quiet spaces

For the past several days, I’ve had a houseguest. My routines, therefore, have included more sit-down meals (not that he would have minded the rough and ready type; he is, after all, an Ed friend) and more of a balance between work, home work and pleasant guest work, which, indeed, is only worklike at the margins.

The house guest has not left Madison yet and so I conveyed, through Ed, that he is again welcome to stay here, even though I am mostly gone this day and this evening. Ed, never missing an opportunity to remind me that guys need to decompress in solitude sometimes, said that probably his friend would opt to sequester himself somewhere around the shed tonight.

I thought about how, if I were to guess which gender needs to decompress more in solitude, I would have said female, not male.

But, I biked off to work without offering my thoughts on female decompression. Instead, for the second day in a row, I shouted up to the two men on my balcony, relaxed and enjoying their last bites of breakfast, men of leisure, women of work. It seemed fitting, especially since both are retired, even as one of them (the houseguest) is younger than me.


On my ride to work, I took the usual Shorewood detour (road construction, what else), passing a narrow strip of wooded land separating the road from a strip mall. Someone has used that little bit of land wisely, creating unusual quiet spaces. Close to the road, sure, but quiet nonetheless. I offer you those to look at and contemplate.



Purchase photo 1944





Purchase photo 1943

milking

I know, if you have to look at one more post of sweet morning photos along the water’s edge, you’ll take your business elsewhere.

You may think I am milking this morning journey along the lake.

You may think I am simply without ideas.

Or overworked. (I applaud that last thought.)

But really, it is the case that the play of morning light on the various (predictably, the same) points along Lake Mendota as I bike to class is always enchanting. So that even when my schedule is tight and I stand to be a second late, I pause. You would too.








Purchase photo 1942





Purchase photo 1941





Purchase photo 1940



I do not neglect the ride back. But it’s never the same. I have time, I have loads of time, and yet, the light just isn’t there.

But, I give you this photo taken on the return, just to let you know that I do have a life beyond the morning lake shore path. Here I am, greeting the shrimpers from the Gulf. Tonight’s dinner: shrimp with kernels of fresh corn, slices of green onion and strips of basil. So simple. So fresh and honest.

briefly

It rained today. Looks like snow, doesn’t it? It’s not. It’s rain. Not a huge rain, not a significant event. It rained, I worked.

ice cream, music, social

I hear the music. Faint sounds of a band. Rehearsing maybe? In the park nearby? I step outside and I see it right away: a small gathering down the block, by the Independent Living Center.

The neighborhood where I live has a reputation: now greatly yuppified, it once was anything but that. Mention the Hilldale area to oldtimers and people will nod: where the seniors and foreign students live, right? That certainly was my take on it.

Oh, it’s changed alright. New condos east of my building, new stores, new fitness center, new hotel, new this new that. But, all these high end lures haven’t chased the others out (thank God) and so you still run into the seniors and the foreign students, and similarly situated folk.


The gathering is not large: a small parking lot lined with chairs on one end, and space for a band (the Capital City Band) on the other. They’re playing the usual: JP Sousa alternating with American Tale, the soundtrack. People tap and nod and daydream.















And so do I. It is wonderfully peaceful here, in the parking lot, where no one cares if roots are three inches deep because of cancelled Jason appointments. The event is free and the afternoon moves slowly from one song to the next. Interspersed with ice cream, eaten with small plastic spoons.





















There are children here, too. I’d like to believe that they’re visiting grandparents and some may indeed be doing that, but most appear to have stopped by for the ice cream and the music, and that’s okay because it is an old fashioned ice cream social and isn’t that what one does? Eat ice cream, tap one’s foot and shake hands with the person next to you…











I stay longer than I intended. I don’t eat the ice cream, but I listen to the music and watch the faces. It is time well spent.

wings and local things

You’ve heard maybe of the 2000 Watt Society? Where communities (so far, mainly Swiss) attempt to stay within that limit of energy consumption without necessarily lowering their standard of living? Just so you know, Americans on the average use six times that amount (Europeans, at 6000 -- three times the goal).

