inside the box

You could say that I am not an inside-the-box type. It’s not that I don’t adhere to convention (Ed more properly sees himslef as being outside the box of conventional etiquette). It’s just that I often clutter my palette with an odd mix of things. I never worry if I am a little unpredictable. Out of step with the rest of the pack.




For instance, within one travel month, I’ll sleep on a New York upstate floor, in a crisp white room of a lovely hotel in Rome, in a tent along the Great Glen Way in Scotland. That’s not so unusual? Okay, try this: in the course of my adult (American) life, I have rarely taken on just one job. Sure, there’s the parenting plus teaching thing (two jobs right there!), but in addition and without interruption to the principals, I’ve run a travel business, sold photographs, worked in restaurants, started a Great Writing Project, etc etc. And of course – blogged.

It could happen that I will eventually slow down. But, my life has always been chaotic in this way. Cluttered. Something to do with healthy energy levels and not much love for TV.

So it should come as no surprise that I am considering a week-end/evening moonlighting stint once again. As state budgets sag, I want to believe that I wont sag as well. Travel is expensive. Selling photos is fabulous, but it wont purchase a railfare across France let alone an airplane ticket across the ocean.

I’ll say more once I make decisions as to what and where. But I've already learned this much in my years of multiple work: when I do more than one full time job, only one can be cerebral. The other, therefore, has to be reasonably mindless.

I view it as my obligation to row my own boat to financial stability. Relying on someone to do it for me is not the way to get to where I want to be (even as it does appear to work for some).





But here’s the real reason for the post title which, after all, is about things inside the box. Because sometimes, what’s inside the box is better than outside the box. And the moral of my (brief) story is that, now and then, revisiting old ideas is a good thing. They may show off something quite fresh.

So here is my comment on real boxes:

It took me a while to believe that wine could be a delicious accompaniment to a meal. As a new immigrant, I moved from a country that had horrible stuff on the shelves – Bulgarian wines of the lowest quality where common. They could turn a healthy stomach into a jungle of pain in no time. Other wines? Rare and expensive.

In the States, I initially sampled wines sold at a Chicago Walgreens (or some such convenience store). They came in boxes. I learned to like beer.

Eventually, married and therefore significantly more sophisticated (at the ripe age of 23), I discovered a wonderful cheese and wine store in Hyde Park. It was uphill to bliss thereafter.

Since those years, I have never seriously considered purchasing a boxed wine.

Until this year. In Paris. I had already purchased four bottles to take home with me. Things were getting heavy and pricey. Ed asks – why aren’t you taking this home – pointing to a box of rosé.
You will never get me to pour wine from a box. Ever.
Why not?
It can’t be good.
It’s the same one you just put in your shopping cart. See the bottle? Same domaine, same wine.
Oh.

And so I brought the box home. Once open to the idea, I began to look around. At my local supermarket, a whole stack of boxed wines came with favorable reviews from the Wine Spectator.

All this to say that now, my refrigerator contains these:




I’ll not dismiss boxed wines again. For the summer dinner table, they are a heavenly solution to the shrinking budget and growing appetite for something other than what you would pick up at Trader Joe’s. Or "Walgreen's."

Father’s Day

The only difference between fatherhood and motherhood is that one is exclusive to men and the other to women, right? Yes, of course, one does a set of tasks, the other does another set of tasks, but however they are set, they do not ignore the fact that there are children out there and contributions to their welfare must be made.

Yet, over time, we have constructed such differences between the two, that each has claimed a day for her or himself in the calendar of important celebrations. It's not about parenting. It's about being a mother. And, in June, a father.

Here’s the thing – in my growing up years, I never thought much about Father’s Day. Honestly, I don’t believe it even marked a post-war Poland calendar page. Mother’s Day? Of course! And soon after (June 1st), Children’s Day. Both celebrating the challenge of the entire project of growing up (raising a child, in the case of mothers). Fathers had nothing.


In the States, I adapted. Father’s Day? Okay! It seems only fair. We celebrate both. Cool. That and the 4th of July.


