fungi, holidays and burak

It turned cold. Suddenly, everyone at the Westside Community Market wants to hurry up and be done with it – the shopping, the selling, all of it.

I’m thinking of turning on the truck to warm up. I have three layers of socks and still my feet are cold – this from the mushroom man. I call him that because he is the one vendor who’ll always have some form of fungi on his table. Beautiful oysters and shitakes. Ed likes oysters and so we always buy oysters. Today I buy shitakes. Such an empty act of defiance...





It’s Halloween. I’m scheduled to work at the shop and if I am lucky no one will trick the place or show up in a gloomy costume. I’m only mildly amused by this day. I think holidays that weren’t yours during childhood continue to escape you when you’re an adult.

You would conclude, therefore, that I would have become like Ed – scornful of all celebrations. My grandparents had no time, nor use for them, and my parents attempted repeatedly to cut out Christmas and birthday fuss once I reached what they must have believed was the age of reason (thirteen). But actually even then I fought them on this and I continued to haul trees into the house and my sister and I took over hosting birthday parties for each other. Both Christmas and birthdays remain as important for me as any milestone out there. I’ve added Thanksgiving, too, even though we did not ever celebrate that one in my Polish childhood home. Another empty act of defiance...

[I do have to give my mom credit: her sense of duty forced her to drag in a holiday tree in those early years. And the few birthday parties she organized for us in that first decade after the war, were full of pizzazz – she was good at that. Her friend would bake us a cake (my mom, to my knowledge, never baked) and we would play the very American games of pin the tail and musical chairs. I laughed so hard and with such merriment at my own seven-year-old birthday party that I bit the glass with kompot in it (kompot was the drink of choice in postwar Poland; it’s a juice made from cooked fruits). I remember that the adults screamed in horror. In an empty act of defiance, I continued to laugh...]



My only photo attesting to the spirit of this Halloween day comes from the market. Here you go, the colors of October 31st :





Otherwise – what can I say... It was cold and so I hurried. It wasn’t hard to zip through the market. I have seen enough squash and pumpkin to satisfy me for a long while. Not much else by way of color. Oh, wait, excuse me. I did buy this. For the name alone. Rainbow swiss chard.





No, that’s not true. Not for the name. For the taste, the hope, the health – yes, na zdrowie! For the childhood memories of botwina and burak. I write this with a smile. Burak – beet – is absolutely the only food I refused to eat as a child. Ah, defiance...

fungi, holidays and burak

It turned cold. Suddenly, everyone at the Westside Community Market wants to hurry up and be done with it – the shopping, the selling, all of it.

I’m thinking of turning on the truck to warm up. I have three layers of socks and still my feet are cold – this from the mushroom man. I call him that because he is the one vendor who’ll always have some form of fungi on his table. Beautiful oysters and shitakes. Ed likes oysters and so we always buy oysters. Today I buy shitakes. Such an empty act of defiance...





It’s Halloween. I’m scheduled to work at the shop and if I am lucky no one will trick the place or show up in a gloomy costume. I’m only mildly amused by this day. I think holidays that weren’t yours during childhood continue to escape you when you’re an adult.

You would conclude, therefore, that I would have become like Ed – scornful of all celebrations. My grandparents had no time, nor use for them, and my parents attempted repeatedly to cut out Christmas and birthday fuss once I reached what they must have believed was the age of reason (thirteen). But actually even then I fought them on this and I continued to haul trees into the house and my sister and I took over hosting birthday parties for each other. Both Christmas and birthdays remain as important for me as any milestone out there. I’ve added Thanksgiving, too, even though we did not ever celebrate that one in my Polish childhood home. Another empty act of defiance...

[I do have to give my mom credit: her sense of duty forced her to drag in a holiday tree in those early years. And the few birthday parties she organized for us in that first decade after the war, were full of pizzazz – she was good at that. Her friend would bake us a cake (my mom, to my knowledge, never baked) and we would play the very American games of pin the tail and musical chairs. I laughed so hard and with such merriment at my own seven-year-old birthday party that I bit the glass with kompot in it (kompot was the drink of choice in postwar Poland; it’s a juice made from cooked fruits). I remember that the adults screamed in horror. In an empty act of defiance, I continued to laugh...]



