about time!

My younger girl's birthday is in January. I cant always celebrate it with her on the very day of her birth because she has lived in another city since she was 18 and so it's not possible for her to drop everything for a visit from an eager mother. Even this year, though I made myself very available closer to the actual date, scheduling a get-together proved to be difficult. She had conflicts, and then I got Covid and that emptied out the calendar some more. It isn't until this day that I can drive over and give her a fortieth birthday hug. And yes, it's late in the game! The Zodiac calendar has moved away from Capricorn (her sign) a long time ago! Indeed, it's about to move from Aquarius (the next sign) onto Pisces (the one after)! Neither of us follow that stuff, but still, it's indicative how far from her birthday we are right now. And yet, here I am, getting up way way way before dawn, loading up the car with her presents, feeding the cats quickly (Ed! you do the chickens!), getting behind the wheel and heading for Starbucks (I need my coffee!), then turning the car south, to Chicago, to celebrate her day.

Since we had plenty of time to plan out my visit, I have before me quite the wonderful two days. And it all begins downtown. 

(so little traffic early on a Saturday morning!)

 

(driving underneath the El reminds me of my youth: I bought my first very very used car when I lived in Chicago as a graduate student; taking it downtown gave me my first taste of moving around by car in American cities) 

Remarkably, we both arrive at the agreed upon parking garage at the same time. Primrose has a dance class nearby and their routine has her go to class while the parents and Juniper hang out at the Art Institute waiting for her to be done. So this is how it works today: we walk the older girl to her dance class, then her dad stays in the studio, while Juniper and her mom and I walk over to the Art Institute. Do you know the museum? It's fantastic! It has one of the best Impressionist collections anywhere! The young family signed up as members of the museum, and they get this privileged entrance at an early hour, before the general public comes in. I get to join in as their guest.

But first, Juniper insists we walk over to the Bean.

Oh, the Bean! So much fun in one shiny Bean!

(I can still lift the girl!)

From there, to the museum. I'm tearfully grateful for this quiet moment among these canvases. (I'll restrain myself here and just show you four images of our beautiful half hour among the best of the best.)

As members, they also have access to a place where you can get refreshments. This is where we wait for Primrose to be done with her class.

We eat lunch, and then Primrose wants to show me her favorite museum displays.

 

 

 

Do you recognize this next piece? A stained glass window by Chagall. This was my one moment of remembering the brutal destruction taking place in our country right now. Why? Well, I was of course a United Nations kid. (Read about it in my book,  Like a Swallow.) I first learned about Chagall when I visited (repeatedly!) the U.N. in those very young years. The New York U.N. headquarters are home to a large Chagall, full of symbols of peace and love. The window in Chicago very much reminded me of the UN piece. And I had to think how far we've strayed from its message in recent days...

We leave the museum.

And now we have an extra treat: right across the street there is a new ice cream shop and these guys know it well -- it's a branch of a favorite from across the ocean! We get ice cream. I get ice cream! You can get three flavors just as a "single scoop!"

Back to the Bean, because Primrose wants her turn to play with the reflections.

We then go to their house for the afternoon. Juniper still likes to nap and this gives us a chance to hang out and catch up. And once the little one is up, we do a full scale celebrations: presents, snacks, delightful minutes of family! 

(This book was for Primrose, from Paris and it totally pulled her in.)

 

 

For dinner we head out for dinner at Antico. It's classic Italian and warm and lovely to boot. A perfect meal over which I can say happy birthday to my Italian loving girl (she, like me, learned Italian just for the heck of it).

(yes, of course I had to tell them it's "her birthday!")

 

Such a beautiful and full day! I could not be more thrilled with this visit to Chicago. Could not!

I decided it's easier for everyone if I stay at a hotel for one night and so I make my way afterwards to my new place of choice-- the Zachary,  across the street from Wrigley Field. Not that you can see it tonight, but it's there!

