Old Fence Oak Friends

"–Trail crew foreman says they finally got wise
to making trails low on the outside, so water
can run off good – "

– Gary Snyder, from "Walking the Long and Shady Elwha"









Assignment for today's work is get inside the roadside prairie where sumac, dogwood and bittersweet have taken over, cut it, stack it, treat it with herbicide if its not predicted to rain today or the next day.

Get rid of the road.
Lift off the visitor center.
Do away with the country club
we can see peak up out of the scrub trees
just across the street –

then it's just you and us,
old oaks there in a line as they were
planted a hundred years ago
by the farmer along a fence
all gone now but the disturbance.

When you hunch down
to lop at the base of the dogwood,
you're right inside the old,
because all of the other stuff
floats off, time itself, evaporates,
I know that I'd be lookin out
over natural prairie
goldenrod hard to chop down
no matter what
while you harness your horse
to pull up these rocks.  Not your fault you put the plow on through the panorama the pied beauty.
What's beauty with crying mouths
out along the shed, mud on dead boots,

hot heat, the kind with no conditioned sleep,
coffee two hours earlier
still stinging in your gut
sky closing down on your
because something's coming,
boil water,
hide the deer,
mosquitos will eat you up.

Remember when you stack the dogwood you have to separate out the bittersweet tendrils, the manager tells us, and pull back through the limbs of the dogwood with slender vines circling around and around in spirals, choking off the life of the limb. Vines go in separate piles to get burned.

One of the volunteers
wearing shorts not pants
walks through a low-lying mass
of broadleaf green and thorn thicket.
Might be ivy.
He keeps on going through.
He bends down to scratch.

Good friends old oaks have never moved.

Madison Bounty

"On the river, every day these heavy rains–
bleak, bleak, autumn in Ching-ch'u!
High winds strip the leaves from the trees;
through the long night I hug my fur robe."
   – Tu Fu, from "On the River"









Aug. 28

In only the matter of three days I have had the opportunity to hold land management tools in my hand and prune away a runaway patch of dogwoods along the old fence line oaks at Curtis Prairie at the Arboretum, and to carefully place sandbags along the edge of my yard at the sidewalk hoping they might hold out flooding waters creeping up tonight from the storm drains. As I look out my bedroom window right now, the house across the street, old and mostly colorless, is quite brightly beautiful under a morning flash of sunshine; in a few hours it is predicted rain that might very well send the river over its banks. Tu Fu and a thousand others have lived through their own river times, their own age of water, which we love, we drink, and we most certainly think about.


The river does not seek to become wild,
it merely moves along the creases it hasn't known.
Banks, stoned off, outcropped, decked,
set in place for us to watch from, to love
the river in much a way that we would indeed
our companions, our families, or mates.
The river pours up over its various blockades.
The rocks and docks give way and we are left
with result of gravity nothing to do with death.

Restoration Journal

"The usual objects have their moral significance. An oak-tree is to us a moral object because it lives its life regularly and fulfills its destiny." – Bailey, from The Holy Earth










The question does come up in this work we do in restoration – can you believe in the prairie? As we move along the edges of the question belief, morals, ethics, we sense that grasping towards but perhaps never quite getting our fists around something stable and true defines the age. We have a lot of options to choose from our past; we have a multitude to look toward in the future, whether by light or darkness. As for today, it has become just a bit more difficult, let's face it, to go ahead and accept that which we can get our hands around right now, this moment. News, politics, videos, games and apps are all there, but they're not there. Vapid is the word that comes to mind and, when we open up the brief pages of moral history of the beginning of the 21st century, unfortunately that will the defining nature of the times – a sort of cascade of vapidity, with a deep and secret longing for something to land on, but an unwillingness to let go of the hope of the next tech-giggle. In the meantime, pick up a pair of loppers, take your direction from restoration specialist, and begin the work of helping the prairie temporarily anyway, get rid of invasives and reorganize itself around what could or should be there. Spiritual endeavors, sooner or later, will need a book, a tool, a piece of paper, a plant, a vegetable or a water can, that it is to say some technique. Farmers are the last of us to know this without even sensing that they have to bring it up. There is a complete difference between visiting the track along Curtis Prairie in order to listen to the whippoorwills, and walking into a dense cluster of dogwoods, dressed down to the toes and up to the neck, bug sprayed, hatted, gloved and armed (sorry for metaphor) with loppers or shovel and becoming intimate with the species. The farmer took his and her craft for granted because it was nothing less than instinct made to survival by the addition of producing tools. That makes sense. It was obvious and had to be done. Today, the great link, – the one that separates the current tendency toward grasping and landing – is the task and the tool. A walk through the woods with children is green and it is mosquito. It is an introduction to a book; but we all know the difference between reading the introduction and reading the book. Education stops at the level of the introduction. Why? It feels something like one of two things: embarrassment on the part of the educator (that the poor student should have to endure something so boring as nature, as they plainly make seen) or a lack of knowledge in their own right. The farmer who is teacher has the childrens' hands in the earth before the first squeak of discontent chimes in walking line. They used to call this work. The modern teacher knows little about this and therefore doesn't understand that it is work itself that is one-half of the holiness. But there again, does the teacher know what appropriate holiness is? Is it possible that this too is boring? Are educators embarrassed that the earth is holy or do they just not understand? We see in the go around with what to believe in, we have no models of authority left. As we have lost the farmer so too we have lost of the various components that go into believing in the prairie. To believe in the prairie is to give it some of our time, some of our purpose. Devotion, of course, is a strange and tangled word for us in an age of skipping across the tops of things. Devotion is, however, the essential starting point of belief. I wonder if a teacher might come to know this?

