story

Every day has a story to it -- with a beginning, a development, an ending. You may not always want to recognize it, but it's there.

I know the stories here, on Ocean, have endings that are, well, predictable: "I was so lucky," or "...and that's a good thing," or "and that makes me very happy." In fact, I can't build drama in a blog post because you know the punch line before I get to it.

Of course, luck or happiness -- they're curious things, aren't they? Sometimes they just saunter out and you're left stranded.

So what was this day like?

Well, despite the weather, it's off to a good start. I am in Gargnano -- one of my most favorite places on earth (it just grabbed my heart last year and it refuses to let go). I wake up, look out the balcony window and exhale. Though there are clouds, it doesn't matter -- it's always beautiful here on the shores of Lake Garda. I listen to the rhythmic slap of waves against the dock and it is a wonderful little noise -- the kind that makes you think that nature is gentle and forgiving (even though you know it's not that way at all).

Breakfast. Lovely stuff. Diane and I fill our plates and look out over the waters.






But here's the reality -- the forecast for the days she and I are here is dismal: cold and wet. And so we discuss the possibilities. I note that today is predicted to be free of precipitation until 6 pm -- take that as you will. But maybe I should take it? Because it's so much better than everything else? And what I want to do this year is to again test myself against the mountain that dominates this landscape: Mount Comer. I know it wont cause the real mountain folk to shudder. It's a mere 1279 meters -- just about 5000 feet. But to me, it is the ultimate challenge.

I barely made it to the summit last year. Something about it made it especially tough going: few switchbacks, many boulders to crawl over, significant drops -- it surprised me how hard it was then. Now I am one year older and I'm thinking -- should I do this? Why am I doing this? For the blog? (No.) To prove something? (Maybe, but what?) Or how about this -- is there possibly joy in trying something difficult?

I feel not quite ready for it. Surely I should do the gentler hikes first. You don't plunge into the Tour de France after  a year of peddling around your block at home. And let's face it -- I'm no spring chicken. Maybe I should act my age.

Still, I so desperately want to try.

Diane and I set out at 10:30.


 
(just outside our hotel)


We'll walk to town together and then she will go her way and I will do the climb. Maybe. (Here, take a look again at Comer: it stands tall above Gargnano.)





Our walk to the heart of Gargnano is lovely. Let me remind you -- this small town is like no other. Don't you dare send your friends over! It's quiet and peaceful and it must never change! Okay -- that's selfish. Send them over.

The skies are gray, but every once in a while we spot a patch of blue. That's a good sign.



(Comer, towering over all of us)







Time to head up. I tell Diane that if I'm not back in time for dinner she should send out a search party.

Up I go. Up, past the olive groves and the old stone walls.





Up, up and then I come to a dead end. I have to turn around and start again. And so I follow another trail. Up, up.... dead end again! What the hell is going on here? Let me try another path.

Up I climb -- no good. Did I think Mount Comer would be a challenge? I can't even find the damn trail leading to it!

Take a breath. Keep trying. I singsong all sorts of cliches in my head: it doesn't matter, no one will care, it's the journey not the destination... But the fact is, I care! I care!

Alright, on the fourth try I finally reach the midpoint -- the village of Sasso. Here's where I bought water to save my soul last year. And I do it again. Because I have not yet learned that even though it's cold (in the forties), I am sweating like a hyena and so I need water.

From Sasso, it's a two hour climb, straight up. I mean, there's no monkeying around anymore: I go for it or I retreat.

I go for it. Not because I am particularly clever or bold, but because I know that this is my test: I don't have to reach the summit, but if I wont even try, then I may as well order the coffin and find a spot to dump it in.

Okay: highlights. The flowers that grow in these Alpinettes (these mountains are to the neighboring Alps like the farmette is to real farms around us back home):









And now I come to the part that I hate: too close to the edge, too far down to make it feel safe.

And here's a new challenge this year: snow! Well now. Add a layer of slippery stuff, why don't you!



 

But truthfully, by the time I reach the snow, I know I have made it. I am 59 and I am not fading yet. I can face the stress of work back home, I can do that, because I am not fading!

So here I am ever so close to the summit (Two crosses?  Will the real Mount Comer please stand up?)...





...and here I am, at the summit (camera precariously positioned on a rock, with timer on).





Oh, but it feels exhilarating to be able to do this still!