Ed has been skeptical. Not a parent himself (indeed, I would guess that 90% of his friends aren’t parents; it’s as if they found each other early on and said – you too, eh?), he admires those who choose parenting over nonparenting, but he doesn’t get the holiday fuss.

So, what do you do on Mother’s Day (or Father’s Day)?
You go out and eat.
Do you want to go out and eat today?
It’s Father’s Day. We wouldn’t be able to get a table. Everyone else is eating out.

Still, in the early afternoon, we go to a local Tex-Mex place that also happens to have excellent espresso drinks (Pasqual’s). We find a table, read the local paper. He eats his huevos rancheros, I drink my latte.

I glance over at another table. Dad, mom, two kids.





Happy Father’s Day. You, all you dad types, you deserve a heck of a great day.

5:19

Faint strains of highland music make their way to the balcony. A bee is pushing at the yellow stamens of the rose. It’s become a routine: outdoors, granola with berries and kefir, a foamy coffee and bagpipes. Next week it may be folk and the week after – Italian. I have a very eclectic taste in music. But I am predictable in at least one thing: each year, I look forward to this day. And today, its beauty hit an A+ level. How many times can that happen in a lifetime?

5:19. I’m on the rooftop. Not alone. A fellow resident says – you almost missed it.
But I didn’t! I woke up without prodding, without alarm and now here I am, looking at the beginning of our longest day.





To make it perfect: what do you need to make the first day of summer, the longest day perfect?

I only need the hours of daylight. But if you’re throwing in goodies, I'll take a clear sky. And a day away from work. And some semblance of art and nature and and..

Oh, I'm too demanding!

But wait. There’s more. Regional seasonal, regional seasonal. Something to do with food?



Yes! This year the longest day, the first day of summer is not only brilliant and bright and warm and without work impediments, but it’s also market day.

For only the second time this year (I’ve been away), I go down to the Westside Community Market.



















It’s the season of favorites (so short here in Wisconsin!). I fill our basket. I would fill it more, but I’m remembering the roadside stand that we want to support.






And because it’s June 20th, having done all that – up with the sun, gym time, market time, breakfast time, shower time – all that time and still, I'm finding that it’s quite early.

The day sweetly extends itself. It’s longer by virtue of its daylight, but also by virtue of its brilliant skies.


Ed and I hang my photos at a favorite café. And we play tennis. And we zip around on the old motorbike, with a newly installed front fender.






And we do a yoga class. And I prepare a cusp of spring (or is it already summer?) meal.





And still, it’s light outside.


Oh, go ahead, Tell me you don’t care. Daylight, moonlight – what difference does it make? Today, Ed slept during portions of the day I would called “peak time!” He doesn’t function with an internal clock, nor with a sense of what’s up time and what’s sleep time. (For example, he dozed the last ten minutes of yoga. I suppose meditation and sleep aren’t that far apart.) And maybe you’re the same?

For me, daylight counts. A lot.


The sun set at 8:41. It wasn’t a stellar sunset. I stayed indoors. Too much food and yoga, in conflict with each other. Still, I'll think of it as it was -- a beautiful longest day. I'll dream about it come winter.

sudden

Most people don’t like sudden change. Seems violent. No time to adjust. Gradual’s good.

Today though, I’ll stay on the side of flash, immediate transformation. For instance, the tube in my nose is history. And, like post childbirth, all memories of disability and discomfort are forgotten. (True, I don’t have a baby to fuel my joy, but that’s okay: I don’t think I want to be a mommy to a newborn right now.) Why do we think of change as a negative? Quick improvements are life’s icing!


Still, on days like this, you have to be troubled by the suddenness. For example, we had storms today. Out of nowhere.

Last night's sky flashed repeatedly for us, and the morning came on gloomy: humid and wet. I left my daughters’ car out so that it would get a good wash.

Evening? Same thing.

But in between, I went to my favorite café to study the space where I’m to hang my photos this week-end. You may remember that my favorite café is actually just outside Madison. So I pass fields of corn to get there.

