singing in the rain

I didn’t have time this morning. You know how it is – you plan to be out by a certain hour and it creeps up on you, but you have one more paper to print, one more pb&j sandwich to fix, one more lecture problem to review and then it’s past the hour of departure.

Rosie. I have to take Rosie – she’s the fastest. (The car is faster, but the walk to the law school from the parking lot is longer so bottom line – it’s Rosie, or be late!)

So why is it raining? Is it raining? Or not? Or is there sun? No? Well then what?

I set out. Drizzle. No drizzle. Then rain. And then not. A wet road, here and there. A grain machine, a line of deeply hued trees, a bend in the road.





I sing and I think – damn, these country roads are pretty!

But very quickly, I’m in city traffic. Watch those cars pulling in, stopping, imagine where you might go if this one suddenly slows down, watchful, watchful. Finally, I park, I run to class. Grab cup with tea, seating chart, run down, hoist up podium. With twenty seconds to spare.


It’s a full day. Too full. In fact, the whole week has been horrendously packed with work. It won’t slow down for me, not anymore, not until it’s over in December. I’m done grading midterms, but so what -- as of today, I have four dozen memos to read, grade, write comments for.

But it’s Thursday and my teaching, if not my work, ends for the week. I get on the wet saddle of Rosie and head for the café, just before it closes.

We buy dinner sandwiches. Don’t want to cook, don’t want to even think of what I should cook.

Ed rides his motorcycle just behind me, but I wave him on. Go home, go home, I need to pause and take a photo. Because the sky is stunning now in the early evening.





And in the last quarter mile, it’s over the top beautiful  -- a tad like those canvases you see for sale in dollar stores, touched up beyond credibility. Except tonight, it is for real.

detour

I permitted myself a five minute detour on the way to the café. Leaving work, it’s not that big of a sidestep. Turn at Lake Wingra, follow the road.





It’s an empty road, as it connects with nothing but the homes secluded at the side of the Arboretum. It’s the best possible place to take Rosie. No traffic. A few joggers even more vulnerable than me. Speed limit of 25 MPH. I like that.

It’s hard to retrieve the joy of riding Rosie when she serves this utilitarian purpose of weaving me through traffic to get me to school on time. Hard, but not impossible.



In the evening, my older girl comes over for dinner. With her Halloween-like bag.





And after, Ed and I watch a library film on laughter. It underscores what we all know – that laughter, like joy, are disappearing from the everyday of our lives.

I remember how hard I laughed late at night in Ghana last spring. Why? Because the handful of people in the room wanted to laugh as much as I did then.

They say stress may lead to laughter. Well there you have it. In these weeks of intense work, I should be laughing more and more.

I’ll let you know.

re: work

I spent the entire day – from six in the morning until late at night working on classes and student issues. Since I resist writing about work here, on Ocean, I ought to let it go at that, showing perhaps only the pretty fall view from my office window, as most of at least the daylight hours were spent in my office.





But I do want to say this: teaching, for me is different these days than it was in the early years, when I was also raising kids and trying to keep my face above water as my teaching load grew and grew and grew. Those days I was audaciously bold. I had to be. Like in camping, hiking, kayaking, and Rosie riding – you’re bolder at the beginning. Otherwise you’d never move out the front door. Or you’d call a cab rather than put yourself at risk. Can’t afford cabs? Well then, swallow your fears and get going. Same with teaching: can’t afford to be unemployed? Well then, stand up and teach.

These days I wont stand up unless I’ve done all my homework. And believe me, even after some two dozen years of teaching, there is still plenty of homework.

At the end of the day, I’m more tired now than I used to be, even as there are no kids to attend to at home, no sleepless nights over a little one’s cough or sore tummy. It’s age? I don’t think so. More likely, it’s the realization that everything is more complicated than once imagined and could be improved upon if you gave it more thought, more consideration.


I ran into a colleague of mine in the faculty lounge as I waited for a printing job to end. I grumbled a little about how each year teaching required more of me for every class, how it never once slowed down. She is somewhat older than me and I could tell that she understood. It’s why I retired – she said. (She still teaches the occasional course – at the law school’s and at her discretion.)

