en route to Chicago

They said it would storm. It did.

By the time we reached the Interstate, cars were slowing down to a crawl. Those who insisted on holding their own were punished mercilessly. Nothing major, mind you. No roll overs, no screaming ambulances (thankfully). Just many vehicles whiling away the hours in the ditch.

And still, the snow continued.





It was an intense ride. Terrifying, beautiful, chock full of music, sometimes almost at a standstill, sometimes careening with the speed of the rest, not believing that there’s anything safe in numbers, no not at all. And yet.





All the way down to the south of the Wisconsin border, we bullied our way through the storm. The world was white and just a little dark. No color, there was no color.





But who cares. There was color in the absence of color. There was beauty in the ice and cold tones. Bold statements. Defiant riders. Fantastic mix of bravado and subjugation.









And for the person who cannot live without drama, there was the occasional Ace truck splashing red onto this white and gray landscape.





[photo credits: Ca, from the back seat]

goodbye holiday town of mine, goodbye holidays

Tree comes down. The condo is a mess of needles and old cardboard boxes. Outside, I see branches gently touched by snow.





A friend writes from Warsaw: no snow this year for Christmas. I want to say – tides do turn! We’re getting close to a record amount.

Tomorrow’s forecast: winter storm. I’m to drive to Chicago. It may be slow going.

But the days, they're moving fast now. It’s like when you flip the hourglass – the last grains plummet.

Goodbye decorations. How will the world be when I unwrap the toilet paper next year to take each one out?

I drive down to pick up a daughter on State Street. Goodbye State Street snowflakes.





The street is nearly empty. A bike leans against a snow mound. A bus – one of mine, the one I take from work, spins past me. Empty.

The boxes of ornaments are stacked in my storage room. End of holiday season.

I call down to Muramoto for sushi.

new ice, old ice

The day after. Empty campus. Cold office. No good mail, piles of paper, exams to read. I walk over to the College Library to pick up some books. I linger over the new collection. I'm leafing through a volume titled “All the Money in the World.” I’m on the chapter about whether money brings happiness.

Not surprisingly, most rich people think it does not. Most rich people, I think, don’t remember what it’s like to be not rich, in the same way that I do not really remember what it’s like to live in a poor country: I only recall I felt like Nina then and feel like Nina now. Troubled by everything and nothing. Is it that you only notice deprivation when others count on you for a better life?


Outside, I note that Lake Mendota is getting that sheen of ice cover. Not thick yet, not rippled, not covered with snow. Dangerously new, not solid. Kind of like a fresh relationship – the one you shouldn’t feel too comfortable with. Time hasn’t thickened the skin yet. Everything is new. Everything is shiny. Everything is fragile.





I drive to the other lake, the one with the bay at the side, The one favored by the ice fishers. And they are there. Doug-in, safe, on ice-covered snow.




It's good to be able to count on that sheet of ice growing solid. It doesn't cost much to hang out its surface and hope for a fish to make its way into the bucket. You're alone. You let someone else fix supper and welcome you at the end of the day.

The world is different depending on where you throw your stool.

Day dreams

The Eve is like the very end of a mad race. I'm almost there! Almost, but not quite. Hurry up, get it done, do it right, it's a big one, do it well, watch your step, it matters!

But the Day (Christmas Day) forgives it all. It’s too late to feel the burden of wanting to be a better human being. You've arrived, you're settling in at the theater. You can't change a thing. Turn on the lights, throw on the bacon, wake the kids (not kids anymore, but oh well, they're sleeping nonetheless) and let it all roll forward.

A snowflake on spice cake. It doesn’t make an appearance every year. Sometimes we just don’t have time. This year, a daughter did the cut-out and there it was.






I used to love Christmas Eve to pieces, but with time, I’ve switched. It’s the Day that holds the greatest bounty. When did the change happen? When I realized that watching my girls do a puzzle together is possibly the most beautiful sight in the world? (I’m watching them now.)