Okay, enough feeling good about being old. It took me four hours to climb up here. Time to go down.  It takes almost as long to do the retreat -- it's that rocky and slick.


 



The village of Sasso is more or less the half way mark. And the descent after it is easy by comparison. So you can't help but feel jubilant when you finally see the houses of this little hamlet before you.





From here, nearly all paths will lead me down now to Gargnano. All I have to do is beat the rains that are hovering now behind me, over the mountains.

And here's the eerie thing: the first drop of rain comes down just as I reach Gargnano. It's surely meaningful, though I can't really say in what way.

I head toward the water's edge -- to Cafe Olimpia -- the cafe where I had the vast majority of my Aperol Spritz aperitifs last year. Nothing's changed. The same old men discuss the same old whatever. The same owners are as gentle and kind as can be. Same old, same old, old, same -- hey, I'm thinking "same" and  "old" are a good thing. I have been lucky in that way.





An hour after my return, Diane and I are having dinner at the Three Geese (Tre Occhi). It's a wonderful meal of pasta, of the lake fish (coregone lavarello), of tiramisu and cake.







...with lake sardines



coregone



tiramisu


So is there a story here? Does it have an ending? Yes, of course it does. I'm so lucky, that's a good thing and it makes me very happy. What can I say -- ultimately all roads do lead to... wherever you want them to lead to.




(Comer, in the clouds now)

to Gargnano

Mere hiccups, that's what the day offered. No drama, no great dilemmas, no confrontations.

Of course, much of the time was spent still in getting places.

(Excuse me as my eyes overflow with emotion as we approach Lago di Garda. I am on the bus, the very final leg of the journey. It's evening and the lights are starting to come on. My friend is in the seat in front of me -- here, you can just catch the back of her head.)





Getting places -- this is the grandest part: when you're rounding the last corners knowing that with each new familiar turn, you're coming closer to the spot that gives you such good images for months on end.

But the earlier parts of "getting there" were good too. This morning, for instance, I was up at six and walking up to the RER station and I couldn't help thinking how beautiful spring is in any and every place and how splendid it is to momentarily see it in Paris. The sun is not yet up, but the sky is a glowing pink at the edges, and the crocuses and plum trees (that's a guess) are starting their bloom in the Jardin Luxembourg.















I'll be seeing the gardens again, on my way back (unless my brief stop then again turns out to be too brief). For now, I'll make do with these glimpses from behind the iron bars of the closed for the night gardens.

My flight to Milan is easy and uneventful and of course, there is that wonderful moment when we cross the Alps and they and therefore life both seem magnificent.





[Getting off the plane in Milan I was struck how addicted we all are the world over to keeping our Internet flowing. Upon landing (it was such a long flight -- all of 1 hour and 10 minutes) everyone except me reaches for their smartphone. And I would have been in on it too were it not for the astronomical prices charged to Americans when they dare power on outside the borders of their country.]





In Milan I have a two and a half hour wait for Diane. No, I can't sit still. I catch the city bus to town, thinking that the day is beautiful and that it should not be allowed to just merely float by without my attention to it.

But in Milan, I don't really go anywhere. That's my problem with Milan -- it never motivates me to explore, randomly, letting the place be its own guide.

So I do some light shopping (not for me). Very very light. Because I'm on a crusade to keep the suitcase feather light, even if it kills me. Here, I'm watching someone else buy the place out: items for her husband. Maybe.





And then it's time to greet Diane and here's another hiccup for you: Linate airport, the place where she is to land, closes. Something about a runway being blocked by a plane. Strike related? Maybe. After all, there is, today, a strike in Milan. the metro, for example, is shut down.

Other flights are diverted or cancelled, but her's lands!  Albeit with a slight delay.

And before we know it we are on the train...


 


.... and then we are on the bus whose final stop is Gargnano.





Happily, oh so happily I am back, we are here, opening the season at the Albergo du Lac. (But wait, is there really snow on the other side's mountain crest? Is there? (Ans.: yes there is. And the forecast for all summits above 1000 meters? More snow next week! Honestly, has the world gone mad?)


Dinner tonight is at the Albergo du Lac (the hotel where we are staying). We eat salads and spaghetti and fish and lemon cake and I cannot have my fill of this place ever. It is a bubble of magic. Worth every irksome tiresome moment of the trip here.

learning to experience the journey

What you do not want to hear in the middle of your transatlantic flight: the captain has informed us that we are turning back. We will be making an emergency landing in St John's due to a problem with a passenger. You come out of your groggy sleep and you watch in amazement as the little airplane icon on the screen before you turns around, even though it is nearly in the middle of its ocean crossing and heads back to the tip of Newfoundland -- the closest possible landing place.