If I ever wanted a distraction from the country's chaos right now -- this is it. Your family will do that for you -- lift you up and take you away into beautiful places, full of magic. And love. You let go of the rest, at least for the moment, and oh, it feels so so good...

with lots of love...

 

that's us

We are that country. Throwing money down a swampy river until it sinks: investing first in the health of the poor disease stricken unvaccinated hungry (for decades now), then cutting them off in mid-meal mid-medication dose mid treatment, throwing the rest away, just to show how... what, mighty we are? Mighty stupid. We are that country.

Ed says over breakfast that we did help pull China out of poverty and to an extent, India as well. But I'm not talking about a grandiose vision of a good life for all. I'm talking about hungry children and the growth of pathogens. We are the country of people who can sleep well at night, pulling the plug on food and medicine (and let the remains flow down a swampy river) for children. That's us. Not reshaping, reimagining, reinventing better paths, perhaps less expensive, perhaps more targeted, but instead, dumping it all, wasting it (because there is no one anymore to distribute expiring medications, no refrigeration to keep fresh and viable that which is there), just because. (Why exactly? I do not know. But we are that country.)

Well, I for one did not sleep much last night. Ed asks -- is it the news? Is it that I have a lot on my plate right now? I can't tell. Since I've been back from France, I have felt like I am rooted to a seat in a movie theater, watching one horror flick after the next. I suppose sleep is going to be elusive for a long time.

 

It's cold but not that cold. The wind has died down, but I need to investigate the damage it did to farmette trees last night. Ed said he heard a crash, but I find everything is still standing. That's a good thing!

Breakfast, lovely, in love, pleasant, until we go on to That Topic. 

And soon after, a Zoom call with my law school friends. We've been through a lot together, but honestly this month ranks high on the unimaginable becoming imaginable and indeed a reality.

I'm ticking off events of the day here on Ocean -- haircut next... I ask my old reliable hair cut person -- do you think that in the half hour I've been here, my hair has turned even more gray? It looks like that to me!

 

Lunch after,  a quick French lesson, and then I pick up the kids.

Today is one of those days where she has to be at a violin lesson toward evening and he has to go home with parents, but I linger for just a few minutes at the drop off point, just to catch up with the mom, because, well, it's been so chaotic that the small details of daily life have fallen off the radar just a little. 

And now I am home. We were to have a snow storm tomorrow, but it's projected course has shifted to the north of us, which is a very good thing because I am to be out on the road again and I dont need slick highways to move me along. I get ready for an early departure, I scramble some eggs, make salads and exhale. With Ed, on the couch.

It's been some week.

with love...

 

Ice

Funny how so many words can have a double meaning! But truly, mine today is purely meteorological: we wake up to ice. On the walkway. On the cars. Sleek, shiny, slippery. You can't really see it, but it's there to trip you up.  

(the chickens have no problems with it: must be their clawed feet...)

 

We are up early once again. I dont even know why. All your adult life you think sleeping in the greatest thing on earth and then when you can do it, you don't. 

Ed joins me for an oatmeal breakfast.

And then I spend a lovely morning on Zoom with my Warsaw friend Bee. This is the way you have to approach a call or a visit with a friend these days: you dont start in on The Topic. The world may be toppling, or imploding, or going mad -- you'll get to that, but you have to start with all the sweetness in your life first. We review trips taken, the antics of grandkids, plans for the weeks before us. And only then, properly soothed and with a steady hand, you dive into That Stuff. The news of the day, or is it week, or maybe two weeks. It's not good, in fact it's so not good that you can't quite get a handle on it because there are so many details and moving pieces, and hurts and fears, but hey, your friend reads the news or listen to stuff on the radio, she knows. The world knows. Yeah, they know that it's tough to be an American right now.

 

There is sunshine outside and I do take a walk afterwards. Ed's feeling lazy so it's just me. Short and to the point. It's beastly windy and where there is shade, there is ice, but still, whatever else happens in my day, two things must take place: movement, and a French lesson. (Ha! I bet you didn't see that one coming!) I do both.

