loose ends

Spending a day attending to a fistful of loose ends can feel as stupefying as watching an endless string of sitcoms on TV. Ten hours later I wonder where the day disappeared. True, the fist has become awfully full because of my preoccupation with post-semester coursework and because it always fills up before departures.

Ed and I are scheduled to take off on Monday.


But there were pleasant moments today as well. Not like sitting on a sling chair on a sunny day pleasant moments, but still, good minutes.

Some were spent at the Westside Community Farmers Market. Separately and together, Ed and I almost always run into friends there and that has become part of the charm. I remember when I rented a place over the garage of a Parisian family some two years back. They showed me where to go for the biweekly market and they said – go at around 11. That’s when you meet your friends. You'll see as many people exchanging greetings as shopping. We’re not quite there yet, but I can imagine that this might become habit forming: catching up on events while buying the last of the season's asparagus or tomatoes.










Another pleasant moment came later, as I stopped by the little shop on the corner. In my ten months of moonlighting there, I had become accustomed to listening to stories from the everyday of my coworkers. A month had passed since I left and that's a lot of everyday that needed sifting and sorting.

I was so hungry for news, that I forgot to dabble in all the creams and potions that are in display testers -- something I routinely did in the days when I worked there. Next time.


Finally, I hate to admit to being happy with acquiring something (practicing non-acquisition is, for the most part, quite satisfying... for the most part), but in truth, I am extremely delighted with purchasing a new carryon bag. Ed and I will be away for more than three weeks but I am determined to fit everything I need in a small carryon and with room to spare. But that requires a better case than the one I have put up with for the past decade. My new one is delightfully commodious, yet within the required dimensions that airlines are increasingly asking us to adhere to. Right now I have it opened and laid out before me and I just want to smile and smile at how, well, useful it is.

Few people have gotten so much pleasure out of one simple suitcase.


Outside, the rain is pouring down on Madison. It's a summer storm and I am reminded again that we are speeding through this warm and lovely season. It's time to turn my back on work and give summer my (almost) full attention.

change of pace

Well, I have two announcements:

First, I bought my espresso at a café that is actually reasonably close to me, even as it is so off the café path, that I never go there. I look around and I think -- wow, it's refreshingly colorful.











...which I appreciate. Barrique’s on Monroe Street, by contrast, is almost, in tones, lost somewhere in pre-World War II Vienna.


Second announcement: I am done with the work for the Spring Semester. True, I have a nice stack of work to attend to for the Summer Semester, but it can be spread evenly over a handful of days. In any case, the rush, for now is over.


I did suggest to Ed that we celebrate. And even my occasional traveling companion hadn't the heart to say "every day is the end of a busiest semester ever day," and so we went to the place which tends to capture most of our (annual?) celebratory meals -- Tutto Pasta.





I was a bit mortified. Ed was in his grungiest of torn work shorts and even his t-shirt managed to develop a huge rip at the side, but I do have to admit that the decision to go out was a sudden one, or I would have coaxed him to dress up into a rip-free garment. He does have some of those, even as they tend to be forever "buried somewhere," or so he tells me.

So, I'm done. And well caffeinated and well fed. And that's a good thing.

focused?

All day long, I work. I am so focused on work that I simply do not pay attention right now to anything that may distract me. I wake up at 3 in the morning and I panic that I should have taken care of a detail of some later August obligation. I do it then, at 3:15 a.m., because if I don’t, I may put it aside again.

By late afternoon, I have to stop. I have to keep a long ago scheduled dental appointment. I bike there so rapidly that for the first time in a long time I work up a real biker’s sweat. As I plump down on the dentist’s chair, the assistant tells me – hey, it's cool the way you look. I know you probably think you’re, well, kind of disheveled and unkempt, but it’s cool.

Thanks. I guess.

I bike back home on Old Sauk Road and I think – I am so distracted. I haven’t taken a photo the entire day.

I turn off toward a bike path I used to love when I lived not far from this neighborhood. It wiggles west of the street and for several seconds, it makes you feel like you’ve left the city behind.

I look around me. Wow. It’s even more rustic than I remember.





And then it strikes me – I am not on the bike path. I am on some affluent person’s private driveway.

Ooops.

I cut across to the bike path and continue, still thinking kind thoughts toward a summer-like day in green Madison, only without the rugged unkempt look of a dirt path.





At home, I put aside thoughts of a good meal. It’ll be frozen dinners tonight. No matter. I’m almost finished with Spring Semester work. Almost.

racing

I’m racing to finish grading this week. It’s a self imposed deadline, but still, I’d like to be done so that I can indulge in a few weeks of complete downtime before I start teaching again (July).

But, life interferes. I spent time in my office today, and I also took pleasurable time off to visit with a few neglected friends. Over food, of course.










After, I really raced: to beat the storms.





I biked into the garage just as the first big drops of rain hit my handlebars.