No one says a word. It's insanely quiet. Lights come on, crew rushes back and forth. The drama is in the back of the plane and it is a drama that can affect any flight any time -- a cardiac arrest, this one right over the Atlantic. (Unusual is the age of the passenger: just forty years.)

The eerie thing is that I've been on a plane making an emergency landing in Newfoundland before. Nearly to the month, fifty years ago, flying from England, we landed in Gander because of multiple engine malfunctions. I remember the landscape from that even more dramatic landing (with propellers on both sides of the plane eerily in a resting position as we sunk closer to the ground). This time I'm on an Airbus 340 -- a much larger plane and, it turns out, too heavy for the small landing strip in St John's. And so we dump fuel. And in the partly misty, partly starry night, we come to a tiny terminal where the ambulance is waiting.

It's another several hours before we unload our critically ill passenger, unload her luggage, refuel. And so perhaps we should not be surprised that when we finally do fly out, cross the ocean once more and approach France, the captain once again comes on. This time it's a "rules" problem. The crew has been in flight too long. So even though we are less than an hour from Paris, we are landing again -- at the first possible airport in France -- Brest. A tiny airport. We disembark. We're offered a sandwich. A new crew will be flown in to take over.  At some point.

I take some forty flights in the course of the year and they can't all be without issues. But if the weather is fine (and it was), it's rare that all flights in one itinerary are going to misfire. This time they did. Because it isn't just the transatlantic segment that turned us around. On my flight out of Madison, I had a first: I've been on a handful of flights that have had aborted landings. Where the plane is nearing the ground and suddenly the engines rev up and the plane nose goes up. I always imagine there is a pooch on the runway and the captain wants to avoid it. (You are never told what happened because often it is pilot error and no one wants to quite announce that to the sitting ducks in the back.) But I have never before had an aborted take off.

I have it now in Madison. We are beginning the rush down the runway and I am marveling how commonplace these take offs are these days and suddenly we are not rushing anymore, but slowing down hard. The captain comes on. Well folks… It's never good news when he or she starts with a "well folks."

This time a light indicated an open cargo door. Impulsively, we all glance at the runway, looking for strewn suitcases. Nothing there. Still, the plane does have to go back to the gate where we wait for the mechanic to come to the airport, to diagnose the problem, to communicate with the pilot. Hours. The irony: in the end, there is no problem with the cargo door. Just with the faulty warning light. Many people have missed their connections and the attendants warn that there are very few options on this day as it is, for so many, the beginning of spring break and flights are full. I am lucky. I make my flight to France.

But of course, I'm not really going to France. This was to be a treat stopover: a half day in Paris which, because of the reversals, double landings and what have you, is turning out to be a very short set of hours indeed. Those who hate to travel will say -- it's good to stay home. You wont hear that from me. In fact, I feel myself to be lucky. I did not miss a connection. And I did not have a heart attack and we did not have a faulty cargo door after all.

And I have a few breaths in Paris. Maybe. If we ever leave Brest.


Later

Into our fourth hour in Brest, the natives are getting restless. Not the American passengers, mind you, but the French. (It always hurts more if your own people aren't stepping up to the job.) We understood the emergency, in St John's, but this... how could you do this to us? One of the unhappy campers picks up one of the plastic wrapped cheese sandwich we were handed at the airport. French cuisine, he mutters, tossing it into the trash.

Me, I have no more hope for a Paris day. But I do want, at the very least, a Paris dinner. I'd reserved a place in my newest restaurant of choice (Pouic Pouic). Now, in Brest, thanks to a kind French man (I needed a French cell number), I got online which allowed me to email the restaurant to tell them I'd be late.  Very very late. Would they take pity? Such a small wish compared to those stranded passengers who have so very many adjustments to make in their travels thanks to these compounded delays.

I dont think anyone believed that we'd make it to Paris that night, but, in the end, we did. I wished my fellow travelers well and scooted to the RER station to catch a train to Paris.

So now I have to think that I am facing some kind of a test -- to see how far I can be pushed before I back down, stay home, never travel again. At the RER office, the machines refuse to take my credit card. Okay. I just happen to have enough Euros to get me into the city. But is this for real? Am I in Europe without cash or a functional credit card?

