one last ordinary Thursday

All year long, it’s been a challenge to post on Thursdays. I come home late and I’m beat.

But April has this way of pushing things to a close really fast. From snow on the ground on April Fool’s to the end of the semester – time rushes, as if we can’t stand the pace of winter, as if we need to sprint to the academic year’s end.

Today wasn’t really the end of the semester – a week and a half remain. But it’s the last ordinary Thursday and so I’ll do what I always want to do on a Thursday evening – post a few photos and call it a day.

But what photos! Not exciting in their beauty, but exciting in what they stand for – the beginning of Madison’s best face – the face of warm, sunny days, by the lake, in green spaces, against the irrepressible blue skies of the Midwest.

So, here you have it, the perfect, if still ordinary Thursday:

… early morning bike ride on the lake shore path…











…up Bascom Hill to my office… (already a gaggle of girls congregates on the grasses of Bascom Mall, even though there’s still a nip in the air)





And the day of lectures begins. Classes keep me indoors. And when I do finally take an afternoon break and head outside for an espresso, I see that in these few hours, the campus (and therefore Bascom Hill) has moved into that wonderful presummer pink sunglasses mood. Relaxed, unclothed, happy.





And no place demonstrates this better, that Madison mood of outdoor pleasure, than Union Terrace. Predictably, it’s starting to fill.






I’m back in class for the rest of the afternoon and then, suddenly, the hands of clock slide all the way down and I am done.

I bike home. When the semester started, I would stand at the bus stop and count each second, willing it to be the last one of waiting in the cold. Now, I zip past the stop on the bike, enjoying the spin so much that I even take a detour to Centennial Gardens, where the pink buds are about to burst into bloom and the birds dart in and out of the branches, excited and as pleased as I am that we have sprung into a summery spring.





And the two girls on the grass smile and smile. And my ordinary Thursday suddenly is feeling very very bright and beautiful.

greatness thrust upon it

The day is destined to be big. Not insignificant, or lost in the detail of work and food preparation, or wiping wet dishes that should have dried in the washer.

For the first time since January (when I was so close to Venezuela that it didn’t count) I am warm outside. A turning point. A huge step into the next stage of life. In which I am going to take endless big steps and finally move forward.

Ed nudges me to play tennis and I do, but I get distracted. By the conversation of two older East Asian men (there are many East Asians here, just up the street, and they come to the tennis courts often and they play integenerationally and very well)…





…By the school class that takes their tennis lesson here (and they all play badly but with such energy that it doesn’t matter)…










…and finally by my own poor plays that rise in frequency with each degree added to the thermometer. At 59 degrees, Ed suggests we stop for the day.

We pick up odds and ends at the grocery store and I return home to work.





Want to go on the bike ride later? – he asks.
No, not tonight, I have big things to do today and I expect I will be doing them all the time. (He does not press for detail and that’s good, because right now, all I can see are the contours of greatness. Magnificence without specifics.)

At 63 degrees, but really in the sun it’s almost 90 (I know because my outdoor thermometer is poorly positioned), I stop working, go out on the balcony and sit, thinking big thoughts.

It is so beachlike out there that I reach for sunscreen. I read a New Yorker story about twin brothers, both writers, and I think about my daughters – neither would call herself a writer (I don't think) and they are not twins, but they are twin-like in their closeness.

Inside, I take one more look at my work notes, close that page and open a new one for a blogpost.

Later, I take an evening walk and watch a young woman walk a tightrope. Made tight in partnership with her friend.










Do all spirited days have warm beginnings? Looking forward. It’s so important to look ahead to even greater days.

at the end of the day...

...It’s never uncomplicated for me. I want to think that upbeat people thrive on mornings and I am one of them. Wake up with energy, plans, enthusiasm. Retire with doubt.

Except on summer days, when the bike ride home on the lake path is brilliant and delightfully buoyant…










…and the light fades only after you’ve eaten dinner.

Today may as well have been a summer day in Madison (though a cool one; I still wore my pea jacket). It’s hard to fault an evening when you bicycle past flowers that bloom with colors of Ocean...





...and bees emerge from inside the bluest petals.

hang your head

I’m in a beautiful, modern house, shaking on a mat – one of ten purple and blue mats, laid out neatly in two rows on a wooden floor.

Or at least, my leg is shaking. It’s telling me that it’s not used to me placing demands on it in this way.

It’s a yoga class. People think Madison is a yoga kind of town. Is there anyone within six miles of the isthmus who has never done yoga? I’ve certainly dabbled in it. Really, most everyone has.

But forty or fifty years back, you could not find a decent yoga class here. That's what Nicky Plaut tells me. She moved here from Belgium to marry a Madison man. She came with a love of pilates ("since I was six!"), dance and yoga.


