changes

I've gone away before. Of course I have. Even when Ed still was willing to travel with me, there had been plenty of solo trips. And yes, things are always a little different when you return. Typically, everything seems gentler, softer. Comfortable and comforting.

Not so this time.

It's not surprising that Autumn has taken hold. I went away at the cusp of Fall and now it's moving swiftly toward its zenith and within a few weeks, we'll still have Fall, but in name only. More like pre-winter. Or some such state of dark fields and brown grasses, bare limbs and short days. November stuff.

So the seasonal shift doesn't surprise me when I return.

The big change -- and it is a completely unexpected change -- is in the cheepers. Ed had warned me that Scotch had stopped laying again. We thought maybe she's hiding her eggs. I told him to follow her around and he did, to an extent. No eggs. Alright. She's a summer girl. I accept that. But last night - my first night back, for the first time since we got the cheepers, she did not return to the coop at night. Ed finally gave up searching for her. Until the middle of the night, when he went out again, found her this time on the fence and put her where she belongs -- locked up, protected from any number of predators.

So Scotch is in some bubble that we do not fully understand. Not a problem. Maybe it's the way she greets Autumn.

Nor is the problem with the white girls. They eat, scratch and lay. Pretty much as always.

The problem is Oreo. In the three weeks that I was away, he completely turned against me and now, if I am anywhere within his sight, he lunges at me in a straight on rooster attack. He'll hurl forward as best as he can, half limping half flying at me. Frontal attack, so that I have to either chase him off with a stick or call Ed for reinforcement.

The rooster has lost his marbles.

Of course, he's always had that little protective drive within him. He's chased children. He's chased the wedding planner. Once, he even chased my younger girl. He lived here on borrowed time, because if he continued down that path, his days surely would be numbered. But, toward the end of June he settled down, in peaceful harmony with all at the farmette. Only Isie boy tiptoed around the rooster, never quite trusting him. Smart Isie.

And now, I can't be within his visual range, or he'll attack. And that makes me just want him to go away.

Of course, life at the farmette is never that simple. Oreo adores Ed and Ed adores Oreo. Yes, I could say: it's either me or Oreo, you decide! But that would be rather dramatic. I think, after moments of great contemplation and deliberation, Ed would give in and I would stay and the rooster would go. I think. But it would make Ed terribly miserable to let go of the animal without even trying to make things work.  Ed is so patient with troubled animals that he held on to a feral cat for years (sweet but scarred Larry), even though the cat had the disconcerting habit of peeing on anything new that was ever brought into the sheep shed. I remember my first visit there, some nine years ago. As I entered the shed, Ed said -- don't put your purse down. Here, let's wrap it in a big plastic bag. Sure enough, Larry marked it. Ed never gave up on the cat and eventually the cat calmed down, but it took years.

Still, it is not fun for me to venture outside right now. The rooster is ready to lunge.


The other components to the day have been far less stressful. With a few interruptions, I log in ten hours of sleep. That happens maybe once in a blue moon for me.

Then breakfast. In the sun room.







And work on my writing project. Grocery shopping for the week. Tennis! In a court dusted with fallen pine needles! Oh, I missed that!

On our way home, we talk about Oreo. If it were up to me, I'd say au revoir, monsieur le coq! But I know Ed's sensitivities and I want to at least consider other solutions.

He suggests that I let him attack me.
Nothing will happen, he'll see it's futile, he'll stop.
I don't want to be mauled to death so that the rooster's light bulb will go off!
You wont get hurt -- he's a rooster!

We go around this a bit. I remain apprehensive. He suggests -- wear protective clothing if you're truly concerned.
I don't have protective clothing,
Jeans. Boots.
I don't have jeans or boots. I only have soft, girl-like pants.
Okay, what if you wrapped that old ratty sleeping bag from the garage around yourself?

So this is how I spend the early evening: like a bull fighter, baiting the animal to charge, only the goal here is for "the animal" to eventually just walk away from it all.