In the early afternoon, I go to the sheepshed to touch base with the person who has never thought much about holidays. The approach is always lovely...





...and more often than not, you can watch wild things (gobble gobble) move in and out of the forest.






We take a walk up the Nature Conservancy path just up the road and round the bend. The drifts of snow are deep enough to wet my pants and send icy coldness into my boots.




No matter. The sun is out and everything feels fresh. A dog runs to us across a frozen sheet of snow. Tail wagging, tongue out, a moving picture of exuberant joy. It’s a great stretch of land, isn’t it? -- her owner reflects.




The evening is food based. Cornish hens, causing the smoke detector to shriek, Yule log, requiring a loosening of the pants.





The sun has set on a beautiful sky of pumpkin clouds. The stars come out in twos, threes, then dozens, as we walk down to see a late show. I sip an espresso and listen to the clever dialogue of people way younger than you or I ("Juno"). And that's a good thing, because I want to believe that the younger generation will be more clever and witty and wise than any of us is, or was ever destined to be.

We laugh hard, and some of us sniffle now and then and on the walk back to the condo, we proclaim it to be a fine Christmas.

Goodnight sweet, forgiving Day. You're the best.

be merry

Look away from the crowds, keep your purse shut tight, walk past all stores that advertise long shopping hours, smile your way down the grocery aisles. Be merry.

No photos for you tonight. Oh, okay, of the tree. In its wonderful simplicity and splendor.





One more. Of Christmas Eve, from my rooftop.

storm passes

Between 2 and 3 at night (I listened), there was a shift. The warm(ish) misty air gave way to freezing rain, then snow, then winds, then plummeting temps. It all happened within a minute. Maybe two.

I could tell this morning: a storm came, racked havoc, moved on.

Looking out, I could see it all: the ice, the snow, the wind, the passage of time. Fury diffused.

In my pajamas still, I drove toward the lake.

Does a chill in the air always follow a storm?








At dusk, I drove out into the country. The storm, never satisfied with just one hit, came back with a sweeping fury of snow and wind. I would mind none of this if only I could be assured that storms are a passing thing. That they aren’t the norm.

In the meantime, I battle them. I cultivate indifference and pretend that tomorrow, I’ll hardly notice. My personality will be transformed. Happiness will come from within, not from some freak meteorological condition out there, in the brooding skies of December.

café thoughts

Isn’t it true that most people view themselves as being quite independent, carving their own path, listening to some internal voice rather than conforming to the (petty) demands of others?

It seems that the time you most like to do your own thing is when what is expected is too annoying, too displeasing, uncomfortable, grating.


If you place two individuals in the same room and both view themselves as being extraordinarily independent, what happens? Maybe you’ll have formed your perfect partnership -- something like the movie version of Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett, or, digging deeper, maybe Virginia and Leonard Woolf?

Off the screen and out of the manuscript, all I see is conflict. Individualism presupposes a certain degree of stubbornness, no? And if no one bends, then, unless you’re both on the same planet with your individualism (and it can happen, but how likely is that?), you’re going to be running past each other all the time.

Anyway, this season makes me think that individualism is way overrated.

Typically I write the post to fit the photo. Today, they’re independent of each other. I guess.



(at the café: brother and sister; he's killing targets on his Apple; she's dreaming)

dense

The day is hidden. Out of reach. Unrecoverable.

Layered in heavy, wet fog.

I bake, I move from one corner of the room to another, I listen.

In the late afternoon, I drive out to the sheepshed. How to photograph fog? Each of us will “see” it differently. To me, it is best recognized in the infinite nothingness of a white field, blending into the equally white air around it.

In the center of all that emptiness, I can see a tree and a half. Because half of it seems to have collapsed.

So, a tree and a half, in fog, for Ocean.






Oh, and a partridge in a pear tree. Make it a robin in a peach tree. Same diff.

sharing space

Field notes

Two animals, crossing a field. Seemingly not aligned in any formal way. But not at odds with each other either. One looks up, takes note of the other, but remains still. The other takes steps forward.