Almost inadvertently, I’m a successful greenie. The things I like don’t require fuel. I hardly ever drive, I like to bike and use public transportation, I hate air conditioning and I live in a unit that is small and so energy efficient, that I can barely tell a winter gas bill from a summer one. I eat market foods, minimally cooked. I don’t really acquire things. I mean, I astonish myself as to how green I am, given that I don’t really try.

Except in one area: I am an awful user of airplanes. A trip to Europe adds Watts to your tally in such heavy doses that traveling by rail and on foot once there hardly helps. And, since rail service in this country is so poor, I use planes to visit daughters out east all the time.

So on balance, I climb back up to the level of the average European. But I swear, the day they launch that first high speed train between the Midwest and the East coast, I’ll be down there with the Swiss purists, hiking shoes and all.

I thought about all this yesterday, as I spent a good part of the day inside, working on things and wishing that I had a nice solid trip before me. I don’t. Not for a while anyway. I sighed a deeply green sigh and looked for other distractions.

And wouldn’t you know it – the afternoon teased me with a dazzling array of wings. Not of the airplane type, but of the more fragile ones that require flapping rather than fuel.

Here, take a look at this guy. Watching me (or a mouse; I couldn't really tell). Just down the block from my condo.




Inspired, Ed and I set out for the Olbrich Gardens. To see the butterflies.




Purchase photo 1939




Purchase photo 1938




Purchase photo 1937


We stay until the conservatory shuts down for the day. At the tail end, empty of visitors, the place takes on an eerie, steamy quiet. So that you find yourself listening for butterfly wings.


Purchase photo 1936




Purchase photo 1935




Purchase photo 1934

Eventually, we head out for a quick stroll in the outdoor gardens. For the bees.


Purchase photo 1933



Finally, we spin towards Ed’s shed. To feed his cats. I’m on the motorbike now, talking to my daughter on the cell and I look up to see this pair… (I consider it a photographic feat worthy of a circus act: cell held to the ear by helmet, one hand on Ed’s hip, the other – clicking away, trying to catch the herons in flight.)


Purchase photo 1932


…and on the final stretch, we pass the wetlands. Home to mosquitoes, sure. Home to these as well:



Purchase photo 1931


It was a good afternoon.

And this morning, I am again at my local Westside Community Market. I stock up on tomatoes, beets, potatoes, garlic, onions, lettuce, milk, cucumbers, carrots, corn, blueberries and… mint (in a jug with water and slices of lemon – my summer drink of choice). I decide to pass on an invitation to attend the Experimental Aircraft Association hoopla thing in Oshkosh. I don’t know if it adds Watts to your tally to simply watch planes fly, but I may as well have one pure month of green saintliness before my itch to visit places that are way too far away gets to be too strong to ignore.

But for today, I'll leave you with three very local, very seasonal vendors, standing at the market almost side by side: Blue Moon, Primrose and Morningwood:


Purchase photo 1930




Purchase photo 1929




Purchase photo 1928

roses and bubbles

I read with great interest yesterday’s NYT piece on champagne. It is my unfortunate lot in life that I am infinitely drawn to champagne and lobster – neither of which I can afford much, both being wedged in my mind as achieving the peak of perfection in taste and mental association (Brittany shores and Maine coastal waters, the chalky undulating fields of grapes in France).

I came to know champagne late in life (and lobster even later). Growing up in Poland, I knew no one who drank it or had access to it. Of course, in those days, you could call anything that fizzed champagne and occasionally someone would procure cheap Bulgarian fizzy wine with some champagne wording on it – the absolute alcoholic bottom, if you ask me. I had little interest.

As graduate students in the States, we purchased champagne in moments of great decadence, to celebrate the completion of a dissertation (not mine), or the offering of employment (again, not mine). I remember purchasing Taittinger and thinking, gulp, this is astronomically expensive, but hey, so what, we may all die tomorrow! Pop!