And then there is the RER ride: as always, we pass through some of the saddest immigrant neighborhoods of the city. As I settle into the 45 minute ride, we stop at a station. A guy steps in, reaches from behind and snatches a woman's purse. She screams, but he's gone. It could have been me...

But it wasn't me. I alight in Paris. It's after 9 pm instead of after 11 am. I look around. It's drizzling slightly, But it doesn't matter! It's so enormously wonderful to be here!





And here's some irony for you in case you haven't spotted any along the way: I came to my little hotel and the night clerk hands me the key to my room. He smiles. I go up and I see that I am given a thank you for my many returns: a penthouse instead of the tiny single that I always book. Ah well... according to my current calculations, I will spend exactly 6 sleeping hours here.

Never mind, it's lovely and I appreciate the gesture.

I go to Pouic Pouic. It's mad, it's chaos, but they find a spot for me and it's so loud here and everyone is so jovial that the last of the tension from the trip fades. I passed the test. I still love to travel. And I still love Paris.




There's dancing on the streets somewhere in this world right now. Always, someone will be dancing.

to spring!

You might say that spring began with a crash and a boom. In the wee hours of the morning we heard it -- the noise of something falling, breaking with a mighty crescendo. We rush downstairs, switching on lights. In the kitchen we see what has happened: Isis smelled cake on the table. Isis jumped up and pushed the cake plate to get to the stuff underneath the inverted glass salad bowl that I use to cover cakes. Pushed it hard, it seems. So that it toppled to the floor. And now here he is, amidst a million pieces of shattered glass, sniffing around for crumbs of olive oil/lemon cake. Isis!

It's cold outside. Twelve degrees to get us started. And yet, there is a robin on our crab apple (or hawthorn -- opinions vary). I haven't seen their red breasts here until now. Welcome robin! Ah, you're huddled into the warmth of your own feathers! I don't blame you.





Before I scoot off to teach, Ed and I plant tomato seeds (64 containers, 2 seeds each). Let me remember that I planted tomato seeds when the snow lay thick and heavy on the ground outside.




Breakfast. There is always breakfast.




Spring break for me starts tomorrow and so my next post will be from Paris. I'm not there for long -- under 24 hours, to keep ticket continuity (and the rate in check). Where to after that? Gargnano, on the banks of Lake Garda in Italy. Longterm readers of Ocean may remember that I was just there last spring break. When is it that I turned into a person who goes back to favorite haunts rather than searching out the new, the unusual?

I'll tell you when: when the joyful calm of a place sinks into my blood and stays with me months after the trip -- that's a destination worth revisiting.

Though Ed is staying home for this one, I am not going alone. In Milan (Friday) I'll be meeting up with my friend and actually, over the years, quite frequent traveling pal (and fellow blogger!), Diane. How's the weather over there, in northern Italy? Well, the good thing about leaving terribly inappropriate spring weather is that anything else is likely to be an improvement. I may have rains, but they'll be warm(ish) rains.

So, to spring, to spring break, to dishes not breaking, to new plant life and to many happy returns to places we grow to love.

the last (official) day of winter

Several things to note:

First (and how could this be anything but first), it was brutal out there this morning! The freezing air, the wind, all of it. I was reminded of eating ice cream too fast as a kid: the penalty was a shooting pain right to the cavernous recess of your skull. As I walked to campus (just from the parking lot -- let's be real here!), I had to cover my face, or suffer the consequences.

And it looked so benign earlier on, when the sun was just cracking the clouds! Wintry, yes, that, but so gentle and well intentioned.





Breakfast was a bit hurried, but lovely, cheerful, as if all was right with the world out there, as if sunshine meant we were in for a warm spring day.











Then all windy hell broke loose. Outside, every plowed walkway and road were quickly covered by drifting snow. And the wind made your eyes water and your head spin.



In the evening, things settled down somewhat. The sun held tight. My little golden bouquet held tight as well. As if emboldened.





Supper? Inconsequential. Leftover lettuces, leftover asparagus, leftover cabbage soup, with stuff thrown into each of those.





Tomorrow I'll write about spring break. With good reason. If all goes well, the day after I should be across the ocean.

and once more...

We woke up to snow. It's not as if we did not expect it, but you can know something is about to be delivered and still not like the package when it arrives.

Snow. White, a cold white snow. Like the color of the bouquet on the butcher block, only not really.





