from Rome: first approach

My feeling has always been this: Rome is a mammoth. It’s impossible for me to find her pulse. The city’s intractable. Even as I had a fierce youthful crush on Italy (what young woman hasn’t), I’d stop by for a handful of days here, shrug my shoulders and move on. Half a dozen visits later I still feel that I know her least well of all the major European capitals. I don’t mean the sights – I checked those off dutifully. But the heart of the place remains a mystery.

And so it was a thrill to have my younger daughter tell me that she would love a week in Rome for her annual European vacation with me. Like me, she loves Italy. Like me, she studied Italian in college. Like me she felt that we had, on past trips here, not gotten enough of Rome.

A Roman holiday.

My thought on challenging cities (that is -- ones where you typically spend more than a dozen hours out walking, and it’s hot, and there’s a lot of noise and traffic) is that, at the end of the day, you need to return to a room you love. And for people on a strict budget, this is a city where inexpensive food is often great, but a lovely room for less than a small fortune is nearly impossible to find. But perseverance and luck often work wonders. Not a great name (in my opinion), but perfectly fantastic rooms, all hidden on the upper floors of an old building, a short stroll from the Centro Storico: Suite Dreams. (You may thank me for this tip someday, if you travel here.)



We have come prepared to do the city right: many books, a daughter who actually studied Roman history, a love of reading about destinations before getting to them, pages and pages of restaurant reviews – all that, we have all that. And still, I cannot help it. I ask the hotel proprietor for help just on this first day. He’s a restaurant man (he runs his own on the outskirts of the city). He looks at my lists, frowns, shakes his head at half the choices we’ve so carefully identified, finally nods his head and points to one.

That one. Tonight, you should eat there. This is a city that so loves to eat that even now, in the shoulder season, you need to book a table at the popular places. And so, our first Roman act is to book a table at the Maccheroni.

And now the trick is to stay awake until the hours when Romans set out to dine (you show up before 8 and the place will either be closed, or full of British guests, whose stomachs demand food before the sun sets).

We walk.





Up one street, down the next. To the Spanish steps, remembering when nearly twenty years ago we struggled to stay awake right here, on our first day in Rome with two very little girls. The girls have grown, the views have stayed the same.





On this first day, we don’t dare sit down. We watched movies the whole flight over and somewhere in that time on the plane, we forgot to sleep.

And while I’m on the subject of the flights over, do you mind if I throw in these two photos from the flight out of Paris (where we connected to Rome)? Because never is it more obvious that l’Etoile (the place where the Parisian Arc de Triomphe stands) means "star" than when looking down, on a flight over the city.





…and never is it more obvious that Rome is a Mediterranean place than as you look at the countryside on the approach, also from up above.





…and I may as well throw in here that our ride from the airport was also in train cars that could only be Italian: on the older side, but very colorful.





Now, back to our stroll.





Except now it is evening and we are hungry and sleepy and dinner is still hours away. We sit down at Piazza Navona – which is sort of the equivalent of sitting down on Piazza San Marco in Venice or della Signoria in Florence: people watching nirvana.

We sip prosecco and eat ice cream (if the idea of eating ice cream just hours before dinner strikes you as odd, you haven’t traveled with people who love to eat local stuff at any and every opportunity; besides, I’m talking about some serious hours of walking).
















And then we stroll some more. Just for that elusive first grasp. And again, luck is with us, because I think in those evening hours, Rome began to slowly poke out. In the dark streets of the old town, in the opening restaurants, with tables stuck in every conceivable spare corner…





...in doors, opening, people stepping out -- for a pause. To chat, to get a sip of water...
















… in the fading light by the Tiber river, with the dome of St. Peter’s on the other side.






Finally, we are at a decent eating time. We make our way to the Maccheroni, so very aware that we are at the height of artichoke season…





…and in general, in the very midst of the Mediterranean growing season.

The food is delicious, copious, simple but heavenly: artichokes done in the Roman way, pasta stuffed with zucchini flowers, a carafe of wine and jugs of water. All very very fresh and honest.










The cook tosses pasta in the visible to us kitchen, then smile as we wolf down platefuls of his creations.





It is a fine, fine evening.