Interviews with the Prairie

"Most of our difficulty with the earth lies in the effort to do what perhaps ought not to be done. Not even all the land is fit to be farmed. A good part of agriculture is to learn how to adapt one's work to nature, to fit the crop -scheme to the climate and to the soil and the facilities." – Liberty Hyde Bailey, from The Holy Earth






While it might be just as easily true that the river
  today crosses the broad canvas of the green parkway
and that it might rise up along the sidewalks
  up over edges of things that we in the city
have dared not anticipate it is the other day I think of,
  at the prairie along Lake Wingra so lush
as certainly not to make a complaint out of water.
  What of the cutting tools we brought to the work group
old loppers with long handles that set to the stem
  of the grey dogwoods and watched these short
trees fall in miniature timbers and we then stacked
  along the rutted trail which had once held fence oaks.
Well I say what of this little cove of green
  we find ourselves in this morning with brushed
spotlight of a coming sun trying peel away
  creases of the deep green underbrush of thorn
and that the bittersweet would creep unseen for years
  around the basswood and choke if it was not for us.

Halving the Night

"Halving the night
frogs croaking
cock crowing
morning and night together" – Snyder, from "Stages of the End of Night and Coming Day"








Only a step away
out past metal fence
Monona Drive
and the skirt of the lake–
blue bold and big
yes indeed

but look here
where I'm standing
up at the top
of the rock garden
creek, where dreams
of green have
taken hold

you and I
what's underneath
that fresh blanket
of duckweed
below?

"Away then to loosen, to unstring the divine bow, so tense, so long. Away, from curtains, carpet, sofa, book, – from "society" – from city house, street, and modern improvements and luxuries..." – Whitman, from "An Early Summer Reveille"






Aug 20


What to do, long days of old summer slumbering along, as if on a leash, a dog, but beloved – and that we have seen the guiding park across the street at the sports nets, the edges of Monona, now cluttered by the overgrowth of rip rapped wreath of aquatic vines and such...We walk into Olbrich Park and see how entirely 'nother world opens up, rose garden pavilion off to the east, observation pool to the west, little trinkets of such plantings of the wildest of world known flowers bouncing by the landing of a thousand bees, the Chinese figs overhanging and holding us down inside a tunnel away from the sun, thankful, thankful forever. The Eastern rock garden pulsing above by a small pool, alluvial and waving by the velvety green of underwater plants, pulsing down into the split forks of running creeks, alive, in love, we hold our hands together along the garden and sing..

"some rounds fall clean down split in two,
some tough and thready, knotty,
full of grass and galleries..." – Snyder, from "Gnarly"










Reading through some such magazine
just last night,
ballgame in the background,
could hear hard rain out there just beyond the sliding glass door–
screen to the real thing,
a back bay, half-wild,
boats barely moving so tied down,
reading about how to make a shelter
out in the wild,
slip that saw edge into two good handles,
wrap it up to tighten at top
then start that limb slow, slow, easy.
Could smell the pine needles below my feet,
looking up
the elbow in the birch is what I'd use
for my beam,
then assign myself some tasks
for limbs,
weave them in and out, breath in the smoke
swirling around catching in wind,
lucky for my fire, by hatchet (?)
one can only hope,
then leaves over my new house,
waiting
for the eyes of the woods place themselves
at the edge
of my little existence,
me keeping the certain coming rain out.

