rerun

Run that day by me again, wont you? Hey, thanks! Sixty-three degrees. Oh, that makes me so happy!

Outside, I see them – buds. The lilac by the house is springing plump little buds.





And the birds! What noise outside in the morning! Incredible.

It’s a workday. Walking to my office, walking from my office – that’s pretty much the extent of my “spring frolic.” And still, on the walk in, I could appreciate the fact that there were people eating outdoors on library mall. In Wisconsin. On March 7th. Incredible.






Then -- here’s a little treat: as I walk down Bascom Hill, I hear a shout. Another one, louder. I look over my shoulder – ohhh, I know that person! In a rare confluence of schedules we’re both walking the same way, the same time.






My daughter. A rare pleasure. As is the weather.


Later, much later I arrive home at the farmette. The rain starts. Heavy drops, sometimes accelerating, sometimes slowing down. I pick up an old rake that Ed keeps in the storage shed. We need one for just leaves, I tell him, all the while knowing that these are wasted words. If there is a rake here already, any rake – that’ll do.
Do you want me to move some chips with a pitchfork? -- he asks.

Okay.

I rake chips, then I rake last year’s leaves off flower beds. The rain comes down, on and off, on and off and still, it’s warm outdoors. 

An early spring evening. It could be a false start, an accidental detour before the next ice storm, but I don’t think so. Two days in a row with 63 – that’s no serendipitous dip, that’s a surefire trend.

63 degrees

Well now, that’s spring! 63 degrees. Sunshine, too. Snows of yesterday? Nearly gone!

A day when students slide into warm weather mode. Bare feet in the first photo, shorts in the second.











March is a new month for me at the farmhouse. I moved here on April 20th. I never experienced this cusp of spring period – the earlier wake up, the later sunset and... the first joy of this:





The desire to get going—to rake up the old leaves, to trim bushes, trees, to clear spaces – all that is so palpable, so real and suddenly – so close in time.


Evening. Ed heaves woodchips, raking them into spaces where we want to stifle weeds, especially the ever-threatening creeping charlie.

After, he does what I recognize as the farmhouse dusk pause. My grandma, back in Poland, took this same pause at the end of the day. To Ed, it’s nothing more than a moment with Isis. For me, it’s the most profoundly rewarding time of quiet. Ufff... Another day...





Ed plays volleyball tonight, I cook our Spanish favorite (from our January travels) – the poorman’s shrimp salad – filled with potatoes, so that it may stretch over several days.


I’m done with winter thoughts. From now on, I’m tracking the sprouting bulbs. Last year, I see that the first crocus bloomed on March 28th. This year? Oh, I think that any day now there’ll be that first flower.

sunrise, sunset

The good thing is that much will change beginning Sunday.

Say what? Things will change?

Daylight savings is coming around to herald spring.

In the meantime, you know it's Monday. You know I'm dead from too many hours of class time.

You know, too, that if there is a pretty glimpse of early morning sun on the (possibly last) snow outside, I'll be there, admiring it.





...and if there is a lovely fading light scene on my drive back from work, I'll pull over.




In between? Not a spare minute. Not even one.

where has all the color gone?

If yesterday I could hardly decide which garden was worthy enough, colorful enough, delightful enough for inclusion here, today presented no such dilemma. Early in the morning Ed asks – want to ski? I mumble – uh huh, and shortly after ten we’re on our boards. (Midwesterners are of few words and I understand why that is so – don’t open your mouth if you don’t have to...keeps the flies out in the summer, conserves energy in winter.)

Most assuredly it is our last ski run this year. Despite the “heavy” snows of Friday, there are places where the ski picks up most of the white stuff,  so that the person behind gets to glide on Dalmatian like terrain.

Still, we have a fine little run.






Black and white, yes, that. (Oh, where are the Berkeley pinks and yellows?






In Wisconsin, right now, even the birds are black and white.)






So, goodbye winter, right? The week ahead has a warming trend and after that, we’ll be looking for buds and the emergence of the first crocus, no? I'm hoping.

the last threads

Ready for some trite words? Here they come:

There isn’t a trip that I take where I don’t learn something – about stuff and, too, people -- even those whom I thought I had figured out. And just getting that different perspective, on the world, on others, adds years to my life. (Or at least it adds greater complexity which, in reality, is the same thing, since a more intricate and detailed life seems longer, even if it is not really so.)

