly blue sky


...even as Ed continues to struggle with the sprained (thankfully not broken) ankle, vacillating between being in denial (no, I’m fine... of course we can hike) to the delay (can we pause for a few minutes while I elevate my foot?) to the discouraging reluctance to so much as get out of bed (you sure you want to set out already?).

Margarida gives us a ride to the coast, pointing out various ways we can attack a trek along the water’s edge. The waves are fantastic! The wind has stirred up the hornet’s nest within the Atlantic – the might of the heaving masses of water is palpable, as it all crashes against cliffs and rocks, with a fine spray that makes the shoreline path take on a perpetual salty haze.





My camera is not happy with the sudden attack of salt. It is like wiping salty tears from a child’s face, only to have to do it all over again a minute later.

We start our walk up the coast, in the western direction, indeed, aiming for the point of Portugal which marks the farthest western tip of the European continent.

But shortly into our walk, we turn back. We’re tempted by the bikes that Margarida tells us are available here. Cascais will hand over a bike for your use for free. All you need is an ID and it’s yours until sundown. Ed thinks he may fare better pedaling rather than stomping and I'm happy to be covering longer distances.





There is a bike path that continues up the coast , with mild ascents and descents, and it is somewhat amusing to be handling these on one speed bikes. Ed reassures me – you actually have two speeds. Where do you see a second? You can push the bike and walk.

When the wind blows at our backs, my hair, delicately salty, blows in every direction, but I like the push from behind. When it hits us in the face, it feels brutally strong and fast, almost as if we're biking at great speeds (even as we’re not).

And all the time, we are aware of the crashing waves.


 


I think the term itself – the crash of a wave – has never been more apt. Often the wind picks up puffs of foam and sends them flying. And everywhere, there is the white, lathering foam from broken waves – coming, going, mixing together. Ed tells me – I’ve seen many an ocean front (this, the sailor in him), but I have never seen so much foam at the shore.



...with the most western tip of Europe, in a haze of sea mist



The weather holds up and after our bike ride, we have time for a stroll through, first along the shore, back to town...






...past a craft market...






...past fishing boats and lobster traps...






...then on to the old part of Casais.






















I’m hungry for a late lunch. Ed, who eats mammoth breakfasts when we’re traveling, is satisfied with a bowl of fish soup. I order the catch of the day – sea bream.





As we hike back to the guest house, we pause at one café for an espresso and a local pastry (very sweet, with shaved egg on top)..





...and then at a bakery to take some cookies back to our room.






We’re walking through a residential part of town...





...lost in a maze of streets that  seem to be always shifting directions. As the afternoon sun disappears, the air cools down ever so slightly.  I have a jacket, but Ed remains in short sleeves.  It's been a most beautiful day.



In the evening we again stay in the neighborhood for dinner, returning to the now open place Margarida favors -- Redes do Ma ("sea nets").





We know to ignore the menu and ask what’s available today. Fresh sea bass, or red mullet. I’m beginning to recognize the fish of the season here. I’ve had them all now. Each roasted in crunchy salt, with handfuls of garlic, each one delicious.










We pass on dessert. There are cookies back in our room. And we’re working through the bottle of Portuguese Port that Margarida left in our room.

from Cascais, Portugal: clockwork and cantaloupe

I had emailed Margarida, the landlady of the Dolce Cascais Guest House that we would probably arrive Thursday, around 6 in the evening. It’s a tiny place, sometimes calling itself a hostel (it offers no daily clean up service), but it is lovely and fresh and unbeatable at 40 Euros (about $50) per night for the two of us. With private bathroom, breakfast, WiFi, all taxes and service included.

The arrival prediction was a bit of a wild guess – the best I could do, given that we had two Madison buses, three separate flights, one Lisbon bus, and finally one Portuguese train to factor in.

We were at her doorstep at 5:30 p.m.

What’s most impressive about the whole bundle of travel connections is that the weather in western Europe is quite unstable this week. There is a storm front that’s bringing with it quite a bit of rain and gusts of furious wind.

