camping

I haven’t done it decades. I wrote an email to someone just yesterday recalling how when I lived in Poland, my parents were, for a number of years, cash poor. Still, they wanted to revisit Italy and so we packed a tent and drove down and pitched it at a campsite on the beaches of the Lido. In the morning my mother said: leave me home the next time.

Independently, I camped. In Poland I kayaked with university friends and we would pitch tents on riverbanks and get cheese from local farmers and cook canned junk and always always boil potatoes – on the days we did not roast them. When I was in charge of supper I made sandwiches with bread and yellow cheese and I’d stick a flower on each sandwich. People thought I was crazy, but hey, Alice Waters did it at Chez Panisse a few years later and she got called the queen of the new American cuisine, how fair is that.

This morning a friend asked me if I would go camping this summer. At once I thought of laptop issues. No blogging? As I listened intently to descriptions of scrubbing the scalp and body with 32 degree water (from the spring) and of canned soup being made over a portable stove because, I was told, it makes little sense to build a fire when you are dead tired from hiking all day, my once rampant now dormant love of camping ...remained dormant.

Still, at lunch another friend described how his whole family gathers with tents and gourmet foods each year in the mountains and how they hike and cook and eat and sit around a campfire and suddenly I envisioned myself grilling things with garlic and olive oil out there in the vast emptiness, under stars and I thought: maybe it’s worth a shot, cold spring bathing notwithstanding.

Do any of the national parks have WiFi?

nie nie nie, to nie ja*

A friend send me a link to a CNN story which gave him pause. Is it her?

Sure, I have complained endlessly about My Busy Tuesday (=yesterday). My Busy Tuesday was made all the busier by a four-hour deposition, where I acted as an interpreter: English to Polish, Polish to English.

And yeah, I spilled the beans and told some of you that I was the interpreter in a case involving a Polish housekeeper.

And I am sure most everyone thought that the case noted on CNN must have been my case.

Sadly, no. I did brag that mine is a high profile case. But I was slightly exaggerating. You know, to make myself look important. Okay, the case is big by Madison standards. But it is not about stealing cameras from Candice Bergen or shoes from Robert DeNiro. Though, just to let you know, CB and RD, I am available, should your current interpreter prove inadequate. I'm good, I tell you!

* no no no, that's not me

from tucson: exits

Doors. So many posters I have seen! Posters of doors. Doors of Madison. Doors of Tuscany. Doors of Yale.

Doors as openings. Doors to historic houses. Adobe buildings of an older Tucson. Doors freeing you to paint them, admire them, photograph them.





Expressing color. Why do doors into homes with a weaker sun over them (in Wisconsin, for example) shun color? Brown doors up north. Colorful doors down south.

Doors to friendship, doors to new interiors, doors to cafés where they serve strawberry lemonade. With a raspberry bar. Eaten outside under a strong sun.



And don't forget about wrought iron gates and fences. Decorative: oh! that is so lovely. Or plain: I plan to paint every last bar of it, the owner tells me.




Doors. Favorite ones:

Doors for visual effect, doors that are functional. Barricades. Gates. Other gates. Boundary gates. So let’s extend a helping hand, across the Rio Grande… Let them out, let them in. Let’s see your card, step this way please.

Gates of entry. Of passage. The flight to St Paul-Minneapolis will be boarding from Gate 10. Weather in Minneapolis? The captain pauses for effect. A balmy 22 degrees.

Closure to the 78 degrees of Arizona. The cabin door is closed, turn off your cell phones. Thank you for flying with us.

Thank you, thank you. Thank you, hosts and friends and hummingbirds and suns setting and warm sunlight the next morning, waking me up even before the dog barks.

from tucson: I mean, from mexico: like all good neighbors

Before this day, I had never been to a Mexican border town. Fly in to Mexico City, move around the central provinces, fly out. That’s it.

Want to go to Mexico?
Yes.

Less than two hours from Tucson. Drive through National Parks with vast stretches of arid land and you’re there. Leave the car at the border and follow the signs:



It’s not unimportant that this is Super Bowl Sunday. Nogales is crowded, but with almost no Americans. How do you spot an American here? We are the buyers. We come here to poke through stuff brought up to this border town by people who want a sale. More so on this day of no Americans than any other.

I take off on my own. I quickly leave the center and head for the hills, camera dangling. Can’t help it, I am these days so often looking at places through a lens. It is a bigger addiction than the Internet. You have to be a person of great patience to walk with me. I stop frequently. My friends are happy to let me go off alone.





