Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas

Ding! Dong! Ding! Dong!

Hark how the bells

Sweet silver bells

All seem to say

Throw cares away

Christmas is here

Bringing good cheer

Holiday music both expresses and amplifies the joy of the Christmas season for me.  While I rapidly tire of the shopping mall muzak played at the holidays,  I love the real thing, be it professionally performed, sung by church choirs, by children, or by friends gathered around a piano.  

You know-- real music by real people.

I recently had the joy of hearing a hand bell choir that was almost as much fun to see as to hear.  Each member of the choir, garbed in festive red shirts and soft black gloves had three or four bells to play.   Hand bells are not solo instruments; there isn’t a lot you can do with three or four bells, each of which plays just one note.  But together they comprise one instrument.  It is like each person is assigned  a few keys on the piano --  together all the notes are covered but no one person can make music alone.

Hand bell choirs are remarkable instruments of trust and community.  Each person must work independently, but with a keen ear to what everyone else is doing.  No one can cover someone else’s missing note, because no one else has the right bell.   Each person has to be ready to play their note at exactly the right time with consistent volume and tone.  Each member of the bell choir has to measure the passage of time alike - the same number of beats at the same tempo, as if all shared a common heartbeat.

While all members of the choir have to measure time equivalently, they clearly have different ways of experiencing it, which I have loosely classified into three distinct styles.

There are the mathematicians, precisely counting each beat.  You can watch them move their lips, silently counting 1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4…

Then there are the economists.  These players exhibit an economy of motion so pronounced that they barely move at all.  Concentrating intensely, they stand rigid, waiting for the moment to ring their bell with a precise and efficient flick of the wrist.

The dancers move enough to make up for the spare motions of the economists.  They don’t count with their minds, but instead their entire bodies swing, sway, and bounce with the beat.

The dancers must drive the economists crazy.  And vice versa.   Bell choir members must do whatever works for them individually, but also respect the disparate styles and techniques of others in the group.    They have to depend on each other to do their part,  so they learn to accept that there is more than one right way to play, that doing things differently is not necessarily the same as doing things wrong.  What really matters is getting the right tone on the right beat, by whatever means necessary.  And when that happens, despite personal differences, music emerges.

Since everyone has to do their part and can ONLY do their part, there are no stars in a hand bell choir.   Everyone’s notes are equally important.  It is just as important to be silent at the right times as it is to play out at the right time.  There can be no heroes.  No one can steal the show.   Each person becomes like a different vital organ in a single human body.   Each person is indispensable, but no more indispensable than anyone else.  Essential, but humble.

A hand bell choir is not about the individual, but rather the cooperative, communal, interdependent ensemble.  People play their individual parts, not for personal recognition but to contribute to something far greater than they could create alone. 

What a concept.

What if Congressional committees had their own hand bell choirs?  Would they find a way to make some progress? Maybe membership in a hand bell choir should be required of all of us.  It might help.

Today I am grateful for the joy of music, and especially human voices in song.   

Congress Schmongress

The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.

-Albert Einstein

Do you think he was talking about the congressional 'super' committee?

A dish, a vase, a little joy, a lot of grace

Here are some lessons in hospitality that my Mom taught me:

Rule number 1

When there are guests in the house, their needs and desires come first.

Rule number 2

Sweet treats go with hot drinks, salty treats with cold.

Rule number 3

When planning a party, choose your guests carefully and do so BEFORE you start inviting people.

When I was in third grade, I really wanted to be friends with two particular little girls, Susan and Terry.  I thought they were so perfect;  they were pretty, smart, and somehow they never got dirty on the playground, their tights didn’t sag and their knee socks didn’t droop around their ankles.  They were the leaders of  the third grade A-crowd, and I desperately longed to be a member.  But sadly, as little girls are wont to do, they excluded me from that inner circle and teased me mercilessly about my saggy tights and droopy socks. Try as I might, I could not break into that pre-adolescent aristocracy.  But, as my eighth birthday approached,  I had a great idea!  If I invited them to my party, then they would be sure to like me.  And if Susan and Terry liked me, so would everyone else.  Without asking my mother, I invited the two of them to my birthday party and to my delight, they accepted! Caught up in my impending social ascent and with a spirit of overwhelming good will, I invited ALL of the girls in my third grade class!  I was delirious with joy, knowing that I would be  admired by all and that everyone would want to be my friend. 

There was just one teeny weeny little snag.

When the time came to actually plan my party, my mother said that I could invite eight girls.  She had a method- the maximum number of children at a party should equal the age of the birthday child plus one.  So, for my eighth birthday, I could invite eight girls, and I would make the ninth person.   I imagine that this rule came from one of her women’s magazines, probably an article in Family Circle titled something like “Keeping your cool: setting bounds on birthday bashes.”  Whatever.  Where ever it came from, that was her rule and she was sticking to it.

The problem of course, was that my actual friends were mainly the neighborhood kids - Barbara, Joyce, Jenny, April, and the twins Cindy and Cathy.  With the six of them I could only invite two more girls.  This would have been fine, if I’d stuck with Terry and Susan, but I had invited ALL the girls in Mrs. Dunn’s third grade at Charles Wright Elementary School.  I don’t remember how many kids were in that class, but I must have invited about a dozen little girls in addition to my six actual friends from my neighborhood. 