Would you guess this to be the stormiest day of the season thus far?

horses, goats and chickens

My family will vouch for this: I was obsessed with organic foods (or at a minimum, fresh and honest foods) and an athletic lifestyle way before either became trendy here. I wanted to age in good health. I had had enough of poor health in my early years.

It paid off. I am a horse in strength and a goat in nimbleness (and a chicken on high mountain tops, but that’s another story) and if I have anything to say about it, I’ll never need a pill sorter to keep my meds straight by the time I turn completely forgetful.

Still, the first quarter century of life has taught me to be vigilant about signals of potential problems. Perhaps too vigilant. I never ignore anything. And I like information.

So that when this spring, my doc told me I should have this one little organ within me measured for performance, I said – sure!

The measuring of it requires that I walk around with a tube up my nose (and then some) for 24 hours. Initially, I thought – no big deal. I’ll even teach with this. It will make ‘em look up.

But in April, I chickened out at the last minute (remember – at heart, a chicken). And put it off until now, when I don’t especially have to show my face anywhere if I don’t want to.

This morning, the tube went in. (Amazing how many things a tiny tube can record! All that information!)

And all I want to do is sit on my couch and count the hours until it’s time for it to come out again. And why not. I have an occasional traveling companion who should be happy to run errands for me while I hibernate.

Ed, I need several rental movies and a whole bunch of foods to get me through this.
Nina, you’re coming with me to pick what you want.
Ed, I am not showing up in public with a tube up my nose, strapped to my face, attached to a huge machine.
Nina, no one will notice.

Of course he’s wrong. I look awful. Indeed, in the grocery store, I am given priority at the meat counter. Probably to move me along out of compassion. I want to announce – I’ll wait my turn! I am not sick! I’m just measuring things!

You could say that I am learning what it’s like to have a disability, but I’ll answer that I already know what it’s like to be weak and incapacitated. Remember – I was once a sickly little thing. I don’t need another lesson.

Ed of course, finds the entire medical complex hugely fascinating. He doesn’t himself interact much with it. I offer insights into a world that is quite unfamiliar to him.

So, are you bothered by all this? – he asks.
Of course!
Yep, like I always said -- better to fall off a cliff.
Oh, I didn’t know that these are our choices in life – cliff, or tubes up your nose for a day.

We go back to the condo, I sip a latte through a straw and I think – good thing that I went to the gym before dawn today. I wouldn’t be able to put in my 50 minutes with this thing strapped to me. Now, please pass me the blueberries. Rich in antioxidants.


In the evening, I cook up a stew. I want the distraction of cooking.

rich thoughts

There is such wealth to summer days! I think of good weather as being up there with money – neither can make you happy, but to have a good amount of either (or both!) most certainly makes life much smoother.

Living in the north – before in Poland, now in Wisconsin, and being employed by the state (and on a “mommy track” no less), I haven’t an overabundance of either, but so far this spring/summer, I’m feeling pretty “glass is half full” about life.

And so when I woke up several days ago with a sore throat, I thought to myself: this cannot be. I don’t get bugs (except for ticks in the Highlands). Maybe a sniffle every couple of years. In November. Not flu-ish viruses. Not now.


Wait. Didn’t Ed flip a coin? Wasn’t it the case that if I were to have flu symptoms, it would, by reason of the coin toss, lead me to suspect Lyme disease?

I call my doctor’s office. (I swear, the nurse has a bored voice when she calls me back. As if she wants to ask – where has your imagination taken you now?)

Nina, she tells me, go to Urgent Care.

Oh, I know what she is really saying: don’t trouble us here. Go bother the people over at Urgent. They’re having a slow day.

I go to Urgent. By now, I think my throat is exploding. In the minutes when it’s not feeling perfectly fine.

At Urgent, I’m given a mask. Flu symptoms require it. I want to tell them that we flipped a coin and there is, therefore, no chance that I have Swine Flu, but I don the mask and stay quiet. I note that the mask smells of something that detergents would call “fresh scent.” I wish it would just smell of paper.

I sit and wait. I am not urgent. Indeed, when all my vitals are recorded, I think they believe me to be as strong as a giant. I look healthy. I feel healthy. (Except for the soar throat.)