Music. Where there are people, there is music. At one corner, five radios on full volume. Not American music. Spanish lyrics, Latin melodies.

When I was in third grade, back at the UN School, we sang this song. I remember every word:

Let’s sing a song of the good neighbor
Til it echoes o’er the sea
Si si amigo, wherever we go
Good good neighbors we will be

So let’s extend a helping hand
Across the Rio Grande
And help each other too
Like all good neighbors do – oo - oo.

So what happened? …here in this poor poor border town of Nogales?

I stand at the base of a hill, taking a photo of a blue house. There are so many colors, most faded but some still bright, up there on that hill.




A Mexican man leaves his girlfriend and comes up to me.
Miss? You want a good picture? Climb up those narrow (crumbling) stairs. All the way to the top. You will see everything.
Thanks, I will do that.





All the time I am here, I pass groups of people hanging out. Perfect words to describe it. Hanging out. Young people and even younger. Babies on the way to childhood, on the way to adulthood. Sometimes I cannot tell which is the child, which is the adult. These girls, I was going to label them “sisters.” But when one gets up I wonder if she isn’t the mother.





In a back alley, halfway up the hill I hear the racket of a machine. I pause at the doorway and look.

You wanna come inside to see?
I step in.
We are making tortillas. Did you ever see them made?
My camera, my curiosity tell it like it is: I have never seen tortillas being made and yes, I want to come inside. I watch, she explains. She smiles at my picture taking. She lets me taste the warm soft pancake. Good. How can it not be?

Neighbors come here to buy fresh ones for supper. Fresh baguettes for the Sunday supper in France, fresh tortillas for the Sunday supper in Mexico. She is happy when I tell her I want some too, even though I have no Mexican family to feed. I will feed myself.

Twenty five for fifty cents. Two pennies per pancake. American pennies welcome. American pennies. We can use American pennies here. All pennies welcome.








I climb down again and rejoin the stream of people, Mexican people, no Americans, no Americans, they’re watching Super Bowl, that’s right.

I stop in front of a bakery, trying to understand the sweet inclinations of this community. Simple cookies and buns, puffed up, showing off their freshness. Someone comes up to me. It’s the camera. It is my question mark. People have figured out that I am asking, even as I say no words.

These, we like these, the person behind me prods my elbow to focus on the side of the shelf. He smiles as I turn my camera toward his choices.



I cannot be like the Polish tourist that I half am. You know the Polish tourist in Venice? He comes with his family by bus. He takes pictures of his family on the main square. He enters the church, prays, goes outside. He sits with his family on the church steps and opens a plastic bag where he has packed (more likely his wife has packed) the breads and sausages (from Poland) for the afternoon meal. They eat. The plastic bag escapes with the wind. Ooops. He leaves, pushing the sinking city deeper into the lagoon with his tread, spends nothing, leaves his garbage and is out before sundown.

But I want nothing. No clutter back at the loft.

Still, as I dump my plastic water bottle in the trash can, the image of the Polish tourist haunts me. So I buy two green thick glass goblets. Simple goblets for simple country wines, the kind you might have with a baguette or a tortilla.



At the exit point, the US official is old, kind-looking. Friendly. The stream of people returning to Mexico, WalMart bags full of toilet paper and who knows what else, move quickly. The stream of people leaving Mexico – less so. Our drivers’ licenses are inspected, but one look and it becomes a formality. What did you buy? I am asked. Two goblets. Two beautiful goblets.

from tucson: in the matter of water

My host and I get out of the car at the foot of the Canyon.

Here’s a bottle of water for you.
Thanks. I’ll leave it in the car for later.

That snippet of conversation says it all. I am a desert hiking imbecile.

My host is not: take the water. It’s the desert.















Later:

What’s a watsu?

I ask this after I agree to subject myself to it.

I walk into a garden in the Catalina mountains. Rosemary bushes are in bloom. Humming birds descend for a swig of the sweet stuff. In front of me – a pool.





She tells me to go in. The sun is piercing there over the water. Outside, it is 75. In the pool it is 96.

Floatation devices are wrapped around my shins. She leads me into the middle and forces me into a reclining position. She holds my head above water and moves me around, this way and that. For an hour she prods, pulls and kneads my limbs, my back, my neck. I go limp in the water as she moves me, snake like, across the pool.