We walk back to our crisp, white room. I throw myself on the bed and barely remember to take off my shoes.

in transit, continued

Waiting between flights now, thinking how very perfect the month of May is. In Madison it can be a notch on the cool side, but the vivacious colors and robust greens (as opposed to the tired greens of August) more than make up for this. And, it's too early for mosquitoes in May. How very wonderful!

The trouble is that this same perfection extends to the other side of the ocean as well. Landing in Paris, I am always enchanted with the color of the fields, the feeling of energy outside, the crispness of the foliage. No one is on vacation yet (even as May here is full of long holiday week-ends) and so you can blend into the stream of daily life -- something that's not possible in the summer as you elbow your way through crowded cities (crowded with visitors like yourself) and even more crowded south-bound highways and trains.

So it is with great joy that this year I got to split my May between the States and Europe. And now I am just about to embark on this second half, over here -- with the hope of good weather and many many good walks.

But I have one flight still to go. And a daughter next to me for the week. I'll post once we get settled in at our final destination, just a little southeast of here.

in transit

That says it all, right? In transit. From one space and mindset to another. With very sketchy Internet to start me off.

I look out and think -- it's a beautiful day outside. Someday, Internet connection issues will be history and all that will be relevant will be the brightness of the light and the leap into another week of strong, beautiful human connections.

And why wait. Let me leap into the latter and forget about the Internet until I reach the other side of the ocean.

Until tomorrow then.

chasing dreams

Nonstop. I worked like a horse today. Because, you see , I had this dream -- that in the next four weeks, I would work at a bare minimum.

For the first time, I didn’t even go down to the Saturday Farmers’ Market. (For dinner, we ate frozen stir fry. Even as the season is bursting with fresh flavors.)

But by late afternoon, I needed a pause. I couldn't ignore it anymore: the day was absolutely brilliant (and with that brilliance comes an unpleasant surprise for those of us who rushed the planting season – tonight we face a danger of frost).

Trees in bloom, farmers working, cats prancing (under peach tree blossoms) –what a day!




















Intoxicating!


At home, I find a package waiting for me. I have many wonderful and enormously kind commenters on Ocean and I truly value the friends I have made through blogging. But one who especially deserves mention today is "danDe" – a commenter who has an infinite capacity for generosity, both in his comments and in his attitude toward family, friends and the occasional struggling “artist.”

Today, he sent me a woodcut print that he had done of an Ocean photo from last December. (Did I tell you that he is an accomplished artist? Find his work here.) It’s so beautiful that I have to include a picture of it here for you (with many heartfelt thanks to you, dande!).





Can a person chase dreams through art? Through writing? Through pruning peach trees? Through travels with her daughters? Or with an occasional traveling companion? Yes.

Tomorrow morning, I’m off. Be patient. It’s a long trip. Where to? Not to Florence, but close. Keep checking. Eventually, once I arrive, I’ll post.

fine day

By midnight, I was home. It was quite the trip back, but if my goal was to pull in before Friday, I succeeded.

And then it was a treadmill run, but without the exercise. My list alternately grew and contracted as I churned through mostly office work. I did not mind. Walking from the bus stop toward the Law School, I thought that the building (looking from the back) never looked lovelier. Something about the pink and green framing of it…




From my office, I watched students slowly trickle toward the Union for the graduation ceremonies. Radiant smiles, cameras snapping, friends hugging -- all there, parading below my window.





And so it was a fine day. Of good views and productive hours. Now, let me hope for a repeat tomorrow. Only, can we add a little sunshine, please?

from New York, upstate, one last time

When did our conversation change? When did we start thinking about maybe another trip out here? At what point did I think that maybe Sharon Springs can have a small corner of the vacation market again?

Probably not until this morning, when Ed and I pulled up to the Black Cat Café before our drive back to the Midwest.

The Café was open now and the proprietor was there, behind the counter, chatting to the patrons who streamed in steadily for a coffee, or doughnut, or something more substantial.










Are you from here? I ask him.
Oh my gosh, no! From the city… moved to Connecticut … too suburban there … sold the house and moved here.
We’re from the houses up on Washington Street– Ed explains.
Oh! So you know the lady that comes down here still…
My aunt.
And the gentleman in the yellow house? With his sons?
My cousins.