Over breakfast, we consider it: snow in the second half of March does appear in Madison every now and then, but this snow, sticking snow, covering frozen earth is over and beyond the usual...











After work, when the light feels very tentative, almost not there anymore, we decide to load the donkey car with skis (I'd put them away for the season... how stupid was that!) and try to make our best loop by Lake Waubesa. A hare's breath from the farmette.





Ah. you notice Ed's shorter hair? I trimmed it this morning. Wild inventor no more.

At Lake Waubesa, where the creek comes in, there is a curious conglomeration of birds. Wild swan? So unusual to see them here!





A little less unusual is the call of the sandhill crane. In the summer, we see them often -- on the streams, the wetlands. Today, their warbling call keeps us company on the ski trails as well. How did they get here? Are they deeply disappointed with the snow cover?


The skiing is difficult. We're trailblazers once more and the snow is sticky, clinging to anything and everything. Slow going.

And I am somewhat in a hurry because my girl and her husband will be stopping by for dinner. They couldn't come yesterday and it seemed too long to wait until the Sunday when I'm back from my spring break.





 Pasta with a tomato sauce and sea foods.





Tomorrow, the cold, really cold air will come down yet again and it will stay in place for the better part of this week. An unusual spring. A spring that isn't really a spring. Extended winter. For no good reason.

On the upside, 24 hours passed and we did not cancel our airfares for June. So we're set there. Can't back out now. And that's a good thing.

...like a record

You remember when we played records for music, instead of Smart phones? When a scratch would cause the disc to not move the song forward and it would replay again and again until you pushed it clumsily past the scratch mark?

Well now, we're stuck alright. Like a scratch on a record. We repeat each day and the weather repeats itself and I swear I'm going to wake up tomorrow and we'll do exactly what we did today: look desperately outside for signs of spring and, too, cancel all June bookings made the previous day.

I can't explain the impasse in the weather, but I can say a word about our tortuous June trip planning. We found the cheap flight. Okay. But nothing else felt right. Here we were, flying to Iceland and from there, flying on cheap airlines you've not have heard of to the continent. That part was okay. I didn't mind the round about travel. And I didn't mind having to take a long train ride south, and then east and after, west and north -- in other words up and down the continent. And we were willing to change airports between flights in New York. And to arrive at midnight in one city and depart at 1 a.m. from another. But the price of staying any amount of time in Iceland wiped out any savings from the complicated plans. So what's the point? We cancelled the whole thing.

Yes, yes, there was Iceland in the deal. I visited Iceland once, by myself. Many, many decades ago.  I went in November because it was inexpensive then. The sun was out for three hours each day and even though I was a mere schoolgirl, not even drinking age in the States, I rented a car and ventured out into the bleak countryside. What a dumb trip that was. The roads were treacherous and I had to turn back. All my money blown on a rental that got me nowhere. In Reykjavik, waiters were on strike and stores were closed and I could get nothing to eat. Like I said, maybe I'm biased.

So the whole "cheap flight" (but expensive stay) through Iceland is out and it's back to Barcelona that'll be plenty exciting, thank you, even as we'll not even step foot in Barcelona until the very last day and then only for about twelve hours.


In other non-news, we had a pretty little breakfast in the sun room...





...and I had my 75 minute yoga class and I did some modest amount of house cleaning, but mainly I sat at my computer and that's not too satisfying for a Sunday afternoon, especially a sunny Sunday afternoon and so I was quite happy when Ed agreed to go for a walk.


 













We don't often do that. Usually we switch from cross country skiing (winter) to biking (all other seasons), but it's just too cold for me to enjoy a bike ride in this most difficult pre-spring season. And now that I ever so inadvertently brought up the weather here on Ocean, may I tell you how stunned I am to hear that we are getting ANOTHER snowstorm tomorrow?

Never mind, I'm outta here by the end of the week. I'll chase spring elsewhere.

As for St Patrick's -- well, I have no Irish in me, but not belonging to some thing, place or group has never stopped me from doing as the Romans do, or in this case the Irish do. So I made cabbage soup for supper (isn't that truly Irish?)  and in an uncharacteristic for these times move, I baked a cake. Not Irish, but Italian: lemon and olive oil.














And if you aren't yet convinced that this was actually quite the lovely day, do note that, against a backdrop of snow, I saw this solitary cardinal. Hello, cardinal. Are you chirping away because we are just three days away from (calendar) spring?