My only photo attesting to the spirit of this Halloween day comes from the market. Here you go, the colors of October 31st :





Otherwise – what can I say... It was cold and so I hurried. It wasn’t hard to zip through the market. I have seen enough squash and pumpkin to satisfy me for a long while. Not much else by way of color. Oh, wait, excuse me. I did buy this. For the name alone. Rainbow swiss chard.





No, that’s not true. Not for the name. For the taste, the hope, the health – yes, na zdrowie! For the childhood memories of botwina and burak. I write this with a smile. Burak – beet – is absolutely the only food I refused to eat as a child. Ah, defiance...

played on a solo saxophone

A mood is like the economy. You’re not really sure if you’ve bottomed, or if there’s a way to go before you can start the climb.

I say this because I find myself in a year of great challenge. And I knew it would be thus. Or close to thus. As my teaching load has skyrocketed, my earnings have plummeted and so I spend free time trying to compensate for both.

At the same time that life at home has been extraordinarily demanding (see previous posts).

Of course, it could be worse. I could be sick, my kids could be sick, I could lose my health insurance, we could all be denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions and the insurance policy could max out. Or, any one of us could be in a car collision. So I do know this: it could be worse.

But it could be better.


I reel back tonight to summers spent at my grandparents’ village home in Poland. There was an orphanage not too far. I used to watch these kids and think – should I reach out? Eventually I understood that this kind of imaginative benevolence was pointless. There is an insurmountable chasm between those who feel loved and those who do not.

And I wonder: could it be that the trial I had been following in New York has elements of this? It's sad (oh, oops, this post is already about being sad; let's say especially sad) to think that there are ravines and chasms, and one day one person tries to cross them and another day another person tries to cross them, but they never seem to be exerting an effort at the same time, and so it all sort of falls apart.



Things worked backwards today. I had enough to do a home that I did not go to campus until late.

The rain had stopped. My bike slid across a pavement covered with wet late autumn leaves.






Half way to campus, I came across the band practice. Usually I hear them when I am pedaling home and so I associate their music with the joy of returning home. Today, they are merely trumpeters and tuba players and who knows what else, playing (better than yesterday!) tunes from Miss Saigon. Song, played on a lonely saxophone... (played on a trumpet).





I’m doing a lot of thinking these days. Everyone does this when they feel pushed and plummeted, right? So I leave you with the photo of a heron that I spotted on my late ride in. My buddy. My solo friend.

played on a solo saxophone

A mood is like the economy. You’re not really sure if you’ve bottomed, or if there’s a way to go before you can start the climb.

I say this because I find myself in a year of great challenge. And I knew it would be thus. Or close to thus. As my teaching load has skyrocketed, my earnings have plummeted and so I spend free time trying to compensate for both.

At the same time that life at home has been extraordinarily demanding (see previous posts).

Of course, it could be worse. I could be sick, my kids could be sick, I could lose my health insurance, we could all be denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions and the insurance policy could max out. Or, any one of us could be in a car collision. So I do know this: it could be worse.

But it could be better.


I reel back tonight to summers spent at my grandparents’ village home in Poland. There was an orphanage not too far. I used to watch these kids and think – should I reach out? Eventually I understood that this kind of imaginative benevolence was pointless. There is an insurmountable chasm between those who feel loved and those who do not.

And I wonder: could it be that the trial I had been following in New York has elements of this? It's sad (oh, oops, this post is already about being sad; let's say especially sad) to think that there are ravines and chasms, and one day one person tries to cross them and another day another person tries to cross them, but they never seem to be exerting an effort at the same time, and so it all sort of falls apart.



Things worked backwards today. I had enough to do a home that I did not go to campus until late.

