it gets complicated

Simplicity reigns in my apartment at the Edge. I get up at more or less the same time, I eat breakfast in more or less the same place.

 

Familiar steps now, as each morning I do my early rounds to get the day going. Since it's still October, and Stage III of the Chopin Competition has just begun, I forgo listening to the news in favor of listening to Mazurkas and Waltzes played by this morning's contestants. There are twenty finalists and I hope to get around to hearing them all, though honestly, I am not able to distinguish at this point the finer qualities of one over the other, especially since I treat the music as a cocoon, a blanket around my day, rather than as the primary focus. I cast a glance at the faces, the hands that, without theatrics, still put emotion into each note, I smile, then move on to my next task.

Somewhat early in the day I drive over to the farmette. 

 

 

 

I really want to put in some bulbs, but "want to" is far from "am sure to." I don't easily slide into garden work anymore. I'm not sure what, if anything, I can do about the gardens' inevitable shift to a wilderness of weeds and saplings. And if I do nothing, will I be able to come by and witness it without emotion? Ed, of course, doesn't mind the changes, in the same way that he doesn't mind what has happened inside the farmhouse, but of course that's him, not me. Still, I don't want to bludgeon him with this issue, just as I don't really want to point out that the musty old farmhouse smell has returned, and the bare spaces show off their need of paint and a thorough cleansing. If anything, I want him to love what he has created for himself. I worry that at some point he'll just give up on the farmhouse and retreat back to the sheep shed, where he lived before I moved in with him at the farmette. I disliked that shed space so much (sh! dont tell him!), that I balked at spending any time there at all. In response, he had a separate shed go up -- the so called Writer's Shed -- so I could come down to my own space. That project stands unfinished and that's a good thing. It was poorly done and now that trees have overwhelmed it, it's downright gloomy inside. Is that going to be the fate of the farmhouse as well? Snowdrop said the other day that she hopes to sometimes have a wedding at the farmette. I did not want to burst her bubble, but I know that in another few years, no one in their right mind will want to have a wedding at the farmette.

I dont mean to imbue tragedy into the evolution of this land. When I worked alone in the flower fields, I would sometimes think about other secretive gardens I have come across in real life or fiction, most notably in a movie I loved from the first moment I saw it when I moved to the US as a young adult -- the Garden of the Finzi-Continis. There lies tragedy. In the book I'm still reading, the Director -- there lies tragedy. In the drama that unfolds right now as people's lives are upended in this country -- there lies tragedy. The farmette is more of a love story with a complicated plot twist. And no, I do not know its ending.

I put in two dozen bulbs. 

(here are the ones that remain)

 

 

The soil is so very dry that it's hard work, so I stop and put off the rest for another time. (What other time?)

Ed and I go for a walk. There is never a walk together that we do not enjoy, even when, as today, it is full of words on the topic of why now and what now.

 

In the afternoon, I pick up Snowdrop. 

 

 

 

Yesterday the kids were off from school. The district has a Monday staff day every four weeks, so parents are left to scramble then. The two I look after are old enough to fend for themselves while a parent works remotely. But today we are back with our normal schedule and the girl has her coveted quiet afternoon at the Edge.

(yes, Goose is large)

I return then to my Chopin. I think I listened to, at least in part, all seven contestants scheduled for this day. No, no favorites (though I must say, Hyuk Lee's playing of the Sonata in Bminor was heart wrenching; my Warsaw friend tells me that Hyuk and the second Lee in the program --Hyo -- are brothers and have lived in Poland for three years and have learned to speak Polish quite well... that's one way to get into Chopin's head!). I save my judgements for tomorrow.

with so much love... 

Fall, the mid-section

There really isn't just a "Fall." The season is actually three rolled into one: the first month that is so close to summer you hardly notice the difference, the second part which is the most beautiful if you find beauty in the drying leaves, and the third, which a friend recently said is something akin to hell -- the worst of the worst, spanning the weeks of late November all the way until winter solstice and maybe beyond, alternating between brittle cold, dank dark blustery wet, with maybe a hint of snow but not really, and a landscape devoid of any tones except for "earth tones," which sounds good when applied to your autumnal wardrobe, but in reality is nothing short of drab.