Some work surely becomes easier with repetition. I watch the truck farmers by the farmette as they clear the fields. This one, for example (she’s my favorite – when there are flowers, she’s the first to run up and grab me a handful), maintains her bent position for many hours each day.





Surely her muscles grow strong enough to support that bend in the back! I looked on with not a small dose of admiration. Over time, she has accumulated a reservoir of strength. Over time, I’ve accumulated knowledge as to where strength would be most welcome.

light visions

Am I recovered enough to ride to work on Mr Red? I can’t help but think that, until the snow comes, it’s probably one of the last pretty Fall days. Already the fields are mighty desolate. Only good light makes them look warm and bucolic.

And speaking of warm and pretty, let me start with a morning look out at the feeding station – the tree the birds love to dine at. It was a “where’s Waldo” moment: a red bird amidst red fruits.






But this morning, the birds are outshined by what finally looks like pure loveliness (in my opinion): the freshly painted (north face of the) farmhouse. Ahhh.... (Or is it especially lovely in the softer morning light?)






Okay, so I bike to work. And because I decided (most likely) to make this the last bike ride in (the distance is too long for me to enjoy a ride on cold days), I take the longer way. Lovely, in a harvested and dry sort of way.






The bumps are a little tough on the ribs still, but still, I am happy to be biking, to be ending the season on a slightly longer ride (twenty miles for the day).


After work, I bike to the café where Ed waits, having worked some on scraping and patching now the east face of the house. It’ll be a while before that’s done, but it doesn’t really matter. When I come home, I enter through the north. Its cheerful yellow is there now to greet me.

Time to go home. In the last quarter mile, I pause. There’s not much to the land now. It’s all in the light. It’s enough. Pretty. To the core.

win some

I listen this evening to a description of a person’s life: leaving the classroom, traveling on a motorcycle to get a glimpse of life elsewhere, scorning convention and dress codes, reinterpreting reality, succeeding in engineering something that simplifies discovery for others, scorning money, sort of, and medicine, for a while anyway... sounds like Steve Jobs? Maybe. Actually, to me, it sounds awfully like Ed.

And what would descriptors include for me? Works hard especially in unpredictable arenas, moves impulsively, rejects the negative, loves much of the remainder, wins some, loses elsewhere. Hmm, I think the first path is a surer one to success.

Sunday. If all my Sundays looked like this one, I would work hard in unpredictable arenas to make major changes in my life. Clean farmhouse, re-clean mess after Ed carries painting paraphernalia through farmhouse to the roof, and then again after he carries it in because of unexpected rain, and then again after he carries it out in the early evening because I tell him the north face has to be yellow in its entirety or else I’ll move impulsively elsewhere (not really, but it’s the kind of thing I might toss out and then try hard not to laugh).





Ed paints, I work on my paper work – the unfortunate weekend of late fall for me.

Finally, as the sun nears the clouds that churn around the horizon, I go out for a short stroll. The skies are always pretty now. It is still hard to believe that at the end of my driveway, I can look to the left and see this...






...and I can look straight ahead and see this...





Win some, lose some? Yes, I’d say I’m on a winning streak.

twitterers

We eat breakfast with the birds, Ed and I. Perhaps not in the way you imagine – we don't all sit down to the same meal, served in the same space, but we're eating and so are they and it all seems rather communal on this gorgeous late fall morning.

Later, I go out to watch the twitteres finish their morning meal.






If I moved too much, they would disappear. But in fact, it is not hard to sit still, face toward sun, camera trying to pick out the bird from between the apples.






Ed finally goes back to painting and I join him up on the roof, taking my work there for as long as the sun stays with us -- which isn't terribly long: it sinks below the eaves and eludes us soon after noon. I'm catching the last corner of it here.





Like a kid, I have to have my turn at the painting. Let me, let me... It’s fun, so long as you are interloping and can give it up as soon as your arm grows stiff from the elevated back and forth.

Ed keeps on painting, I keep on working, indoors now, until it is close to the café’s closing hour.

We bike over in what has to be near perfect end of October weather. It’s my first burst of exercise since the motorbike tumble and I can’t say that my ribs aren’t sore from the effort. But, I tell Ed that we have been underusing significant muscle groups and so we push on. All of the “long” seven miles it takes to get there and back.