In the eighties and nineties, I was relieved that there were such substitutes as Italian Prosecco. It fizzed and had beautiful flavors. What more could you want.

But then I took on night work at the Restaurant l’Etoile and I allowed myself another look at the great varieties of Champagne. Such a small region, so many tastes! And perhaps the best of the best for me was the discovery of rosé champagne. The gods knew what they were after when they proclaimed – throw in some Pinot Noir skin, already! (A piece of wine trivia: did you know that the French drink overall more rosé than white wine?)





Soon I was basking in too much knowledge on champagne and too few opportunities to taste it. I set up Field to Table (it lasted a year) and took a group to France. We visited a champagne producer and my heart soared.

This summer, I returned to the region of Champagne and again visited a small, independent producer. I brought back six bottles and tucked them neatly into my fancy little wine cooler.

I don’t know many people who love champagne as much as I do and so I store my treasures for now. But, I would open them all in a snap if that would help celebrate my firstborn’s birthday, which happens to fall on this day. Ah, if she were only here…

Happy birthday, sweet little one! You’re as lovely as roses, inside and out and I love you more than you can imagine! May your day sparkle!



Purchase photos 1927

pedaling

Thursdays are tough. By this day, my sleep time fluctuates and my do nothing time is near zero levels. It’s the last of the days where I lecture all morning and I’m near spent. I see my days as a string of circles, like bike chains that occasionally jump from one setting to another, but basically remain suspended around the same orbit.

I get up early, work until the last possible minute and, for the third day now, find my phone ringing just before I leave. It’s Amos, today telling us that unfortunately, for one reason or another, the roof has been cut too short.

I pass this problem on to Ed and pedal off to class. So what. Too short? There surely is a solution. My ideas on this are irrelevant. I know nothing about extending roofs or overhangs.

Past Lake Mendota I spin. By the time I see the boats on the very still waters, I am in a steady rhythm of pedal work and I concentrate on the class before me.



Purchase photo 1926


And now I am at the Union. One last look at the waters, a pause to admire the kayak lesson, and I turn inland, toward my own classroom.



Purchase photo 1925


It’s the end of the month. A mixed up month of warm air, happy reunions, camping misconceptions and artistic snafus. A month of mosquitoes and markets. Of adjustments. Including to the roof of the writer’s shed.

the rush

A busy morning. Let me huff my way through it for you.

Up early. Finish lecture review. Market – that’s right, I need to go to the other other market (the Hilldale one, just 6 minutes walk from here). I promised my students treats. Cherry muffins maybe? Time to leave Ooops -- Amos, the shed builder, calls. It is a long conversation. Something about metal strips being cut to six feet instead of seven. Wait. The interior must not be less than six feet. Ed is more than six feet. Standing up straight has to be an option. Discussion ensues. Suddenly, time is tight

I rush to the market. I buy muffins. And corn for myself. And flowers. I forget to take pictures. I go back, take two photos of the places where I shopped. (No picture of cherry muffins. Sorry.)



Purchase photo 1924





Purchase photo 1923



If I pedal fast, I wont be late. I’ll be sweaty though; it’s damn hot outside. I pedal fast anyway.

The last stretch is a walk up Bascom Hill to the main Law School entrance. Dare I join these marketing students? They’re having some combination of bonding and competition exercise on the lawn.



Purchase photo 1922


It involves running through sprinklers. I am so tempted to take my class and insist that we all run through sprinklers. But it doesn’t fit into my lecture on the interplay of customary law and general (imported) law in Zimbabwe and Burundi.

I go inside. With muffins. And lecture notes. For once, I do not hate air conditioning.

bathing

The last time I remember taking a leisurely, soothing bath was in May, in Brittany, after braving the cold spray of the English Channel for three hours. In those days (was it only two months back?) I still appeared to have the need to demonstrate to Ed (my occasional traveling companion) that I have adventure locked firmly into my DNA.