Their paths cross, then diverge. And neither is afraid. No communication there, no, not at all. Just an acknowledgement and then movement forward. Perfect, don’t you think?


City lights

It’s rare that I find myself on State Street in the winter after dark. It’s rarer that I do something so seemingly urban as “a dinner and a show.” Indeed, some years ago I turned from being a frequent concert goer to being a never concert goer. Something to do with the Madison venue and, let’s face it, age.

Tonight I did it all: I went from fields of deer and wild turkeys and farmettes with overgrown raspberry canes, to city lights and glitzy drinks and wet sidewalks that, for once looked quite beautiful on this December night.





One thing you do well if you’re an immigrant is move effortlessly between different environments. From sheepshed to State Street. No problem.

ice and a decorated tree

Measuring accomplishment.

Lake Mendota is slowly succumbing to ice. Look here at the progression of it:






How do you mark progress? Beauty?

In the evening we created thisyear's fantasy of glitter and light.






Warmth, color. Good things. Obviously, good things.

Wishing everything else was as obvious.

finches, frothy milk and raiders of the food dish

Up before dawn to finish work on an exam. Yawn. Tired. Revive with streaming sunlight. Loving every bit of sun rays in the morning. I flip through NYT pages on the web and read stories about sunlight, animals and tipping your doorman. I don’t have a doorman, but I now have a concierge. He can do a lot to help us toddle through the day. But realistically, mostly he just sits there.

A long long visit to the dentist. I sign a release: I understand that laughing gas will make me not care about anything. For three hours, I did not care about anything. I tested myself by feeding all sorts of images where normally I may have fretted and felt great anxiety and concern. Now? Didn’t care! Impressive.

After, I made my first trip of the holiday reasons to the mall. I spent all my money in one store and left.

Just outside the Law School, I encountered a whole gaggle of carrot bellied birds nibbling on crimson crabs. Finches, no?





Toward dusk, I made my way to a favorite café by the water’s edge. It’s a little out of the way for most students. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. Their stress becomes your stress if you share space too long.

I drank a cappuccino which had a frothy milk layer the size of a hornet’s nest.

Outside, the snow took on dusky tones of blue; in the distance, our town shone in splendid orange hues.






A squirrel was doing her best to jiggle out some seed from the birdfeeder. You couldn’t help but applaud her audacity, even if, just a while back, you may have been rooting for the finch family.




At home, the still empty Christmas tree drank all the water in the large dish.

Some days are composed of big things, some are not.

holiday scramble

Mine is intensifying. Though it’s really not just about the holidays. As for so many, I am swamped by demands at work and at home and none are likely to let up in the next two weeks.

It is especially gratifying to see light, any light, but in this case, morning light playing magic interludes on the world outside.

tableau

The Sunday before the Sunday before. It’s classic. The family comes tomorrow. I am scrambling to get the condo up to snuff. I scrub every surface. Ed pushes a very serviceable and efficient vacuum. I look out. Why does daylight disappear so quickly? This isn’t Estonia! Since when does dusk fold in at four?

We drive to the sheepshed so that he can get the truck shoveled free of snow. We’ll load the tree and drive it to the condo.

Except that the truck is stuck in drifts of snow and ice.

It’s no use, he tells me.

And I want to shake him: what do you mean, no use? The tree must go up, the holiday season must push forward, the family starts trickling in tomorrow. No use is not an option.

We try again. Ed pushes the truck, as I rock it back and forth. We get it past the ice and accumulated snow. (I wonder why I am wearing sensible shoes rather than warm and comfy boots. My feet are so cold!) We carry the tree and roll it into the back of the pick up.

I think this is as close as I can get to an American tableau (in my mind’s eye): a snow bank, a pick-up truck, a Christmas tree. A quarter moon, the stillness of a snow-covered field, the face of a cat staring at you from the sheepshed window.