And then it's time to pick up Snowdrop. Just her this Thursday. And here's the thing: ice means salt. Our roads have been salted three times over and then some. The car is one salt crusted heap of metal. It needs a wash. I ask Snowdrop is she wants to go over to a new car wash near us. Always enthusiastic, she gives her approval.

Unfortunately, everyone in town has the same idea. There are six cars before us. Sure you want to wait? I ask her. Yes! 

Once in line you can't get out. Six cars may seem not much. But my watch tells me each car is taking at least six minutes. 

It's a long wait.

We make up poems as we crawl forward. Lots of silly lines, lots of laughter. But I know what will follow: her utter disappointment that we lost that much of our reading time.

 

 

The path leading to the door of the farmhouse is shaded. And so the ice there did not melt. Uff! Ice is messing with my day! Even as I know that it messes with the days of others in a much more serious fashion.

(Snowdrop bounces back like no kid I know! Or perhaps like all kids whose lives are good and happy...)

(It's been a while since I've seen them tussle... always with loads of giggles coming from her)

The winds howl, the temps drop. The ice wont melt any time soon. Ed and I are lucky: the farmhouse is warm, the food is good, we have each other.

with love...

 

distractions

People use distractions to turn your attention away from the real menace that is brewing under your noses. You're outraged by the enormity of the "distraction" and meanwhile things happen that you should have been paying attention to, but for the distraction. Litter the airspace with distractions and watch people run wildly in every direction trying to understand what's going on and what comes next. Me, I am always under a pile of distractions of a different sort -- ones that take me away from what I really want to be doing. Many of them include doctors visits. For a person who appears actually quite strong and healthy (for my age), I sure have a lot of doctor visits in my calendar. Why? Well, they come recommended. To check on this, to check on that, to recheck something else. Ed does none of this and wastes no time in doctors offices. Question is: who is leading the better life? (I'll let you know once one of us keels over.)

Today I had another recheck (which revealed nothing of great consequence, and demands that I do nothing more, except knowing me and knowing my doc, I bet we'll be rechecking this again in a year or two). It took the better part of the morning. A distraction from what I want to be doing.

I did have time to feed the cats and chickens...

... and though it was very early, Ed did come down to breakfast with me and the tulips.

Yes, I do have a lot of tulips on the table right now. February is the month when I allow tulips to enter the scene. Because February signals the tail end of winter for me and the imminent (well, not so imminent in Wisconsin) arrival of spring. Some are grocery store tulips, but, too, I have a basket of forced tulip bulbs that sprouted just a couple of weeks ago. Altogether, it's looking nice here, on our kitchen table.

Since my morning is made threadbare, I decided to rip it up completely and so after the doc visit, I went grocery shopping. I think it's my first time in the new year (I've been saving time by ordering food online in recent weeks). I like my grocery store and I like pushing a cart and putting beautiful foods into it, but I dont like driving nearly 20 minutes to get to it (and then 20 back). But hey, I was downtown anyway, so I shopped.

And I may as well give it up after that. A quick lunch (still munching on granola bars), and then I'm off to pick up the kids.

There wasn't a good reason to say no to the weekly ice cream treat (though I wonder -- how is it that I got bamboozled into a weekly ice cream treat?) so we go to the Chocolate Shoppe...

At home, we dive for the book (Pine Island Home) and for the fruits and for the Lego pieces (that one is Sparrow's domain).