We chat about the opening up of the American Hotel, the attempt to serve food at the Roxboro…

And I notice a difference in the way that I’m listening. I hear about these little efforts at rebuilding community and I think that maybe there really is one here. Not snuffed out yet, no, not at all. And I think – maybe even now, without the sulphur baths, you would want to come here. For the quiet, rural life. For the opening of this café, and that hotel, and the gallery up the street, and the soap store down the road. And the good New York wines in the liquor store. Maybe…

We drive away reluctantly. We would have liked to stick around a little, gossip some, but I have a flight to catch and work to do and so we say good bye and leave.


I should back up a little. Yesterday, we visited the richer neighbor – Cooperstown. Do you know it? It’s also a village, some twenty miles west of Sharon Springs. True, it’s at the shores of a lovely little Lake Otsego, but this isn’t the draw: it is the village that claims to be home to American baseball. And with those bragging rights, it has pulled in a tourist traffic that would make any resort town blue with envy. Here, after all, is the great Baseball Hall of Fame.

Me, going to a Baseball Hall of Fame? I know – it’s an insane idea. Not that I don’t get baseball (like, say, football). I know the basic rules, I even once owned a mitt (I was 10 and I was drawn to American icons). But I just don’t follow the stuff. Still, Cooperstown is a place where Ed went numerous times with his family -- for the museum, for sailing, for a fancy lunch at the Otsego Inn. So I was curious.


Cooperstown. What can I say. It’s where Sharon Springs would be if sulphur baths were half as popular in this country as baseball. Cooperstown is doing very very well.





I hesitate before spending the money on an entrance ticket to the Baseball Museum. They charge a lot. People will pay a small fortune to see the dusty, well worn shoes of Babe Ruth. Or the authentic bricks of the home where Hank Aaron once lived. But, it’s the thing to do here and I like reading small bits of history. Even if it’s baseball history.





True, in the Hall of Fame, I don’t have the feeling that others may have here – of standing among giants – but it’s a fascinating place nonetheless. With an aura to it. Letting you believe that this is important stuff! These are our heroes, our accomplished men of sport! Not many women celebrated here (I counted one), that’s for sure, but then, baseball has never been very open-minded about such things as gender. And why should we care. As I sit through a film clip that asks us to sing along to "Take me out to the ballgame…” (Ed almost leaves at this point, but I hold him back), I think – this is fine. A good rousing song and a few more rooms of baseball bats and old uniforms. Yeah. Way better than sulphur springs. I guess.



Cooperstown’s inns never closed in the way that Sharon Springs inns did.





Cooperstown also has a main street that is lined with stores selling baseball paraphernalia.

And I think – what a drag. This isn’t a village to bring your relatives to for long dinners of corn on the cob and grilled one thing or another. It’s a tourist destination, mostly, by the looks of it – for men in baseball caps and hours of watching The Game under their belts.

Ed and I stroll toward the lake and picnic on a bench in the well tended park. The waters are quiet and very beautiful. Empty now. Not quite the summer season yet. Ed talks about days of learning to sail here with his father.





Success invites the successful and as we stroll, it becomes obvious that property values here are significantly different than up in Sharon Springs. Homes are well cared for. Painted on a regular schedule. And on this bright May afternoon, the gardens look remarkable.

Ehhh… Too fussy. The place not only has a money-making baseball motif to it, but it also has that feeling of privacy and wealth, rather than pulling together and creating community (I do think that it’s rare for the two to overlap).

Ed and I drive past a tennis court. We get out and volley the ball for a while, enjoying the feeling of spring.

And eventually, we leave, driving the backroads east again, past small villages that are clearly struggling. But not unbeautiful in their simplicity and quiet. You have to believe that kids still come by to the store for candy and that they get a break if they don't have the right change.





Ed has an appointment with an attorney. A local guy who knows everything about the villages here. We spend a while with him – too long probably, but it’s so easy to lapse into idle talk here.

We stop at the village right next to Sharon Springs: Cobleskill. That’s where you’ll find the closest grocery store. And the Bull’s Head Inn, where Ed and his family would occasionally come for dinner.