The rain had stopped. My bike slid across a pavement covered with wet late autumn leaves.






Half way to campus, I came across the band practice. Usually I hear them when I am pedaling home and so I associate their music with the joy of returning home. Today, they are merely trumpeters and tuba players and who knows what else, playing (better than yesterday!) tunes from Miss Saigon. Song, played on a lonely saxophone... (played on a trumpet).





I’m doing a lot of thinking these days. Everyone does this when they feel pushed and plummeted, right? So I leave you with the photo of a heron that I spotted on my late ride in. My buddy. My solo friend.

downhill

At 4:25 p.m., the pressures of the week let up. No, let me correct that: they disappear. I had accomplished all that needed to be done, against all odds and, if I may say so (because I am proud of this) – without a mental breakdown.

But, here's an admission of failure: I did not bike to work this morning. At home, at 9:02, I understood that things were getting tight for a 9:30 class. I chose the bus.

I caught the best possible one – number 15. It’s closest to me and it runs without local stops. I always enjoy this morning ride (on days when I do not bike to work). It’s full of Asian graduate students (I live close to a cluster of apartments favored by foreign students, especially from southeast Asian countries). They’re animated and engaged (with each other, in languages that I do not understand) and they mostly disembark at engineering (two stops before mine). During the ten minute trip, I think about how it is to be them – here, in a country that is not their own, in a state that could not be more different from places they would call home. Maybe I see a little of me, the immigrant, in them. Maybe.


In my office, I work with such intensity that I almost cannot imagine pausing for my late afternoon espresso down the hill (on my long days – Tuesdays and Thursdays – that espresso is the highlight. Hands down).

Except that I do stop just before class. And I run down for the espresso, with the lecture notes that I want to review one more time.

But it’s raining. Not drizzling, raining. My notes get wet, I get wet, my camera gets wet.


woman at library entrance


And then, class is finished and it’s over. I’m on the bus, empty now at this later hour...





...in a dreamy daze. Nothing (except this post!) has to be done before tomorrow. Sure, sure, the transcripts from today’s New York hearings – I want to read those, And I want to talk to my family. And I have emails that I’d like to attend to, but this is my choice. I could go read a comic book at the water’s edge for the rest evening and it would be okay.

I go home and attend to transcripts, student emails and this Ocean post. But I'm okay with that. I know I didn't have to do any of it.

downhill

At 4:25 p.m., the pressures of the week let up. No, let me correct that: they disappear. I had accomplished all that needed to be done, against all odds and, if I may say so (because I am proud of this) – without a mental breakdown.

But, here's an admission of failure: I did not bike to work this morning. At home, at 9:02, I understood that things were getting tight for a 9:30 class. I chose the bus.

I caught the best possible one – number 15. It’s closest to me and it runs without local stops. I always enjoy this morning ride (on days when I do not bike to work). It’s full of Asian graduate students (I live close to a cluster of apartments favored by foreign students, especially from southeast Asian countries). They’re animated and engaged (with each other, in languages that I do not understand) and they mostly disembark at engineering (two stops before mine). During the ten minute trip, I think about how it is to be them – here, in a country that is not their own, in a state that could not be more different from places they would call home. Maybe I see a little of me, the immigrant, in them. Maybe.


In my office, I work with such intensity that I almost cannot imagine pausing for my late afternoon espresso down the hill (on my long days – Tuesdays and Thursdays – that espresso is the highlight. Hands down).

Except that I do stop just before class. And I run down for the espresso, with the lecture notes that I want to review one more time.

But it’s raining. Not drizzling, raining. My notes get wet, I get wet, my camera gets wet.


woman at library entrance


And then, class is finished and it’s over. I’m on the bus, empty now at this later hour...





...in a dreamy daze. Nothing (except this post!) has to be done before tomorrow. Sure, sure, the transcripts from today’s New York hearings – I want to read those, And I want to talk to my family. And I have emails that I’d like to attend to, but this is my choice. I could go read a comic book at the water’s edge for the rest evening and it would be okay.

