fog

Eerie, dreary, drippy, ghostly, soupy... wait, stop now. The list is too long. The weather map states: zero visibility. That says it all.

One way to turn a day around is to accomplish things despite the odds. So I clean the farmhouse before it is even decent to be up and about. And then I go to a 75 minute yoga class. Well now.

It is foggy nonetheless.






Breakfast: let's have it in the sunroom!
There's no sun...
So what, who cares, let's pretend...





He looks like a mad scientist in that photo and that's not entirely wrong because he is immersed in design projects right now. And so he retreats to the sheep shed for a good part of each day. I take stock. Okay, granola baking time.





The farmhouse soaks in the aroma of cinnamon. I settle in to do work. Classes will be well prepared this week. There are no distractions. Lots of time to work.

In the evening, Ed comes in from the sheep shed. Project put to rest for the night. Because it's wet outdoors, Isis refuses to step down until they both are on the safe, dry floors of the farmhouse.





My daughter and her husband come for dinner. The proverbial burst of sunlight.





And then things quiet down again. The sun disappears and I never even notice that it was one hour later than yesterday. No matter. You have to pay a price for spring. The upswing will come. It's just a little late to our liking, but it'll come. Maybe this week, maybe not. But it'll come.

Saturday

They said it would rain and it did rain, though not enough to wash away the snow, which is a shame. If I can't ski on it, or find beauty in its freshness, then I would like it please to go away.

Not surprisingly, I focused my attention on future fun projects. I've already planned out major garden expansions (I did that in February, when every northern gardener goes hog wild with ideas and spends too much on seeds and to-be-delivered-in-May bare root plants). So I focused on forthcoming breaks and slightly more distant vacations.

But first, there was breakfast. Isis has been joining us for the morning meal. He seems to be respectful of my desire to keep him off tables (whereas in the sheep shed, there isn't a surface that he hasn't inhabited in one way or another) and I am grateful for that.





Lately, we've had multiple cat visitors to the farmette. I bang pots and make loud noises when they come. I feel Isis is vulnerable in the territorial squabbles that inevitably take place between him and vagabond cats. Isis is getting old. I know a thing or two about not wanting to fight anything or anyone when you get older.

Ed, however, is always intrigued by cat visitors. He talks about cat projects that we should take on once Isis is no longer with us. I listen, respectfully but without enthusiasm.

Over the years, of course, I have come to quite love Isis (except at night, in bed). But my affection for animals pales when compared to Ed's passion for all things that move on fours (or, in the alternative, waddle on twos) and can't speak any language, let alone the English language. He even likes these guys:





I photographed them for you today on my way to my yoga class, but they are no special subject for me at all. Any Madisonian, or person living south of the city will see more geese -- in the fields, geese on the bike paths, geese flying in pairs or in clusters, geese just hanging around -- more than  one could possibly want to in the course of a day. Two years ago, our city decided that there were too many geese here and, with permission from the federal government, they set out to shoot some 350 of them. (There were protests. Some geese were indeed 'removed,' but we continues to have a lot of geese.) I would like to believe that someday, these Canadian geese will reacquaint themselves with their true national origin and fly north, like they're supposed to. Ed, on the other hand, has a soft spot even for geese.
They poop everywhere! -- I'll protest.
You mean they fertilize our soil -- he'll retort.

So after yoga, I try hard to work on my classes, but I find myself instead finishing up details of spring break planning and then, with a shift of focus, I begin my annual ritual of trying out summer adventure ideas on Ed. What will tickle his fancy is a true life's mystery.

Finally, in the evening, we put aside the leftover tomato soup for future nights. Ed has suggested that we try take out form a nearby Indian restaurant.

And here I just want to say that trying out restaurants was a lot more exciting before the advent of Yelp or Tripadvisor. You would venture forth because someone told you that the place is a good bet and more often than not you'd come out entirely satisfied. These days, I'll read a published review and then, just to be thorough, I'll go on to read what the general populace had to say about it. Even the very best places will have their detractors. The lesser eateries will be overrun with condemnation:  "bland!" "we were poisoned! Avoid this place at all costs!" "they treated us like scum!" "reheated, dry, tasteless" -- on and on. It can take the anticipatory spark out of dining out.