It feels like sea weed, doesn’t it?

I want to be sea weed from now on. Forget law school, forget gray drizzly days. Leave me in this pool so that I can watch the humming birds circle the cacti. Hi birds, I’m here, I am the sea weed.

from tucson: african art, carpets and cacti. and sun.

It’s Friday, noon, the plane lands and people start undressing. The burden of toting an extra jacket or sweater is nothing compared to the burden of dealing with bad weather up north.

The pilot, having had his adrenalin pumped, I’m sure, while coping with the Minneapolis snow now says in a resigned way: the weather in Tucson? Sunny. It’s always sunny in Tucson (I swear, a yawn follows).

It is a dry place. The last rain shower came down in mid October.

Three of us arrive from different parts of the country. Our host picks us up. I am itching to shed the long sleeves. Oh, don’t be shy! We’re not modest here. I am not shy, but ripping off my shirt in the airport parking lot seems extreme. I wait until we get in the car.

It is getting hot. We pull up behind a Motel 8. Dust covers my old shoes. Two guys are grilling meats and corn in the corner of a parking lot. My groups is hungry and so we eat.

And suddenly I am in Africa.









shea butter

People are heavily into rocks here in Tucson. It’s the second time I am in this town at the time of the gem exposition. It’s not enough that these stones are a really big deal, but the event spawns side shows, like the one here, behind the Motel 8, of African Art.



carapets and me



lunch


And lo! There is my guy from two years back, with his truck of Afghani carpets. I bought a runner from you! I’ll sell you an area rug for $1200! I don’t have $1200! Make it $200 then. Times are tough in Afghanistan.

Our friend who is hosting this reunion (four women, friends since the first year of Law School now exactly 25 years ago) lives among cacti and palm trees.






valentine's day hearts?

We stroll in the late afternoon, ready for the dessert chill that comes around when the sun goes down. On the back deck, she feeds us Brazilian drinks with lime juice and some potent something. Life is sweet.



cacti and caiparigna coctails at sunset






hairy cacti at sunset

clichés

I woke up yesterday smothered by a dream that would not loosen its grip. In it, I was leaving an airplane. I could not gather my belongings. I would pack one item and two others would spill out. I was alone on the plane, struggling to keep all these items contained, but it was no use. I finally left, leaving behind God knows what.

It’s too obvious, I know, but there you have it: me trying to contain all that is with me, required of me, presented to me, failing in the end as it all scatters to my feet.

My flight this morning out of Madison was at an awful morning hour. I had had an argument last night (or, rather, someone found me argumentative and I argued the incorrectness of this assessment) and so I did not sleep well (at all?), being sensitive to disturbances of any kind these days.

Recently, I had been noting that our airport has only bars, plus a stinky stand of packaged foods and isn’t that just typical. Not anymore. Since my transit through here two weeks ago, it has acquired a food court. Can you predict what it has to offer? Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, Quizno’s subs, the Great Dane Brewery. It’s sort of snapshot of middle-Madison, no?

I only wanted a strong coffee. Finding none, I went to the gate and tried not to sleep. I missed my boarding call, but I swear, they changed announcing agents. I had been listening for a female voice.

In Minneapolis, it is snowing. Hard. That’s fine, I expect that this is a city of snow. Snow in Minnesota, sunshine in Arizona. A stereotype I can live with, especially since my final destination is Tucson.

to lili, wherever one may find her

Lili changed my winter days forever.

I never met her and for a while I didn’t think she existed. She is one of Ocean’s earliest readers. Every once in a while she will send me an email with comments on a post. Always encouraging, always generous, always crafted with word choices that make me wonder if she is a closet writer. Or a friend pretending to be someone living far away, painting canvases for a living, indulging my feverish desire to be admired, at least in a tiny way, by a Real Artist. (Lili is cringing at my choice of words here, I know it.)

When I could not pull off an encounter (she lives in Cambridge and I visited Cambridge last summer) I became convinced that she was not real.

Then, an envelope came, from Cambridge, addressed to the Law School, with a sketch and a note. The sketch was by her and of her.

But all this is background. One of the most memorable messages from her came last February, in response to photos I posted of sunlight poking through evergreen branches. There was snow on the ground a year ago and I had paused during a brisk walk, absolutely mesmerized by these streaks of light.

She wrote that as a painter, she always appreciated the subtle change in light that occurred in February. It was like no other, she wrote. Indeed, each year on the second of the month she heads out into the country, packing a picnic lunch and eating outside, with deep appreciation for the light that would be February’s gift to us all.