I go home and attend to transcripts, student emails and this Ocean post. But I'm okay with that. I know I didn't have to do any of it.

where hunger disturbs clear thinking

Just so you know, you, who remain patient throughout all vicissitudes of this blog and its author, the last time I was so short on sleep for days on end was when it was determined that one of my daughters (I wont say which one) was described by me, by her doctor too, as being very colicky.

No such issues are before me now.


I thought when Ed left for New York that I would “catch up.” You now how it is: you have an occasional traveling companion hanging around, all spare time disappears. Free time (meaning: time not spent on teaching or moonlighting) becomes his time. It’s just the way things work with occasional traveling companions.

But shockingly (or is it really shocking?), with Ed embroiled in never-ending litigation in New York, my free time hasn’t gone up to, say, 20% of my waking hours. It has gone down to zero.

Take today.

I wake up. Four hours of sleep. Damn. Still, I have class preparation and exam grading. I touch base with Ed. We review the forthcoming proceedings. He’s off to the courthouse, I’m off to campus.

And I work on my classes. Thankfully, all three classes that I teach are with magnificent groups of students. Life at school is less stressful than life after school.

Okay. Class is done. No moonlighting tonight! Finally – a free evening.

Free? I’m behind in reading the transcripts from yesterday’s proceedings. I catch up with those as I throw brussel sprouts into a pot. No fuss, no dice, just cook ‘em up quickly because I am hungry.

So hungry that I cannot think about what I am reading.

Ed is phoning on Skype. He has now a new day’s transcript of the court case. I listen and eat the stupid brussel sprouts. [Sorry, but eating a caseload of brussel sprouts reminded me of this morning’s article in the NYTimes, where one person, addicted to a sugar diet, commented that many people pretend they like what is good for them; I considered for a good five minutes whether I was lying to myself about loving brussel sprouts. I came to no firm conclusions there.]

We hang up. I read some more. I call back. We discuss. I read some more.

And now it is near midnight – the time of attending to Ocean. The time of fighting the droopy eyelid, the hazed over mind that refuses to focus. That time.

I know what’s ahead: I’ll fall asleep in the middle of a sentence, wake up with a start at two in the morning and force myself to rework the grammar of a very simple, very ill-constructed thought.


biking to work


Here it comes, I feel it! A dream laden moment of sleep. Don’t wake me if I doze off! Let me drift, let me think I have nothing to do when I wake up. So beautiful. So untrue.

where hunger disturbs clear thinking

Just so you know, you, who remain patient throughout all vicissitudes of this blog and its author, the last time I was so short on sleep for days on end was when it was determined that one of my daughters (I wont say which one) was described by me, by her doctor too, as being very colicky.

No such issues are before me now.


I thought when Ed left for New York that I would “catch up.” You now how it is: you have an occasional traveling companion hanging around, all spare time disappears. Free time (meaning: time not spent on teaching or moonlighting) becomes his time. It’s just the way things work with occasional traveling companions.

But shockingly (or is it really shocking?), with Ed embroiled in never-ending litigation in New York, my free time hasn’t gone up to, say, 20% of my waking hours. It has gone down to zero.

Take today.

I wake up. Four hours of sleep. Damn. Still, I have class preparation and exam grading. I touch base with Ed. We review the forthcoming proceedings. He’s off to the courthouse, I’m off to campus.

And I work on my classes. Thankfully, all three classes that I teach are with magnificent groups of students. Life at school is less stressful than life after school.

Okay. Class is done. No moonlighting tonight! Finally – a free evening.

Free? I’m behind in reading the transcripts from yesterday’s proceedings. I catch up with those as I throw brussel sprouts into a pot. No fuss, no dice, just cook ‘em up quickly because I am hungry.

So hungry that I cannot think about what I am reading.