At the café Ed eats too much and sleeps too long and I mentally subtract the amounts of food I'll be needing to prepare for supper. For once I do not mind. It’s not a day for cooking, It’s a day for letting the sun warm your back as you pedal home. And for pausing to watch the pair of sandhills pick and choose from the bounty of roadside foods.





At the café, a customer was telling me that a friend has seen cougars some fifty miles north of us and yet another has spotted a black bear – a mere five miles west. Tall tales over a late afternoon coffee. Next time I’ll throw in my two sandhills. It wont trump cougars and bears, but I live among birds these days. They are my story.






In the alternative, I can brag about progress in farmhouse painting. Ed tells me by the end of the season, this north face should be done.






Ho hum? Okay, let’s go back and admire the sandhill crane.

frost!

There was a night earlier in September when I’m told there was frost. It couldn’t have been significant. Everything around the farmette survived. Even our prickly tomatoes.

Last night it was the real thing. I had a great desire to be up early, camera in hand, running barefoot across fields covered with a white coat of frozen dew. But, in this season, bouncing up and out early is less attractive. I waited under under the quilt, contemplating the seasons and by the time I was outside what horefrost covered the fields surely must have succumbed to the power of a beautiful sunny morning.





But in shady spots, there’s no denying it. We had some pretty lovely crystals of frost.





I did walk the property, leisurely, loving the quiet beginning to the day. And the remaining explosions of color, coming from the crab apples that never seem to fall. The branches will be leafless but the red fruits will still be there.





Nothing in the hours after was as good as this moment of morning light. I worked nonstop until early evening, meeting Ed then at the café, where the proprietors celebrated his past birthday by presenting him  with a pickle. Ed loves their New York pickles. It was a thoughtful gesture. The entire café sang Happy Birthday and Ed ignored the whole lot of us while I laughed and laughed.

time for dinner

Yes, no, yes, no, yes...no. So windy! An out of state student asked today – is it always this windy in Wisconsin? I have to say, I don’t ever remember it being windy more than a day or two out of the year. I suppose wind wouldn’t have registered in the past, in my quick bike ride between work and the condo.

Yes, no, yes, no, Rosie or car. Car. Rosie. Rosie. Okay, Rosie. But I know we’re winding down, Rosie and I. There’s no logic behind it, but on cold weather days, I feel more vulnerable zipping by on a motor scooter.

Logic, luck – funny things, they are. I remember the last time I went downhill skiing (some four years ago). I was surprised to see that the slopes had skiers with helmets. Of course! Makes sense! That’s a hellish speed we take on during a downhill run. Why didn’t we wear helmets before, when I was a young and frequent skier? (For the same reason we didn’t wear helmets as kids when we biked. It wasn’t the custom.) Luck: the two times I fell on my head in my life were two times when I was fully protected.

But skiing never left me feeling vulnerable. Neither did biking. It’s the mixing of speed and other cars that gives me pause. Still, when Rosie and I scoot down the country roads, I am truly happy. Free of traffic, I notice everything around me and it is such a pretty world out there!

Though in fact, today’s post isn’t intended to be about the Rosie ride. Forget about Rosie just for now. Today’s the day when Ed turns 61 and, perhaps more significantly (as he really does not celebrate his birthday) – it’s the day that marks our time together – six years ago we met. Reluctantly on his part and on my part as well. Go ahead, my daughter tells me. Go out with him. He could be nice. Should I? the guy who writes to tell me I am so different from him that we have nothing in common? Really?

...The guy who, on our first trip to France together (just two months after meeting), tells me one evening – you go and eat dinner. I’m not hungry.

But, but, this is France! How could you not eat dinner in France?!

I ate a lot of bread at the bakery this morning.

But, but we’re staying at a restaurant with rooms! We're here to eat!

You eat. I’ll sit and watch.

I can’t go through that! No one sits at the table refusing to eat!

I’m not hungry.

We almost parted then. He started looking at train schedules to England, to visit a friend. But he didn’t leave and I stopped fussing. Or at least, I let days pass before I fuss.

This morning, as we eat cereal together at breakfast time...





...I ask him this – how is it that our meals have become more erratic? That you've taken to stuffing things at the café and passing on home cooked meals later in the evening?
You like going to the café. You drink coffee, I eat.
And then you sleep...