If you ever fly Air France, you’ll probably recall that the pilots have this habit of telling it like it is. If anything, they tend to exaggerate the negatives. A typical announcement before landing would be: “the weather in Chicago is terrible right now: cold, poor visibility. We do hope you have had a pleasant flight.”

On our flight from Paris to Lisbon, the pilot tells us to prepare for “turbulance dynamique!!” on our landing. “The meteorological conditions are not good: heavy winds, cloudy skies.”

Turbulance dynamique. I’ll have to save that in my cache of terms to use for the rocky times that we face now and then.



landing in the clouds over Lisbon


Just hours before leaving Madison, I had an appointment with my sports doctor (makes me feel athletic just to type it) to take stock of where my fussy shoulder is at the moment. She wanted to do some manipulations, but I asked her to hold off as I was leaving the next day and didn’t want to travel with an achy body. You’re going to Portugal? What’s in Portugal? – she asks.

If you’re destined to be in Europe in the middle of January, is there a better place to catch your breath? It’s relatively warm (I’d say it’s like northern Florida, climate wise), relatively inexpensive, it’s uncrowded, naturally and architecturally pretty, with a zesty Mediterranean kitchen, and delicately drinkable wines (and of course, there’s the Port).

All that, but, too, there’s a feeling of remoteness that would appeal to both Ed and myself: Portugal is geographically closer to Africa than to any country in Europe (except for Spain). And Portugal has a long and rugged coastline. Superb hiking opportunities. Unless you’re traveling with someone who has an ankle that has morphed into looking like a cantaloupe, having only a few days ago looked remarkably like a watermelon.


We aren’t stopping in Lisbon. We haven’t much time and Ed is happier when I avoid putting him through a tour of the great capitals of Europe. But since we’re both traveling with almost no luggage, when the airport bus drops us by the coastal train station, we take a minute to walk around the water’s edge. Where the old warehouses face the choppy inlet.





And an occasional old fashioned tram will pull up and take in a wet and shivering people. (Ed, on the other hand, is down to his tshirt.)





Public transportation is so cheap here that we choose to stay with trains and buses rather than renting a car. A half hour train ride brings us to the coastal town (once fishing village, and even though it still has a fleet of fishing boats, you could hardly call it a village these days) of Cascais.





There is a threat of rain in the air and we still have our bags and we’re tired, and yet, we can’t resist a walk to the sea. Ed buys a bag of hot, roasted chestnuts (it seems to be a common street food here) and we munch these as take a quick look around.


















Our guest house is a little removed from the harbor area and the threat of rain has now finally become rain itself. Ed is relieved to put up his cantaloupe and indeed he tries to talk me out of going out again, but that’s just a futile thing. I’m good and hungry and I am especially hungry for something authentically Portuguese. Margarida suggests a place in the neighborhood and within a couple of hours, my umbrella is up and Ed’s hood is on and we set off in search of food.





It’s a warm rain and I’m not minding it at all, and that’s a good thing because we’re having a hard time finding the suggested restaurant. And when we do find it, it appears closed.

Still, there is a small place that has an open door and a name we cannot understand nor even pronounce -- Bandeireites -- and we walk in, shake off the rain and sit down. We’re given menus, but they’re in Portuguese. The waiter has a handful of English words and as best as we can understand him, most of the items on the menu are not available. This is a good thing, since in the off season overstocking a full menu means you prefer variety to something fresh and honest. What do you have then? -- we ask. Fish. Especially the freshest local sea bass.

We wait for our food and we watch the one solitary diner. He was on our train – Ed tells me.



two men in black, with curly hair


The waiter is setting wine and olives on a long table. A party? I ask. No, workers. He tells me.

But we don’t wait to watch their meal. Our fish comes – a delicious, delicate, roasted fish, with boiled vegetables on the side and a wonderful bottle of table wine. And pineapple something or other for dessert.