We're in the middle section of Fall. This should inspire joy. The colors. The crispy spent smell of grasses drying. The flight of birds. Ed wants to take out the kayaks and have us go down the river. Just for a short run! He so wants to do this and I so do not. Any project that requires many steps or stages seems overwhelming to me. This is what happens when you've accomplished too much in a short period of time. You rebel against every complicated enterprise going forward. Simplicity has charm. Effort? No thanks.

First thing's first. Breakfast. 

 

I listen to NPR's interview with the guy who was hiking in Norway this summer and fell down a mountain and waited for six days to be rescued. (He happens to be from Wisconsin, just down the road from Madison, and he was hiking in the region I visited this past August.) What was it like to wait with broken bones, knowing that your only way out of this pickle is to have someone find you? That's what everyone wants to know. Me, I would like to hear what it's like afterwards, when you're mending, both physically and mentally. In the period right after the fall, you do all you can to keep your mind from unraveling and your body from freezing. Afterwards? It seems to me that this is when things get really complicated.

 

*     *     * 

I have a haircut today. I've been going to this same person for decades. She is close to downtown, close to the farmette, not so close to where I live now. I tell her -- this is the last time you'll have to strip my hair of the mineral buildup from the well water. I am no longer on well water.

I decide to go short. Why not. May as well shuffle things around some more!

 

 

*     *     * 

And now I am at the farmette. 

 

 

 

We will (finally) have rain this week. I had purchased seeds for the meadows. No matter how I feel about garden work right now, I'm not about to waste them. I seed the new meadow out front. I should do the two older ones in the new orchard and peach orchard, but I run out of seeds. Oh well.

I also had purchased some bulbs. As always, a lot of bulbs. With all those acres of land -- well, you can never have too many bulbs. And now here I am, away from farmette lands, and there they are, the waiting bulbs. Not to anthropomorphize them, but I do feel sorry for them, for the potential they present, for the waste I have made of it all. Next time I am here, I'll plant some. 

The farmhouse is rapidly getting closer to a state that pleases Ed, less so me. I try not to mind. It's not for me to decide what's right for it now.  And at the same time, there lives my same old Ed. With the same old Ed-like qualities that I have grown to love. 

He had picked up an old dog travel crate a few months ago. Off the curb -- his favorite place of procurement. We take it to the courtyard and clean it up with a hose and rag. Maybe this one will work to contain Goose when he needs to be contained. 

 

*     *     *

In the afternoon I go out for a walk with pooch and his new fam. To the Pheasant Branch Conservancy.

 

 

 

 It's a lovely afternoon for it. Autumn at her best.

 

 

The dog (aka Goose, a name given to him by the rescue team) has formed a strong attachment to the whole lot of them and mopes terribly when they leave the house without him. Last night they crated him when they came to dinner and somehow he broke loose. He follows them from room to room and loves nothing more than to romp on the bed with everyone, ending with a good snuggle at the close of it all. A rare gentle big dog. 

His friendliness is definitely a gift, but it comes with a cautionary note. He is one of those dogs that will happily bound over to anyone. The kind where he'll go up to your terrified kid and the owner will say "dont worry, he's friendly." Well no, that's not the point. Not everyone wants to be greeted by your "friendly" (meaning untrained) dog. Too, as we have been warned, Goose has never met a dog he did not love. He is strong, and so until he's gone through a good period of training, he's better off being lead by an adult with a firm hand. Still, what a dog he is! Love oozes out of his eyes. I have to say, it's been a long time since I met a dog that pulled so much at my own heartstrings. And I'm not the only sucker. The two big kids and my daughter are also totally smitten.

*     *     * 

This is a break day for the Chopin Competition in Warsaw. Those who move on to the next stage I'm sure are at it, working on their next performance, which will include Mazurkas, Sonatas, maybe a Scherzo. [Tianyao Lyu, the 16 year old, plays on Wednesday at 12:25 Polish time. 5:25 my time. Would I wake up for it? No, I would not. It's too stressful. Better to click onto the recording later. I can hear you puzzling over this one -- stressful? For you and me? I mean, there will be a winner. Someone deserving will sail to the top, and with that gold medal performance, they will have their careers solidly in place. That's what they all want. Surely all the stress is on them. True enough, and it's precisely because the stakes are so high that I dont want to hold my breath, in the fear of witnessing a disappointing performance.] 