In the end, Ed does pick up foods from Taj (which may well be the closest restaurant to the farmette at only 4.4 miles door to door). And it was fine and so far, neither of us is sick. I know that's setting the bar low, but honestly, on a gray drizzly March day, I think staying healthy and focused is a good enough goal to set for oneself.

the bright side

I pay my respects to winter today. I know no one likes this challenging season. I admit that I prefer spring. And summer. Maybe even autumn. But a winter like the one we're putting aside now, did bring us its share of joy.

There's fog early in the morning. Not serious stuff (as it appears to me). Pretty wetness that clings to thin branches and makes them look very lacy, very fragile.





I have no appointments, no meetings and so I can work at home. After breakfast.






This is the day that I get back to doing yoga and that's really good, because it's been a while since I've stretched myself into a downdog or a pigeon pose. On the way to class, I pause to watch deer to the side of the road.





They look at me, I look at them. It takes no more than a second for them to decide to flee.






I wonder if they're made bolder by the weather? By the sunshine? By the feeling of spring?  I rarely see deer at this time of day. Maybe they need that indulgence? That lovely warm feeling of sun on your back?

I get that very feeling today: Ed and I do our final ski run for the year (I know, I know, there have been a lot of finals, but this is the real one... there will be no more). It's almost evening and the sun is low. But it feels good and warm. I unzip my jacket. We're both hatless.











The snow isn't great. Icy in places, thin in other spots. We go off trail for a while and that really is painful: wet, deep, uncomfortable. But it doesn't matter. It's like being on the final minutes of a vacation -- you feel protective, attached to the time, the place. Our ski runs this year have been wonderful. You can't help but feel somewhat nostalgic about letting them go now.





Supper. Tomato soup, to use up those bags of garden tomatoes in our freezer. Next week, we'll be starting seeds for this years crop. Incredible to think that we are this close to the growing season.

winter's end

Well, it was a fitting end to a wonderful winter. Because, really, we (those of us who love cross country skiing) did have a fine season. I know most of you don't really care that much about this odd sport where you basically push yourself on boards across a snow covered terrain. In very cold temperatures. But to profess a love for skiing is really to profess a love for something deeper: for the quiet of the forest, for the crispness of every breath you take in, for the beauty of a world turned, for the most part, black and white. (It turns out that if you look hard enough, you'll notice significant color differentiation even as the day progresses.)

Let me go back to the early hours of the day. Sunrise. I don't have much time for anything come Thursday -- it is my treadmill day, when I spin madly, trying to keep up with the world, hoping not to slip off and fall flat on  my face. But I do have time to step outside just as the sun breaks the horizon.





And I always have time for breakfast. In the sun room today (note the blooming nasturtium!).





From sunrise, I roll over the hours of work to sunset.


I'm speeding home now, hoping so much that there will be time for a ski run before dusk. Ed comes out to reassure me. There's time, there's time...

I know winter is a tough time. I know it.  I have infinite empathy for those who work in the cold outdoors now. But tonight, we experience the kind side of the season.

We're out. The trails are icy now: it is the way it must be in the final hours of winter. There'll be bare spots tomorrow. And if the predictions hold true, the rains will wash the snows away by Sunday.

But for now, we are in a wintry state of bliss.




This is it -- the sunset of a day. Of a season. We've been made tougher by months of cold.


 


In a day or two, we'll be rewarded with spring. But today, we're still skiing, still pushing those boards across fields of snow.






At home, I fix a supper that is everything and nothing. Foods we love, foods that are easy. A one frying pan meal of spinach and mushrooms, eggs and smoked salmon, and as always, a large, very large salad.





As I glance over this post, I think -- how could this be at all exciting? Sunrise, sunset, with little in between. Plain food, known scenery, little variation in any of life's essentials. And yet...
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

and one more time

You have to forgive me. We're in that final spin, when weather and life and the imminence of spring all push us out onto the cross country trails, no matter how late it is, how tired we are (rephrase that: I am), how inconvenient it may be to fit in a run in our favorite county park just minutes from the farmette. This is it! The tail end! The snows will melt, spring will come, this is the final push!

And of course, in many ways, this is the best time to ski. The weather is mild: just at freezing in the early evening. The snows are (today) packed and solid. And there's that mellowness in the air, that whiff of a breeze that portends of great things just around the corner (spring!).

So, of course, after work, just as people are settling in to watch the evening news, Ed and I go out to ski.

It's so different today! Yesterday, the snow was a mile high, the winds created dips and valleys. Today, the trails are groomed, the forest is still, life is easy!






Yes, yes, I admit it: these last days of winter are good days. From the morning...