That’s luck for you. When I was a kid, biking long distances on the sandy roads around my grandparents’ village home in Poland, I was terrified of not making it back before the storm. I hated the threat of lightening and I could never figure out if I should lay low in the ditch until it all passed.

Now, years later, I’m biking through a town with a million safe rest stops and still, I remember the feeling of urgency. I need to make it home before the storm. I need to make it home...





(P.S.: I have several commenters who continue to post comments without attaching a name to their words. I delete these. Sorry, you need to sign with a name. It’s the way it is on Ocean.)

a child's day

One holiday from my childhood that I have great nostalgia for is June 1st. In postwar Poland this was the Day of the Child.

Oh sure, it was a time for gifts – typically a chocolate bar or some sweet indulgence, but it was also an acknowledgment that kids need a break from the usual parental patter and discipline. On this day you could assert yourself. Go to the park, eat ice cream, wear your favorite blouse or ribbon in your hair. (Braids with ribbon pleated throughout were common among school-aged girls).

I suppose one could argue that kids these days don’t need even more attention – that they boss us around plenty and they wear whatever they darn please especially once they pass the age of two. Ever try to put a pair of jeans on a preschooler who is hellbent on wearing dresses every single day of her life?

Still, June 1st was such a happy time! Children’s Day, followed soon by summer vacation (during which no child I knew did anything productive ever, as summer jobs and summer school were unknown entities in Poland), with nights that never quite turned dark and days that never had enough hours for play...

Yeah, June 1st. Initiating the season of child’s play.


Today, I had an early morning appointment downtown, providing an excuse to stop after at the coffee shop by this lake...





...where, of course, it being June 1st, I paid attention to the little ones...







After? Oh, you know. Grading at the farmette.

With a break and a country walk. Where not children, but the deer play.

this day

I ask Ed if Memorial Day in America is a day of remembering all who have died or only those who have died in battle. And then I think – what does it matter? If you miss your loved one, you can choose this day to especially think of her or him.

Here’s my photo for this day. Different perhaps from what you might expect – no flags, monuments, or commemorative stones. My remembrance is of this kind – with peonies around a place to leave letters.





If you’re in Madison, then you know that the day began on the cool side. I wore a sweater and on the motorbike, I wondered if yet again I had underestimated my capacity to feel chilled.


On the farmhouse porch, my routine is now pleasingly familiar. I surround myself with exams, I grade a few, I stretch, consider the rest of the world, then grade some more.

And by late afternoon, I see that umbrellas are in full use.





Meaning, the clouds have dispersed and the sky is a cornflower blue. Our neighboring truck farmers are always very mindful of the sun.





For me, these days of steady work and calm outdoor hours are as valuable as the vacation days that are still ahead.

Ahhh, but all good things must end, or at least must be reconfigured. At dusk, I see my first mosquito. I'm hoping he's a stray.

hiding

Like the sweet william, buried in the blackberry branches, dwarfed by tiger lilies, I am hiding. On the porch at Ed’s farmette, with stacks of exams at the side.






I have three distractions (or excuses, if you will) to stop working.

One – I occasionally get up and offer help with some excruciatingly back breaking task that Ed might be doing. Like watering the tomato plants, or carting heavy items to the nearly fallen barn so that he can free up space in the storage shack (garage?) for his little boat.

Another – I am, as always, drawn to watch the work of the truck farmers on the adjacent land.





The day is hot and they work relentlessly and I can only be happy for them that the mosquitoes have not (yet) arrived.



Which brings me to point three: there are a lot of ants and flies in this world and although I have a outdoor person’s reasonably high tolerance for both, I also have the instinctive gesture of flicking them away when they come too close. And this makes me wonder – what would it be like to be like Ed, or like my grandpa, completely indifferent to the presence of, say, a dozen large ants around me, over me, below me?

There is a sky-high mountain of ants by the old farmhouse and, sensing a cleaner space inside these days (I’m guessing this), the ants have chosen to expand their ramblings and come indoors. I wish I could say – welcome! You and I can coexist! Pardon me, while I move the chair around you. But I can’t. I look up and see ants -- I want to redirect them to other places.

So, as you can see -- not many distractions. And that is a good thing.


Except at the end of the day. Larry, the troubled cat (whom I love because, being troubled, he prefers a quick pat to a climb over my computer and into my lap -- are you listening, Isis??) is sprawled next to the sling chair, Ed brings out to the porch the one wine glass in the sheep shed... That's it then. Until tomorrow, when I will attack the next dozen exams.

from pink Henrietta, to bluegill, to green mustard greens, and orange nasturtium

We finished our celebrations with a breakfast at Henrietta’s Table. Our family first ate breakfast here when the girls were very small. We had paused in Cambridge on our way to the Cape. It was the first time someone said of the food there – it’s fresh and honest.

That it is.

This is also the place that taught me to love lattes (even though they call them large cappuccinos). I’m less happy about that. It’s an expensive habit.





We take one final stroll through the quieter streets of central Cambridge.





I note the discarded texts at someone’s door. Law Sschool work that now belongs to the past.