It's fitting that October 2025 should be my Chopin month. To me, his music is always melancholy and wistful. So fitting for my mood back in 1970. So fitting for my mood now.

with so much love.. 

thinking gets you nowhere

It's an essential part of the day for me, now in my seventies: thinking through stuff. I do it a lot and if I haven't the time for it, I feel stressed. In the morning, before getting up -- awake, thinking. Finished breakfast, Chopin playing in the background -- sorting through the possibilities for that next step. 

 

 

And so on. Mental exercise. Until it's bedtime, whereupon once more I will be in bed, staring into space, not reading yet, just... thinking.

As with everything though, excessive thought feels like a time suck. At the end of the day, if all you've basically done is think about stuff, you feel that one twenty-nine-thousand-two-hundredth of your life (assuming you live til 80) went nowhere. If you only have about 29 200 days of living, shouldn't each one count? 

I go back to Oliver Burkeman's writings (see yesterday's post), wondering if this is something he addresses in his posts on time management. And he does, here, in a piece titled Getting Physical. If, like he says, the centerpiece to a feeling of well-being is knowing that you had an impact on something or someone, well, thinking about it doesn't get you there. It may lay down the path for future action, but it seems to me that it's the action, the physical steps taken, produced, created, however trite, that make you feel accomplished. Or, at least more accomplished than had you spent the day not producing anything.

I force myself to get up and out of the too comfortable apartment. I need to walk. And perhaps this is why we're so obsessed with counting steps. The number, no matter how small, allows us to feel accomplished.

If the walk to my right takes me past hotels and corporate offices, the one to my left puts me right in the thick of an outdoor mall of sorts, with factory outlets of known brands. You'd think this was really pathetic. Why not get in the car and drive for a few minutes to something better? A park? The Arboretum? Owen Woods? Well, it's because I find it hard to find pleasure in driving in order to walk. The two don't fit well. I'll take a lesser walk, so long as I can omit the driving part. And besides, it's fall. And there are trees, and they are pretty, even in this world of concrete sidewalks and corporate blocks.

As I walk between parked cars and apartment buildings where too many people seem to like to have their shades drawn, I think about my flower fields: isn't it better to spend the day productively, clearing the weeds, planting the fall bulbs, digging the soil, spreading the mulch? Do I not miss that?

I ask myself those questions and come up with no answers. I know I miss the farmette stability. The comfort of knowing what the day will bring and how it will end. Change always follows the same pattern: at first it's exciting, then it's uncomfortable. I remember when I returned to New York as an 18 year old to work as an au pair and finish college there. I missed just about nothing about my life back in Warsaw. I had a messy parental situation, a boyfriend who was about as consistent as the weather in March, a field of study I hated. And yet, the plunge into a life across the ocean, with a different everything, felt gloomy and strange, despite its freedoms and the wealth of my surroundings (the family for whom I worked was quite prosperous). Nonetheless, I am somewhat of an advocate for change. Ed isn't but I am. I feel you grow with disruption and with a good shakeup now and then. The traveler in me is always looking for novel vignettes and takes on life. Nonetheless, I wont say that it's easy to pivot and take on something completely new, because it's not.

 

The young family is here for dinner today.  

 

(a long corridor is an invitation to race)

(for some.)

Although it's permissible to host or even keep dogs at the Edge, it's too early to introduce Goose to still different surroundings. That dog has had more change in his lifetime than you or I are likely to ever experience in the course of one year. From gutter to rescue to foster to now his new home. All in nine months. I look forward to having him visit, but not just yet.

 

 

 

 (parmesan cheese calls for a vacuum cleaner afterwards... I have two willing helpers)

 

 

Throughout the day, I've returned to the Chopin Competition. This is the last day of the second round. My friend in Warsaw is rooting for Tianyao Lyu -- a young Chinese pianist and I mean young! Would you believe 16!? (Watch and listen here. We listened at dinnertime!) 