...until that last spin on the trails at dusk. And somewhere beneath all that snow, the crocuses are getting ready for their show. Yes -- life is good.

one more time

I think we should be looking for crocuses right about now. It's what we do in March. Whatever snows fall -- they melt the next day and the crocuses recover and all's right with the world again.

So it's not really good that we have snow piling on top of snow, because all that snow is just not going to melt anytime soon (I was hoping for crocuses by the weekend...).

On the other hand, all that snow surely is a thing of beauty. Clumps of snow cling to tree branches and form gorgeous patterns on the porch screen.





We were told  -- storm is coming! -- and it came and so we were prepared.

Early breakfast in the front room...





...then a slow drive up unplowed roads to campus. Tuesday is a heavy teaching day for me and so the snow is just a thing out there, outside my office window.





But when it is time to go home, that snow tempts me. At the same time that it is really piling up there. Should we ski? We waffle. It's late. And there wont be trails. Just high drifts of snow. I had thought I said goodbye to skiing before my trip to SF. And here I am wondering if we should ski.

When we're uncertain in this way, the default option is always to go ahead and do it. So we do it.

Snow continues to come down and it's nearly dark. The skis disappear underneath drifts, so that it looks like you're pushing away at piles of snow with your ankles. No one else is out and about -- I understand that. A storm is raging, the winds are blowing -- these are not your inviting conditions for outdoor play.

But oh, it is beautiful!





Maybe this is the last time we ski this year, maybe it's not, but I feel like it's the run of all runs.





It's a winter high alright, to be out there tonight. I don't regret living in the north. I don't regret not having crocuses yet. I don't regret the incessant shoveling of the path to the farmhouse. None of it. Tonight is our homage to the snows we've had this year.






A trial at times, sure, but also beautiful. Yeah. Perfection in the forest by the lake.

pre-spring

At home, I fall in step with the routines of pre-spring. For example -- the brick walkway to the farmhouse was kept free of ice and snow almost obsessively by me all winter long. I'd shovel and clear it even before the snow touched the ground. In my absence, portions of the path iced over. I kicked at the ice for a small while, then shrugged my shoulders and moved on. I thought -- by the weekend it'll melt.

Mind you, we have yet another snowstorm heading our way. Tomorrow may create a travel terror, even for the short distance I have to cover from the farmhouse to campus. But after, the tides will turn. By the time you're springing your clocks forward, most of the snow should be melting away.

I have no revelatory photos from today. We did have breakfast, Ed and I and that was quite nice.





After, there was too much work, too much of a retrace of past days, of old routes, too much, tediousy too much, all in a month that, in any case, begs not to be photographed (March competes with November in this way).

It was in the near evening, just as I got home, that I took note of the sunset. And then, as I walked to the edge of the farmette to see it more fully, I saw a large herd of deer. I was too far and with my lesser lens camera, so you'll see not much of either -- the sunset or the deer.






Or, maybe a little of both?



there are six deer in this photo... can you spot them?



Chili for supper today. Of course. To have ready for the snowstorm ahead. Just  in case.

B. California notes: the final word

We are sitting at an outdoor table at a cafe off of Shattuck Street. Lunch is long finished (eggs with goat cheese for both of us).





If yesterday was too warm for my fleece, today is too cool for just a sweater. I can't get these California temperatures right. Not that I'm complaining. I read that back home, we're due for another snowstorm on Monday. Seems I said goodbye to winter a tad too early.

I don't want to get up though. My mom is running through a set of stories from her life. I know most of them, but each time she talks about her past I learn something new -- if not in detail, then in intonation.

In many ways, my own story cannot be separated from my parents' stories (something I am acutely aware of as I continue to work on my book project in the months when I am not teaching). I ask her once again to write all this down. She has already written down her parents' stories -- invaluable ethnographic materials for anyone who is curious about that great tale of the Polish peasant who comes to America just before the Great Depression, especially since this tale doesn't follow the typical trajectory. This particular Polish peasant (my grandfather) doesn't remain a peasant, nor does he, in the end, stay in America. So I ask her to write part 2 of all this. I don't think she enjoys writing, certainly not to the extent that I do and yet I wish she'd do it. She and I share this quirk of history: for different reasons and under vastly different circumstances, we moved between the States and Poland many times in our lives, each time thinking this is the last migration only to find out (in her case, quite late in life) that we were wrong -- that there was yet one more move across the ocean.