We drive back to the condo and eat sushi.

Like I said, a classic.



the one left behind, in the field

raspberry canes

All day long, Ed and I are lost in computer work. I have a stack of projects that would benefit from his help and we plod through these more or less successfully, with more or less good cheer.

Some have to do with Ocean (soon – I’ll say more on this soon; days maybe. Or months, who can tell…), some have a more general application. The fact is that they swallow us and they swallow the day, and it is like when you were a kid, working on something in your flannels and suddenly, you look up and see that it is getting dark and you haven’t even taken yourself out of the breakfast mindset yet.

As dusk turns to night darkness, I have mild regrets that I hadn’t even stepped out with my camera, just to take a shot of the flakes coming down all day long.

Ed’s Geo ’93 is not meant for winter weather and so I drive him to his sheepshed in the sturdier, equally old Corolla. At the farmette, he makes his way to the shed. I hang back and look around. I see a herd of deer in the distance, but I know that they will outrun me. The slightest crunch of snow will send them flying into the woods.

I walk slowly toward the fields and watch them scamper off.

Turning around, I see the lights on at the shed. Ed is feeding his cats. I look around at the snow covered land. So still. Everything is so still. Wait, is there a shadow in the hugely overgrown raspberry patch?




I move closer. No stirring at all. It’s as if the little doe feels herself to be arrested, mesmerized by the canes, by my presence, by the little flashing camera… There. I am by her side. Snow is falling and my shutter finger is getting darn cold.





She is knee-deep in snow. Her skinny legs seem to be buckling down, stuck in the drift between the raspberry canes.





I am so very close now. She heaves her body against the canes and moves a dozen feet away. I brake down canes and follow. She waits, watching. My camera is not my friend. I try settings. It takes time. I am fighting the blackness of the night and I know she will soon lose patience with me. Besides, my fingers are absolutely frozen. Still, I try again.





Too many canes in front of her beautiful frame. Let me gently push them aside. I can touch her now, but I do not. I wont take advantage of her generosity. I wont hug her, run my fingers down her snow-dusted back, touch the space between her eyes and nose . Just one last photo and I’ll be gone. Really.





My camera battery is low, my finger is completely numb. She looks around one last time and makes her way through the bushes, out into the open space. I follow, just to watch and she waits for me to catch up. But the minute I am out in the clearing, she saunters off. This is her space now. Her freedom. I have had my minutes in the midst of the canes. She is done with me. Off she goes, in search of the pack.

naturally

Ahhh, birches! Estonia, right? No, I’m back in Madison (you can tell by the snow). Where the natural world is as close as the next block or so.






People say to me that I travel with a hefty load of good luck. My flights rarely get cancelled, I sit in good places on the plane, my suitcases arrive in a timely way. My response? Oh, I am not always so lucky. Describing the misadventures would be a blog in itself. But that’s a “so what” topic. Everyone has their share of bad experiences. What new things can be said about them?

With the exception of French trains (which I do love) I neither love nor hate the getting there. I much prefer the destination. Travel, to me, requires a lot of waiting and I’ve grown used to it. There is not much you can do but accept it.

Sometimes, I have a confluence of irksome details – I had it on the flight from Amsterdam to Detroit last night: the person next to me was sick and used much of my space to make herself comfortable. The child across the aisle threw up before they closed the cabin door and, as a result, the attendants dragged her and the protesting mother off the plane, denying passage (a doctor’s okay would have to be procured before she would be allowed to board a later flight). A child of another family right in front of me screamed (not cried, screamed) nonstop for two hours, until the attendant told her and the mom and grandma to please make an effort to shut her up. To which the two adults responded – we can’t help it, the video is not working, she’s bored. Ah.