Until then, I heard nothing but scorn for this month of days that were still too short and weather patterns that tried our patience. Even now, as I read blogs from my sidebar and comments to Ocean, the themes of sadness, depression, frustration with this period in the calendar year come through with a vengeance.

A colleague told me a few years back that he never makes decisions in February. The month plays with our moods in the most unfavorable way.

Not for me, not any more. I did not have time to go out into the countryside today, not even to the park or to the lakefronts. But driving to the grocery store, I had to stop the car. I was passing, of all things, the cemetery and I saw it: a dazzle of mellow light, brushing the ground, the stones. Light that was steely blue, gentle and kind.

Thank you, Lili. For some twenty-eight days now I am enthralled. More than ever in my life, sweet tenderness appeals to me. In the most improbable places, I look up and I find it, this subtle, hazy face of February.

art, animals, food

This morning at the loft I watched my new fish move in the aquarium. Back and forth they swam, sometimes aiming for the top where their food generally appears, sometimes exploring the little cave-like formation.

My friend gave me this generous gift (because I helped her search for the perfect condo). I wanted to protest, but I am glad I accepted it. The only irritant is the gurgling noise of the water filtering system, but the tank reacts to a remote control I have. One click of a button and the sound disappears.





This afternoon another friend stopped by my office, also with a gift: a rooster, so fitting when you consider that I have a teeny collection of exquisite birds gracing my window. There, I’m placing him amidst the others.

Animals in art.



The only problem is that I am hungry. It is late. I would so love a nice warm dinner out – seafood maybe? Or, comfort food of a traditional sort, like roasted chicken? I cannot. Today, I have to be a vegetarian. It seems harsh otherwise, given my two lovely gifts.

[You too can bring this tank of fish into your space. The dvd is made by Lagoon Multimedia. In the alternative, you can purchase a disc depicting a crackling fire in a fireplace. No mess, no fuss. Just the sights and sounds we associate with a good old fashioned fire. Oh, I guess the smell isn't there. That may be a good thing when it comes to fish.]

state of the ocean

Applause. It is expected.

Folks. Here she is, the author of ocean.

I took a drive into nowhere today. How did it happen? I was being pampered by Jason, the hair person supreme, who has taken to telling me wonderful things about my hair, my age, my future… (Himself? Well, he is going through a difficult phase).

I left his place drunk with gratitude but saddened by the injustices of it all.

The sun rapidly sunk into some comfortable billows of low lying clouds.





A brief period of being away from it all was enough. Within minutes, I was back in the urbe-urban setting of Madison.

I met a friend, we drank cabernets and cosmos (I the latter). I waited for the crowds to flood the premises, none came and so I retired, brushing aside the world. I posted this – I am incapable tonight of being more expansive.

So be it.

prettiness in the ordinary

I hardly left the loft today. It was an immensely tiring day as I began work at 4, just to catch up. I did not catch up. But almost.

What held me back? Several things.

First, inspired by yesterday’s poke around downtown condos (the ultimate Madison urban experience), I rearranged furniture. No kidding. Everything is now at an angle to its neighbor. I really got carried away with the idea. The TV is at an angle to its stand. The coffee table is at angle to the carpet. The chair is at an angle to the side table. And the couch is at an angle to the whole lot of them.




When you think your life is not moving fast enough, rearrange your interior space. I can’t remember when I had such fun pushing things around. Probably not since my daughters were in strollers.

Secondly, I decided it was time to cook soup. You know, to counter the bleak skies outside. One of my favorites is oven-roasted tomato soup. It requires an at home presence on account of the roasting. What should not happen is for you to decide to leave in the middle of the roasting project to get olives at your local Fraboni’s Italian deli. Because then on the way back you are likely to stop at Blockbuster, you know, for the hell of it, and then lo! They happen to have a copy of the Constant Gardener which you have wanted to see. But tell me: has anyone ever just gone into Blockbuster and not canvassed all four walls of new releases? I haven’t. That, of course, took time.

Which made me all too late to take out the roasting tomatoes. No matter. The more roast, the richer the flavor – is what I always say.

And a photo of roasted tomatoes is, to me, up there with the Monalisa. Maybe not my photo, but just in general. Roasted tomatoes are a dreary day’s godsend.