It’s amazing how much you can learn, too, if you just spend a day or two listening to someone. It may be that I learned more about my mom on this trip than perhaps in all the years when she lived in Madison, where my interaction with her, though daily, was about such things as kid events and the terrible weather out there.

In the years before she moved to Madison, meaning, before my kids were born, I was her go to person. The one she’d call to express sorrow. There were many such calls.

It became a pattern with my first family (of mother, father, sister) – to review the past and how it affected us before and affects us still. It is so not in my nature to review the past, that I have grown accustomed to giving myself a pep talk before engaging in these conversations, in much the same way that I give myself a pep talk before I enter a class when I’m not feeling well. Come on, Nina: it’s important. Take a breath and give it a go! You’ll be fine, you’ll be fine...



Early this morning, I take my usual solo walk. It is glorious day and I think even Berkeley people are surprised by it because I hear a bit of that from people I pass – isn’t it an incredible day! It’s such a beautiful day, no?











Of course, I am more focused on flowers than on the blue sky. One thing I get plenty of back home is blue sky. Flowers in early March? Not so much.











Shattuck Avenue is buzzing and it’s fun to see how it all conforms to the images one has of Shattuck and of Berkeley. My mother would say that Berkeley has changed – more militant on the streets, more conservative on campus. Maybe. But here on Shattuck,  I’m seeing an awful lot of women my age with long gray hair tied back in pony tails. They sit in cafes with large rimmed hats to keep the sun from the skin. They eat yogurt with organic this and that. Everything in Berkeley is organic. My B&B is on the inexpensive side, if you compare it to prices in the Bay area, but even there, the shampoo is organic. It’s just the way Berkeley is.






My mother meets me for brunch at a local café. Neither of us is hungry – we ate breakfast at our respective places – but we want this last chance to sit across the table from each other. I want to ask her a burning question – one that I have carried with me for years. (Don’t we all have one burning question for our parents that we wish we could get an answer to?)





I don’t ask it. I don’t know that it was the right call. My mom is older. Older people think they will not survive 'til the next year. Their children think they’ve got at least another ten years ahead. My grandma lived until her nineties, why shouldn’t my mom – the person who has tracked Prevention Magazine and all other preventives for such a long time live even longer?!


We ride the BART together. No, really – this is my mother: she will take the one and a half hour trip with me to the airport, even knowing that once there, I will check in and go through and that will be that.



My flight takes off. We pass mountains and lakes and all great land formations.





I’ll forever remember this visit. Time has passed. The future – our future, hers and mine – is pretty much set. So we are where we are, with all our imperfections and for once they seem irrelevant.

a day in the life

I let my mother plan this day for us. I’m here to take part in her life, not to set an outsider’s agenda.

But first things first. Before she shows up to pick me up, Mort, my host at the B&B, brings up a breakfast tray...






There is a blizzard heading for Madison today. I look outside the window of my Berkeley rooms and take note of this alternate landscape.






I ask Mort to suggest a quick walk for me before my mom comes. He says --  Go up the next street – interesting architecture, beautiful gardens. You’ll come across a middle school with an "edible school yard." Take a look at it.

I’m off. For my mom, seeing things in bloom is rather commonplace. Last night I commented on the feeling of green around me. She shrugged. Spring’s long gone, she tells me.

So I walk alone now, just for a few blocks, to take pleasure in all that greenery and of course, in the school kitchen garden, which you might know is Alice Waters'  brainchild.




the Garden Cottage b&b





























(On one side of the school yard, I find the garden, on the other side -- a boy shooting a few baskets...)





A serene and bountiful morning.


I then give in to being my mom's companion for the day.

We do what she does. Senior water aerobics. Every weekday of the year, she is in an outdoor community pool, doing water aerobics. And so I join. True, I’m hesitant. When she first tells me to bring my swimsuit, I say what a kid would say to her mom – yeah, yeah, sure... But I intend not to use it. It’s 55 degrees outdoors! The last thing a frozen Wisconsin soul wants to do is to experience outdoor cold again!