An hour later, the doctor comes in. We chat about ticks, Scotland, viruses. She looks at my throat. Vitamin C. You need lots of Vitamin C.

I’m glad that there are still placebos out there that you can offer to people like me.

I skip the Vitamin solution. I mean, I feel great.



Owen Woods, just a mile down the road from me

The weather is summer weather. I walk outside and think – weather and good health. Forget about the money part. You got good weather and good health – you should be happy.

I am.

vegetables and other matters

With time, I’ll not compare my hours now with my hours last week, or the weeks before. I wont remember that I had too many photos and too many stories for Ocean then and not enough time to give them a thorough airing.

But right now, I still remember and I compare.

How can it be otherwise? I go out to the grocer’s and I take my camera, but I am not inclined to use it. Street scenes? Not here. Not outside my grocery store anyway. It’s a parking lot. The entire commercial scene here is a massive parking lot.

Oh, there are three tables. For those who need to pause between the door of the store and their car in the lot. Or something.




When not shopping for food, I’m working. My course, yes, there’s that, but I'm also getting photos up and ready for a café exhibition. I’m happy with this, because it will be at my favorite place for coffee this side of Ohio. [More on this later.]

And I’m biking again. That’s good. I like my bike paths. (By comparison, Parisian bike paths suck, and Rome’s bike routes are suicidal.) And I notice that my city is creating huge incentives for bikers. Did you know about the discounts all around town for those who show up with their bike helmets on? And we're not unique! Fourteen states have these! (Click here for more info.)


My balcony has flowers now. I eat breakfast there and stare out at the parking lot and think – it’s better to look out at a quiet parking lot than a street full of traffic, no? I mean, cafés on busy streets are way overrated, no?





No. Miss ‘em.

Even though I love smelling my balcony rosebush.


And I’m so pleased to be cooking up a supper that has vegetables. Seasonal vegetables that are not limp broccoli. Scotland, you have to tackle vegetables next, okay?

mail drift

I haven’t seen my mail for over a month. Not even in the three days that I have been back. Somehow no one seems to know where it is.

This “no mail” state has me in a drifting mood. As if normal life hasn’t quite picked up yet. (Even as I’ve both unpacked and started the laborious task of outlining a new course for next year.)

As always after a return, I wake up early. I think about calls that need to be made and I wait until the world wakes up and I can start hassling it again. For instance, at 8:30, I called my doctor, found out she is on vacation, talked to a substitute and discussed the ticks Ed and I found all over us after an unfortunate romp in a field that seemed to be their Scottish headquarters. (We did not encounter ticks after that day.)

Yes, pulling them out with your nails is fine, so long as you don’t tear them apart. Pretty small down up there, aren’t they…You think you got them all? Come talk to me if you’re feeling feverish or sick.

I ask Ed if I were feeling feverish or sick, should I worry about Lyme disease or Swine Flu (Britain has a number of cases). We tossed a coin. Heads you worry about Lyme, tails – flu. The coin showed heads.

For recreation, I pulled more Texas weeds (a reference to their size) at Ed’s farmette until I realized that the man himself was reclining and I was using a diverse set of muscles to clear his land.

We took a coffee break and then went back to the strawberry stand to buy two more lovely boxes of berries. We wanted to tell the seller that she was underpricing the whole lot of them ($2 per quart for yesterday’s pick), but she seemed not to speak English well and so we just smiled and said thank you many times.

Ed can eat a quart of strawberries at a sitting. I returned the empty containers later in the day and talked for a while to the dad who first started tilling the land here two years ago. Great berries! Selling at the markets yet? We can only go to two markets each week and one is very far away. We have more to sell than that. We do better here.






In the evening, I drift in and out of work, pausing occasionally to pick a weed. And to smell the lavender – a flower that I planted here several years back because it always reminds me of travel.

suddenly summer

If you were to ask me why my longest weeks away from home are always in spring, I’d probably say something about how summer in Madison is a treat. Spring is fickle: there, or not there, depending on the mood.