Fifteen degrees in! Your other foot needs to be at that angle, she tells me now. Nicky is tough. Nicky wont let you slouch. And by the way, in three months, Nicky’ll be celebrating her 80th birthday. Last month, she left Mounds Yoga (after 26 years of instructing there) to open her own business from her home. Ah, the entrepreneurial spirit: it can strike at any time. ("I don’t have to drive to work in snow anymore!") Many commute a long way to get to her new studio. Me – I’m barely half a mile down the road. And I’m a brand new fan.

Hang your head. Let it go now…

Nicky wants me to hang my head, but I want to keep my eyes focused on her. So nimble! How does one get to be so nimble at that age?

Is there any doubt? After class, she shows me her own quiet space upstairs. This is how she begins her day…



























Release between the shoulder blades…

We are in the final minutes of the 90 minute class. A pillow under my head, a warm wool blanket covering me (“you can’t relax if you’re not warm…”). Nicky talks about relaxing different parts of the body. It’s like a complete mental massage. But so much cheaper! All this and a nimble body for $10?

The class is not easy. She holds us in position for a long time (“you should release if it’s too much!” Maybe you should, but I’m too competitive; I’ll hang in there until my muscles scream). But at the end of class, I am completely mellow… at peace with pretty much everyone and everything.

Drippy cold rain outside... Nice... It’ll make the flowers grow.

[If you need to be inspired, stretched, relaxed, call Nicky at Hill Top Yoga – 233-8406. Tell her I got you to pick up the phone.)

Easter

A beautiful holiday, if you think about it. Sort of like a springtime Thanksgiving, but with a more upbeat, forward looking punch to it. I’m thinking of the renewal elements, the egg dishes and pastel colors. Yes, I know – that’s a limited repertoire of associations. My parents gave some attention to Christmas (at least during my childhood) but they neglected Easter. I don’t know that my mother quite knew what to do with it. Bunnies? Baskets? Not in our house.

My kids were probably shortchanged as well. St Matthew’s Passion doesn’t have the zip of Santa Claus is Coming to Town. Yes, there were Easter dresses and early on, we even took them to church (see? This is what it’s like; these are your roots…). There were egg hunts in the backyard – a laughable thing, given that Wisconsin in March is so, well, traumatic. And there was a spring feast of sorts, but I struggled there as well. I don’t like to roast lamb or pork and so we’d have chicken and mashed potatoes. Served on better china.



When, in an outpouring of generous spirits, old neighborhood friends invited me to Easter brunch and newer but no less special friends invited me to Easter dinner today I was thrilled.

Ed stayed away. If my family didn’t do Easter well, his Jewish family, who acquiesced to having a Christmas tree in December, did not go along with an Easter Bunny motif. And so he is both clueless and fairly indifferent to it all. He’d rather be pruning his peach tree.

After a rousing game of tennis, where the balls reminded me of Easter eggs…





…and I bounced around the court in my finest Easter attire…





I waved Ed off and pedaled to the old neighborhood…

…to enjoy egg dishes and Easter decorations with friends who were no strangers to this holiday.











Later, at home, I thought more about Easter and families and spring and renewal (again, a very limited repertoire of associations), then got back on my bike and pedaled in the opposite direction to the home of a lovely family who were at least in cahoots with the Easter Bunny. It was wonderful to watch their kids search for hidden Easter treasures (and to see the brother peek into his little sister’s bag to make sure the loot amounts were equal).





You could say that I am hijacking the holidays of others. Maybe. But then, aren’t holidays supposed to be borrowed and shared? Fact is, every day is not a holiday. And every day is not a day of renewal, eggs, asparagus and chocolate carrots.

keeping happy

Your friend did that to you? That’s just wrong! After all you’ve done for him! You’re mad, aren’t you?
No.
Why? I mean, it’s maddening, anyone would see that…
Look, I’ve got what, maybe five, ten years of life? (we like to exaggerate imminence of demise in this household) Why would I waste them on feeling mad at stupid things?



(later)
I have soaked the pot in water. I have squeezed orange rind into the potting mixture. I have rinsed the roots of the orchid in grapefruit dishwashing suds. Still, the ants keep multiplying and spilling out onto my condo floor.

That’s it. Out it goes. I wanted to wait until the frost date, but this plant has pushed me over the edge. It stays on the balcony, frost or no frost.
Put it in a basin of water overnight. The ants wont be able to leave. Let's think about it.