She hesitates now. What if I get it wrong? What if I don't remember?
Listening to her now, I already see that she and I remember certain details quite differently. But isn't any story really nothing more than a photoshopped picture of the past? Does it matter that the details don't always add up? We are a composite of impressions. Our impressions are what matter, especially since our impressions -- hers, mine -- are so different than those of anyone living here, in America who hasn't moved back and forth between these two different cultures and political realities.

Eventually, the nip in the air gets to me and we get up to return to her place. No walk for today, but that's okay. I had had a morning stroll already. To the farmer's market across the street from my hotel in San Francisco. Here, let's take a look at this March market and let me try to contain my envy:



a selection of fresh herbs




a California original




persimmon




clipped locally




a good combination




he wears rosemary in his jacket pocket and buys tomatoes to plant in his yard. in March.




my breakfast today: granola, fresh fruit, yogurt. I know, familiar.




buying mushrooms




the first of two tshirts that I liked; this one from a pork store...




...and this one from a chocolate shop



And, too, before meeting my mom, I ran clear across Berkeley...



a fragment of a street mural




they grow on the median strip




oh, Berkeley...


...hoping to find a shoe store in the northern part of the city. I had purchased summer shoes here last year (it's tough to pick the perfect shoes, as I only want one pair for the season and it has to be pretty enough to be fitting for an evening in a city and sturdy enough so that if I end up hiking the Pyrenees right after a breakfast in Sorede, it'll stand up to the job). Last year's pair was good, but by the end of the season it collapsed, from exhaustion I suppose. I am brutal with shoes.

So I am picking a pair again because surprisingly, it is cheaper here than in comparable stores in Madison. My mom looks at my new purchase and says, somewhat taken aback -- such a strong color! I look down on the shoes (I'm wearing them straight out of the store). I suppose they do look orange. The salesclerk suggested a pair of purple socks to go with them. A Berkeley combination if ever I saw one.



...to the side of her building, some of the residents plant gardens


In many ways, our 'day two' conversation is different than that on 'day one.' I worry that I'm wearing my mom out, taking her away as I do from her routines. Disruptions take their toll. Still, she is game to go out to dinner -- to her recent favorite, Rivoli -- a place that is most certainly fresh and honest in a lovely California sort of way. This meal was to be Ed's treat, but she wouldn't hear of it. She is always like that -- beating her to the check would only make her upset.

We eat our identical seafood and avocado salads and I think about how many meals I've eaten with her across the table from me. Quite a number, since when we were a foursome -- my sister, my mother, my father and I -- we always divided ourselves in this way: my dad and I on one side of the table, my sister and my mother on the other.










People say now that I look like my mom. It used to be that they said I looked like my dad. In how many other ways have I become more like her? Less like my dad? Like both? Like neither?

The day ends with that dinner at Rivoli. I take a Bart to San Francisco, she finishes her cab ride to her own tiny apartment in the heart of Berkeley. I hope she rests well after the visit. I hope she returns smoothly to the routines that she loves so much.

Back at the hotel, I ask for a 4:30 a.m. wake up call. But as always, I don't need it. I'm up and showered by the time the phone rings. I'm programmed to be always ready for travel, for the next trip and the next. It's just the way I am.

A. California notes, continued

Whenever I ride the bus in Berkeley, ten people jump up to offer me a seat. It could be that I am nearly always with my mother. She doesn't look fragile, but she does use a cane and she certainly is of a Medicare eligible age and so people rise for the both of us.

I have reached a mature age, finally. Perhaps other signs of maturity will soon follow.

Tonight, on board the Bart train bound for downtown SF (and therefore to my hotel), I sat back, wanting very much to reflect. To mull things over. And smile at the recollections. It was not to be. Four rowdy youths absolutely dominated the entire space of the Bart car. They weren't vulgar (unless you find vagina jokes vulgar) or threatening in any way. They were (NCU) students, done with watching some ball game or other, heading out for... various things. One of them definitely wanted to lure a girl to bed (his choice of words). The remaining two appeared to merely want to talk loudly.

The rest of the people in the Bart car bonded by darting meaningful gazes at one another. I should have made a youtube video out of this, I tell my seatmate -- it may have gone viral! 


Still earlier? Well, there was the Bay Bridge outside my hotel widow. Stunning at sunrise. 





I could not sleep after I rose to look outside. And now, predictably, I am too tired to finish the story of the day.

Here's an idea: I'll do the ending when I get back to Madison tonight. One can't be rushed with a recount of a rich day.