And in the evening -- our early evening and Warsaw's very late evening -- they announce the pianists who made it to the third stage. We are down to 20 now. Three from Poland, two from the U.S., the two Canadians some believe to be favorites, six from China -- including yes, the 16 year old Tianyao Lyu. She is one of only four women who made it to this third stage. Remarkable!

with so much love.. 

 

... the last of the flowers

My overnight guest this time around was a little more demanding of my attention than my previous one! Dinner last night was late, we watched our favorites on TV even later, and eventually went to sleep, way past midnight. Up around 6, because Ed does not live by the clock, but by an internal mechanism that allows him to pick and choose at any moment whatever task pulls at him then and there. He is a person that aligns well with the premise of the book I am currently reading -- Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. In case you've never heard of Burkeman, he currently writes for the Guardian and he says this about himself: "Twice monthly I publish The Imperfectionist, an email on productivity, mortality, the power of limits, and building a meaningful life in an age of bewilderment." If that still leaves you somewhat mystified, just scroll down the list of his recent posts. They bear such titles as "The three or four hours rule for getting creative work done" and "What if you never sort your life out?" and "Treat your to-read pile like a river not a bucket." That last one would be apt for me, as I am currently in the middle of three books and counting. 

 

The morning is sunny and beautiful. We eat breakfast sort of together.

I tell him he doesn't have to pull up a chair next to me, given that he is just a few feet away anyway (lately he hasn't been especially hungry in the mornings), but eventually he does join me, because he thinks (correctly) that this would please me.

We are somewhat limited in what we can do together today as he has the animals waiting for him to shake some food out into their various dishes, but he does readily agree to come along to the Westside Community Farmers Market -- about a ten minute drive from the Edge.

This is pure nostalgia for me. When Ed and I first came together to form this most imperfect and yet perfectly sublime union, I had just moved to an apartment in downtown Madison, having abandoned the suburbs for good (so I thought). But I didn't like my chosen place nor its location and besides, I thought I should invest in property that would carry me through my retirement, so I purchased a condo on the west side of town. Ed famously hated that condo. High rise, and steps away from a mall, and surrounded by concrete. Still, he dutifully traveled to it every day after work and spent the evening, night and morning there with me until it was time for us to go to our respective jobs. On Saturdays, we would cross the street and shop at the Westside Community Farmers Market, which had and still has a bit of a cult following in Madison. Eventually the market got kicked out of its parking lot, and in any case I moved in with Ed at the farmhouse, and the trips to the market were wiped from out weekend repertoire.

And now here we are, me in an apartment again, with the Westside Community Farmers Market in a new parking lot, still on the west side, and Ed has come up to spend time with me in a place that isn't his cup of tea, and on Saturday morning we are at the market. We are nothing but caricatures of our old selves.

The market is even bigger and better now, but in fact, I'm not a total fan of late fall markets. Fresh produce is slowly replaced by root vegetables -- the kind you'd store in your cellar if you had a cellar. And though Ed always finds cheeses and apples to purchase, I'm just as happy with the ones I pick up at the grocery store. Nonetheless, I am delighted to see that Madison Sourdough has a stand here! Ed purchase a pain au chocolat for me, while I look for flowers. And I find some! The last week for these:

And believe it or not, there is still corn to be found. We get that as well.

After we cart the stuff home, well, to my home, he stuffs his share in a backpack and I give him half of the leftover chili and he rides his motorbike to his home and I seriously think I need a nap.

 

Lunch? I sheepishly eat the pain au chocolat. And I look at this last bouquet of flowers that will, of course, remind me of this morning's outing all week long.

Later, in the afternoon, I meet up with my daughter and the kids and Goose for a walk to downtown Middleton. 

The dog is so affectionate and kind with humans that we all want a piece of him, his heart, his indiscriminate love. (He spent his first night sprawled out on the bed with my daughter and her husband, which, considering his size, must have been interesting.)

So far, only Sandpiper was (initially) scared of this big animal that likes to get very close to his humans. As one parent says -- it is the first and only animal that hasn't run like mad away from the little boy. (All the other pets have been rightly terrified of Sandpiper's rather fast movements and tugs and unpredictable tumbles.)