Ed is phoning on Skype. He has now a new day’s transcript of the court case. I listen and eat the stupid brussel sprouts. [Sorry, but eating a caseload of brussel sprouts reminded me of this morning’s article in the NYTimes, where one person, addicted to a sugar diet, commented that many people pretend they like what is good for them; I considered for a good five minutes whether I was lying to myself about loving brussel sprouts. I came to no firm conclusions there.]

We hang up. I read some more. I call back. We discuss. I read some more.

And now it is near midnight – the time of attending to Ocean. The time of fighting the droopy eyelid, the hazed over mind that refuses to focus. That time.

I know what’s ahead: I’ll fall asleep in the middle of a sentence, wake up with a start at two in the morning and force myself to rework the grammar of a very simple, very ill-constructed thought.


biking to work


Here it comes, I feel it! A dream laden moment of sleep. Don’t wake me if I doze off! Let me drift, let me think I have nothing to do when I wake up. So beautiful. So untrue.

morning

Might it be that the best part of this day (of so many days) is the morning? No? But consider it: there is a mist playing with the low lying areas around me. Maybe mist is too delicate a term. Fog -- there is that. A pocket of fog. I don't experience it at first, when I set out...





...but eventually I see it. By the water. On the other side of the lake, for example.







So pretty! Lake water, sky, ducks, gulls, autumn leaves -- all in the tangy air of the early day.






Sure, on a day like this, no part seems hostile or cruel. On my noon hour walk down State Street, I am struck by how friendly the world is -- particularly that side of the world that walks on the sun-drenched side of the street.







Friendly and kind. On a beautiful day like today, I see the kindness is many, many small and large details. Consider the three sisters who came into the shop late in the evening. A joyous trio, ending a long and grueling day with a meal and then a quick shopping adventure. Their laughter was my laughter.

But I keep going back to the beginning of the day, when I woke up, unchained my bike and set out to campus. The forgiving mood was born then. On that snappishly cool ride along the foggy water's edge.

morning

Might it be that the best part of this day (of so many days) is the morning? No? But consider it: there is a mist playing with the low lying areas around me. Maybe mist is too delicate a term. Fog -- there is that. A pocket of fog. I don't experience it at first, when I set out...





...but eventually I see it. By the water. On the other side of the lake, for example.







So pretty! Lake water, sky, ducks, gulls, autumn leaves -- all in the tangy air of the early day.






Sure, on a day like this, no part seems hostile or cruel. On my noon hour walk down State Street, I am struck by how friendly the world is -- particularly that side of the world that walks on the sun-drenched side of the street.







Friendly and kind. On a beautiful day like today, I see the kindness is many, many small and large details. Consider the three sisters who came into the shop late in the evening. A joyous trio, ending a long and grueling day with a meal and then a quick shopping adventure. Their laughter was my laughter.

But I keep going back to the beginning of the day, when I woke up, unchained my bike and set out to campus. The forgiving mood was born then. On that snappishly cool ride along the foggy water's edge.

the sweetness of potatoes

Dark outside. Even though here, in Cambridge, the promise is of a brilliant day. No matter. Not my brilliant day. I can only realize perhaps a modicum of brilliance if I get to where I have to be on time.

And so I hurry.





And I'm okay. I make it. To the airport, onto my flight, out of Boston.





Sadly so. And it continues: goodbye coastline, hi Detroit, hi cloudy drizzly Madison -- thank you for not delaying anything. I'm in.

Well, "in" is relative. I'm in Madison, but out and running. To class. Out and onto another bus and quickly to the little shop where I moonlight.

You know what's the definition of a good, kind boss? One who thinks to bring you some potatoes from her uncle's farm, because she remembers that you like the fresh and honest bit.



Quiet evening at the shop. Not really surprised. cold drizzle outside, Monday night.

A sad night, a tired night. An okay night. A transitional night.

the sweetness of potatoes

Dark outside. Even though here, in Cambridge, the promise is of a brilliant day. No matter. Not my brilliant day. I can only realize perhaps a modicum of brilliance if I get to where I have to be on time.

And so I hurry.