Thirdly, I corresponded with Donna Flora. Donna Flora lives in Sicily. I don’t even remember how I unearthed her. She has a friend, Donna Donatella, who in turn has Internet. So Donna Flora hikes over to Donna Donatella’s and we touch base in this way.

The issue? Donna Flora has a room I will be renting for a few days this Spring. That is fine and well, but I want Internet access. (You got it, for Ocean reasons.) And so I set Donna Flora on the mission of finding a way for me to connect out there in the middle of nowhere. If our confusion of Italian and English translates to what I think it does, I am set. But it took not a wee amount of time.

My days are so unruffled right now. It’s as it should be. Calm is good.

jewels

I was telling someone yesterday that I do not wear jewels. I ask for no diamonds, nor gold, not even pearls. A pair of earrings, I'll put on those, but that is all. This never impresses anyone, as few of the people I hang with are different in this regard.

Yet it cannot be said that I do not indulge whimsy. Mine is and always has been travel. At no time will this be more evident than in spring, when I will basically live elsewhere for several months. Jewels of a different nature.

This coming weekend I am traveling as well (though not nearly as far as in spring). I am going to Arizona. The last time I was in Arizona was two years ago (same purpose: a reunion with law school friends). I was introduced then to precious stones used in jewelry, as there was a gem exposition in Tucson at the time of my visit. I did not buy jewels, but I did befriend an Afghani guy, who followed the gem show in his truck. He sold carpets that his uncle made back in Afghanistan. I bought one tiny one. Each time I glance down at it, I think: this came from a gem exposition.

Last night I was at a birthday party. If friends were to bring beverages to my birthday party, they would know to bring wine. Maybe one or two would bring cosmo fixings. For this celebration, the beverage of choice was one that I know little about. I sampled. All good, and especially for the fantastic color they cast on the table in the evening. Gold.





This afternoon I accompanied a friend who is contemplating a move downtown. I am all about supporting those who want to move downtown. We looked at beautiful units in an older building, a place that reminded me of the fifth avenue unit I lived in as a young au pair in New York. They are such perfectly constructed gems. Worth so much more than new places that flash wealth at the beginning but eventually lose their gloss (and value).

It was clear that there was one optimal one for her. Btw, it is not the one with this view:





Why did I take note of this view and what’s with the pink box? That’s the warehouse where I’m living these days. Those three windows are my three windows.

Are jewels and gems synonymous? They should be. Are they?

why does a chicken do the things she does?

And what is the definition of a chicken anyway? A person who faces her first hill of the season and tells Mr. B: forget it. I’m walking.

I biked far yesterday afternoon. Errands pushed me to the now distant west side.

Ed, come ride with me. I want company.

We set out on a brilliant sunny day. Thermometer topped fifty for sure. January in Wisconsin.

Mr. B can’t keep up with Ed’s fancy racer. The thing is, I like Mr. B’s easy manner. Mr. B can navigate streets like no other. Still, I think I am a groggy pedaler on the rural Old Sauk hills. Adding to my ridiculously slow pace is my habit of stopping to take pictures.

Burning question for my cycling friend: why is it that you don’t spend money on clothes but have this monster bike and biking shoes and an electric air pump? All you need is latex pants.
You will never see me in latex pants. Ever.
Good.

It is a beautiful landscape.

I understand the university’s sheep expert (we have a sheep expert??) keeps his herd here. They’re out today, getting fat on scruffs of dried grass. (Of course, I don’t really know what they’re eating, but what else causes them to bury their snouts in the ground?)






I have a friend who lives around here. He makes furniture for galleries and rich people on Michigan Avenue. Want to see?

We turn off toward a barn, converted into a workshop. The space is dazzling. The tools alone make you believe you are in the presence of a skilled master. With a bent toward orderliness.





The crafted furniture is exquisite. I mean, beyond exquisite. If I had a single piece I would get rich selling tickets for people to come and look at it.



Dick in his studio, with chest

So what is your current project?
Actually I’m in between things. Occupying myself with a few chickens we recently acquired. Come look.

Here, life is beautiful…Even the chickens are beautiful.






big bird?






Sadly, nothing that we lawyers do is this creative, I say this wistfully as I stare at Dick’s portfolio of finished pieces.
Now wait. My favorite TV show is about the law these days. So don’t knock the creative impulse there.

I once said that I am in awe of people who manifest creative brilliance in some domain of their lives. The trouble is, hanging around giants can often make you feel, well, small.