(pause for a treat for the kids at Hubbard Avenue Diner; Goose and I wait outside)

 

 

 (he is so happy to see them, and they him)

 

 

I'm back at the Edge now, reading and thinking. I let go of two novels (for the time being) to pursue some of the themes pulled out by Burkeman. They are so obviously ones that were written with me in mind! Me, the one who thinks resolutions for self-improvement in all of life's domains are a good thing, even as they are impossible to really implement. Me, who just the other day bemoaned here on Ocean, the fact that I suddenly am left without the safety (held onto for 14 farmette years) of having "tons to do" in and around the farmhouse, feeling now naked and exposed to my own choices and priorities (what are they, anyway?). Me, who thinks the end result is enough to justify devoting a life to achieving it, even if you dont much like the tasks required to get there. I click on his essay titled No Such Thing as a Fresh Start (!!) and follow his link from there to Joan Tollifson's book with the engaging title of Death: the End of Self-Improvement, from which he pulled out the Zen quote "What makes it unbearable is your mistaken belief that it can be cured."

And yet, here I am, at the Edge, away from my life at the farmhouse with Ed, thinking just that: it can be cured, improved, a fresh start is possible. 

Evening: a quiet one, with my music, my books, my leftover chili, my bits of chocolate, my thoughts.

with lots of love... 

 

sleepover2

My overnight guest wakes early. This is a good thing. She's of an age where grabbing extra wakeful minutes in bed is a splendid luxury. And so she rests while I get myself and the day off to a good start. 

I fix breakfast just for her. I remind myself of my own Babcia (grandmother), who never once ate breakfast with us. She hovered, we ate.

Snowdrop eats three of my blueberry muffins and many chunks of pineapple. And of course, there's her beloved honey straw, to end on a sweet note. 

Again I think back to my own childhood -- I never cared for breakfast when I was young. But at my grandmother's I ate as if it were to be my last meal. Everything she fixed was awesome! I'm sure it wasn't just the food that made the difference. It was the beauty of the moment: at the table, with my favorite fruit bowl with the dainty flowers, and of course, my Babcia, hovering. Making sure the honey jar was open and ready. Encouraging, tempting, with a satisfied tight lipped smile as I ate.

And even after this rather large for her breakfast, Snowdrop is still left with about half hour to kill. So I tell her about Chopin and the Chopin Competition taking place in Warsaw right now. We study the 40 stage 2 finalists. We listen to some of them. And suddenly I have this gift of a partner in my month of Chopin music. 

 

(packing up her lunch, ready to go)

 

 

School is a five minute drive for us. I drop her off a couple of blocks away from the entrance. Not for a middle schooler the hovering grandmother at school time. She wants to walk in on her own.

 

I return to the Edge and sit down to my own breakfast. With Chopin.

A walk! I need a walk! Mustn't get lazy! Once again I do a neighborhood loop. It's better on a weekday -- not so deserted. I actually pass not one but two other walkers, probably on their lunch hour, racking up the steps. And so am I. Once again we have plenty of sunshine we have gotten a tiny fraction of the rain we usually get in September in October. I'm glad I'm no longer worried about the flower fields. (Am I no longer worried about the flower fields?)

 

And now it's back to the routine of picking up Sparrow...

Then Snowdrop.

A brief stay at the Edge, and I hustle them back to their home, in time for the arrival of Goose, the great big abandoned mutt of a dog. The new member of their household.

(one of the cats is hiding under the bed, the other is up there on the mantle)

 

 

 

 

Me, I have my own date, for another sleepover at the Edge, this one with Ed. And it is equally special -- I make our old chili for dinner and we catch up with our favorite streaming shows -- wonderful moments of pure exhale!

with so much love... 

sleepover

I cannot even recall the number of times Snowdrop has asked me if she can sleepover. Since moving closer to her family, the requests have multiplied. Maybe it's that I now live close enough to take her to school the next morning. Or maybe it's the absence of spiders - the girl loves the farmhouse, but she is not a fan of the many spiders that shared the place with us. A total case of arachnophobia. Or maybe it's that the new bedroom at the Edge has a tempting freshness to it. In the end I could stall no more -- her brother is not coming home from his trip until late tonight. I have no reason to turn her away. And yes, it will be so very nice to have her as my first overnight guest!

The day is, therefore, preset for me. Breakfast...