And it did happen exactly like that: Oreo charged me several times and, finding it to be rather daunting, what with the sleeping bag swirling around my legs, he gave up.
For now, I say to Ed. He'll be back.


So this is my reentry day: I'm fighting with a lame rooster.

On the upside, there is my stay at home guy, eager to engage in all our rituals again. And there are the flowers. Still crazy pretty, even after a three week slide into Autumn.

coming home

Traveling to and from Madison requires an extra slug of patience. Typically, after the end of a nine hour flight from Europe to a major Midwestern city, there is yet another wait and then another flight for me. Only many hours later am I truly home.

But on this return, after my haul over the ocean, I was done for the day. Ready to soak in a wonderful visit with my little girl in Minneapolis.

Of course, those first nights after a shift in time are tricky. Last night I fell asleep in midsentence on their couch, woke up to take myself to bed, fell asleep immediately after that, woke up a few hours later wondering why it was still dark outside.

In other words, jet lag.

The best advice I have for all this is to ignore it.

I did just that this morning as I set my internal alarm (I have one! It's magic and it always works!) for 6 a.m. No problem! My little girl came down to say good bye and then I tiptoed out of their apartment house to meet up with my friend, the one who is in the Twin Cities just for a short while, coincidentally on these very days when I, too, am passing through.

We go out to an early treat. I can't believe these places really open for breakfast at 6:30 on a weekday morning, but they do and we are there, at French Meadow, ordering our poached eggs and scones and sitting down for a lovely long talk. (With a little camera play thrown in!)






This, then, is my reentry to the Midwest.

After all those lovely hours with my girl and her husband and my friend, too, I turn now toward the very cold but very bright and beautiful return to Madison.




(flight out of Minneapolis)


From the Madison airport, it's just a short hop and skip over to the farmette.






Ed is right: the season has really shifted now. The leaves are falling rapidly. No more vegetable harvests. And yet, there are still flowers! We have not yet had a hard frost. The garden is not yet dormant!






Oh, it's lovely to see Ed's shaggy head! I wont post a photo - there will be so many in the days to come! And of course, it's great to be back at the farmhouse.

Even though my clock is messing with me still. It's four o'clock. Shouldn't I be going to sleep soon?

to the Midwest

If you go at it long enough, you're going to come across every bump imaginable on the travel path. I thought I'd already used up all possible quirks and permutations: bad weather cancellations, unexpected landings for every imaginable reason: mechanical problems, sick passengers, even tired crew! Really, I've seen it all.

Except today I got a new one!

It began yesterday when I tried to pick up my boarding passes at the airport and the agent could only issue the first out of three. But, he had an explanation and I believed him. Never mind, I'll do it Sunday, day of travel.

It means an even earlier start to my already early day. No time for a Parisian breakfast. Dark skies still. 7 a.m. in October is not exactly a chipper moment, but I slog on, up the hill to the Luxembourg Gardens train stop.



(The Odeon)



And for the first time since I've arrived in Europe, the weather turns unpleasant. Drizzly and cold. I take out my jacket. Hi, jacket! Glad I have you! Some precautions are worth taking.






I pass the gardens..



(closed park, autumnal chestnuts, dark and damp skies)



...I throw a glance at the magnificent (if dark) buildings, I catch the train to the airport.

And I stand in line again and ask for my boarding passes.

Madame is flying only to Amsterdam?
Heck no, Madame is flying then to Minneapolis and tomorrow to Madison.
Madame has made a separate reservation for those other flights?
Wrongo bongo on that one too! I take out my printed itinerary. Again, some precautions (printing out your flight itinerary) are worth taking.

The agent plugs in the numbers.
Ah! I see that. But the rest of your trip has been cancelled, no?
Wow! Three wrong guesses!

So here I stand at Paris's CDG airport with a ticket to Amsterdam. End of journey.

These days, I would not fret. These things get ironed out. I am retired. I have time. Costly airline mistakes are typically payed out by the airline. But I have a dinner date with my daughter, her husband and my friend in Minneapolis tonight! Not in bloody hell do I want to miss that!