 

...But I miss the days when you didn’t eat through the day and were hungry for dinner.

We’ll go to dinner tonight.

We do go to dinner tonight. At Sardine, we eat oysters because we both love raw oysters. Besides, they’re 50% off if you show up before 6.





And we’ll come home, past fields of gold except they’re not so gold now, just dark shadows against an amazing sky.... with the silo from the farmette at the horizon, reminding us of home...






...and once home,  one or both of us will surely fall asleep before the library rented movie is over – his favorite or my favorite, rarely do the two overlap. And tomorrow he’ll eat during the day and doze off at the café with a newspaper over his chest (as he did today) and I’ll remind him that the house needs to be painted and so it continues – the story of Ed and me, inexplicably a good story, without a visible ending.

fall chicken

I can tell when I’m going to be undone by the weather: when the mudroom – the exit point for the farmhouse – is a good twenty degrees chillier than the rest of the house. It tells me something. Like – perhaps this isn’t the best day to ride Rosie.

Oh, I know I could. Low forties... but not a speck of sun and with a vicious wind. It would not be pleasant. Reluctantly I pull open the door of the Last of the Red Hot Lovers (we have to find a shorter name for her!) and slide in.

If you think that this move into the driver’s seat requires no effort, you’re wrong. It’s the first day since the tumble a week ago that I am venturing forth without a Moltrin to keep the aches and pains from dominating the conversation. I’d say that maybe I should have continued for one more day.

I pass the fields where the truck farmers are clearing dried debris, readying the fields for next spring. On a bike or motorbike, I would be nearly inconspicuous with my camera. Now, as I pause, the farmer looks up, sees me, I wave, he waves. A tiny upside of driving.





Is there another? Sure. I can grocery shop after work and not worry about traffic between campus and Whole Foods. Cars are used to other cars, even as they’re not used to wee motorbikes.

At the store, I buy chicken for the weekend. As I maneuver the car out the lot, toward the café and home, I promise myself other bike rides before the year’s end. Sure I will. In the meantime, it’s nice and cozy in the car. Cluck cluck.

the music inside

The new, red helmet came in the mail yesterday. This morning I put it on.





Nice snug fit. A visor to keep that wind from slapping my face around. All good.

But I know, too, that I’m entering the tough season. Not cold enough to give up riding Rosie, but cold nonetheless. And I’m stepping into a palate of grays and browns.





On a blustery day like today, the ride is starting to be a real challenge. And, since the tumble last week, I’ve been riding as if I had ten precious babies in the basket behind me. Or at least egg cartons. By the time I arrive at work (or at the café after work), I feel like I’ve jogged the seven miles, even as I’ve moved hardly a muscle.

And still, I have to say, the rugged start to the day (and, too, the rugged ending) feels right. It can’t all be easy out in the country. It’s part of the deal: I have this ride, when the wind feels rough and the hills and skies look gray.

And here’s a small new pleasure that I’ve discovered with my new helmet: when the face shield is down, I can sing and hear myself inside the capsule. The noise of the world is muted. Whatever tune I hum fills my small world. It's oddly satisfying.

the fall crab

Last night Isis joined us upstairs. It has taken him six months to be successful in establishing himself as a permanent part-time resident at the farmhouse. (There is no litter box and no kittie door, hence the "part time" nature of the enterprise,.)

Wait a minute, has it really been six months since I moved to the farmhouse? Almost. This Thursday celebrates the sixes: six months since the move, six years since I met and started hanging out with Ed and it is, too his 61st birthday.

How he hates that I remind him of it! (Ed has a small set of strong negative feelings and in that set you’ll find his feelings about celebrations, especially as they pertain to him.)

But let me not jump ahead. For now I’m thinking about how pretty it is outside the farmhouse. How every morning, our crab apples, studded with red fruits, are the feeding station for these guys:





I know that if you live in a place where you hate some detail of your environment, that feeling of dissatisfaction eventually passes. You get used to most anything: ugly carpets, miserable wall paper -- it all becomes background noise. So I wonder: does beauty become background noise as well? Or is it that I will always step out in the morning, see the same birds against the fall crab apple and think -- wow.

briefly stated

If you do something before you’re ready for it, it could very well be that you will surprise yourself and others with your newly identified abilities. In the alternative, you’ll suffer the pain of unpreparedness. So that if you’re not quite healed, what with with your ribs and various muscle groups -- if they’re still a tad sore and if all your limbs bare signs of a mishap by virtue of being discolored in awful shades of black and blue --  despite this, if you insist on a regular Sunday run of housecleaning and then bulb planting and then dinner fixing for older daughter (equal time!) and her BF, then you’re going to pay the price for it.