A sunny day on the east coast. A calm and happy way to say good bye to the city that was home for my little girl during the years when she could properly be labeled a young adult.

My time in Boston ends as it always does – with a ride on the T, over the river, into the tunnels, up in the air, hello Detroit, goodbye Detroit, hello Madison.



It’s evening. I find the car that I left maybe a half mile outside the airport. I drive away from the city – east to Lake Mills, where Ed is having a small reunion with his friends from coop days. (Ed lived in coops during his young adult years.) At the Lake Mils town beach, I see the first signs of true summer: evening splashers. The thermometer is close to ninety. Who can blame them...





But oh, is it really summer? I am reminded of the New Yorker cartoon from last week. A guy is walking through the park humming:

While strolling through the park one day, In the merry, merry month of -- WAIT a minute! It can’t be May already! That’s ABSURD! Oh my GOD! The summer’s almost over!! I might as well be DEAD!!!

Too fast. These weeks fly for me. I remember making summer lists of projects and ideas for the kids when they were young. We’d get through maybe half. I don’t have free summers anymore, but in my mind I still should be launching great ideas now, when my load is just a tad lighter.


Our host is frying bluegills from Monona Bay. With corn and slaw and potato salad at a picnic table.





The true pleasure of summer is to take your life outdoors. During the childhood summers I spent in my grandparents' house in the Polish village, we were inside the house only when it rained. In fact, my grandmother did not allow us to be underfoot in the kitchen during the day, and our bedrooms, too, were off limits. Go outside! - she'd say if we strayed in for a minute. Go outside!

The sun sets. The day ends. The men in our group had wanted to take the boat out, but the night is perfectly still.







By morning, I am with both feet into our Madison routines. Saturday shopping at the Madison Westside Community Market, where everything is so green right now!





But even here, the red and orange of summer is beginning to take hold.









Summer came in May this year.

We ride the motorbike to the farmette, were I settle in on the sling chair to finish up the grading of the second course (one more to go!).

Commencement Day, Harvard Law School

My littlest one walked off the platform with a law degree.





I hope she is proud and happy. I know she is modest and gentle.







It was perhaps Boston’s finest day. The skies were blue, with the occasional puffy clouds that drift in, as if to look down on a happy congregation, then out again. The temperatures were perfect, the air was crisp. Breezes caused leaves to rustle on the tall trees above us, but I don’t know that anyone noticed. We were so focused on the stage before us, waiting for that name, our girl’s name.

And finally, there she was, shaking the Dean’s hand.





Done.

Nothing left but to admire the fine print.





...and to pose for numerous photos. Including this one: of the three lawyers.





After the granting of the diplomas, her grandmother retired for a while and we strolled over to Harvard’s Tercentenary Theater, which isn’t a theater at all, but a large courtyard between the Widener Library and the Memorial Church.





We sat on the steps of the library, leaning back to listen to the beautifully delivered words of Former US Supreme Court Justice Souter.






Justice Souter was addressing the entire university community, but I think the young and old lawyers were especially listening. We, who throw around words “it’s constitutional” or “it’s unconstitutional” need these rare times where wise people remind us what meaning there is behind those words and what happens when principles and core values suddenly are threatened.

It was a good way to leave Harvard.

...and to proceed with the eating part of the celebration...

...at Oleana – the place that blends flavors from the eastern Mediterranean – most notably Turkey and creates foods that we have loved during visits on blustery fall and winter days in Cambridge.





On Friday we disperse. But I’m okay with that. My girls are coming back to Madison this summer: the littlest one will be waiting for her Chicago job to begin in January, and the older one will begin her own teaching career at our Law School.

Milestones. This was a big one for all of us.





...but especially, of course, for her.

Class Day, Harvard Law School

The day is searing hot. I may be the only one in Boston delighted with the steam bath, but truly, I don’t mind.

We begin the day with a breakfast across the river, in Boston. It’s pleasant and breezy in the shade and so we sit outside. I tell my clan that from now until September, I’ll eat every breakfast outside (when possible). There is no better way to greet the world, no better way to begin a summer day.

My mother, being a Berkeleyan for more than a decade now (where she tells us it never gets hot or cold), is wilting a little and so we put her in a cab for the hotel. The four of us set out for a last sentimental stroll through Boston.





















In the afternoon, all of us gather at my daughter’s apartment (another last time? I had so many happy visits here!), drink a toast to her future, their future really – both my girls, because, of course, it is their cohort that will set the terms and give us a different world.



And now the graduation celebrations begin.

Class Day. We sit under the tall trees outside the Langdell Hall of Harvard law School. It’s a time of speeches...



Samantha Power from the National Security Council, class speaker


...of many proud parents taking many pictures...



one of many


...of glimpses of our sons and daughters, the graduates...



my little one

...of sweet treats...





...of iced tea to cool off...





...and bouquets of flowers...





...of parents and their children.





On Thursday, she gets her diploma. On this day she is still a student. One last day of having a kid in school. One last day.