So I'm sent to the Air France lounge to wait it out while they convene with Delta to work out the "what nows" and I am given a little box of chocolates to help tide my mood over, but I prefer to eat breakfast -- that one that I missed in Paris because, thank God, I decided to come to the airport early.






Words of advice to travelers out there: always take a jacket with you when traveling in Europe in October and always print out your flight itinerary. 


Later:

Well, it all came together in the end. Of course it did. I wont even tell you about the funny moments, the cold moments, the hopeful moments. It's enough that it all worked out.

...So that I could come to my daughter and her husband's place and settle in...






This is what homecoming should be like. This feeling of joy at finally seeing the people you think about when you're away.

We go to The Third Bird for supper, and here's a pleasant surprise -- my Florida friend is in town just now and so she joins us.








(the -not really- serious duo!)


I'm on some other clock right now, barely aware of anything beyond what is in front of my nose. By my clock, it's 4:30 a.m., but that European clock is fading rapidly for me. I am, after all, back  in the Midwest.

And that's a good thing.

coming home

I wont be at the farmette until Monday, but I am, as of today, on my way home.

As I pack my light back pack, I shake my head with a smile: my fleece jacket remains with me, slung over an arm, unneeded. This is how good the weather has been these past three weeks in Europe: not once have I used anything other than, at most, a sweater. And not a thick sweater at that.

And I leave Warsaw in beautiful weather, too. While snow showers are passing over the farmette and a frost advisory is posted for Wisconsin, I look out of my sister's apartment and see this:





I keep telling everyone how much I have enjoyed this brief but intense visit to Warsaw. I think there are many reasons for it, but I have been told quite bluntly that perhaps I should learn something from it: in the last dozen years, I have always traveled to Poland in winters. Seeing Warsaw during a splendid set of autumnal days is...well, more cheerful!

I never know when I will return. But for now, as I sit at my sister's kitchen table sipping jasmine tea, I think how deeply happy I am to have been here.



My flight is to Paris. Remember? I left a suitcase there! It all seems so long ago, even though I just passed through this way three days back.

I have a rare taste of luxury in Paris. I'm staying at my old reliable little hotel near the Luxembourg Gardens, except it's not so reliable anymore as, after a total revamping,  I doubt that the prices will ever be attractive to me again. (They're offering a "welcome back!" discount rate right now.) Perhaps this is a nostalgic good bye to my "Parisian home." I did well here when it was still in its scruffy state. Ah well.

I go for a walk.

My head is processing everything, so I walk. I mean, there were the weeks of solo travel. There is the book project. And then there was Warsaw. So I walk and think. Walk, walk, walk.

You know the buildings of Paris. Let's look at the people.



 
(in the park)





(back to selfies)





(what's the line for? Hermes pastries for the weekend)





(cafe life)





(ice cream weather)





(pastry store, family, dog)





(cafe life)





(have a taste!)



Finally, the tail end of this trip -- the last dinner. I make my way to Pouic Pouic.






The menu, simple and very short, adapts to the seasons, but I know I will always be happy with it.





So, I'm in Paris, in transit, and tomorrow I make my way to Minneapolis, to stop and say hi to my daughter there. My next post will be, therefore, from across the ocean.

Warsaw, continued

The beauty of continuity! It comes together on an evening like this. (This is the photo where you ask the waiter -- can you please take a picture of us? ...and he smiles and says -- must be a great reunion!)





Yes, it was. These are the people in my life who remind me where I come from. (I'm there: to the left, center.)



This morning, the sun once again surprised us by coming out with a bright and warm face (even as I read that in Wisconsin, there are threats of snow showers this weekend!).

My sister and I set out on a walk. A very long walk. The perfect walk past all our most important places. It starts here, with a nice mix of old and new -- our days and the new days...






And of course, I need to pause to get my daily coffee, so we return to an intimate spot that we both like, just off the main drag, not too far from the hipster hangout....