And I'm okay. I make it. To the airport, onto my flight, out of Boston.





Sadly so. And it continues: goodbye coastline, hi Detroit, hi cloudy drizzly Madison -- thank you for not delaying anything. I'm in.

Well, "in" is relative. I'm in Madison, but out and running. To class. Out and onto another bus and quickly to the little shop where I moonlight.

You know what's the definition of a good, kind boss? One who thinks to bring you some potatoes from her uncle's farm, because she remembers that you like the fresh and honest bit.



Quiet evening at the shop. Not really surprised. cold drizzle outside, Monday night.

A sad night, a tired night. An okay night. A transitional night.

a working Sunday

For someone who favors combining colors of golden yellow and sky blue and who favors warm over biting cold – this day could not be more perfect.

But, there was the matter of work. My daughter had meetings, Ed had notes to make on his trial transcripts and I had an endless list of work items to attend to. The most important (because it was also the most time sensitive) was the drafting of a memo with my take on issues before the court in Ed’s case.

And so we spent a good part of the day indoors.

Ed and I did break for a late morning espresso at Simon’s (a favorite in the neighborhood where my daughter lives)…



(If there were to be a poster boy for Simon’s wouldn’t you think he’d fit the bill?)


On that brief walk, I could only marvel: that sky! Is it even a Boston sky? (Stolen for sure from the Midwest!)


Finally, in the afternoon, we have to stop work. Ed has a NYC bus to catch. My daughter is done with her tasks, I put mine aside. We walk with Ed to the subway and send him off.



My girl and I walk through Cambridge neighborhoods. If I can just soak in those colors, all will be well.













We make our way to a favorite ice cream shop. Is there any late October day back home that makes me want ice cream? In the shade of yellow and blue...





Pumpkin and cinnamon please.





In the evening we opt for a pizza dinner. Not just any pizza, Cambridge, 1 pizza.





And a Burdick’s hot chocolate. Intensely rich, dark dark hot chocolate, in tiny paper cups. The markers of a good Cambridge week-end, coming to a close.





We head home. Tomorrow at dawn I’ll be catching my connections to Madison. To school, and then to the wee shop on the corner. Refreshed? Yes, that, but mainly pleased that I have had this moment to ease things a bit for people who, whether they admit it or not, could use a little break from a tough time.

a working Sunday

For someone who favors combining colors of golden yellow and sky blue and who favors warm over biting cold – this day could not be more perfect.

But, there was the matter of work. My daughter had meetings, Ed had notes to make on his trial transcripts and I had an endless list of work items to attend to. The most important (because it was also the most time sensitive) was the drafting of a memo with my take on issues before the court in Ed’s case.

And so we spent a good part of the day indoors.

Ed and I did break for a late morning espresso at Simon’s (a favorite in the neighborhood where my daughter lives)…



(If there were to be a poster boy for Simon’s wouldn’t you think he’d fit the bill?)


On that brief walk, I could only marvel: that sky! Is it even a Boston sky? (Stolen for sure from the Midwest!)


Finally, in the afternoon, we have to stop work. Ed has a NYC bus to catch. My daughter is done with her tasks, I put mine aside. We walk with Ed to the subway and send him off.



My girl and I walk through Cambridge neighborhoods. If I can just soak in those colors, all will be well.













We make our way to a favorite ice cream shop. Is there any late October day back home that makes me want ice cream? In the shade of yellow and blue...





Pumpkin and cinnamon please.





In the evening we opt for a pizza dinner. Not just any pizza, Cambridge, 1 pizza.





And a Burdick’s hot chocolate. Intensely rich, dark dark hot chocolate, in tiny paper cups. The markers of a good Cambridge week-end, coming to a close.





We head home. Tomorrow at dawn I’ll be catching my connections to Madison. To school, and then to the wee shop on the corner. Refreshed? Yes, that, but mainly pleased that I have had this moment to ease things a bit for people who, whether they admit it or not, could use a little break from a tough time.