(the next morning)
Any ants out and about ?
No, they’re probably having a town hall meeting in the root ball, thinking of the next move.
Put the plant outside for the day.
Yes, just that. It’s never coming back in.
But the water basin worked, no? The ants were contained?
Yes, but the roots don’t like to be placed in water…
Then put the plant on a platform, above the water. The ants wont be able to get out to the condo. They’ll farm aphids, or whatever the hell it is that they are doing in your orchid.
So, I should keep the plant inside like this?
..with a moat around it. Ants are happy, your condo’s happy. What more could you ask for?


Keeping happy.

It can be a moat around an orchid with ants.

It can be a game of tennis on a cool but sunny Saturday afternoon.
You're getting better! Fewer Nina hits! (He means fewer totally odd body contortions on my part.)

Phone calls from loved ones? Yes, those too.


(later)
I read an article in the Isthmus (our weekly alternative paper) about the appearance of loons on Lake Monona. It comes as a surprise: loons don’t like cities, they don’t like people, noise, they don’t even like to share a lake for mating purposes (odd thing, considering Lake Monona is bigger than a bed and loons are smaller than humans). Yet, they’re here, several dozen, passing through.

Ed and I head out to the lake to see if we can spot them. Black beaks, red eyes, darting underwater for minutes on end – they’re easy enough to separate from, say, the common duck. There, see it? A loon.





Shy, but daring, at least when in the company of fellow loons. But spooked by noise. And, over by Monona Terrace, on a sunny Saturday, there is plenty of sound. Out would come the loon, floating, as if on a forgotten Canadian lake…





…and back underwater it would retreat. Again and again.





The water hides them for a while and I never know where they will emerge next.

Ed lies down on a stretch of grass and dozes as I lean on the edge of the terrace wall, waiting, watching.

It’s funny how a new face can get your attention. The local mallard reminds me that he, too, is not without beauty. Yes, you’re right, you duck…





He paddles off to play with his mate on the silky waters of Lake Monona.





So happy. So very content to be following her this way and that.

adding tones

You don’t need it. Your hair looks great, you’re hair looks great.

Nah. I can’t buy it. For one thing, half the time he’s saying it, his nose is buried in something or other.


It’s nippy again. The sun is deceptive. The thermometer is telling me 43.

That hair that looks great is getting in my way as I swing my tennis arm. A little wild, but I need the extra motion to keep warm.

Kids at the next door court are half volleying, half talking. It’s cool to see that: two young boys toying with the game, with the afternoon.





I have to go. It’s a 6 mile ride for me – I tell Ed.
I pedal to Jason’s.


Happy New Year – I tell the color genius. I haven’t been here that long. He’s got a new tattoo. He’s into yoga more, too. There’s growth in my hair and growth in his life and on balance – I’d say we’re chuggin’ along in our orbits just fine.


I bike home more slowly. It’s near evening and I’m not in a hurry. Friday at dusk is a no hurry time.

Your hair’s okay, Ed tells me. At least he’s consistent.

full

There is so much to be said for a Thursday in mid-April (I’m fudging dates a little). The teaching week is over for me. The days are April days, which, no matter how cold, smell differently. Of thawing earth. Somewhere between rotting wood and forsythia. Probably closer to rotting wood as forsythia hasn’t yet made an appearance here.

But here’s the downside of any Thursday: it’s a long work day. Bike to campus…





Look out office window (with a smile)…





Finish up, bike back.





A good day. Yes, and awfully, awfully full.

wednesdays

From the beginning of April until the end of September, Wednesday evenings, for Ed, are bike riding days. It's befuddling how he can stick with this, given that the man does not like scheduled commitments. He rebels against excessive travel planning (“let’s just fly somewhere cheap in Europe and then decide…”), he shies away from setting any long term goals except in the vaguest way (“someday, we will go sailing along the coast of Central America…”), he loathes the predictability of meals (“why wouldn’t you eat marinated mushrooms in the morning?”). But, I learned early on, that Wednesday evenings are for bike riding. Always.

I joined him once (the Wednesday rides are a big deal here: hundreds participate in each week’s chosen loop), but only once. I thought then that I held him back. Put Ed and me at the bottom of a hill facing up, and you got the classic snail chasing the hare. And the hare has added leg muscle, just to make it totally unfair.

But this year I’m kind of revved up. And so, after a 45 minute warm-up round of tennis at the still cool (low fifties and falling) and still secret tennis court…





… we set out.

Or, rather, I set out. I need a head start. I take hills slowly. I stop for photos.

Groups of cyclists pass me. Black spandex stretches across bulging muscle. Me, I’m wearing jeans with the right cuff rolled up.

It’s cold, but the sun is still out. The landscape is pretty, in a very Dane County, Wisconsin way. Cyclists and pickup trucks, passing through.















But the wind picks up as the sun scoots down. It can’t be more than 40 now. I’m doing the short loop – a mere 20 miles, but the hills are coming on strong.