"Each boulder stands apart like a desert island in a swelling sea of forest. Its only inhabitants are mosses." – Kimmerer, Gather Moss











Aug. 21

Looking out over the bay this morning it is still rippled and gray, a hard rain that his hit beginning last night and caused some flooding south of here in Dane County, has allowed for some reading, of Kimmerer especially, both Braiding Sweetgrass and Gathering Moss, books that are wonderfully written and perhaps most important places hands on the nature, the only way to get to know what you are truly looking for, which is connection, understanding, community. I have said it probably too many times now in this journal that our mode of modern naturalism is of a 'passing-by.' I know this far too well myself, as I drive back and forth from Madison often, looking at the landscapes and the signs for natural areas last 70 miles per hour, only stopping here and there at Devil's Lake or Ferry Bluff, but knowing that should be the priority. In a time of 'should,' of course, the trick becomes how to get those feet back on the ground? Toes on the rocks, fingers touching lightly over the moss? I am very enticed by Kimmerer's position in all of this as a biologist, as a quality writer, and as somebody who considers the connection to nature spiritually – these are the big three, if you will. The more I see this, the more I realize that I must station some kind of more regular practice in the woods. A nature journal truly is a fine start. To draw is to find. To write is to reveal and connect. To teach is to share. At this moment, it has inspired me to consider The Nature Journal, a center directly committed to the process of reading, writing and observation, books at hand, artists in residence, and classes cycling.

Rock Fragments

"My feet touching the ground are like fingers on the piano, playing from memory an old sweet song, of pine needles and sand." – Kimmerer, from Gathering Moss











Ferry Bluff

Wasn't really about
old county C out of Sauk Prairie–
wishful farms out there,
the kind you don't want,
too close to the road,
or twenty black
pick-ups staring right at you
in the rear view mirror –
these aren't really
the things anymore.

Can't even say
it was gravel parking lot
littered with teenage stuff,
Hamms cans, cig butt,
who knows, maybe that was a condom,
or even the little lip
of the Wisconsin
that was just peeking its way
up from the trailhead.
Would have been days
this was all fine, a getaway,
but now it is seen
as what it is: the edges
of things, visits.

No I was happier
when I took my socks
off up on that sandstone
overlooking
the cloud-lit canopy
of the Wisconsin from a few hundred up.
I was hot
as unshaded coneflower up there.
As I stood, my insides
were still.
There was no way
you would seen the stalk
of me grow
by yellow bud.

My Own French Kitchen

“Thank God that’s over. Visits tire me to the bone. I don’t mean you, of course, mon père; my weekly visit to you is a luxury, you might almost say my only one. ” – Harris, My French Kitchen












August 19


Getting us to a fine French restaurant on a sunday night on a whim is not as easy as it should be. There is always what we might call the wish cycle in kids and young adults eating desires -- one of my wishes? To eat a traditional French cuisine based food program daily; or a frequent visit to any number of four to five French restaurants here in Madison, to take in the beautiful ambience, to watch out over Lake Monona from the deck of Sardine as we sample from a cheese plate. But, oh well, it does happen and maybe most importantly it does serve as very powerful motivation to begin the process, once and for all, to bring some of that French right back here in the house. I have the cookbooks, I have the interest, and for now it is all about the cooking backbone to execute. We made a fine batch of purple macaroons yesterdays – it was a fair start, especially since they turned out quite good. We bought a little kit at Sur la Table which consisted of a rubber mat indented with the circles for laying down the batter, a hand held nozzle and tips for squeezing and a little book of recipes. The technique seemed to work just fine. The batter was a perfect consistency and once it was dolloped into the circle it spread just to the edges and stopped, creating perfect circles of purple. They were supposed to bake for some 20 minutes but our own oven runs quite hot, so I turned down the heat and I pulled them out a bit early; after they cooled, they were crisp on the outside, somewhat textured and only a touch sticky on the bottom, but most of them easily usable for our experiment in lathering in as the filling strawberry frosting or pre-scooped ice cream that made sure came out hard and obviously still frozen. For being so few ingredients – powdered sugar, almost flour, egg whites and a pinch of vanilla – the crisps were excitingly good and sweet. The extra pop of ice cream was really quite a nice idea and I would very much recommend this for an macaroon maker. We were told by the store clerk that these were quite a process but they ended up fairly easy, although it was suggested to let the batter sit in the circles for 30 minutes to properly form.

Our visit later to Sardine was a little more sophisticated, but there they did all the cooking for us. On a recent visit to Spain, we decided that we liked cheese plates – and had a wonderful batch at a tapas shop a mound of gorgonzola infused with honey and a bit of olive oil, and fell in love. The cheese plate we ordered at Sardine was nice, including a brie, but the harder varieties were a bit pungent for our tastes. I tried for the first time was is called a housemade merguez, what reads a complicated mixture of fennel, coriander, cilantro, and a few other spices in addition to the ground lamb. This was really an amazing dish, albeit a bit challenging on digestion. Paired with a wonderful selection of greens, and topped off by the French 1665 beer, it was a nice early evening French dish, oysters already sampled, cheese tasted, and the prospect of a dessert (beyond macaroons!) on its way. The wish French food thinker in me always imagines that it is deck of Sardine that is my own summer haunt, and that I am in the kitchen plying my hands at the marguez myself and serving it to whoever might decide to stop by for a bite.