And now our internal clocks reach that confusing state when first you’re sleepy then not so much and it is a joyous ritual of travel and perhaps this is the true marker of time off – when it doesn’t matter if you sleep, when you sleep, none of it really matters because you have no agenda, no list of things to accomplish. You have the most wonderful thing of all – you have time.



the cook at Bandeireites

passing through

Predictably, I suppose, the Air France flight from Detroit was “a l’heure.” On time. (And the Madison flight was only a little delayed, for non-weather reasons.) One could take that for granted too quickly. It’s still unreal to look out at one section of the Paris CDG terminal and see it so orderly and empty almost.





A reader sent me a link to an article on the investigation, repercussions, sanctions, reevaluations that are taking place following the December chaos here. And I’m sure improvements will follow, but still, it’s too close to that time for me to forget the sight of the lines – endless, long lines of people hoping to get home. Or somewhere.

Ed’s stretched on the floor, resting his ankle. He looks like a holdover from times when there were hundreds stretched on the floor. Now it’s just him.

We’re only passing through now. Our connecting flight is also “a l’heure.” Rain, yes, there’s plenty of it. Kind of refreshing actually. Cleansing perhaps?

onwards

I know a lot of people who love being in new and interesting places but hate the hours spent getting there. Airports, lines, buses, cancellations, waiting, waiting, endlessly waiting – it’s painful. Faces of resignation: set to endure the whole complicated mess of travel.

Not so for me. Okay, I don’t love snafus and angry crowds and missed connections and lost luggage. But I’m in a travel trance when I leave home pulling a bag behind me. The challenge of imagining the best possible trip starts with the idea, but it really springs forward when you lock the door to your home and set out.

My occasional traveling companion is joining me for a trip back to where the unfriendly skies dealt my daughter and I such a harsh (and yet so fantastically memorable) time back in December, on the trip to see my family in Poland. That was then. This trip, long planned and worked for, is going to be different. The weather has settled down over that other continent (even as it is snowing in Madison, but we – flex proud muscle here – we know how to handle snow! Yeah!).





There, across the ocean, I understand the clouds have released a steady stream of rain and more rain. Flights don’t get cancelled for rain. Right?

The marathon effort to get most of my next semester’s course planning done is finally, finally behind me. We’re off. First the city bus, then another city bus, then a flight to Detroit, then to Paris (no stopovers! Please, keep that airport sane!), and then, immediately connecting to...

I’m jumping ahead of myself. We’re off. I’ll write when we get there, me and my occasional traveling companion – sprained ankle and all.

finding a way

Life is one big Plan B.

And I’m fine with that. One thing being an immigrant prepares you for is to deal with the odd hand that comes your way when you least expect it.

In truth, my hand in life has been pretty darn good. Most everyone in my family held on to their jobs, their health, and their sense of who they were even when regimes fell, kids came and went, brains exploded, economies collapsed. So it’s not as if Plan B has been necessarily cataclysmic.

Nor do I think I am unique in having to reconfigure everything even as the best laid plan cracks at the seams. That’s the point of this small post – I recognize that this is the way life proceeds for nearly all of us: we’re often slapped with an odd hand.

I thought last night (and BTW, last night was not a happy night – too much work, too much stress over work, too much stress, period) about writing here, on Ocean: if my small slaps turned bigger, if I were less than peppy about facing the day ahead, would I still have it in me to write here? (The only time I found it impossible to write in my true voice on Ocean was back in June of 2005, when my then husband and I decided to divorce; for several weeks I could not speak here as me, so I spoke as another, though I still was the true author – complicated, isn’t it...)

I’d find a way.

So, if this sounds a little dismal, rest assured that it’s not. I’m having jitters about moving to Ed’s farmhouse, I’m having jitters about going away tomorrow because suddenly, for the first time since 9/11 and for less horrific reasons, air travel has become very unpredictable and that’s not good for a person who lives with a tight schedule, I’m having jitters about all the assumptions I made when I decided to take a pay cut and not teach in the summer, I’m having jitters, that’s all.