But also, it’s easier to return to a summer here than to return to a loaded schedule of classes in fall.

Now for the tough part: it’s hard to have the first Sunday back home. Elsewhere, Sunday is a time of inclusion. Of communal spaces. Of long meals and even longer people watching sessions.

At home, I clean house and do what every other American does: chores around the house.

It struck me that I live such an “un-communal Sunday” life that I don’t even know where the communal spaces are in my home town. Are there any? (Don’t tell me the Union. Student hangouts don’t count. You never see the same person twice there.)

And, I don’t have a grocer or baker who’ll ask me if I was glad to be back and how was my time away.

Yes, the first Sunday home is always very difficult.


On the other hand, I was handed a day of infinitely beautiful summer weather. After the usual house cleaning, I biked to Ed’s farmette. We pulled weeds the size of Texas and generally reveled in being outside, without the summer nuisance of mosquitoes (too early). A frog looked on.





The truck farmers who have been working the land to the side of the farmette have become exceptionally enterprising. They set up a stand where the children sell produce to those who drive by. Not many people drive by randomly on Goodland Park Road, but still, the kids tell me they're doing well.





In the evening, I put on Scottish music from a CD that we were given at the last b&b on the Isle of Skye. I made a supper of eggs with cooked tomato and mushrooms.

from Paris: her world

I will say this about Paris – it makes me feel absolutely happy to be a woman here.

It could be in my perception of things, but in Paris, for whatever reason, I take tremendous pleasure in all that makes me different from that other gender. At the superficial level – the identification comes in the style of dress and the presentation of self. But not only. A woman's tastes and pleasures are respected in so many venues. Many of them having to do with food to pick up for home.



















I make no claim that this joy in womanhood is universal here. Or that men do not partake in some of the pleasures traditionally handed to women.





Or, for that matter, that men and boys, engaged in manly and boyish routines aren’t pleased as anything with their own masculine world. Indeed, I watch them and I smile at their exuberance and joy in life. It’s all quite beautiful. (Ed says – and they’ve got great hair! I’ll add – and hats.)
















And, too, I’ve paid homage on Ocean to mixed gender partnerships. You’ve seen couples here lots of times, right? Happy to be together. Mostly.






But, as I sip a rosé on the park bench and munch on a baguette with Ementhal and crudités, I think – let’s focus on this one essential truth: to be a woman here is grand!





And what I see around me – the flowers, the chairs that fit my body so well, the public spaces that make me feel protected – it’s all so terrifically woman-friendly.











(Even as I do understand that here, as elsewhere, men do continue to tower in so many professional and artistic environments.)





Okay, granted. Still, at least in Paris (in my opinion), women of all shapes and sizes and importantly, of all ages, seem to understand their beauty and valor, their unique beauty and their unique valor. They walk with pride (and so I, too, walk with pride). As if they know they’re being watched, admired, respected. For what they bring to the table.






Late in the day, Ed and I are in a shop that sells lovely summer clothes. (There are so many! Sweet boutiques, sometimes even affordable – Maje, Zadig & Voltaire, Et Vous – beautiful and tempting.) I’m fingering a dress the color of a pale rose.
Should I try it on? It’s way less than 100 Euros.
How much way less?
Way less.
The clerk turns to Ed. You’re American, aren’t you? You have to know that in this country, the woman has the final word.

Well, I don’t know about that. But it sure feels good to be there in that dress, or to be at Le Bon Marche sampling paté and apricot almond “milkshakes.” Or to be anywhere at all.


We walk a lot in Paris. I love my routes around the city. For example, the one to the Bastille and back. This time, I want to stop at the Centre Pompidou. My musician hosts from last year told me that I should revisit it, because it’s superb now. I remember their words when I see photos of Obama and his daughter here just this past week.

We ride up the escalator…





…for a glorious view of Paris…











We look first at the special exhibitions – of works by Calder and Kandinsky. The first is completely fun – coat-hanger art. (Well, a little more elaborate than that, but in that style.)





I think about the audacity of assuming you can survive (and raise a family?) on creating coat-hanger circuses.