When my mother started writing the invitations, she sent them to the neighbors, of course, and then asked if there was anyone else I wanted to invite.  I meekly asked if all the kids from school could come, after all, they had all gone to Martha’s party the year before.  My mother simply replied, “No.  Eight girls.”  I couldn’t find the words to tell her what I had done, and I couldn’t find the words to tell the girls at school that they couldn’t come to my party.

I hoped that my classmates would forget that I ever mentioned my birthday.  I said nothing, trying to let that birthday fly under the radar, but of course on the Friday before the big day, Mrs. Dunn, smiling with generosity, asked all the boys and girls to sing “Happy Birthday” to me.  In front of the whole class, she asked if I was having a party, to which I had to reply, “Yes.”  So much for flying under the radar.  After school, those girls were on me like a pack of hungry wolves, demanding to know where the invitations were, and what time the party was going to be.  I pretended I didn’t know the details and ran home in utter mortification.

Third grade me- ready for my tap
dancing recital.

Up Knott Street, across Wolcott Hill Road, down Morrison Avenue and cutting through April’s yard to my house on  Ireland Road, I fantasized and hoped that Mom would take pity and call the mothers of all my classmates and invite the girls to my party the next afternoon. 

But no.  That was not to be. The party was planned and the plans would not, could not, double overnight. 

Although she was not pleased, my Mom did bail me out, at least as much as she could without compromising her conviction that nine was the perfect number for my eighth birthday party.  She called all of the mothers and explained that my verbal invitations were well intentioned but unauthorized and that maybe soon we would arrange for their daughters to play at our house after school.  Apparently Terry’s mother informed mine that “That is just the sort of thing my Terry would do too!”  I took some modicum of comfort from that statement, although I doubted then and doubt now that it was actually true.

Funny thing is, that is all I remember about my eighth birthday.  I have no memory whatsoever of the actual party.  It was my second to last childhood birthday party.  On my ninth birthday, my parents took nine of my friends and me ice skating at Colt Park in Hartford and then returned home for cake and hot chocolate.    We moved to a new town a few months later and after that I celebrated birthdays with just my family.

But here’s the thing about that eighth birthday party.  My mother was right.  Not necessarily about the numbers, but about who should and who shouldn’t have attended my party.  The children that came- Cindy, Cathy, Barbara, Joyce, Jenny, and April - were the children that should have come.   I am sure that even if Terry and Susan had come to my party any boost in popularity would have been short lived.  I just wasn’t destined to be part of the A-crowd of Mrs. Dunn’s third grade class. Cindy, Cathy, Barbara, Joyce, Jenny and April had saggy tights and droopy socks and got dirty just like I did and we all somehow survived and even thrived. 

My Mom's crazy rule for party size may have been derived to keep mothers sane in the face of a bunch of sugared-up hyper children, but as I think about it, it also served  to limit the party to the children who should be there- those that were nurtured by friendship and nourished by celebrating each other’s joy.

Mom in July 2008.

My mother died  three years ago today and I think of her every day and miss her deeply.  When I host celebrations,  I don’t abide by  arbitrary rules on the number of guests,  but whatever the number appears to be, there is always one more, at least in spirit. In one way or another my Mom  is always part of any celebration or gathering at my house-- be it a large party, tea with friends, a family holiday dinner.   Maybe I am silly, maybe sentimental,  but when people I care about are gathered in my home, I honor my mother and her memory by using something that belonged to her.   A dish, a vase, a recipe, something.   In that way, she is with us. Because she nurtured and nourished and was nurtured and nourished by our lives together, she should be at my parties.  Having her there brings me a little joy.

Today I am grateful that we got to spend so much time with my mother in her last year. Her humor, her stories, and even her stubbornness enriched us all.  I am still in awe of her grace in the face of illness and those months together were truly a blessing.

I'm back!

Take me out to the ball game

Take me out with the crowd

Buy me some hazelnuts and dark chocolate….

I keep a bowl of chocolate on the conference table in my office where I often meet with students. As dean, when I have students in my office, they are NOT generally there to tell me how happy they are. They usually come with a concern or complaint- some bone to pick with a professor, with me, or with the university. They are often stressed, upset or unhappy, and they are almost always nervous. Most of the time, the problem is not as severe as they think it is, and we can generally find an acceptable solution. Often, along the way, they take a piece of chocolate from my bowl and I can see them relax just a little bit. 

It is common knowledge that chocolate reduces blood pressure and increases levels of both endorphins and serotonin, boosting mental health. While medical science has spent decades studying the effects of chocolate in reducing the effects of stress, I spent 10 minutes and found pretty convincing proof that chocolate is used by humans worldwide to self-medicate during stressful times. 

10 minutes.

That may be a slight exaggeration. It was probably closer to 25 minutes if you count the ‘short course’ I took in methodology.

Yup, tonight alone, I searched for the word "chocolate" in  5 million books printed between 1800 and 2000  in English, French, German and Russian.  It turns out that people around the world (or at least in the US and Europe) write a lot about chocolate during historically challenging times. 

This is a graph of the percentage of English language books published over the last 200 years  that make mention of the word chocolate.   Interest in chocolate clearly peaked during World War I and World War II. It is interesting to note that it appears to be  on the rise again, or at least it was as we approached Y2K. 

And it is not just in English speaking countries. In France, the occurrences of the world "chocolat" peaked during times of major conflict—the Napoleonic Wars, World War I and World War II. This seems to confirm the link between societal anxiety and chocolate.

Among the Germans, we see general anxiety from about 1900 on, again peaking during World War II. Like us, German speakers appeared to be growing increasingly anxious as we neared the new millennium.