But, life is one big Plan B. And so, if B happens, I’ll be ready for it. Us immigrants, we can handle anything. We lost it all and gained another reality. We can take on Plan B any day.

I hope.

point and shoot

Sometime just after Christmas, I’d gone to my office and left my ring of keys somewhere there, on Bascom Hill. In the period immediately after, I recognized that perhaps the most serious loss for me was the missing mailbox key. I have spares to my condo and someone always has spares to the office, but U.S. Postal Service will not cut you any slack if you don't have a key to their little box. Come back when you've found it. Thanks, USPS. I'm glad you're protecting my property. From me.

And so when I returned from Chicago last Thursday, the first thing I did was walk over from the bus to the Law School on Bascom Hill, to search for and to reclaim my ring of keys.

I’d forgotten that it was a furlough day. The building was locked. I circled it twice and banged on all accessible doors and windows in the hope of finding someone who would have the guts to flaunt the mandate not to work – but no. We are an obedient lot. No one wanted to flex their muscle and show up for added work hours. Shocking but true.

And of course, the building was locked on Friday as well (holiday). And Saturday (another holiday). And Sunday (ditto). You could not find a soul on campus during those four days if your life depended on it. Truthfully, my life did not depend on it, but I was missing my keys and, too, my CSA spinach – delivered to a campus building late Wednesday, stuck behind the barricade of locked doors until, well today, Monday.

So of course, anxious to find my little ring of keys, this morning I took my car out of hibernation – you know the 93 Ford Escort? – and drove my many boxes of now graded exams to campus very very early, so that I could emerge victoriously with my keys, retrieve my spinach, and my mail back home,  and breathe a final sigh of relief.


But, it was not to be a smooth ride. For one thing, the door to the 93 Ford Escort now officially refuses to open. I would have been stuck in the red taped up car for a good spell, except that I have great climbing skills and I managed to extract myself over suspended seat belts and boxes of exams and make my way to the one workable door on the other side.

At the Law School, someone had come across my keys and turned them in – thank you, kind stranger, you cold have robbed me solid and you didn’t, so thank you tons – and so in good time,  I regained access to my office, to the spinach up the hill, and to my home mail (such as it is).

Except there is still the matter of the broken car door. If I yank it hard, I am afraid that a good part of the front body will fall off.

I had intended, on my way home,  to stop by the lake and admire its incredible slick, frozen surface once again, but the idea of climbing out, then back into the car was so stressful that I merely drove up on Observatory Drive, rolled down the window, pointed and shot and left.





All this to say that today’s photographic contributions are quite meager. My apologies.

seven

To the day: seven years of daily blogging, and since I got my first digital camera – of daily photos, too. (Unless I’ve had a handful of bad ones and refuse to use any. Usually I can eek out something. Most anyone can.)

How long will this continue?

It has become, like a morning cup of coffee or an evening glass of wine, like saying I love you to a daughter when I hang up the phone (does one still “hang up” an iphone?) – basically a habit.

I like to think of Ocean as a story. Illustrated. Variously told – better on some days, tediously dull on others.

Everyone, of course, has a story to tell and I keep searching the web for others who do this on a regular basis and there are so few now! Facebook, Twitter – they’ve made things easier for the occasional poster, but it’s not the same. Too fragmented, cursory, buried in pages upon pages of others. The continuity is missing. It’s like reading many books at once and getting the story lines confused.


It’s cold again today. I work until late afternoon and then I deliberate. To go out? Too cold. To stay indoors? Too wimpy.

Ed and I talk ourselves into going out on Picnic Point and though it is beastly freezing, it is also quite beautiful. A sheet of glass.


 


The lake now is deeply frozen and even though I haven’t the stamina (nor the warm clothes today) to step out far, others do.





As they come closer to shore, I hear them speak. Russian. Well okay. It’s probably colder where they come from.