But I change my mind. I want her day to be my day. I want to listen to the banter of the seniors pushing against the pool water. The leader is playing music from the sixties. Several of the seniors know the lyrics. I know the lyrics. I’m in the pool in Berkeley, singing sixties music with area seniors who surely remember that Berkeley from that epoch. It’s all very transformative. Suddenly, California, that state that always felt so out there, feels a little less strange and distant.


We eat lunch at Slow. Delicious sandwiches, mine with an array of good veggies. Perhaps the best part is that it’s sunny and we can eat outdoors. Surely it must be in the sixties now. Berkeley in the sixties. Makes me smile.

I follow her to favorite haunts. The dollar ice cream store. A cone for a buck? Really? She speculates that it must be a brainchild of a do-gooder who believes in keeping things affordable.





More stops. This one’s for me – to cater to my idiosyncrasies. A coffee at a local café.

And then we’re back at her place. I had toyed with the idea of doing some taped conversations. I had done that with my dad a couple of years back and so I have a treasure trove of detail from his life, right there, in the files of my computer. My mom talks less in a monologue, more with spontaneous bursts of stories and opinions and I do think that I remember her words very well – they have force and vigor and that helps – and still, having it on tape would be nice...

But I don’t record. My mom isn’t happy with technology, with recordings and so I don't want to suggest it. She hasn’t the trust, or the indifference to it all. She’s not a fan of my blogging and I am careful what I put on Ocean, because I do not want to make her unhappy with me, not now, not today, not when this day is so very lovely.

We end the evening with dinner at the retirement home. She has invited her closest friends and I have to say that the meal is, for me, a wonderful set of hours. I get it. I see her with them and them with her and I understand. And, too, I understand, I think, my place in this thicket of events and relationships.





Late, late, very late for her, somewhat late for me even, I go back to the B&B. I think about all the things that I could do for my mom and all the things that I haven’t done and cannot do. I think about her supreme generosity, her take on life, the accommodations she has made. I help her “downsize” tonight. I “disencumber” her of two albums of photos. The oldest in these is of my grandmother when she was just seven (taken in 1908).





There are many reasons to feel happy tonight, there are some to feel a tad more somber. I’ll stay with the happy. I’m predisposed in that direction.


[P.S. Several commenters have noted problems with posting comments on Ocean. I removed some safeguards (even as I'll stick with moderating stuff -- just to keep things kind and gentle here). Please do let me know if this helps or if you still experience issues.]

Berkeley

Everyone knows that to get to California, a Midwesterner has to fly over flatlands, badlands, highlands – all of it. It may be half the distance (and half the flying time) to Europe, but to me, California always seemed remote.

And it shouldn’t. You’d probably be surprised to know that most of my first cousins live in California. (My mother’s brother moved there.) I never see them. My extended family, too, feels remote. We grew out of different worlds, on different continents, overlapping not in any way, except with a shared bloodline. I don’t even quite know what my cousins do in life, though I have to say, I did truly like their father – my uncle. He was a very happy soul and I think I share some of those problem-avoidance genes.

My mother moved to California first to care for her mother, who, in turn, had moved to California (from Poland) to care for her son, who probably didn’t need care, but he was her golden boy and letting her do this made both of them feel better.

When my grandma died (and soon after, my uncle died), my mom trudged back to Wisconsin to keep tabs on my growing girls, but when they grew up and were ready to move on, she went right back to California, choosing to settle in the same retirement place where her own mother lived her last years of life.

My mom will turn 89 this year. She is as sharp as ever – well, arguably sharper, because her nose is stuck nearly full time in the world of books, newspapers and magazines. She’s a political hound, too and I have to think that she is disappointed that I never want to engage her on those topics (to my credit, I think I’m an okay listener). People might describe her as radically to the left of things. I think the picture is a tad more complicated.



After classes, I catch that flight – out of a tired Wisconsin, over the snow-covered flatlands, badlands, etc etc






... to arrive by early evening at San Francisco International.


 


It says a lot about my mother that she made the tremendous effort of coming by BART to the airport to greet me upon arrival.