The Russians seem to be generally less interested in chocolate overall than western Europeans or Americans, but even there, mentions of шоколад peaked during World War II.

It turns out that interest in baseball pretty much tracks chocolate—with maximum interest during the same time periods even if no one sings about chocolate at the “old ball game.”




How did I scan 5 million books for references to chocolate, chocolat, schokolade, шоколад, and baseball in just 10 minutes?

I can give you the answer in one url:  ngrams.googlelabs.com.

This site is an offshoot of a very interesting research project. In a nutshell,  Erez Lieberman Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel developed a way to scan the 5 million books (an estimated 500 billion words) digitized by Google for words or phrases and then report the number of occurrences. In effect, this allows us to probe what was culturally important as a function of time over the last couple of hundred years. This would be awesome all by itself, but even more amazingly, Googlelabs has made the technology available to anyone who wants to play. The raw data can even be downloaded for more sophisticated analysis. It is very slick and very, very fast.

(If you want to learn more about this, you can view a fascinating video  called “What we learned from 5 million books” at (http://www.ted.com/talks/what_we_learned_from_5_million_books.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TEDTalks_video+%28TEDTalks+%28video%29%29)

Suddenly cultural trends are revealed with a search term and a mouse click. For no particular reason, I explored cultural impact of various types of nuts; it turns out that almonds are generally decreasing in popularity but hazelnuts are coming into favor. So is Pinot Noir. (These may be good trends for the state of Oregon which specializes in both hazelnuts and pinot noirs!) Other wines? Well, Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon were virtually unmentioned until about 1980, but their popularity increased quickly. Myself, I am a red wine drinker, but apparently writers think more in terms of oaky whites.

There is no doubt. I am addicted to this site. I think this must be better than cocaine (certainly less dangerous) and maybe even as good as chocolate.

Here is a  mystery.  What on earth accounts for the bimodal popularity of bassoons?  Is it somehow related to stress and anxiety during wartime too?  Do bassoons and chocolate have similar affects on mental health?

I started playing the bassoon in 1969, so I can hardly be blamed for the decline in the cultural significance of the instrument after WWII.  Nonetheless, I clearly did nothing to reverse the slide into cultural obscurity of my favorite instrument!

It has been a long time since I posted on this blog.  I have missed it and while I am not promising to write daily or even weekly, I am planning to post more often than I have recently.  As in the past, I want to end with a simple statement of gratitude. Today,  I am grateful for a lovely warm late summer afternoon in Ann Arbor with my two favorite kids and our new puppy.

Windy week. Windy Day.

To get to the regional airport from our house, you head west for about four miles and then head north for about six miles. Since the roads in our part of Michigan are laid out like graph paper- parallel roads that run due north-south or east-west on a one mile grid- there are any number of possible routes to follow, all equal in distance and similar in scenery. These roads are wonderful for biking- there is not much traffic and the scenery is dominated by corn fields and farms. If we're looking for a relatively short ride, the airport is an ideal destination.

We left the house at about 8:30 this morning for an airport ride before breakfast. Heading west and then north, the ride was just wonderful. The early morning air was slightly cool and dewy, but the bright sunshine promised a warm day. Riding on nearly deserted roads, we heard the birds chirping, and enjoyed numerous sighting of my favorite red winged blackbirds. It was one of those rides that felt effortless, one of those times when the bike disappeared under me and I felt like I was flying. I was feeling pretty good about myself and my bike riding prowess.

The trip back was a little different. It was not until we turned around that I realized that the day was quite windy. In fact, as we headed the four miles east and six miles south, I realized that there was a pretty good wind coming out of the southeast. The headwinds slowed me down quite a bit, but there was nothing to do but hunker down and keep pedaling.

It occurred to me that headwinds are more difficult for me to cope with than large hills. I think it is because I can see the hills, I know what I'm up against. I can measure progress and can understand the challenge. Headwinds are invisible- coming out of nowhere, unseen and unnoticed until they thwart progress. It is impossible to know how strong they will be or how long they will last. Riding into a strong headwind may be physically challenging, but it is mentally exhausting. It is demoralizing to fight for the miles and difficult to accept the slower pace and just keep going.

Last week felt like I was constantly pedaling into a strong headwind. Our dog Pippi is failing and we had an appointment to have her put to sleep on Tuesday. As it turned out, she rallied a little and we were able to postpone the inevitable. Nonetheless, it is hard to watch her fade away. There were other things too- stressful projects with short timelines, several friends with medical problems, others dealing with personal or professional disappointments, students with serious personal issues-- the list goes on. It seemed like one thing after another, many of them coming out of nowhere, unexpected, thwarting progress, challenging me both physically and mentally. My patience with family and co-workers ran thin and I got a little snappish.. Bad Karma all around.

I don't really notice when the wind is at my back and unseen forces are helping me along, but boy do I notice when I am struggling into a headwind. When things are going well and life seems effortless, I tend to believe that I am  responsible for my own success and completely forget that I pretty much never do anything truly single-handedly. There is almost always something at work supporting my efforts- maybe the support of family, friends or co-workers or maybe some type of divine guidance. Whatever.

It would be nice if we could plan our lives so that we could always keep the wind at our backs. But it doesn't work that way. I could have ridden all morning without turning back into that headwind, but had I done so, I would have ended up far away from where I needed to be. There are times that there is no option other than leaning into that wind and pedaling for all I'm worth.