So cold. My hands grow numb. Ed is limping along, trying to convince me that in a few days, we can hike. Or at least toddle from one place to the next.





Slippery patches. Life is like that. Toddling along.

Year after year.

New Year

That was a vicious beginning to a new year. The wind slashed through my sweat pants and I felt my legs grow numb. Unrelenting cold.

Of course, I could have just stayed home. But I worked from the first hours of daylight and I wanted a break.

It’s rare that you see Lake Mendota so completely iced over and without a speck of snow.





Where is the snow anyway?

Melted. Blame two days of fog and the other day's warm gust of air that passed through.





If the New Year is to set the tone for the days ahead, then mine, unfortunately, will be a year of reclusive work. And suppers thrown together – today, of beans, eggs, potatoes, tomatoes, walnuts and anchovies.With a mustard vinaigrette.





It’s worth it though. If only for those periods of nonwork that follow. Eventually.

Happy New Year. May it be well balanced for us all. (Wouldn't that be grand...)

Eve

After a while, I suppose you don’t even notice that it’s New Year’s Eve. Lord, the permutations I have known for this day! From parties in my youth, to the more sedate but in their own way exciting dinner parties in my young adulthood, to trips away and dinners out... all that wonderful stuff.

And tonight? Our concession to this foggy Eve is that we go to Trader Joe’s and pick out an inexpensive sparkling wine. Oh, and I coax Ed into buying flowers for the table. It’s a gorgeous bunch, even if it is only $6.99.










I will eventually reheat the soup I made last night – one of those throw vegetables in a pot kind of soups that we eat on the couch out of huge mugs. Ed is nursing his sore ankle and threatening to play volley ball again soon, even though his foot is the size of a watermelon right now. Men and athletic injuries – there’s a frustrating combination!

And so there you have it – three big party days in a row for Wisconsinites (New Year’s, the Rose Bowl tomorrow, and some Packer game or other on Sunday) and I remain quite neutral to it all.





And I cannot say that this makes me very sad.

robust

My eating patterns change when I’m around my kids. When else would I start off the day with this kind of breakfast?



(at Jam, a few blocks down from my daughter’s new Chicago place)


And when have you seen me eat a big lunch? When my girl asks – hey mom, I’m getting a banh mi, do you want one? What is that? – I want to know. A yummy sandwich with daikon, carrot, cilantro, jalapenos and lemongrass tofu. Sure, I say. Because I’m curious and because she’s eating one and that makes me hungry.



I’m less helpful with unpacking today. I retreat to grading, wanting very much to finish this monstrous chore by the New Year. But I do run a few errands and it’s a welcome break from basically staying put and eating.





By evening, she and I put aside our various work. My older daughter has already left Chicago to see friends somewhere on the other side of the continent and my younger one will be taking off tomorrow. But this evening is still ours – hers and mine – and she takes me for a celebratory drink – a new year/old year drink at the Violet Hour, and it is the most dangerously delicious drink on the planet. 





We eat a Greek meal at Taxim and she reminds me that when I was near her age, I had a crazed romance with a Greek man who was a bar tender on one of the more remote Greek islands. It's an unfortunate memory (though one with an indifferent ending) and I am thinking that it's good that my daughters are less insane in their revelries, but, too, that I did eventually learn to enjoy calmer days and quiet nights. There comes a time when you would rather spend an evening reading or writing than throwing plates and dancing in circles with someone who doesn't speak your language nor you his.

Which is good, because I am returning to Madison and most likely my New Year’s Eve will be with Ed and I’ll be reading or writing and he’ll be resting. My occasional traveling companion sprained his ankle playing volley ball the other day – rather poor timing, as we are to leave next week to do some hiking (in a place where, unfortunately, neither of us speaks the language).

For now, I'm buried in work papers. It's foggy outside. The year's end is quiet. And that's not a bad thing.

unpacking

And so we unpack. One box after another of my daughter’s stuff. And I get somewhat awed by how much life she has had since she left home to go to college some eight years ago. I flip through a book of photos that a friend of hers made for her. Such memories. Hers, not mine.