...and we continue. I post the next pic because apparently this is a bit of a novelty (I'm referring to the comments from the previous post): sunflower seeds sold straight from the flower head. Yes, of course that's the way we always do it in Poland! The joy of picking out the seeds yourself is huge! And to the question -- what about the birds? Don't they pick at the seeds? The answer is yes, but they do minimal damage. Many of the sunflower heads have a few bits missing. So what.






As we walk toward the parks, I mention to my sister that maybe it would be cool to get a sweatshirt from our high school. So we backtrack and enter the building that was meant so much to me once upon a time.  There is a man who stand at the door and monitors who comes in. If you have a badge, you're home safe. We don't have a badge, but he is sympathetic to our question about the sweatshirts.

We go to the school secretary and by chance the director of the school is on her way out. She pauses to talk to us. I explain about the sweatshirts.
It's not something that the school offers. We're not allowed to collect any private moneys at all. It must have been something offered by the parents organization.
We talk for a while. I am impressed at how open and welcoming she is: we're two graduates of the Lycee, here, off the street, asking about sweatshirts, of all things!
She tells us about high school loyalty in Poland, how it is that only now, through the internet, people are coming together to reconnect. She invites us to look around the building and we do.

My sister finds a schedule of classes. She compares it to what we would have had.






Me, I am interested yet again is seeing where it all took place: my own corner of this building where I went from being a young teen to being an old teen. And I am surprised that there is one little detail that is exactly the same as it was in first grade for me in 1959 and was also in place for me in high school when I came back to it  in Poland in 1966 -- the set up of the classroom: it's identical! All those years and it's identical! Three rows, two kids per desk in each row. Perhaps you can catch it in this vague photo (deliberately so).






Well, that was good. More than good: my high school was hugely important to me. Coming back to it is like engaging in therapy: so important to link what is today with what was then!


We walk to the park now. You've seen the pics from yesterday. Imagine another brilliant day where the sun calmed the autumn jitters in all of us! And, too, imagine the red squirrels darting everywhere!






And here's a surprise: out of the blue, in the park, there appears a deer. Where did it come from? We speculate about this. It cannot be intentional. This is a city park! Might it have found a home here after wandering in from the forests to the south of Warsaw?






Oh, I love this park! I cannot express to you how much I love this park!












We leave it and continue along Warsaw's Royal Way. Whereas yesterday,  I could not take you to the "pretty Warsaw," today I can.  We're in the New Town now (which isn't new, but accept the label please -- it's explained here). Note, please, the controversial imported trees in their pots. The hope was that Warsaw would turn green once again here. Critics came down hard: plant the trees in the ground already! This is not right! (Even as it does look kind of pretty...)






We're at the end of the Royal Way. In other words, we're at the Old Town. I could tell you about the history of this place, but I am so hurrying to post this  before the Cinderella hour when I have to leave, so just enjoy it!






Every Warsaw person loves the Old Town Square. It's beautiful and important to us. Really important. (It has to do with the war, and with rebuilding it, and reclaiming it, and using it now...)






Uff, it's been four hours of walking. Time to sit down. My sister and I go to an old place, Pod Samsonem -- it's been in this spot for some fifty years and it sees itself as an old Jewish restaurant, but you could argue if it is really that. We come here when we're tired and hungry and want a pick me up. We order beet soup and herring on brown bread. And tea. In a glass. The Polish way.






And now it's really late in the afternoon and my sister returns to her stuff and I meet up with my most loyal and enduring friend here and she and I take a stroll through yet another beautiful park...






...and of course, we don't just walk. We pause to eat apple crumble topped with whipped cream...





...and we talk. Oh, man, oh man, do we talk!


This day flew by like no other. We say good bye until the next time. (When will we have a next time?)

And I am back with my sister and we talk as well, in ways that would make you laugh or cry sentimental tears, depending on your inclinations.


It was such a good return trip to Warsaw!

I'll leave you with a picture that my friend took in the last park. I'm holding on to a bouquet of flowers that she gave me and jumping between spurting fountains. Symbolic, isn't it?