Let me post two photos from the day: one taken in a moment of utter delight when I was dusting the farmhouse. I noticed that winter light was changing the way I could regard the living spaces. Suddenly the front room gets the sunlight. Plenty of it. So different than last summer, or even spring!





The second photo is from the back of a motorcycle, as Ed and I are zipping over to get some parts to his Geo. Why he would want to fix that skeletal piece of rusted near-junk is beyond me, but he does and so we head to the Auto Parts store late this afternoon – me, simply for the pleasure of a little outing on this cool but gorgeous October day. The good thing about this trip is that it takes you past very pretty country vistas.





Evening is family time. Sunday dinner at mom’s place. Unless I’m out of town, my kids surely know this about life: if it’s Sunday, they can come home, alone or with their SOs and get a warm meal.

And after – Ed and Isis sleep, one on the floor, the other one on the couch, while I work and try very very hard not to join them in the slumber department. [Yes, that's right:  Isis is the one on the couch.]

trip south

Ahhhh, Chicago! I especially love my trips there now. There is no downside. An easy bus trip – time to work, read, nap. An even easier El trip and then I am at her stop. My daughter’s place.





And the promise of good, fresh and honest food. An evening of it. Wine, too.

A walk back, and now we’re home, her home. Her boyfriend plays the guitar very very nicely and he strums now.





...and she plays with it too, my little harlequin.





As usual, my eyes stay open far longer than the rest of me. Somewhere in there I drift off to sleep, to wake up now not in the country, but in the city. I used to live in cities.

A short walk for a brunch on the town – and this always spells vacation for me because at home, I never eat breakfast out. We have a very urban meal.





A leisurely one, with her and him, the very urban pair.





And now I’m back on the El and then the bus, returning north, to the country, to the farmhouse that’s just a little bit yellow.





What’s there not to love?

saddle

Rosie and I are riding again. I had to go to campus to pick up exams – Rosie delivered me there and back without incident. True, I have taken to avoiding most every bit of traffic. And keeping a safe distance in front and in back. And slowing down for each intersection. And watching for possible cars going the wrong way. It’s awfully tiring.

Every road imperfection is, of course, a shot of pain to the ribs. The way to avoid being jostled is to elevate yourself a bit over the bumps. Which I do. Like in horseback riding, when you’re trotting.

The wind was severe and fifty degrees felt more like thirty degrees. You’d think I’d put it all away for the next six months. That I’d go back to the last of the red hot lovers (aka the Ford) where, at the very least, it’s warm. No. Can’t wimp out. Can't feel fragile.


In other news, let me report on some progress on farmhouse painting. Now, if I limit my farmhouse photography to just the entrance, then it looks almost fine. All pale yellow, with white trim. Just imagine the rest as being of the same tones. That’s all you can do for now: imagine.





I’m off to Chicago tonight for dinner with younger daughter. It’s so nice of her to live within a bus ride so that I can have an occasional meal with her. So very nice.

little ones

Watching students type their midterms brings back memories of all the many years I myself was studying at one university or another (from 1969 until 1987, with only a year off somewhere in there).  My father used to comment that I was heading towards being a career student. I don’t think he was pleased.

If I ride a moped, am I in fact imitating studenthood? I don’t know of a single faculty member who rides a moped. Even as I have no interest in upgrading toward a full motorcycle.

Right now, I am still incapable of riding anything. Ed, who typically does not baby the fallen around him, was sympathetic enough to chauffer me in to work...

...then home again. I come out and the limo is waiting.





But I know that he himself would never stand for such dependencies. "Help me out, please" are not words I'm likely to hear from him.

We drive to the Fitchburg farmers market. Ed wants squeaky curds, I want tomatoes. Most every farmer is showing off the last of the squashes now. Big ones, little ones.