My older girl’s here, too, but I’ve known for a while with her that I no longer have a grasp of the small or sometimes even large details of her life. And really, I’m pleased with all of this. Independence is a good thing. And still, it is slightly disconcerting to step in now, a guest really, touching details of a life that is very much moving forward (as it has been for years) on its own.


We unpack some more. She has been a collector of household items, waiting, patiently waiting for the moment when she would have her own home. And now, finally she does and it all comes out. The kitchen timer that I gave her a couple of Christmases ago. The delicate bowls from Japan. Mixed in with this and that, collected, along with her own memories, her own resources.


In returning from one of the numerous runs out to take out broken down cardboard and sacks full of packing paper, I take a detour to the roof of her three story walk up apartment building. What a view!





The funny thing is that when I was way younger than my littlest one, not even old enough to legally buy myself a drink at a local tavern, I moved to the south of Chicago and I rented a studio with a similar view, only from the south side.


We’re all old enough to buy a drink, any drink now and in the evening, we go to the Big Star. Just a quick walk from her place. It's a hell of a great taco bar and they serve mixed drinks that have components I’d never even heard of. Both daughters have been there before and I think -- when? I mean, I'm sure I heard some recount or other -- names floating by me, names without connection, without meaning because I was elsewhere and they were moving along their own path. When did all this happen?











I watch my girls and I think – these are really good kids. I can retire now. Even as I understand that I'll never retire. One more box, and another, and yet another.

One more day here and then I go back to my own warm home, to wait patiently until one comes over, or the other, or I take the bus again and then the El to this now important  corner of the world.

from Chicago

Getting off at an El stop late in the evening is such a Chicago thing. You know where you are.





But I’m wondering, when did this city start feeling so... vibrant? When I lived here as a grad student in the seventies, I felt I was sacrificing aesthetics and pleasure for a good education. I know, I know, Chicago has always had its neighborhoods and mine, on the south side, was especially troubled. But even when I made the trip downtown or to the near west side, I felt that it was only a light reprieve from an overall depressing reality.

If people groan that New York is no longer edgy, that it has been taken over by young families with tots and strollers and sanitized places with gutted and refreshed interiors, I think the argument can be made that Chicago’s new face has been sketched by the young professionals, the pre-baby-in-a-stroller set. Or maybe the I-never-wanted-a-baby-in-a-stroller-to-begin-with set. The countless bars, cafes, good food choices attest to that. Suddenly, it’s a cool place to live.

I’m in a neighborhood now that, even on this cold windy (yes windy) night feels comfortably inviting. Come in, sit down for a while. Here, or here. Have a beer. Or an espresso with some locally made toffee. This is not the same city I once called home.





My daughters and I eat dinner at a local favorite. A crowded local favorite. And it feels right that we should start off with mixed drinks (something that I never do in Madison), because when someone pours elderflower and pear stuff and some form of vodka into a shaker, what comes out is delicious and warming and in Chicago, on a December night, you’d be crazy to turn that down. Besides, I'm in the neighborhood that was once the epicenter of the great Polish immigration to America. Vodka, even though diluted with fruit juices, seems fitting for this first night here.

moving day

Each year, in the last dozen, one or the other daughter (and often both) has had to move. I’ve helped with moves that were on the top floor of four story walk ups. I’ve unpacked glassware that seemed far in excess of the cupboard space available for it. I’m sure I’ve broken down and carted off enough cardboard boxes to plant a forest.

I can’t say that I love or even like moves, but surely if they’re not fun for me, they can’t be much fun for the moving person either.

I’m taking the bus down to Chicago today to help with one more move – my youngest one is settling into her place down there and I promised I’d be around for a few days to help unpack. (I'm posting early in anticipation of Internet issues at her place later today.) Surely this is the last of the daughter moves. After that, I have one more move left in me – when I sell the condo. To the farmhouse. That’s it. No more.

(I hope.)