What did you order then? – I ask. (He wont admit to ever liking beef and it’s fun to tease out the truth about past eating habits)
Oh, you know, the same stuff.
Steak?
Oh, probably not so much.
Did your mother order steak?
Yeah, sure…
Did she eat it all? (His mother looked pretty svelte in the photos I looked at the other day.)
No, not the whole thing…
Did she take the leftovers home?
Oh no, not that. You know, we finished it up for her.
Ah.


In the last rays of the sun, we pace through the Sharon Springs property again, imagining what would be done with it in the years ahead. In the melon yellow evening light, the grandparents' house looks again splendid. For a minute, the decay, the peeling paint, the too-old windows are hidden from us. As if the old lady wants to be remembered for what she once was -- a place of elegance and warmth.





And again I feel nothing but sadness for the fate of these houses, for the dwindling connection that so many feel toward this land.

One last peak, from behind the lilac bushes and we turn our backs to her, retreating for the last time to the cousins' house.





I fall asleep early and Ed tells me I sleep for twelve hours. He exaggerates, but not by much.



We are driving now toward Rochester, New York where I have a plane to catch. We pass apple orchards, beautiful apple orchards…





…and we talk about how great it would be if Sharon Springs had a farmers market – with the apples and cheeses and produce from the area. And how beautiful the littlest house, the Button House would be if some took it under their wing. And how wonderful it would be to stroll into town and get a coffee and gossip about the food at the Roxboro, or the art gallery, or the future of Sharon Springs.


We continue due west. One last stop, just one final pause. At the northern edge of the Finger Lakes, we get out of the truck at Seneca Falls. You probably don't know that this town was the inspirational model for Bedford Falls, of It's a Wonderful Life fame. You probably do know that this was also the home of Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

There's a Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, honoring accomplished American women. It's tiny! And rather lean in demeanor. Truly, it should not be viewed immediately after a visit to the Baseball Hall of Fame. I remember a wall mounting from the Baseball Museum where the question was posed: should a baseball player earn as much as a Nobel Prize laureat? Maybe. But here's mine -- should a Hall of Fame honoring women be so poorly funded comapred to a Baseball Hall of Fame? Maybe not. I'll say this much -- the entry fee is a fraction of the one in Cooperstown.


So ends our road trip. Maybe we’ll go back to Sharon Springs, maybe not. Keep reading Ocean in the years ahead.

In the meantime, I have a week-end ahead packed with details, most having to do with making sure that I have with me all that I need for the month ahead: exams to grade, numerous texts to read – that’s the serious stuff -- and also proper attire for warm city life and cold country ramblings. I'm relocating to the other side of the ocean for a month come Sunday. But first I have to get myself to Madison today. Last I heard, I wont be making my connection.

I can't believe riding back with Ed in his rickety truck would have been more reliable than using a return flight ticket from the east coast. Life is so unpredictable!

from Sharon Springs, NY: clean slate

After my previous post, a commenter wrote: one of the saddest things around is a long empty house. Fascinating, but sad.


Ed and I wake up to a crisp and brilliant Tuesday. Inside, the cousin house has heated up to a toasty big oven.
What’s the heating system here? -- I ask.
Primitive – Ed answers. He explains about oil and hot water and hissing radiators, but my thoughts are wandering as I look around the room where we spread out our sleeping bags. There is so much that is old here! An entire set of the Encyclopedia Britannica on the shelves. The 11th edition, published in 1910. The room is stuffy now, but we dare not open the ancient windows. The wallpaper shows water damage in the walls. In some rooms, old furniture is stacked to the side. But, the kitchen is modern and we see a copy of an Alice Waters cookbook lying around. And, Ed has us connected to WiFi in no time.

I try not to misplace things, but in a room with someone’s clutter, it’s hard. We spend a good half hour looking for my misplaced watch. As a result, I am now familiar with every dust ball around our sleeping area on the floor.

I need some fresh air.

We walk down to the village and look around. Sharon Springs is one fat chapter in a history book. But it feels like that chapter has come to a close. The spa hotels, the gazebos, the sulphur baths – they defined the Main Street not too long ago, but now they’re shut down. Left standing, but in disrepair, they are not glorious at all. They are a sad reminder of how shifting tastes can ruin a village. Or at least strip it of its significant markings.






There are two or three cafes in town, but all are closed for one reason or another. I search for a cup of coffee and finally find one in a pizza place. The grocery stores have shut down several years back but there is a liquor store, and a place where you can get your nails done. On the outskirts, you can still pull up to Dairlyland for a soft swirl ice cream cone. And some fried chicken tenders.