It's a late day here for the kids, but that's fine. They too are a distraction -- they keep me off the computer! And sometimes, that's a good thing.

with love...

sunshine

There are vast oceans between continents and great distances from north to south, but ultimately, we are not separated by much. That is to say the people of one corner of the planet have the capacity to mold themselves in much the same fashion (they have the same vulnerabilities, the same emotions) as the people of a very distant region. I have to think that if Americans are being seen right now as "callous, sadistic, full of misplaced grievances and utterly resistant to introspection" (NYT commenter from Canada, who can hardly be faulted for viewing us this way), well this is because all of us have the potential to become that, and many over the centuries have indeed strayed in exactly this direction. It did not serve them well in the end, but hey, they surely were beasts before their ultimate fall.

As I keep reading reactions to the events as they unfold here, in the U.S., I see that some Americans feel unfairly chastised: "I did not vote for this and neither did 77.5 million Americans" they say. Maybe, but here's another truth: nearly 90 million eligible people did not vote at all in 2024, which is to say that nearly all of those fellow Americans were okay with handing over the presidency to the person now in charge (they did nothing to try to stop it), and of course 77 million positively endorsed the team now running the show. So tally the numbers: 167 million were at least okay with putting at the top the person who is in fact legitimately captain of this (sinking?) ship (unless you think that actually Elon is in charge and of course he got 0 votes, but that's another story). 77.5 million is not looking very sizable by comparison. 

I was born in Poland in 1953, then under a "communist" dictatorship. We didn't legitimately vote for that, it was forced upon us and though some tried to eek out the best possible outcome given what we were stuck with (my father was such a person I think), most just concentrated on getting by, because really, it was a challenge! And we did not get much sympathy for our plight from the rest of the world. Ultimately Poland dug its way out of that horrible autocratic era on its own, though it was helped by history handing us for once a deck of cards that allowed things to fall into place with some but not too much violence. But this much is clear: we couldn't be called "callous, sadistic, full of misplaced grievances and utterly resistant to introspection," because really it was not our fault. Later, as Poland once again toyed with a dictatorship, you could point fingers at those who voted in favor of it, but in the end the majority, and I mean a real majority of voters spoke and the autocratic beast was pushed aside. Sure, this is my reading of history, but I think most would agree with this narrative.

So what I thought deeply about this morning is this: how does it feel to live in a country where a vast majority of the people (167 million!) either voted for or indirectly supported what we have now?

To me it feels like something that could happen anywhere at this moment in time. To repeat, we all have the potential to become "callous, sadistic, full of misplaced grievances and utterly resistant to introspection." None of us is above being selfish, and when pushed, we can all take on behaviors that would make our grandmothers wince (or my grandmother wince, because she was such a sweet person!). Nonetheless, it feels awful to know that your country now leads the way in this world in being "callous, sadistic, full of misplaced grievances and utterly resistant to introspection." Yes it could happen anywhere, but it happened here, among my fellow country men and women. This is what pains Ed as well -- that the vast majority chose or at least was okay -- is okay -- with what is happening in America right now. And once more, I feel compelled to go on record here on Ocean to say that we, us two, are not okay with what is happening in America right now. Sort of like a bulletin being flashed on your TV screen (remember when that happened, in the olden days?!) -- we interrupt the regularly scheduled programing to bring you this special bulletin, so too here, on Ocean, I feel the need to flash our bulletin, even as Ocean remains apolitical and is a friend to all good and kind humans everywhere -- and here it is -- we are not okay with this! 

 

It's cold out there today! I feel it when I go out to feed the animals. It's before dawn. Another one of those nights where I may as well get up and get going because I'm not going to get any more sleep. But oh, do we have a pretty sky! I do think south central Wisconsin rules in terms of big beautiful skies! (Fine, that makes no sense, but it sure looks that way to me!)

 

We eat breakfast. No gloom today. It's not that we're getting used to what's happening, it's just that one cant ignore the tulips blooming on the table and the utter deliciousness of a cinnamon roll from Madison Sourdough.

Even though it is only 14f (-10c) out there and the wind is making it feel like it's really 0f (-18 c), I urge us to go out for  a walk. And we do. To the development next to us because it's close and there are buildings to shield us from the wind. Still, I feel like Ed came very close to significant frost bite! (I had my face covered by a scarf, but the guy doesn't own or acknowledge the need for scarves.)