Exhausting?

You bet.

Last week, we attended a fundraising dinner for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, an organization that makes wishes come true for seriously ill children. Talk about riding into a headwind! Instead of riding through their days effortlessly with the wind at their backs, these kids have been robbed of their childhoods by horrible diseases. There is no rhyme or reason to this sort of tragedy. These kids and their families did nothing to deserve the pain and misery they deal with daily. I think that tragedies of this kind strike randomly with no purpose or logic behind them. Bad things just happen sometimes.

But there are some remarkable things that emerge from these tragedies-- the resilience of human lives and love, the generosity of people ready and willing to help total strangers,  the drive of some people to relieve pain, and the way that new families form from those enduring similar fates.

I have never experienced tragedy on that scale, but I know how important it is to know that we are not alone in the world when we ride into those headwinds. In my more existential moments, I sometimes wonder if there is any purpose to our lives. I have concluded that there is indeed a purpose-- simply to do the best we can to make things a little better for someone else. To find ways to spread grace and compassion. To be the wind on someone else's back.

Today I am grateful for those that have been the wind on my back, making things easier for me when I needed it most. My family, my friends, and whatever unseen forces guide me through life.

And at last, renewal!

And Zap! 

ZAP!  Another year flies by!

Just like that, another academic year has flown by. Last Friday was the last day of classes; I gave my final exam today. Most finals exams occur early in the week, so while exams don't officially end until Saturday, the big exodus from campus is clearly underway.  

At long last, I think old man Winter has really left us. He held on tenaciously this year, but spring finally prevailed. We are not experiencing glorious sunshine yet; so far it wet, soggy and the flowers are late, but nonetheless, I think Winterzeit ist kaput! Thank goodness. When summer turns to fall, I feel a bittersweet melancholy as I know the relaxed pace and warm sunshine will fade under the strict taskmaster that is the academic year. But the arrival of spring brings me nothing but happiness. I know I will be warm for the next six months, I know that I'll be able to linger over a second cup of coffee on the deck in the morning, and best of all, I know I can put away most of my business suits for the summer.

As a  university administrator, I have  to dress like a grown-up. This means lots of suits, skirts, pantyhose and lady shoes. I don't actually mind any of these clothes, but for the last few weeks,  I have walked into the closet each morning and just stared at the clothes hanging before me. There is nothing wrong with any of them. I just don't feel like getting 'deaned up' everyday. Once dressed for the day, I am fine.  It is just morning inertia, borne from the fact that I am weary of the uniform of my career.  Maybe just weary, period.  I am sure that if I worked at Starbucks, I'd be sick of the polo shirts and aprons too. My suits, Starbuck's aprons, the cute little dirndls at the Bavarian Inn-- they're all costumes, worn to enhance our credibility in the roles we play. I am comfortable with my role at the University and really enjoy it, but that it is only one part of who I am. And, the rest of me really does not want to wear suits everyday! 

 But finally, the seasons are changing.  I am glad that the university is more relaxed in the summer, even in terms of dress. Maybe especially in terms of dress. 

It just took so long for spring to come this year.  Yet, looking back I see that the late spring did have some advantages.

If you are my Facebook friend, or a repeat reader of this blog, you know I did a lot of whining about low temperatures, wind, snow and sleet. And I am not the only one. EVERYONE I know was tired of winter and EVERYONE I know spent a lot of time complaining about the lousy weather.

Well, not quite everyone.

I was talking to a graduating senior the other day and made a comment about the snow flurries that I saw out my office window. Her response? “I am really glad the weather has been rotten. I have had so much work to finish for my classes and projects. Late spring really kept senioritis at bay.”  

Yes, I guess so.  I hadn't thought of that.

I got a haircut the other night. My hairdresser's car had broken down and was in the shop. The repair was taking longer than expected, and she was worried about getting it back before the weekend, because her kids' Easter candy was in the car. But, as she said,”At least with the weather so cold, I know it won't melt.”

True enough.   I hadn't thought of that either.

I am not completely oblivious to silver linings where they can be found. Here is one thing I did think of.

The last two weeks of the semester are a blur of retirement parties, award ceremonies, symposia, concerts, plays, senior presentations, and so on. I just checked my calendar and I had 49 meeting and/or events last week. Not surprisingly, in those last weeks of the term, I get so busy I forget to notice the world around me. And usually, that means that I totally miss the hundreds of daffodils that bloom in my yard. But this year, they waited for me. They are just blooming now, on days that I actually get home before dark and can take a few moments to admire those sunshine-yellow trumpets. Ah, yes. Renewal.

So, today despite my fussing about our late spring, I am grateful for the delay.  I am glad I will get to enjoy the full blossoming season of my favorite springtime flowers.   I love gardens in the summer, but I need them in the spring. What joy!

Dinner for Four

Occasionally over the last fifteen years,  during various mid-life crises or self-indulgent stretches of navel gazing, I have fantasized about opening a restaurant or bed and breakfast. I enjoy cooking and entertaining guests so much that it seems like it would be an ideal next career. I have romantic visions of simmering pots of aromatic vegetable stews made with local produce and homegrown herbs. I would bake bread until my heart's content and not have to throw it away stale or moldy.  I would spend every day playing in the kitchen and finally prepare all those recipes that I have been wanting to try and there would always be plenty of people to eat my efforts.

That's the fantasy. The reality is a little different.

First of all, I love my day job. Leave university life?  Not likely.