We take that same BART back and I leave my bag at the adorable Garden Cottage B&B (actually, it’s just a home with two rental units) in Berkeley, just a few blocks from her own residence. I admire the fact that there are things blooming right now and I don’t mean just a shrub or two.

We eat a very fresh and honest supper at a local Thai place. Called Your Place.





I think about how my parents arranged their retirement years (in his case – from a diplomatic career, in her case – from care-giving and taking on odd jobs just to keep the income flowing). They seem to like where they are. The fit is good. He is 100% Polish, she has a lot of America in her. He survived World War II in Warsaw, she survived the slums of Detroit, New York and later, of a destroyed Warsaw. Berkeley suits her. Warsaw suits him.

Me, I choose a restored farmhouse south of Madison. Even as I am awfully envious of this Berkeley garden outside, lush as anything now, on the first day of March.

the cat, the bird and things thereafter

We wake to spring, we close the day to winter, or some horrible in-between season that has the worst elements of them all. I’m growing used to this.

Let me remember the good beginnings to the day.

Isis, coming out to greet me.






That cardinal. The beautiful brilliant bird in a tangle of bare branches.






There. Recorded.


At the farmhouse, my to-do list swells. I leave for Berkeley immediately after teaching tomorrow. Let me turn away from Ocean, just for a little while, until tomorrow, or soon after.

tags

Apart from “destination” tags – which I swear I’ll make good use of when I’m old and cranky and no longer able to step outside the farmhouse door – I don’t use tags or labels on Ocean. But I’ve often thought I should make an exception – the “oh, Ed” tag. I’ll come back to this another time.


I met my daughter and her fiancée for dinner tonight, downtown, at my beloved Graze, where the burgers are distinct and the good wine flows cheaply. Here they are, the happy pair, arriving...





It’s hard not to talk only about the wedding – there are so many questions a mother may have for her future son-in-law. Wait, son-in-law? Whoa, does that sound heady! I’ve had daughters only at home for such a long time! You mean that’s about to change? Sons (in law)? Whoa.... !

I was full of advice this evening – consider this, what about that... and they indulged me, even as I soon learned that they had already confronted and dealt with all my trivial and not very original points. In other words – they were on top of it, thanks, mom.

I love my daughters so very much.


On the subject of mothers and daughters – after a long hiatus, for reasons that are too intense and complicated to explain here, I am heading out on Thursday to see my mom in Berkeley. About time! She’s one of those people who tells you that you shouldn’t waste money and time on visits, and you believe her (it’s far far easier to believe that you shouldn’t do something than that you should) and only after do you recoil and wonder -- could this have been right? Shouldn't you have ignored any such messages?


It rained tonight. Heavy slobbering sobering rain. I’m dressed for the cold and it is cold, except it is not below freezing cold, so I feel as if I should protect my clothing even as I am cold inside and out. Is this February? Or something altogether weird and different?


Most importantly, is it spring yet??

happy

Last night I gave the Oscars my best shot. Typically, I fall asleep for the middle segments (magically waking up to see who is walking up to claim the best picture prize), but this year Ed was in the sheep shed working on some project or other and I was working at the farmhouse and so I caught most of the awards, the celebratory speeches, the glitz.

But my mind was elsewhere. Minutes before the awards show, my older daughter called to tell me she had just become engaged. Happiness oozed out of her voice. There may be mothers who feel that their kid’s happiness isn’t going to make them or break them. I don’t know many such parents.

I love the prospect of adding my girl’s partner to our family (he’s such a fine addition!). I tell Ed the news and he asks – are we getting some goats? Cows maybe? He gets very confused on the formalities behind such events. I tell him no, no goats, no gifted cows either. He hides his disappointment well.


This afternoon, I go up to see my girl in her office on campus. I have done this no more than two or three times since she started work here a year and a half ago. Today is the exception – I want to see that smile on her face.





It’s rare that any one event can transform your life in such a positive fashion. You could argue that a marriage is a formality, nothing more, that it’s a dated concept belonging to another time and place. Maybe. But it’s hard to convince me tonight that the joy of saying “yes” is just a fleeting little pleasure. I saw her radiant face. I know how solidly happy she is right now.

up north

Wausau. Such an interesting place! One of the few small cities with a booming downtown, a wealth of historic architecture, a together city governance (so I'm told) that thinks ahead.