Dentist ('til my last day on this planet, I will always have another dental appointment scheduled, such is my fate). Then bake muffins so that I can offer a breakfast that Snowdrop will actually eat. She's one of those: no appetite until she's out the door in the morning. 

The oven at the farmhouse under-bakes. This one at the Edge over-bakes.  Which error would you prefer? (I'm happier with "too hot." A "too cold" oven is not very reassuring when you're trying to roast a turkey for Thanksgiving, or baking a cake that should have had a clean toothpick ages ago.) 

And then it's back to Chopin and a discussion with Bee, my awesome Warsaw friend, of the aspects of the Competition that only a Pole could understand. The enormity of the enterprise. The city is abuzz with Chopin, his music coming at you everywhere. Buses, trams, decorated to meet the moment. Tickets? Absolutely impossible to obtain. Sold out before they went on sale! And of course, the unique pressure this puts on Polish competitors. The running joke this year is that in another 20 years, the Competition will have moved to China and our Polish pianists will be heading there anyway to study with the Chinese masters who will have produced this generation of incredible pianists. 

There is yet another event that defines this day for me -- the arrival of a gift from Dan DeRyckere, the Michigan artist I met through... Ocean! It's a woodcut print and it's titled Nina's Garden. (See more of his work, for example, here.) I placed it on the wall facing the couch. I'm sure you'll understand why it is so extraordinarily meaningful for me.

Time to pick up the girl!

I had asked what she'd like for dinner. Spaghetti and asparagus! -- she tells me. Okay, so be it.

We read, and then she reads, the entire time she is here.  She's the type of house guest you dream of: noodles and a few good books and she is in heaven.

 

(in the new small bean bag chair) 

 

 

Bedtime is... almost at a decent hour. Now, let's see if I can get her to school on time tomorrow morning!

with so much love... 

music and sex (so yes, for mature audiences only)

Four Poles and two Americans are among the forty picked to proceed to the second stage of the International Chopin Competition taking place in Warsaw right now (see previous post on this if you're new to the topic). Jan Widlarz, with that Chopinesque face that I admired, did not make it and so of course I feel bad for him, but oh, there is talent among the group of pianists! And the hard work! Let's just focus on two of the Poles selected to continue: Piotr Pawlak, 27, has won numerous awards for his piano interpretations and has played all over the world, with everyone -- that's my reading of his bio! Moreover, he is great at the pipe organ (winning competitions in this as well), and he is currently pursuing his PhD in mathematics. Your head swims when you read his bio (here). And how about Yehuda Prokopowicz? He is just 19 years old, one of the babies in the second stage group (the supremely talented and according to my Warsaw friend, the creme de la creme of the group Yanyan Bao from China is actually just 18, for another month anyway, but we're not on China at the moment). Born in Israel, Yehuda moved to Krakow Poland as an 8 year old. His older sister opened his eyes to piano music and now here he is, pushing the boundaries (read about him here). [The other two of the four Poles are Piotr Alexewicz and Adam Kaldunski.]

And the two Americans? Anthony Ratinov, William Yang. Anthony was born in Moscow and first studied piano with his grandmother. (His bio is here.) Now he is both a master of the instrument, a graduate of Julliard and Yale (chemical engineering!), a soloist as well as a renowned chamber music performer, and probably a very nice person, though I'm just guessing on that. And William? A Midwesterner! Hails from the Twin Cities and I'd say he has had a lot of practice performing, having appeared at age 9 with the Minnesota Orchestra. He won this year's U.S. National Chopin Competition, which allowed him to head on to the international one in Warsaw. (Bio here.) Okay, this guy has a light side to him (being a Midwesterner). Asked about his interests outside of piano music he volunteered that he really likes playing table tennis.

I should mention that the country that is absolutely dominating this competition is China. Fourteen made it to the top 40.  It attests to the strength of music training in that country. Notable too is the paucity of women in this next group. Eight out of 40 (and I had to do some legwork to figure out the gender of many names!). Is there gender bias in piano competition? The short answer is yes, but the long answer is that it's complicated. You can find a more detailed explanation of it here.

Oh, wait, have I forgotten that it's Wednesday and that I have a full day before me? Starting with breakfast, on the couch because frankly it's a better place from which to listen to Chopin. I'm back to Bircher Muesli!