Ed catches up. You don’t want to finish the short loop with me – I say, hoping to hear the Ed that loves to contradict: yes I do.

He doesn’t say it, but he stays behind to keep me company. I’m averaging only 12 mph. That’s slowpoke speed for Ed.

The sun is just about gone. A pony watches as we pedal on. A goose pushes away from the water bank.










See that car with the boat? I ask.
Yeah?
How can people afford boats?
They’re not much if you buy used ones. Guys buy them from each other… They’ll go out on the lake, maybe with a six pack, almost always with a buddy.
Why? Guys don’t really have conversations with each other.
Grunting counts.

He tells me about Sundays with his dad and his dad's friend, out on the Sound, in a boat with an outboard and a bag of sandwiches and soda for the long day on the water. This is my favorite mood of his -- the one that recalls with affection something from the past. In my mind, the happiest people are those who have a truckload of such good memories.


We roll into Cottage Grove, the end of the loop. It could be that I am the very last one in. I don’t know.

The moon is large. I turn on the heat in Ed’s little Geo to full blast. The old car can only do full blast or no blast.

quiet

Late in the evening I made chili. I had spent a good part of my free hours talking to various family members about weighty family issues and making chili seemed the right way to close the day.

My cooking has been growing increasingly simple – nudged in that direction by Ed who prefers simplicity over anything fussy.

We eat the chili late into the night, keeping a half eye on the TV screen and another at our laptops.

In my mind, I am contrasting my very, very quiet life to the one described in the previous post, where tumult is the order of the day.

Ed is drifting off and so I flip off the DVD. It is incredibly still in the condo. I finish writing and go to sleep. Only to be awakened in the middle of the night by someone helping himself to a second bowl of chili.

growing old

A conversation today with someone far away lead me to think about how people change as they grow old. Yes, for reasons of health, there’s that. Beyond that – there are personality issues. I know people who mellowed as they grew old. Maybe the gruffness had lost its potency and so they let it go. Others – well, they got more cantankerous. More snippy. Angry even.

Are you sure that’s a change? – a friend asked when I got into my speculative mood on this later in the day. Strikes me the person you’re talking about was always a little… difficult. I suppose I knew that. Still, what if "a little" suddenly becomes "a lot?"

What do you do with that? I’ll say this: it’s easier to confront “difficult” if you don’t live with the bitter old grump. But what if you do?


I rode my bike to campus. It was cold and terribly windy, but the absolute promise that this would be the last of the transitional cold days had me motivated. You can take a lot if you know the unpleasantness is fleeting. Scheduled to disappear tomorrow.

There was a goose on the large field that separates UW Hospitals from the lake shore. His partner goose was sitting some feet behind him. Maybe they weren’t liking each other at the minute. Maybe the old goose had become too grumpy, too difficult to sit with.





I’m thinking about Warsaw now. My father still lives with his wife (in most ways she is that and then some) in the city of my childhood. They’re in an older apartment building (when I lived there as a teen, it was already old) and most everyone in it is a generation older than me. But the apartment windows look out on a small park and there are always young voices down there, beneath the branches of the chestnuts. People walk their dogs, children jump rope, young couples hold hands and stroll. Shouldn't that make you smile?

I’m thinking about this as I sit yet again at the infusion center at the hospital. Several stalls down, an older woman sits at the side of her husband. She has to be the most agreeable white haired person I’ve come across. Is her husband equally so?

Who can tell.


As the sun retreated, Ed and I went out to the court. We played a medium good game.

[UPDATE: The post is about conversations with people who live far away. Ed, I am happy to say, has never had grumpy leanings. Mellow to the core.]

back and forth

Two more days and then I promise I’ll stop whining.

Waking up to snow on the ground was dismal. Knowing that the temperature would never climb out of the thirties today was worse. Hearing that tomorrow will bring more of the same was enough to make me dislike Wisconsin spring, period.


But, one must look forward.

Photo-wise, it was an irrelevant day. Housecleaning and errand hopping do not inspire a point and click. I went to the rooftop of my condo building, pressed once and retreated.






Back downstairs, the phone rings. My water polo was canceled. Want to play tennis?
Are you serious? (I ask, remembering that it did not ever pass 37 today.)
Good exercise…

Ed knows how to get me going. Ever since an MD told me I have the heart rate of a runner, I like to keep the pretense going.

I approach the court warily. Note the apparel on the kid. April? Huh. It’s that cold.





We go forth nonetheless. It’s a wild game. I actually return hits that, two weeks ago, I would have deemed unreturnable. Getting better, Ed tells me.

An hour later, we head back. Most of the snow has melted. Most of it.