Second, the restaurant business is a tough one. The hours are long, tiring, and success can be elusive. But, there is a much bigger problem.

The real issue is that I like entertaining and cooking for my family and friends, and am not at all sure I would enjoy cooking for strangers. As it is, I plan menus around specific people- I have a habit of remembering what my friends like to eat, what they serve me, what they order in restaurants, what they dislike and what they are allergic to. My inspiration comes from my wish to prepare culinary gifts for the people I care about and  like any gifts, the best ones will surprise and delight-- eliciting comments like, "But how did you know I would like that?"

When I am browsing cookbooks, I often read a new recipe and think, “I bet (fill in the name) would like that. Now what would you serve with it?” That sends me on a hunt for side dishes, appetizers and desserts that create an interesting meal- with lots of colors, textures, and (hopefully) complementary flavors. I can't guess how many of these menus I have imagined, but I do know that a relatively small fraction actually got cooked. Life intervenes and there are just not enough hours in a day to have guests as often as I'd like and besides, I am often shy about inviting new people to dinner. But if I know you well, I may well have imagined a dinner menu just for you!

I am intrigued by international cuisines and love to experiment. Sometimes the experiments work the first time, but sometimes not. It took three tries before I successfully rotisseried a whole chicken without setting it aflame and creating a rather dramatic mess-- a raw chicken on the inside, a charcoal briquet on the outside. The Thai peanut shrimp sure sounded good, but was an inedible gloppy mess. Al, Eric, and Ellen have always been appreciative of my efforts, and with the few exceptions noted above ( thank goodness Papa John's delivers), have been willing to eat both my successes and my failures. Fortunately, no one in this family is a fussy eater. Both of the kids have been in and out of vegetarian phases which I viewed as opportunities to work in a different medium. Sort of like watercolors and oils. I am glad they had their vegetarian periods; if they had not, I never would have tried my now favorite pizza- roasted butternut squash seasoned with fresh nutmeg and sage, toasted pine nuts, caramelized onions and smoked gouda. Or known the ease and nearly unlimited possibilities of the frittata. Yum!

The joy of cooking is twofold. Yes, the act of creating something special out of ordinary ingredients is very rewarding, but the real reward is sharing it with family and friends. I love feeding people; I know I am nourishing both our bodies and our friendship. I know I have been successful when people linger at the table in what Ellen calls “that contented haze following a good meal.”

Here is the menu I came up with today. I am thinking of using it for Easter Sunday.

Asparagus and aged goat cheese mini-souffles

Rosemary grilled lamb chops

Crusty french bread

Roasted beet salad with fresh mint and toasted almonds

Crème Brulee garnished with fresh strawberries

Grand Marnier truffles

Many of these recipes are relatively new in my repertoire. The asparagus souffles came to me through one of the Google recipe-of-the-day applications. The grilled lamb is from my new Culinary Institute of America cookbook, and the salad is my own interpretation of one I had last week in Chicago. I have made crème brulee before, but am newly motivated because I found a great source of vanilla beans online. I ordered some and they are unbelievably good.

This menu was created with my family in mind. The only problem is that the kids will not be home next weekend and the menu serves four. Any takers?

P.S.  There seems to have been some miscommunication regarding spring's arrival and the state of Michigan did not get the memo.  I was out feeding the birds this morning as the snow was falling and the cold wind was blowing hard.  However, despite the miserable weather I discovered that the trees have budded, the peonies have poked through the ground, and my daffodils are beginning to open, ever so slightly.  Apparently, while I am whining about the weather, nature just continues the steady march onward in time.  So, today I am grateful with the knowledge that spring MUST be coming, even if somehow we missed the call!

Riding circles around me

Little boys wore ties to birthday parties in 1962?

I was thinking the other day about all the bikes I’ve had over the years.  My very first “bike” was a red Western Flyer tricycle that I got for my fourth birthday.  I grew up in Connecticut and my birthday falls in the middle of January, so my first experiences of riding were in the living room.  I don’t think indoor riding privileges lasted much beyond the day of my  birthday party, but I do remember riding that shiny new red trike with a great deal of pride. 

Next in line was my first 2 wheeler—a 20” red bike that could be either a boys bike or a girls bike depending on the position of the cross bar.  In the early 1960’s bicycles were black, acceptable only to boys,  red or blue with  the latter two colors acceptable to either gender.  We didn’t even conceive of  purple or pink,  let alone  Disney Princess or Barbie themes.  Yup.  The choice was pretty much red, blue or black.  And I seemed to have a natural inclination toward red bikes. 

In fact over the years, I have loved five bikes and every one of them has been red.

Of course, my first love was my red tricycle—my first wheels.

Second was my first two-wheeler.  It may have looked like an ordinary red bike, but in my mind it was the Batmobile.    Jerry Corcoran was Batman;  I was Robin and we rode up and down Ireland Road wearing yellow plastic Bat Utility Belts, capes flying behind us in the wind. The power we needed to protect Gotham City came from baseball cards clipped to the spokes.

After I outgrew the 20" bike and childish Batman games,  I had a couple of nondescript girls bikes. The first was a blue girl’s one-speed that my Dad later painted orange.  In late high school I got a greenish gold girl’s 10-speed bike, much like a present-day hybrid.  Both were fine bikes and I used them to ride to my friends’ houses, to school and to the library, but they were simply transportation.  I rode to get someplace, not for the joy of riding.