I pick a pizza place for our Saturday night dinner. Perhaps I’m wrong to describe it that way. It’s actually a brewery – Red Eye – but it has food – good food and great pizza, prepared in a wood burning oven. The place has... energy!











We choose a Bayou Pizza – with shrimp and crawfish and spicy peppers. (In the alternative, if you’re not into that kind of thing, you can have a burger, where they specify how the cows were treated before coming to you in the form of a patty).





Wausau has a terrific food scene.

We talk to the B&B owners about this – how is it that Wausau feels like a place where the downtown is still important?

They’ve got the architecture...






And the related history: lumber barons, insurance executives, railroad tracks linking (in the past... sigh...) freight and passengers with Chicago and beyond:






The food, yes, definitely that. Wausau. I don't know how it is to live here. Seems like spring comes really late and I already think it comes late enough down south where I am -- by Madison.  Still, you seem so... cool!  And a terrific getaway for those of us down there in Madison who want a little of the north flavor, but don’t quite want to drive all the way north.

You may say – Wausau’s not really north. Oh no? Then how do you explain the snow on the ski trails? (Actually, I’ll tell you how you might explain it – they are the southernmost tip of the snowbelt this year. In the county park where we ski, they groomed the trails well, pounding down the snow as it came down all season long. The cover has a longer life that way.)

There are three loops to choose from: the “6” the “10” and the “20.” The numbers refer to the length of the trail (in kilometers). Oh, heck let’s do a blow out ski run! It may be the very last time for us this year.

Off we go.  The “20.”





...and of course, we take a wrong turn. The trails are beautifully marked, but you have to get in the groove of it – know what you’re looking for. Okay, back we go to the beginning. So it will be a few more kilometers, so what. Day is young, we’re feeling energetic!

...and it is so beautiful in this northern forest!






Pines, birches, cedar, poplars – I’m not a good tree identifier, but you can follow along for a bit and admire it all with me.












The hills are moderate. Not as tough as the ones in our own Indian Lake Park in Dane County. The ski trail is wider, to accommodate the preferred way of skiing these days (ski skating, which tempts us, if only because it’s a faster... next year maybe). Still, there are some fun hills...





...and there is the challenge of getting through the entire loop. Ed and I are, as in life, quite the opposite in our sporting talents. He is supremely fast on the bike. He does cycling loops around me as I struggle up a hill. But in skiing, our talents flip. On a trail, Ed is cautiously optimistic. I am on fire. He moves steadily, contemplating his surroundings. I speed in bursts, hesitating only if a photo offers itself up for me and even then, I barely slow down.

And still, we move along strangely well synchronized. As in the everyday, we adjust our style, just enough to be compatible with the other.







We’re on the trails a very long time. Five hours of skiing. With only one five minute rest stop. Too cold to sit for long. (The temps stay at around 28. Perfect for skiing, too cool for lingering.)

Toward the end we almost give up. Almost cut it short. Skip the last five kilometers. But we continue. Maybe it’s the joy of having a bright, clear day. Maybe it’s the wish to stay as long as possible outdoors. Most likely it’s that neither of us wants to appear too soft. So we push on – up one hill, down again, forward, forward, until the end of the trail.








And now it's Sunday. The weather forecast says blustery, with snow showers. They got the blustery part right! The wind is blowing what little snow there is across the rural roads. We’ve driving east  – a dozen miles away from Wausau, the Ice Age Trail has a nice long stretch, right alongside the Eau Claire River.

My, it’s cold! Icy, too.







But, it’s always thrilling to walk a new segment of the Ice Age and this one, by the nearly frozen river, is especially pretty.






In the forest, there appears to be plenty of snow. It makes for a wintry walk. Not unpleasant though. We're here for winter. We have winter.











A few hours later, we’re done. It’s early afternoon – tempting to stay in Wausau a little bit longer. There are museums, mansions, too.

Not this time. We’ll surely return. It’s time to get back home. Work’s nagging at me already. Home. Where the snow has all but melted.


 


Tomorrow’s a long long day. Even as for these last few hours of the weekend, I have Wisconsin’s north woods on my mind.