In the afternoon, we set out to inspect the family houses. Besides the cousins’ place, there is the grandparents’ grand place and the small “Button House” – probably the oldest of the three. In addition, there are the out buildings -- garages, a greenhouse, sheds...

We begin with the grandparents’ place.

On the outside, you immediately notice the peeling paint and places where the wood is warping. But on the inside you begin to appreciate what years of great care can do to a home. It all looks so perfectly preserved! What, to me, is so disconcerting is that nothing has been touched here for decades. The closets have linens, neatly folded, discreetly covered in the old world style with a hanging sheet. The smell is of camphor and mothballs. An old trunk has a beautifully printed card on it: “this trunk was last inspected and cleaned in June, 1966.” The grandfather’s room has jars of his knickknacks in the closet. His shoes are tossed to the side --- untouched for decades. In the room where Ed’s parents occasionally stayed (before the young family took over the Button House), a closet is full of his mother’s clothing. Things that predate Ed’s childhood, I’m sure. No one has touched anything here either. If any relative passed through here in the last quarter century, there is no indication that she or anyone ever entered these rooms. (And certainly there are enough rooms here that you could bypass the main ones and still do well by yourself.)

In the third floor rooms, Ed shows me the fire station and doll house his father and aunt played with as children. On one wall I see war helmets hung by the window. Which war? The first? The second?





We go out on the roof. Slate – Ed shakes his head. Who uses slate anymore. I'm thinking -- these slates sell for a lot at Crate & Barrel. As cheese plates.





The reality is that there is no future for this house. Too big, too old, too costly, sitting here in a depressed rural community – a beautiful, aging misfit.


Down the hill, the Button House is in far worse shape. The walls and ceilings in some rooms have given up and crumbled to the ground. The furniture is in place, the dishes here, too, are still in the kitchen cupboards, but it’s as if someone chased the inhabitants out in the middle of a meal. And then poked holes in the house. The shell is damaged even as the rooms are left alone. The ancient TV, the crank phone, the old clocks, books, Currier and Ives prints – still there, as if waiting for the family to return.



We walk through the former gardens, past grape vines, the apple orchard, past the buckled pool, the shattered greenhouse. You should have seen the care my grandmother took with the gardens. My aunt too! There were flowers everywhere. And as I’d run up from one house to another, I’d pass relatives sitting on the porch, always with a question for me, a good word.

But here is the brutal truth, the bottom line, really: these houses, untouched for all these years, must eventually be stripped and taken apart. Just as rebuilding the spa hotels seems like a wistful and ultimately futile endeavor (for whom? for what reason?), so, too, investing in these mammoth houses makes no sense at all. Not here, in the little village of Sharon Springs.

And it is so sad for me to see this. Being raised in Europe, I have always missed the mixing of the old and new here. And now, I am walking through a village with a remarkable and rich history and that village is about to lose its markers of a fascinating era. It'll have a clean slate, eventually to be filled with more practical homes and convenience stores, or in a worse scenario – by nothing at all, so that the entire village will have moved on. To Florida or Texas maybe.

Even though it is so pretty in this upstate New York region!






We eat dinner at one of the old, boarded up hotels – the Roxboro.





The place has been taken over by a local couple. Even though there is already one restored hotel in town, they're full of optimism for this one as well. Thus far, they've reopened the dining room. Three courses for $9.95 if you come before 6. An old woman and her son sit at a table at one end of the room. We are at the other end. The silence in the room is palpable.

If they reopen the hotel rooms, who will stay here?





We drive to the edge of Sharon Springs. At Dairyland. Ed orders a vanilla milkshake. We take turns sipping it as we return for the night to the cousins' house.

from Sharon Springs, NY

We sit in an empty dining room, waiting for our pizza. A rotary banner is leaning against one wall. Each of the dozen or so tables has a small American flag stuck in a cup of gold and red sparkly streamers. Paper placemats advertise local businesses. The rooms looks much like it probably did when it first opened for business, almost 100 years ago.

We're in the village of Sharon Springs. A place full of good childhood memories for my occasional traveling companion, Ed.