 

 

And now, here comes the x-rated part of the post:

I was thinking last night how lucky I was to have found this apartment. The sunshine, the fabulous management, the care they put into the building, the cleanliness and yes, the quiet. Great noise control. I never hear music or TV noise or any of the other bothersome to me aspects of living in an apartment building of recent construction.

Except...

Well, I live on the 4th floor. There is one more floor above me. And I do hear the occasional clomp of footsteps as the resident(s) walk(s) around their unit. That's really not a huge deal for me because we are a sedentary lot and we actually walk very little in the post-work hours of the day. We sit and stream and eat and go to bed.

Therein lies the problem. I have no idea how the unit above me is configured, but I can tell you this much: their bedroom is right above my bedroom, and though we all have bedroom carpets, somehow, in an engineering feat that totally befuddles me, their bed groans and squeaks and clacks with movement. Last night at around 10 p.m. I waited patiently for the copulation activity to cease and it did, but it lead me to wonder -- how bothersome is this? Would you mind if you lived in a lovely and quiet space that only came alive for the brief period when those above you had sex? (It's not as if I can complain about this. I mean, it's not really their fault that their bed makes noise loud enough for it to reach my unit below. Ed thinks I should slip an anonymous note underneath their door. But with what message? Quit having sex? Switch to the floor?) It's happened on previous nights, only last night it was especially... rhythmic and pronounced. I suppose every place comes with a price tag. Perfection is elusive and not something you want to chase too hard (no pun intended). Still, I am glad that they seem to be rather routine about it. And it doesn't take them that long!

And now on with the day.

I had jotted down a market for this Wednesday. I need flowers while the going is good. Meaning before frost wipes them all out for the year. (And we're getting close -- last night we dipped into the 30sF, so just a little above 2C.)

The downtown market is no longer a draw: I'm not looking for produce. So long as there is a vendor with flowers, I'll be satisfied with the closer markets, even though they're one tenth the size.

And there is a vendor with flowers.

 

And I'm satisfied. 

I'm close to the grocery store so it's a good opportunity for me to stock up a bit. From there -- to home...

("we're checking out your new neighborhood!")

 

 

Then to the farmette.

For the nature that surrounds it, for the walk, for the quiet time with Ed. Too, I dont want to drive here for the next couple of days, because those days are pretty full. Wednesdays, on the other hand, are leisurely and open-ended. I have no kid duty. And the weather is nippy today, but golden! Lots of sunshine.

Ed is once again baking pies. If you think that doesn't fit the image, I have to say, it actually does. He harvested a small crate-ful of apples from the ancient apple tree in the old orchard. (And soon after, the tree up and died! Seriously!) I think they taste awful. Or at least, when you're spoiled with honeycrisp, these start to taste like cardboard versions of a lesser fruit. And maybe he finally concluded that I was right and that eating them was a chore, so he decided to bake pies to use them up. Not for him the wasteful toss into the compost pile. So, pies he shall have. 

I watch, enjoying the smell of pie in the oven. He will offer me some of course, but pies don't tempt me anymore. When you no longer eat big portions of anything, you save your treat allotment for stuff you love. A piece (or two or three) of good chocolate. A croissant with jam and coffee. Pies can't compare.

In the late afternoon I return to my Chopin and my books. And my flowers from the market.

And leftovers for supper. I have to wonder -- why are there always so many leftovers in the fridge? Even on days I take food to Ed, there are still leftovers. Remarkably convenient for a person who feels like cooking maybe twice a week!

with so much love... 

call me after October 23rd

My sister sent me an email in what was the middle of the night in Wisconsin, and I woke up to it first thing this morning. A simple few sentences, with a link to a YouTube clip. With that, she changed the course of the month for me.

A little background here: we all have had transformative events in our adolescence. That's what happens when your faculties push you toward adulthood while your heart and soul cling to something purer, stirring within you emotions you were just barely aware of. Quite suddenly, you find yourself doing an about face, neglecting all reason, indulging in a fantasy-land of emotion: joy, sorrow, pain, love.  And it's powerful. And then it passes and you grow up and only the memories remain.