I wonder sometimes -- what would Ed have been like had he been a father? (A purely theoretical speculation... Ed, by being Ed, would never opt to take on parenting responsibilities.) Would he have nudged his children toward independence so that they would be as unencumbered by need as he himself is? Would they have build houses out of sheepsheds? Spent hours figuring out why a router isn’t working? And if they fell and broke a leg or sprained an ankle would he hustle them out anyway, to shovel snow when the storms came?





Dinner’s still of the thrown together kind tonight. I am sore and movement is difficult. I sauté cauliflower with garlic and red peppers. I fry eggs, make a salad with the last of the home grown tomatoes.

It’s evening. Ed installs a motion sensor by the front door. When Isis the cat comes by, the thing rings to high heaven so that we know he’s there, waiting for us to open the door.

I clean the dishes, we settle in to watch a movie – the Weeping Camel. The midterms from this afternoon aren’t printed yet. I have a last evening of no work. The sound sensor lets out a shrill beep. My cell phone is ringing too – it’s a daughter calling. I have to smile. Our children are looking for us. We both jump up to respond.

rest

The evening passes. After the initial burst of energy (get me out of this ER place NOW!), I flop down on the couch at the farmhouse. No oomph. Spent. Sore. I remember watching Romancing the Stone on TV a few days back. Maybe you've seen it? The heroine and her soon to be lover tumble down a mountain in a mud slide. At the end of it, they get up and keep on walking. I want to say – you’ve got to be kidding! What about sore ribs and swollen knees?

I half watch a movie, half doze. Isis, the empathetic cat, comes in and right away snuggles next to me. If ever you need evidence that animals sense your need for comfort, Isis surely proves himself this night. He stays by me, paw extended over my chest, moving hardly at all the entire evening.



photo by Ed


It was incredibly lucky that I should tumble yesterday, because today is one of two Wednesdays this semester when I am free of classes. So I stay home. But not entirely. By evening, I remind Ed that we are out of basic foods. We drive to Woodman’s to restock. Now that's entertainment! We find a cart with an attached bench. I sit in it as Ed pushes me and the accumulated bulk foods through the aisles. At one point the impish side of him (never dormant for long) resurfaces and he sends me flying down the aisle. I don’t crash, but I remind him that I am a little sensitive at the moment in the matter of crashes. He buys me an extra Cava, to compensate, I think. (Woodman’s has the best Cava prices anywhere.)

I bought a new helmet today. You can’t reuse one that’s bounced around on a pavement protecting your head. It’s like a bee: one sting and then it’s over. I imagine riding Rosie again and I think of routes that would avoid heavy traffic. I like the quiet roads and I think Rosie will fare better there.


Thanks to all who posted comments here or on Facebook or via email. It was so supremely wonderful to hear from you. It always is.

the ride

Six years ago, I took up biking in a serious way. Good bye car, hello open road. Within a month I crashed. My wheel stuck in a crevice and I went over, head first. The helmet cracked, I got out with a severely bruised hip and a few lessons to remember about biking.

This year I took up mopeding in a serious way. Good bye car, hello free parking anywhere. Today I crashed.

Let me tell you, falling from a motorbike and bouncing head and ribs first along the road takes some getting used to. But again, I learned a ton in the course of this. If I can ever sit again without pain, you’ll see me back on Rosie. She’s great – me, I’m just human.


The day had a fine beginning! Since last week, the countryside has changed around here. The fields and forests are dryer. Louder in their rustle. Lovely to look at.





Rosie and I scooted out and made the trip to campus in no time. I let out a few tsk tsk around campus as students cycled and mopeded in the oddest ways, helmet-less, carefree, as if nothing could happen to them. I am not like that. I have a full motorbike helmet and today – the leather jacket that was made for biker people. I watch all intersections. I am on guard!

A long day at school. It’s midterm week and in addition to the classes, I had exam Qs to write, students to reassure – the usual though lineup for a mid-October Tuesday. I was very happy when, at 4:30, I could pack my bags and head out to meet Ed at the café.

I never got there.

Rosie was waiting, ready for her ride, standing under a now bare tree.





I hopped on, looked in all directions and set out. Singing! The day was done, I had a long wonderful evening before me. Yay.