(On the approach:)
















His great grandparents picked this location (some 200 miles north of NYC) to build a summer residence. They were part of the wave of immigrants from Eastern Europe who must have been used to the custom there of taking curative sulphur baths. Sharon Springs has such baths -- once so fashionable for the vacationing community, now closed up. The habit never really caught on here (even as in Poland, people still travel to resorts that boast curative waters).





You could say that Sharon Springs rocked, for about 100 years (say 1870, until maybe 1970). Hotels sprung up. Musical events took place in (quaint to my eye) gazebos. The Sulphur Springs created vapors for inhaling, waters for bathing, mud for spa treatments. Saratoga Springs, the competing New York destination for those inclined toward sulphur spring treatments flourished as well, but Saratoga Springs discriminated against Jews (and eventually against communists – Polish nationals were not permitted to visit during my childhood years in New York) and so the immigrants and their families settled in Sharon Springs. With rail access to New York City (back then), it was a magnificent vacation spa village!



the Roxboro: now closed, except for the dining room




the American Hotel: closed for a while, trying to capture now the b&b market




Inside the American: remembering the glory of the Springs


Ed’s family residence here is vast. Several rambling houses, each more than 100 years old, with wrap around porches on some and more rooms than I could keep track of. On summer week-ends here, the rooms were full of cousins, aunts, uncles.


But eventually, the fortunes of this vacation village declined. Sharon Springs still drew Holocaust survivors here after World War II, but in time, the hotels faced a dwindling tourist base. And, too, the custom of building large family vacation homes for all those sons, daughters, cousins diminished in popularity, as cousins, sons and daughters and their children and grandchildren embraced a new freedom of movement, choosing instead to vary their travels: to warm climates, overseas, anywhere. Sadly, the old homes of grandparents and great grandparents stand mostly empty now.





One of the family buildings here, however, is still used by Ed’s cousins and the caretaker opens it up for us as we pull in late in the evening.





A shame the other houses are so neglected, the caretaker mutters. They were once so beautiful. But, no one wants to come to Sharon Springs. Not much to do here. It’s no Cooperstown (!). No work here, either. People drive to Albany (fifty miles away) to find jobs.

The waitress at the restaurant where we wait for our pizza is young.
You like it here in Sharon Springs?
It’s my mother’s restaurant. I’m just helping her out. But all my friends have moved away. Just today I found out that my best friend is moving to Texas! Texas! I cried for two hours!
So you think you’ll stay here, with your mom?
Uh-uh. I’m finishing up some school work. I’m thinking of moving to Florida. My brother’s there.


Earlier in the day, Ed and I work through eighteen crates of family belongings, stuck in storage in Brewster, just outside NYC. Neither he nor I are big keepers of stuff and to sort and segregate family belongings is enough to make you want to run home and throw the last of your own junk away.

The supervisor at the moving and storage company is patient with us. Occasionally I go to his office room to warm up. I lean against the door for a few minutes and study the numerous commemorative army photos from Vietnam and Iraq. The man also likes guns and I am half tempted to look through some of the gun magazines piled on top of his cabinet. On the wall he has a poster announcing his strong feelings for Jane Fonda (kill the bitch) and for Woodstock (the only Woodstock that I recognize is my rifle). He goes in and out of the office, giving orders on which crates to bring from where and we go through another, and another (looking for boxes with tiny green stickers on them). My hands are dark with the dust from another life.

In one crate, I find several boxes of family photos and I spend some time looking through these. Ed doesn’t have photos at home and the people I’ve heard about in the years that I have known him have been faceless for me for a long, long time. Don’t you want to take some home? They’re not mine. He answers briefly and continues methodically opening boxes, and packing them up again.



It’s cold now up here, in Sharon Springs. (Our work in Brewster is done and we’re here for several days to take stock of the place.) I think the growing season is close to that in Madison. Maybe even a week behind. A far cry from the Carolinas, or even DC. The caretaker shows us where to turn on the heat. I wander through the rooms – twin beds in most of them, as if a family with a dozen kids once lived here.

Tomorrow, I say to Ed. We’ll explore the other, more neglected houses tomorrow.
I used to walk down to the general store and buy a paper. He tells me as we spread out our sleeping bags. I remember plates of corn on the cob and fresh string beans from the garden...