That changed when Al and I were in graduate school.  Al had done some fairly long distance rides with friends in high school and college, but it was as graduate students that we began to take our riding seriously.  Fifty or sixty mile rides were common summer Sunday events, usually involving pancakes at the Etna Firehouse, where for a couple of dollars a couple of kids could fuel up for a long day of riding in the steep  hills surrounding Cayuga Lake.  It wasn’t just us either; many  of our friends were cyclists.  None of us was interested in racing—it was about distance and touring.  I was still riding that greenish gold hybrid bike, but by then Al had purchased his first racing bike – a red Motobecane Mirage.   In my second year of graduate school, I joined the ranks of the cool bikers and bought a red Fuji Sports 10—a 10 speed racing/road bike.  And I was in love.

We rode hundreds, probably thousands, of miles on those bikes.  All around Nova Scotia, day trips in the Finger Lakes, around the Thousand Islands.   We lived in Ithaca, New York at the time;  I was a chemistry doctoral student at Cornell, and Al was earning his MBA at Syracuse University.  We lived a just a couple of miles from Cornell, making it easy for me to walk or ride my bike to campus, while Al used our only car to commute the 60 miles to Syracuse.  One summer day in 1982, I had ridden to school, but for some reason, I walked home.  Al’s bike was locked to a railing outside our second floor apartment and that night, someone cut his lock and stole the bike.   We notified the police, but it never turned up. 

By then, biking had become a very important part of our lives.  We loved the freedom of riding- that wonderful rush of riding like the wind.  In  “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” Robert Pirsig wrote about the difference between traveling  by car and on a motorcycle.  He notes that traveling by car forces you to see the world through the frame of the windshield and that the world thus framed is just more boring TV.  But on a bike (he means motorcycle, but even more so on a bicycle) you can experience the world surrounding you.  On a hot day, you can tell when there is a stream nearby, even if you can’t see it because you can feel the humid cool air.  You can feel the heat of the road, and smell the dank dampness of the woods.   Bicycles are quiet enough that wildlife does not flee upon your approach—we have seen wolves just a few feet from the side of the road,  felt the snap of bird wings a few feet from our heads.  Instead of just seeing the world outside the window, you experience the world fully and directly and it is simply delightful.

(Ok.  Time for a reality check.  Al read that last paragraph and thought it a bit romantic.  He reminded me of the night we rode north from Halifax as dusk was falling.   The traffic was very heavy and the shoulder was very narrow.  Under those less than bucolic conditions, we  heard the snap and felt the crunch of bones breaking as we were forced to ride directly over a long dead cat.  Fully experiencing the world?  I suppose so.  Simply delightful?  Not so much.)

Anyway, Al  clearly needed a bike.  So, off to a local bike shop we went, and found a really nice 12 speed black Lotus racing bike.  After a test ride, he was so enamored with it that I sold  my  Fuji Sports 10 and bought a red one almost just like his. 

And our love for bicycling grew.

And the miles piled on.  

We rode those bikes from Seattle, Washington to San Francisco, CA, crossing the Cascades several times.   We rode to Mount Ranier, Mount St. Helens, Crater Lake, the Redwoods and south along beautiful coastal  Highway 1 in California.  We rode those bikes around Newfoundland, did a winery tour of the Finger Lakes region, and countless day trips.  In fact, almost 30 years later, we still have those two bikes.

But lives change.  We had kids and didn’t get out on the open road very often. As the kids learned to ride, our biking was pretty restricted to short rides on rail trails.  I no longer enjoyed the stiff harsh ride of a road bike, and got lower backaches from being hunched over.  So about 10 years ago, I bought a very nice white hybrid bike.  At first, I really liked the upright posture and softer ride.   In truth, I had gotten a lot softer too and no longer felt so inspired by long distance bike riding.

Al maintained his bicycle fitness much better than I did.  He kept up by riding in the 150 mile bike ride for Multiple Sclerosis each year, but didn’t ride all that much at other times.  He is not the sort of guy who buys new toys readily.  He thought his bike was adequate—after all he had been riding it for nearly 30 years and it had served him well.   Two years ago, I was riding behind him on a rail trail and noticed that the crank made a disheartening clunk on every stroke.  I seized upon the malfunction to convince him that he should get a new one.  (Actually, I told him I was going to buy him a new bike and he had a choice of picking one out himself or leaving it to me).  He test rode a number of bikes and finally bought a beautiful white Trek road bike. The technology certainly has changed.   The frame is so much lighter, and the components are so much better.  Shifting happens on the handlebars now, not low on the frame.   It was a remarkable improvement. 

And lives change.

About three years ago, I decided to improve my overall fitness and lost a bunch of weight.  Two years ago, I started riding the MS150 with Al, and found that I enjoyed it again, at least mostly.  It was hard to keep up with him—partly because he was in better shape and partly because he was riding a light nimble road bike and I was riding a heavy wide-tired hybrid.  The hybrid was more comfortable, but I NEVER  felt that exhilaration of riding that I felt on my old Lotus road bike--the feeling that the bike was working with me, that  the wheels became my wings and  the effort disappeared and I was flying.    The feeling of riding like the wind.    Of being the wind.   On my hybrid, biking was usually fun, but it was never amazing. 

I wanted amazing.  But, I remembered the lower back pain of the racing bike.  I wondered if I could get used to the dropped handlebars again.  After all, I am 50 something years old; a middle aged mother.

But I wanted amazing.