(looking back toward farmette lands)

More reading and some munching followed, and now it's time to pick up the kids.

There is talk (among the young ones) about getting ice cream. I get cold just thinking about it. I postpone it for another day.

What really made this day more bearable weather-wise was the amount of sunshine that came our way. Even a thin haze in the afternoon failed to make this day seem gloomy. There is a special kind of magic behind February sunshine and I was thrilled to feel that magic today. 

Still, it was cold. Split pea and lentil soup for supper! Yeah, a perfect night for it.

with love...

tears and croissants

How does breakfast fit into your day? Think about it: do you care at all about its content? It's presentation? I ask, because for me, over the years, this meal has had a wild ride. And I wonder why. After all, it's just breakfast. And yet, I seem to have infused it with some special meaning and whole lot of emotion.

I don't remember breakfasts before moving from my grandparents' home in deeply rural Poland to my parents apartment in Warsaw. But once I relocated to Warsaw at age three, I have it firmly in my memory bank: breakfast then was at the daycare where I spent virtually all my waking hours. And it was awful. At least I thought it was awful. Milk soup with rice. That kind of thing. I hated the smell and the taste. I'm sure I hardly ate any of it.

When we moved to New York (age 7 for me), my mother was the breakfast fixer and I continued to hate the meal. She was, understandably, concerned about vitamins and such and so she insisted we start the day with half a grapefruit. Guess who hated to start the day with half a grapefruit? The cereal that followed was no better. (To this day I dont get Americans' love of flakes and crispies mushed up in cold milk.) 

But in the summers, I was back at my grandmother's house and her breakfasts in my eyes then were... sublime. Oatmeal, white bortsch, bread toasted on a wood burning stove-top, ozzing with melted cheese. Or, with white cheese and a local honey. Bowls of berries, also drizzled with honey. Warm tea with fruit compote. All eaten on the verandah, with sunlight coming in on two sides. Heaven on earth!

Later, in my adult life, breakfast was a blur. Getting the kids off to school and myself off to work did me in. I dont even know what I ate. I'm sure there was a lot of coffee in the deal.

Once the kids were out of the house and I started in on my life with Ed (sounds like a TV sitcom, so? "My Life With Ed"), breakfast became important. No, make that super important. I connected to him in those early hours over morning foods. The berries from my grandmother's time returned to the table. As did the oatmeal. And of course, I added croissants. And granola for variety. I am back to this equation: breakfast = sublime pleasure.

So it is no surprise that after another too-short-a-night (Ed's cough), after feeding the animals and walking the farmette lands...

... I got in the car on this drizzly, just a degree above freezing, very misty day...

 

 

... and drove to get croissants at Madison Sourdough.

It would have been a beautiful set of minutes, except that I kept the radio on and of course in the early morning hours, NPR carries news of the day and the news was so... miserable! Such meanness we are capable of! Brutal acts with consequences to poor helpless souls all over the world. Who are we as a people? How can we do this stuff?

I came back in tears. 

And so, yes,  breakfast was beautiful. Delicious.

But it was tainted by the news of the day. True, it was comforting to sit across the table from Ed. But, he is already glum about it all, so he suggested maybe we put these topics on hold and talk instead about jams and other innocuous things (we have had many long and beautiful conversations about jams and other innocuous things), but this made me tear up even more because of course I'm this postwar child who was born after my country of birth endured horrors, and listening to how others are now victimized and treated with scorn and labeled as radical lunatics and worse (because they feed starving families) -- well, this just isn't going to sit well with me, because I know what this leads to, this hatred of others and I dont want to be a part of it in any way. And so this is why Ocean is a bit off course this morning: I feel compelled to write about those tears, the sadness that I have because of what so many of us, here in this country, are willing to do to others who are just trying to work hard and raise families and have a chance at a modestly okay life.