I think I mind all the raucousness less than some. Of course, I would have minded very much if my copassanger threw up on me or if I caught her incurable disease, but otherwise, it all just set me thinking – about poor babies being held accountable for their unsettled tummies and lucky adults who can hide their imperfections better, about mothers’ responsibilities to their children, about crowded planes and broken audio equipment and days where you felt lucky to get a bag of peanuts to keep you entertained on a long flight. It wasn’t always as luxurious up there in the skies as people would like to tell you now.

True, at the end of the nine hour flight, I reached the point where I was enduring rather than not minding it all, but still, it was a small price to pay for a safe arrival and a return home from a wonderful trip.

And really, I would not mind getting on a plane tomorrow for an equally tedious journey if it would put me in a place that’s new and interesting, with endless hours of walking, photographing, capped by warm food and a nice place to rest.

On the other hand, it really is nice to be now in Madison, at a season when it’s splendid to be home with people you love.

from Tallinn, Estonia: walls

Was I appearing displeased with the weather? No, after the brief showers of the first day, the weather has been easy. Until my last day here. Suddenly it was a problem: bright skies with the occasional puffy cloud, gusts of wintry air, temps, finally, seasonally appropriate for this far north. A real bummer.

I could hardly get myself going. Too daunting. Bright skies? I should be out with my camera. But it’s so cold!!

One way to get yourself moving is to set a reasonable goal, right? For instance: perhaps I should walk the perimeter of the Old Town, hugging the walls. No more, no less than that. Let’s see how vast or how small Medieval Tallinn really was.

The answer: one hour’s worth of walking, with a pause at a store or two.

Photographically speaking, you’re not going to get much from me hugging a wall. Picture after picture revealed yet another fragment of…wall. But it was a valuable exercise nonetheless. In that short expanse of time, I passed a school, a small park, graffiti, beautiful art shops, gates, and stalls of woolen goods, sold by Russian men and women who appeared somewhat bitten by the frost.

So, walk with me. And forgive the monotony of the stroll. Look beyond the crumbing stone.

I start at the gate, right by my hotel:





Then, slip in through this narrow space...





And continue. From the outside, btw, it looks like this:





Sometimes, it seems to grow out of buildings. Or, perhaps they built around it.




And look what is protected within. A school. Kids, thinking about snowmen.





Okay, some more wall. With parks, shops, all of it:










And there you have it. By 2:30 I was cold and my walk was complete. Now, I have plenty of work with me (I aspire to be good and to get things done) and my book could use a few hours (both the one to read and the one to write), but for God’s sake, it’s my last day! I’m to be out of my hotel by 5 a.m. tomorrow! Let me not fritter the last hours here!

Still, it’s so brisk...

I had contemplated doing something completely decadent, like signing up for a spa treatment in town – scrubbed with (Baltic?) salt, wrapped in algae, doesn’t that sound absolutely terrific? Sure, but my travels are decadent in their own right (so says my occasional traveling companion). It cannot be all about pleasure and indulgence.

So I set out to shop for others. There is the market of course. No one back home put in a request for a reindeer sweater (I asked; truly I did). So I went back to my favorite art stores. And chocolate shops.

Tempting?

(I took a trial bite. With tea.)








In the evening I went to eat at a place that wasn’t listed nor recommended, but it had a tempting look and name: the Embassy of Pure Food.




It was the best meal that I had in Estonia. Now mind you, you can't scream and shout at the little things, like service, or warm white wine, or warm-ish potatoes. Those are insignificant things. And maybe Estonians demand that their potatoes be served cool because they have been thus just about everywhere. But what I look for in food is a clever idea and fresh and honest ingredients prepared in a reasonably healthy way. For instance, if you serve sour cream, don’t also serve tons of butter and heavy cream, all fried, on one plate.

The Embassy of Pure Food presented a wonderful seafood appetizer and they actually knew where the scallops came from. And their salmon was yummy (with an artful cabbage chip – who would believe that you can be clever with cabbage?), and the setting -- a restored old building – couldn’t be nicer, and the cost was right down there.







So I leave Estonia with a note on how good the food was. Travel is remarkable in its unpredictability.