I did some research and discovered that many manufacturers are now making road bikes proportioned specifically for women.  I read that the nagging back pain I experienced was probably because my trusty red Lotus was the right height for me, but the reach to the handlebars was too long.  And I decided to try again.

I rode the Lotus toward the end of last summer to see if the racing position was even possible and I was surprised to find myself adapting to it easily.  And this year, I decided to try out one of those new fangled, high tech women’s road bikes.

The end of this story is predictable.  A new Specialized road bike, proportioned for women, light and nimble, joined the family last week.   I took it out for a pretty good test drive and fell in love with cycling all over again.

And of course it is red.

Now if they could only do something about those seats!

Today I am grateful for all the wonderful experiences we've had on our various road trips (except, of course, for the dead cat incident) and am looking forward to many more.

Dad, me and my first laptop!

All my life's a circle

Red trike to red bike

I started blogging early

when I was a little tyke...

(but that is another post....)

Thingish Things

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

                                                        - T.S. Eliot, The Four Quartets

I ran into a poet friend of mine the other day in the corridor outside of the campus Starbucks. We chatted a little bit about day-to-day things-- students, grading, family and so on. Soon the conversation wandered to a comparison of science and poetry. She surprised me by saying that she thought the intentions of the scientist and the poet were pretty much the same, a view that I suspect is not shared by many scientists or poets. I had a hunch that we were in agreement but just to be sure, I asked her to describe the intent of a poet. She replied “The poet tries to go someplace new and discover what is there.” (I am trying to recall her exact words; that is, no doubt, a paraphrase)

Interesting.

That is pretty much exactly what a scientist does, although a scientist would probably use different words. Maybe something like, “A scientist probes the physical world to determine the underlying principles.”

As my friend was elaborating on her ideas, it occurred to me that my intention as a photographer is exactly the same as her poet and my scientist —to look at something in a new way and discover what it really looks like.

And then a new thought occurred to me.

Here it is:

The basis of all creativity is the quest to discover something new in the world that we inhabit everyday--to look beyond the obvious and see what lies just beyond our normal vision. And then to make something out of it, partly to preserve the discovery and partly to share it.

I have no idea if this concept is even remotely original, but I just thought of it and it feels correct.  Still, I can't help wondering if you are rolling your eyes or tsk-tsking at me, as in "Tsk-Tsk, Deb. You really just thought of that?"  I am reminded here of one of my favorite quotes from Winnie the Pooh, "When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it."  This may be one of those moments.  Maybe my new Thing is not so very Thingish after all.

Whatever.


Al and I went to see the great guitarist, Jeff Beck, last week. It was an amazing concert; amazing for both the quality and variety of the music.  Time and time again, he took a familiar melody to new places and discovered something completely unique. Sharing that discovery with the audience, he gave us the opportunity to hear the song in a totally new way.  Sounds familiar, no?

We humans seem have a penchant for exploration and discovery and the drive to create things that reflect our perceptions of the world in tangible form. The great intellectual, artistic and technical achievements are just different manifestations of that drive.  No one better than the other.  Much more alike than different. 

Everything's different, but it's all the same.

Today I am grateful for all of those manifestations of the very human need to create.  

Sweet Sixteen and Crazy Eights

This isn't how I planned it.

MY plan... I mean fantasy.... for the weekend went something like this.

Saturday would be sunny and pleasantly warm, much like the weather we had on St. Patrick's Day. I would go to the bike shop and test ride the new road bike that I have been lusting for. I would take a good two hour ride and really put it through its paces, because my previous experience with road bikes is that they feel great for the first 10 miles and then the lower back pain starts. This new bike is proportioned for women which is supposed to really help the back pain issue, but it will take a pretty good test ride to know if that's true.

As the fantasy continues, after my exhilarating test ride,  I would start  spring clean-up in the yard and garden. I would peek under the mulch and find my peonies poking through. I would clean up fallen sticks and seriously consider clearing out the protective garden mulch.  I would probably leave it in place, “just in case," confident that I was simply erring on the side of caution.

Sunday would bring an easy and effortless win for my beloved Uconn Women Huskies against Georgetown in the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA championships. Maya Moore would play with her characteristic magic, making shots that seem to defy the laws of physics. Kelly Farris would always be in exactly the right place at exactly the right time to be the most valuable underrated player in the conference. The team would barely break a sweat and we'd move on to the Elite Eight in fine fettle. Al and I would watch the game on TV, relaxed and smug about the superiority of our team.

That is not exactly how things worked out.

Last week, I wrote that the 65 degree sunshine on St. Patricks's Day flipped the “spring switch” and with the energy thus flowing, I felt invincible. With infinite energy, suddenly all things seemed possible. Well, whoever flipped that switch apparently had a cruel sense of humor. I made a false start in the race to spring,  leaving the starting blocks before the official gun went off. We've all been called back to the starting line and it isn't clear when the race will actually begin.

Despite my earlier optimism, we are in the midst of the unseasonably cold temperatures of an unusually long winter, even for Michigan. Less than one week after the false start of spring, we had a snow day from the university with some of the iciest roads of the entire winter. The morning temperature yesterday, when I hoped to be test riding that beautiful new red road bike, was a whopping 12 degrees. The peonies, if they are even close to the surface, are not only blanketed by a thick layer of protective mulch, but also by 5 inches of hard, crusty, icy snow. I would have to shovel the yard before I could do much cleanup of winter debris.