A few minutes and I am on Park Street. And here’s where I relaxed too much. I followed a truck past a busy intersection. We both burst the speed and made it even as the light began to flicker yellow. But for reasons I wont know or understand, immediately after crossing the intersection, the truck put on the brakes. It was so unexpeceted and I was too close. To avoid a crash, I swerved and fell.

My head bounced a few times against the pavement and I thought – wow, this is one hell of a good helmet. I don’t feel a thing.

My ribs and leg had no such protection.

But, you gotta love Madison. I’ve seen this time and again: an accident happens and there are people offering every assistance you could possibly need or want within seconds.

Sure, I spent the better part of the evening having my bruised bones examined and made much of. Ed came and promptly dozed off in the ER room. My daughter was there too, story telling, entertaining the both of us.

I’m home now trying to figure out how one can remain comfortable when half of one’s insides (the left half) are sore. There are a lot of nerve endings around ribs. One has to wonder why nature felt it necessary to place them there, but so be it.

I’m walking away with a few mementos from this fascinating day of 11.11.11. Mostly, I’m happy that I can walk away. I’m not deterred from Rosie rides. Not in the slightest. Only I’ve learned my lesson. Don’t follow closely behind trucks. If they stop, you’re dead meat. Unless you’re wearing a superb helmet and your friends’ leather jacket. Then you’re just bruised meat.

from dawn to dusk

The sun rises over the sandy banks of the island in the middle of the Wisconsin River.





Oh, it’ll be a warm Sunday. Very warm. And we have a long haul before us. So far, we’ve paddled barely a third of the way to Boscobel, our take out point.

Still, Ed lights up the little stove and I pause over oatmeal and a coffee. (This is the one use I have for Starbucks these days: they make a hell of a delicious instant.)

Normally, we do not hurry a morning. Here, where the sands squeak and the current ripples against the banks in the most wonderful way, it’s especially difficult to pack the boat and go. But, there’s no choice. And so by 9:30, we’re in the water, paddling.

We’re now going through the bluffy part of the river and here’s where autumn looks just as you want it to be -- touched gently by color. Not jarring, not exaggerated. Almost timid, but lovely nonetheless.










The sun stays behind us at first, then slowly moves toward the bow. I am getting one heck of a tan – on my left (south) side only.






We try to read the river, to cut back on the “getting stuck in the shallows” routine, but it’s hard. Again and again, we have to get out and push the boat to where the current is strong and the river bed is deep. Each hoist out of the boat is tough enough under any circumstances, but in this boat especially it’s a challenge. She sways, she rocks and if you tip her over six inches, she fills with water (there’s not much freeboard on this vessel).

We pause on another island for a lunch of bread, cheese and tomato, but only when my calculations tell me that it's okay, that we will get to the final point by sunset. Even so, I hurry Ed along. He tries to hury, but he cannot. A swim? Sure, there’s time for a swim. But hurry!

Yes, hurry. The enemy of a good passage here. I hurry right into the canoe, tip it six inches or so and fill her with a good base of water. We spend the next fifteen minutes bailing her out.

And we continue in our Huck Finn wannabe way. Getting a charge out of the most routine of events -- a flight of geese, a passage of a puffy cloud.


 


Past countless turtles, resting at the side, but only until we come close – then they jump off, one by one, plopping in, leaving no turtle behind.









We watch the occasional fisherperson too. I liked this one. I waved, She waved. I imagined her filling the truck with fish for the whole cold season before us.





The sun is now definitely on a steady descent.





We’re gettin’ there, but both Ed and I are putting in a lot of muscle on the final stretch. And we miss spotting some of the submerged timbers. Twice we hear the sharp scrape of underwater logs against the kayak’s (or canoe, we don’t quite know what it is...) bottom. We pause each time to check for holes. A scrape on a fiberglass boat is no big deal. On this boat – a rip is a very real possibility.

But we’re lucky. And we are at the final bridge before 6.






Ed sits back as I do the final paddle in. On the shore, a woman shouts out – you realize he’s making you do all the work! I know, I know, it’s been that way all along, I retort. But I don’t mean a word of it.





The light is deliciously golden. We pack up our boat, load the car and head back to Spring Green. Ed's car is there and we look affectionately at the two cars together -- quite likely the ugliest little cars this side of the Mississippi. He switches to his, I stay in mine, we head home.