Today, we dance ever so gingerly around the topic of travel. The play of words and ideas is all very delicate, very unserious. At the surface, we ignore the other, even as we surely are aware of what the other is saying.

For instance, Ed tells me – some weekend soon we should take the ferry across Lake Michigan, and bike for a while, and pitch a tent. Noting silence, he continues, in a conciliatory fashion, I suppose – and eat a nice dinner.

Minutes earlier, I had already put in my own comment. My colleague told me how beautiful his recent trip to California was. He stayed at a fantastic b&b near Carmel and you should hear him rave about the food! Silence.


In the meantime, I continue to shower. I put off thoughts of bathing. That indulgence is, in my mind, for those splendid times when you do challenge yourself and hike out or pedal out and get unlucky with the weather. You come back to your lovely warm room, turn on the hot water knob and exhale.

Still, as I bike to work, I note that others are bathing on a fairly regular basis. The ducks are doing their morning stuff in Lake Mendota, and on my return, I note the cars are getting a soaking, as the city flushes its water mains.



Purchase photo 1921







Purchase photo 1920

bands of color

This afternoon, I watched a young woman exit Whole Foods. Two long braids of jet black hair fell magnificently on her bare back. The pleats were held together by many colorful rubber bands, twining up the length of the braid, all the way to her scalp.

I was itching to photograph her. But my itch worked its way more slowly than her footstep and by the time I told myself – oh for God's sake, just take it! -- she had turned the corner.

It is so often like that.

I leave you, instead, with the colors differently presented – in flower beds that I passed on my walk to Whole Foods. The two blues, and the prairie flames of gold and magenta. Beyond that, it was a hot and singularly discouraging walk. (And day.)



Purchase photo 1919





Purchase photo 1918

caption

What would you guess about the two photos that I took today? I’d label them “inaccessible.”

The first is straightforward: we walk through a mall (of all things) for no reason except to get to the other side and we spot this girl looking inside. And dancing. And looking inside. Wishing that what? That’s her secret, not mine. But whatever she is dreaming about is inside. Not something she can touch or call her own.





The second is just the view across the road where Ed lives. So pretty! One of my favorite pastoral scenes in Dane County. But it is substantially inaccessible. Not because it’s private – you can beg permission to wander through the prairie grasses. But because of the mosquitoes. They stand guard and forbid any entrance.



Purchase photo 1917


Summer in Madison has not been generous to those who love the outdoors. Not here, anyway. We barricade ourselves inside and work wishing that each day would be the last of the great invasion.


In the evening, I watch the last day of the Tour de France. Ed talks about future biking and camping in France. I’m thinking – can I be a spectator in life? And watch others do the impossible, as I slide under a crisp, white quilt and close the windows on mosquitoes?

the other one

With friends visiting from out of town… (mother and daughter)











I did the downtown market today. It’s not that I’m not proud of the Westside Community Market, it’s just that you don’t go there for a two hour stroll. You go with a purpose: to buy, say hi and return home.

And it was a beautiful day and a beautiful market on the Square. Colorful. From the vinegar bottles, to the sideshow.



Purchase photo 1916





Purchase photo 1915


And they do cut flowers so very well there!



Purchase photo 1914


Some items are identical to those at my local market. Same vendor even.



Purchase photo 1913


But, the crowds kept me from taking out the camera much. And I had a lot of “I should have” thoughts. I should have bought from that stand. Or waited til the other. Really, you cannot do the downtown market just once. You need to circumvent it at least twice. We did a one and a half compromise.

From there, I walked home. Only five miles. The lake was a notch smelly, so I took to the sidewalk. Initially, offering pretty views…



Purchase photo 1912





Purchase photo 1911


…then, uninspired. Couldn't even amuse myself with people watching.

I wish some of those people crowding the Square would hit the sidewalks occasionally. Once I left State Street, during the entire remaining (4 mile) walk up Observatory then University Avenue, I passed not a single walking human being.