We ended breakfast with Ed reminding me that perhaps buying less right now would be a good thing. I'm not sure I entirely follow that logic, but of course, since I've been traveling so much, I'm already not in a spending mode because the retirement purse is only so big. 

For the rest of the morning I lose myself in reading about far away places. Where people do good things and live good lives with open hearts and willing hands.

And in the afternoon, I pick up the two kids after school.

Mondays are ballet days for the girl and in the evening I was to drop the boy in one place, and the girl in another (for her class), but someone left her ballet things in her school cubby, so we did none of that. I didn't mind the extra time with the kids at the farmhouse: I started reading a new book to her (but he listens in, only sometimes he pretends not to) and it's another winner and honestly, there is no better way to spend a late afternoon than on the couch, with a winner book and winner kids.  

For supper I cook up some eggs from our once again laying hens and now I am right back on the couch, with Ed, and this, too, is a good moment, a special moment, belonging to the very best: just him and me and the occasional cat. And a piece of chocolate to end the day.

with so much love...

sleep, interrupted

Typically I can recover from a nighttime disturbance. I wake up, take note, go back to sleep. But four disturbances all within minutes of each other? If you can doze off after that, you're a better sleeper than I am.

There was Ed's cough (he is still recovering from his bout with Covid... or something else... in any event, still hackin' away). Then there was the beeping of his phone -- there are multiple ongoing exchanges with the CEO of the machine company Ed works with, because, you know, next week's tariffs, which will lead to fewer machines for educational facilities, for manufacturing companies, and for independent machinists, and higher prices for all, in addition to a certainty of layoffs at his company, and possible closing doors to production, period, will make America... what did you say? great?... again? And this is when my phone started beeping because my grocery shopper needed to tell me that a good chunk of my groceries, scheduled for delivery at 7 a.m., were no longer available. Tomatoes, for example, which is sort of ironic considering that tomatoes will surely be a problem after the tariffs, but then here we are -- suffering empty tomato shelves even before the crisis begins. And finally -- the cats. Ed had spoiled them in my absence by leaving the bedroom door open, so naturally, they're meowing and scratching at it now that I closed it firmly shut for the night. I could add to this list the buzzing of a box elder beetle, but I do think that I would have slept through that one under normal circumstances. This night, however, was not normal. And so this morning we are just plain sleep deprived.

A light dusting of snow covered the farmette lands overnight. You're probably thinking -- oh how nice, you got your wish! I can't say that I did. We are to have a one day warm up (if you call 45 F/7C warm, though I suppose it is quite warm considering this is February and I live in Wisconsin) and so by noon all this will be gone and we will return to a sullenly dark landscape. But for the early hours of the morning, enjoy!

(what? enjoy? no! we don't like it!)

(pretty, maybe, but useless and fleeting)

I wait with breakfast until Ed is done with his calls (with the CEO guy). It isn't exactly a gloomy morning meal, but on the other hand, we're not cracking jokes either. Still, it's nice to be together and to know that whatever happens, this will be our lot -- a morning ritual repeated until I lose all interest in granola or oatmeal or croissants. Today it's granola because granola is, in my mind, a comfy crunchy food!

We had wanted to go biking today. I mean, it's above freezing! We've done it before in winter weather. But the lack of sunshine is just so off-putting! It makes cold seem colder. So we stayed glued to our screens until it was time for me to fix dinner and Ed to fix whatever broken thing he has lined up for that task.

Yes, the young family is once again here for Sunday dinner. 

(the youngest of the five...)

And it is lovely to see them. All of them.

And of course, once they leave and I've put away all that needs to be put away after family gatherings, I just want to crash because, well, we're sleep deprived! And yet, that pleasant hour or two on the couch with Ed -- it's irresistable! But please -- cats, phones, box elder beetles -- stay away from me tonight! I need the week to get off to a good start.

woth love...