The worst part is that none of that really mattered. That manic energy I felt a week ago was sapped by the worst head cold I've had in years. I spent Saturday sniffling, sneezing, blowing my nose while huddled under two blankets, eyes too puffy and itchy to even read a book. Infinite energy? Hardly. More like infinitesimal.

I felt pretty miserable.

Kelly Farris, Maya Moore, Bria Hartley

Still, I was confident of an easy win for the Women Huskies against Georgetown. It is easy to get complacent about our team winning; they do it so often and make it look so easy. I wonder if the team feels that way as well.   However, Georgetown took an early lead and maintained it for most of the game; clearly this was not a game for a complacent team or even a complacent fan. UConn missed easy shots and turned over the ball needlessly, while Georgetown seemed to have all the luck. Ok, maybe they are a pretty good team, and maybe I underestimated them. Ok. I admit it. They are a very good team and I definitely underestimated them.

I started this blog while watching the game and for a while it really was not at all clear who would win. I wasn't at all sure how this story of would end.

As usual, the Huskies did win. These women do not give up just because things aren't going their way. Seniors Maya Moore and Lorin Dixon have a career record of 148 wins and just 3 losses, a record you don't develop by chance or by giving up when you make some mistakes. The commentators talked about Geno flipping the right switch and turning the game around. I am a little skeptical about switches after our St. Patrick's Day Disappointment, but energy certainly did emerge from somewhere deep inside those women and the game did suddenly change. Our beloved Huskies came back strong, closed Georgetown's lead, and then took one of their own. This happened uncomfortably late in the game, and it was not until the final 10 seconds, with UConn up by 5 points, that I was sure we had won.

Last year's peonies.

I guess it is time for me to dig deep and find my energy too. I know it is not far away because it was easy to find on that first spring-like day. That energy must be hiding in there somewhere buried under five inches of snow and obscured by my cold symptoms, but working its magic nonetheless, so that soon it will poke through the surface like peonies in the spring time and all things will again seem possible.


I just need to find that switch.

Today I am grateful for the power of symbols. As part of her response to the earthquake in Japan and its disastrous aftermath, Ellen began a project to make 1000 Origami cranes, a Japanese symbol of peace. She has made nearly 600 now in various colors and sizes. I hope this act brings her some measure of peace as she deals with a crisis in a place that she loves.

Spring has Sprung

Spring has sprung

the grass has riz

I wonder where the flowers is.

Here they come!

Thursday was an unseasonably warm day in Michigan, reaching an outrageously wonderful 65 degrees! Turning into our subdivision on my way home from work, I was greeted by the sight of kids playing outside- riding bikes, rollerblading, shooting baskets, jumping rope and WEARING SHORTS! In mid-March in mid-Michigan.  Yes, there is still snow on the ground but only where the plows  had created giant snowbanks and even those are much diminished.

It was like someone, somewhere, flipped a switch.

And now it is spring.

Never mind that the mercury only crept up to 45 degrees on Friday, or that by the end of this week, we are looking towards daytime highs in the low to mid thirties. Spring is almost here.

I know this for sure. Here's how:

1. The nets are up at the high school tennis courts and the teams have started practicing.
2. The early spring bulbs (crocuses, hyacinths and daffodils) have poked through the ground.
3. People have abandoned their winter coats. Even though the temperatures are a bit chilly, the heavy down parkas have been put aside as we defiantly pretend it is actually warm out there. It was only in the low 40's yesterday, but people were out without jackets of any kind- wearing hoodies and in some cases, tee shirts.
4. I can take the back roads to work again without fear of sliding off icy roads into roadside ditches and if water falls from the sky, it is more likely to be rain than snow.
5. The fresh asparagus in the grocery stores actually looks fresh.
6. The NCAA basketball championships are in full swing. Go UCONN!
7. Everything seems possible again.

It is like someone flipped that switch and the doldrums of winter faded into nothingness.  With the switch on, energy flows and suddenly I have energy to burn. I can hardly wait to ride my bike, start running, dig in the garden, and have my breakfast on the deck. I can hardly wait to write that book, frame those photos, and remodel the study. Maybe I should take up golf this year; certainly I should improve my tennis game. That mini-triathalon? The MS150? Bring them on; I'll be ready! If there were an electronic mood meter (a moodometer?), I would be pegged on insanely happy, bordering on manic. (Ok, not clinically, but you get the idea).

Those first days of spring give me energy- much like listening to ABBA's Dancing Queen while I am washing the dishes. Something about that song makes me want to … well, dance. How can anyone dislike the energy and joy in Dancing Queen?  

Back in the early 1990's I went to a conference in San Diego, California in early March. It had been a dreary winter in East Tennessee, where we lived at the time. Not really cold, but gray and rainy. I think it rained every day for over a month or something depressing like that. Anyway, I flew into San Diego at night, arriving well after dark and checked into my hotel room. The next morning, I stepped outside onto my balcony, which looked over the harbor, and the sunlight was so bright it hurt my eyes. I felt like a mole who burrowed out of the darkness and was blinded by the sun. Of course, it didn't take long to adjust and later that day, I called Al and told him to sell the house, pack up the kids, and get out there, because I had no intention of going home.

That is how I feel right now. Despite the currently gray skies and 42 degree temperature, I am giddy with the hope and energy of spring, of life emerging from dormancy.

Spring Flowers in Key West, FL

I don't dislike winter, but I've had my fill. Hurry home Spring! We've missed you. I know you are on your way and I'll be watching for your arrival.

Today I am grateful for spring and the annual cycle of renewal it brings.