For me, one such pivotal moment came in October of 1970. I was in my second year of studies at the University of Warsaw. I knew I did not like my chosen field (Econometrics). At all. Not one bit. I don't know how things work now, but back then, once you enrolled in a program of study, you were stuck with it. I was accepted in the field of Econometrics. That's what I had to stay with. And maybe for this reason, or maybe for no reason at all, one fall day, on my walk home from the university, I paused at the Philharmonic Hall (it was on the way), and I noticed that the Chopin Competition had begun.

The Competition is an every-five-years event and it is hugely important to any Pole with even the slightest interest in classical music. As a student, I could attend many of the Competition's performances for free. These concerts filled my days. Sometimes I went alone, sometimes with my sister, sometimes with friends. Nothing else mattered that month. I barely made it to the compulsory university classes. I'm sure I skipped some. I lived in the world of Chopin's music. And I rooted for the person who was, in the end, the winner -- to this day, the only American to ever claim first place in the Chopin Competition -- the then 22 year old Garrick Ohlsson. 

It was a heady time of life for me! A year later I would leave Poland to work and go to school in New York, but I did not know any of that in the Fall of 1970. Chopin held my soul. I could not tear myself away.

So my sister wrote to remind me that a couple of days ago, the 19th Chopin Competition began. And by the way you can hear it online. And here's another thing -- the chair of the jury this time is Garrick Ohlsson (now 77 year old).

She writes that at this point, the favorite appears to be Polish -- Jan Widlarz. Take a look at his profile here. He has a face structure that has "I live to play Chopin" written all over it! If you want to listen to/watch  him play, you can go to the Competition's website here. They have videos of all contestants, playing all their chosen pieces here. But don't go there if you're Polish or a music lover. You'll lose the month to Chopin, I swear you will.

 

For this special (to me) morning, I forsake the mushy Bircher Muesli and open a bag of Hudson Granola and I take it all to the comfort of the couch. Such a satisfying crunch!

And I listen. And read about the contestants. We have had the first elimination round and are at the First Round of the competition. 84 remain! Out of those, 28 are from China, 13 from Poland, 13 from Japan, 5 from Canada,  5 from the U.S., the one or two each from a variety of other countries. But pinning nationalities onto the competitors is only a first step in understanding a talented musician's evolution. In the world of music, you find that a nation's borders are permeable and movement is constant. You chase musical depth, and the broader your reach, the finer your own musicianship. Just take a look at the Jury's bios from this year's Competition (found here). They have played, competed, taught, studied, performed the world over. A lesson to those who still think growth and development can take place within just one country's borders. It takes more than a village to nurture talent.

 

I go the farmhouse. The weather is fine. I seek out nature. It's so dry this month! I water the tubs.

And I  trim some of the spent stalks. A good winter garden requires a careful balance of some stuff left behind, and some removed for compost. I dont strive for a careful balance. I just take out the egregious stuff that seems really in the way. Garden clutter. Because I still walk this way and I still see what's happening in the flower fields.

 

 

 

 (the very happy front farmette meadow)

 

 

Ed has me try some of the tomato sauce he made this morning. 

 

 

 

You've become domesticated! Impressive. Well, I have to eat. I have to smile as I hand him the next batch of leftovers from yesterday's supper. Next time, leave out the butter. And add some fresh basil when you eat it. But, overall, well done!

He and I go for a walk. Just in the neighborhood of the new development. I tell Ed -- it may be boring there, but it's less boring than my current neighborhood.

 

In the afternoon I pick up Snowdrop. Her brother is living it up in New York City (that boy has an urban streak in him for sure!) so it's just her today.

And she has evening Girl Scouts, so it's not even a long visit. 

There is a social event at the Edge tonight and I pop in just to say I did it. Not a recluse! I'm engaged! 

And then I return to my Chopin. And I think to myself -- I could not have come across this at a better time. It beats binge watching sitcoms. And of course, it is fitting that I should listen non-stop to Chopin in this period of greater solitude. I never thought of his music as joyful. Not even the polonaises or mazurkas. But I'm not searching for joy at the moment. More like mindful pensiveness or soulful processing or any other terms you may want to use to describe a time of sifting and sorting, of pausing, listening, watching. And waiting.

with so much love...