Warsaw

For having such a monolithic demographic, Poland surely offers wildly conflicting perspectives! There are the social progressives, then there are the religious conservatives (and then there are those who belong to neither subset). There is my generation (living in such different times!)...






...then there is the next generation, who knows nothing of postwar Poland.






You'll find those with an eager desire to please (yes, of course, sit anywhere... you want a stronger coffee? how about if I make you one with a double shot, but with the cappuccino milk? Sit down, sit down! We'll bring you that slice of hazelnut cheesecake!)...






...and then there'll be the vendors who are of the old school -- defensive and grumpy (I tell you it's not a blueberry! Can I taste it? Fine. It tastes like a blueberry... It's not! Okay, okay, now, where are those mushrooms from? Glare. The mountains. More glare.).





(Clarification: my sister explains: if the berries, which surely are, according to me, blueberries, don't grow in the wild, they're not called blueberries in Poland, they're called American borowka. Meaning American blueberries are so unlike the true blueberry here that they cannot bear the name of the real blueberry.)

So many juxtapositions!


My sister was at the airport to greet me last night. The flight had been late, leaving Paris on a splendid, clear October night...


 


...landing in Warsaw with a dire sounding weather prediction from the cockpit: it's cold and wet as we begin to land.

It was neither wet nor especially cold and I wondered at the unwarranted pessimism of my Air France pilot. Come on, guys, you just came off of a two week strike, emerging more or less victorious, let's see some cheer from you now!


My sister and I talked late into the night and she fed me snacks that I surely recall from my past.






She, like our mother and grandmother before us, is extremely generous toward her family. And so I nibbled, thinking -- how is it that raspberries and sunflower seeds taste so different here?






In the morning, after a quick breakfast, we run a few errands and then she goes off to attend to her stuff and I take the metro to the center of town.

You wont get photos today of the pretty Warsaw: the Old Town, the Royal Way -- all so beautiful, but I am here for only two days and I have other agendas. At least for today. [Besides, you can always click on the Warsaw tab here on Ocean -- there are plenty of pretty Warsaw photos there!]

If you go back to your childhood town or city, where do you head first? Me, I seem to always check in with my very first Warsaw home. To see if it is still standing! I lived here until I was seven and I have to say, the apartment building hasn't changed much since those years!






I'm right by the recent hipster hangout -- Plac Zbawiciela, where the cool people (meaning young and a touch avant garde) hang out.
















I'm surely not one of them, but I like one of the cafes here and I pause to get my cappuccino.






After that? -- well, on this most beautiful sunny day, when the temperatures climb well into the sixties, there is only one place to go: to the park. Lazienki Park. My favorite park, hands down. It has no equal.



(Chopin, in the rose garden)





(when the weather drops below 80, every Polish child must wear a hat; here: fussing grandparents)




















Outside the park, I see a group of teens and I am reminded of how my high school class would often, on a beautiful day like this, take the Physical Education hour in the park -- just walk, the teacher would say. I look carefully at the kids. Gone are the uniforms of the 1960s.






And what's this -- one is wearing a sweatshirt. From her high school. Hey, that's my high school! Zmichowska Lycee No. XV! (Though we did not have sweatshirts in those years.) So there they are, replicating my history, only in an entirely new way! With smart phones, no less!






In the second park, the one right next door (Ujazdowski), the chestnuts are brilliantly autumnal.






The two older women are collecting a few brown nuts to take home. Yes, I once did that too...






There are a few things that I need to check, pass by, examine and I do that, all within the blocks of my childhood home. It leaves me satisfied. As if my story is complete. As if it all fits with what I recall and keep with me even when I am on the other side of the ocean.


This evening will be spent with friends. My sister and I will join 13 of them - in an evening of food and banter and I surely cannot post after that, so I will publish now and go on to get ready. You have to get ready when you reunite with friends made 45 years back. Your own personal history is on display: you cannot pretend that nothing has changed, even as you want to let your friends know that they have been good changes.

Because they have been good changes.