At the Kandinsky exhibition, we look at paintings donated to the various museums by his wife, Nina. Wife, and not necessarily lover. He had another woman (more?) who served that role. (I’ll bypass here the entire discussion of Paris and sex and marriage and sex in addition to marriage – I’m not going there with this post.)


In the permanent exhibition rooms, we look at art by women artists. Their art is strikingly absent from so many collections, even of modern art (I say “even,” as if we can forgive the previous centuries for being unkind to women).

The art here covers the range of expression. It’s bold and sometimes very disturbing. But the fact that a major museum in Paris devotes so much space to it is, to me, extraordinarily gratifying. Paris: a place where the difficulties of being a woman artist are openly confronted and talked about. Paris: a place where your failures in reaching any level of prominence are made more palatable because you are in a community of others who have had greater things to show, paint, and describe than you and yet, they, too, felt themselves to be at the margins of success.











So I’ll end with this womanly side of Paris. Even as I walk past Sorbonne and I am tempted to take a photo of a handful of men who look so, well, Parisian-male-professorial. I resist it. This time I’ll stick with what feels right here for me. From childcare to family life to beauty and the idolization of creativity, from food to conversation and to open spaces where both can combine – Paris. If you were a person, I’d say I love you. Even as I am so happy to be returning home today.

from Paris: with a traveling companion

A city of light, love, food, fashion, art, architecture, politics, personalities, a city of great beauty, with probably the best people watching opportunities anywhere. A place to share, with someone, anyone, with, for example, an occasional traveling companion.

But mostly, over the years, I have traveled to and through Paris alone. I’ve learned how to do it. So much so that when Ed does join me here, like, for example, for these two days, I’m at a loss on how to proceed.

Much as he does not hide his dislike for all things urban, he knows not to dislike Paris to my face. It would be like me telling him that his two cats are flawed. We aren’t that unkind to each other. In conversations about it, we talk about the parks, the good food we have eaten here, the walks we have taken, the art we have seen.

But in making plans for a day here, we are at a conversational volley that often ends with the ball falling off somewhere beyond reach.

Where do you want to go?
Wherever you want.
Where do you want to eat?
Don’t know.
How about at that bistro with a reasonable fixed price menu?
Maybe.
Anything there that you like?
I’ll find something.

I tell him he is merely going along, that the enthusiasm just isn’t there.

But then come the good comments.

Let’s just sit for a while and enjoy the scenery.
Just for a minute.

You want to stop for a refreshment?
Okay...

I remember this shop from the last time.
I once bought a dress for my daughter there.

A smile, fleeting, but there, in the entryway to a shop, on a park bench, looking at a statue, a bridge, a person on a rented bike speeding by.



We arrive in the early afternoon, unload our gear at a still less expensive left bank hotel (the perennial challenge here is to find a place that is special and cheap; you cannot get to attached to any one choice, because some time in the future it will leave your budget range and you will have to search again) and set out.

Where to? Oh, green spaces of course. With Ed, there’s no hope for even a polite nod to the city if you don’t spend at least a little time in traffic free zones.

We walk through the parks where children ride ponies and chase balls between old trees.


Jardin des Plantes





Jardin des Plantes





Jardin Luxembourg


The skies turn partly cloudy and the air loses the Scottish nip that had been with us up north. We watch people take time out to be alone or with friends, or companions.




















Past shops, food shops, so many food shops. Ice cream places. I eat a cone with the absurd combination of salted caramel and cherry ice cream…

Don’t you want any?
Still full of breakfast.





…and drink a kir at an inconsequential sidewalk café.

What will you drink?
Nothing.
You can’t drink nothing. Have mineral water.
It’s more expensive than wine.
Have wine.
You have mine.

(Correction then: I drink two kirs at an inconsequential sidewalk café)





… and we walk again. Endlessly, until we can walk no more.

We do eat dinner at the bistro with the good fixed price menu (La Petite Chaise). It’s a fine meal. A good fit for us, just on this day.


[Note: I’ll post after my flight back home.]