My French Kitchen:
A Daybook

"A week ago the weather was so balmy the the pussy willows at the back of the yard were beginning to open, and I was thinking about planting a few radish seeds in the back vegetable bed, where I'd just finished harvesting the last of the turnips." – Klaus, from Weathering Winter










Aug. 19

When a day passes and all I've done cooking-wise is slip a local grocery vegetable pizza in in the oven, what can I say, it never feels enough, incomplete. So I began a little journal on French cooking three weeks ago and had following its recipes fairly closely and gearing up to begin to stock the kitchen with French essentials (I find out what these are as I go along, of course), and then a week long trip to Spain to visit my middle daughter had sent me off in another direction entirely, considering tapas and paella. These weeks later, well, what can I say, I come out of it all with this conclusion: I may prefer to visit Spain, but how could I ever give up my French cooking? Yesterday morning it was cereal, all day long granola bars and, if I remember right, biscuit and bacon sandwich from Starbucks, then later a fine chopped chicken salad from Hollander over at Hilldale. It feels something like food ADHD, skipping around from various quick food to another, all the while those French recipes sitting there in the wonderful books like My French Kitchen, or another, soon for me to review, a local favorite on french baking. Klaus's wonderful little day book is dedicated to his garden; I am convinced more and more as I get older that perhaps nothing is quite so important or relevant in our days that to have something 'hands-on' to do, to create, to then share. Days like yesterday go by a little like flying but without landing. I wouldn't quite go as far as to say migrating, really, but oddly more flying around in circles. Here, as always, is another self-comittment to never give up the fine craft, trade, art of French cooking, so that these wings can catch a rest.

Some Notes on Wisdom,
Science and Plants

"It is an intertwining of science, spirit, and story – old stories and new ones that can be medicine for our broken relationship with the earth, a pharmacopeia of healing stories that allow us to imagine a different relationship, in which people and land are good medicine for each other.
– Kimmerer, from Braiding Sweetgrass, preface










Aug. 17

When you are exposed to a book that serves answers to the most profound of questions, you feel quickly honored to be in such company, to be given insight and story that seems to match the level of what is needed for our time. Kimmerer asks the question early, the very one that forces us see our interface with earth in the largest possible picture, so that we might re-evaluate (or what she refers to in just a few more paragraphs along, to come up with 're-story-ation'), our place and time on earth right now, "How can we begin to move toward ecological and cultural sustainability if we cannot even imagine what the path feels like? If we can't imagine the generosity of geese? The students were not raised on the story of Skywoman". We may quickly come to see that many or most of our seers of the past and of today, have generally come back around, seemingly in a full circle to some degree, of realizing that as long as we continue to see issues of sustainability as a technical problem also, we are really only offering a materialist answer to a materialist problem: if the oceans saturate in acidity due to climate pollution, maybe we can save the oceans by creating enormous ocean filters. This is literally an example of a 'one track mind,' and indicates to many of us who work hard at maintaining as many fragments of spiritual concern for the earth around as we can, that maybe we have lost, finally, all remaining spiritual ties to the earth, ties that might look something like sweetgrass itself, very fibers that grow from the earth upwards and offer themselves for all to either admire from the outside, or, as Kimmerer shows us right away, as a means to touch and connect. In these first few pages both the most critical questions and answers are offered: how do we re-establish a spiritual connection to earth at a time when we sense that this relationship has unfortunately (evolved / devolved?) into one that is chiefly materialistic – as Leopold summarized it: land as commodity not community. And that the answers, although we know are abundantly true, feel fleeting, temporary, and that takes so much extra effort in our contemporary times in which time is filled with activity that is often primarily self-serving and based on gaining not giving. The answer to the question above, the one that the students were unable to answer in a simple and positive way, is to simultaneously both touch and believe in creator earth. This doesn't take much, but ironically it takes everything also, to achieve. For those who garden, for those who still farm, for those who research a species, who fish, who dig, who seed, who swim...regularly, we are all a good ways along the great path, for the person who only things of a love of nature will quickly lose her momentum in these matters. The poet or teacher who presumes that teaching nature can be done from the front of a classroom, will at some point lose steam, so to speak. There's no real substitute for mud on the hell, a sunburn, or the cool touch of a fresh spring that bubbles up off Lake Wingra. In fact, we could stop right at that very junction between think and touch, and say that is the great bridge between the wanting of sustainability and the doing of sustainability. We have hundreds of thousands of young people moving through hundreds of widely acclaimed college programs across American in any given year, but how many would respond, after their four years, with the very same answer that Kimmerer shares with us: they cannot fathom a true and fundamental relationship with nature. The answer, of course, is the title of the book: braiding sweetgrass. Through a long process of cultural conditioning, our 'touching of the earth' has moved away from fundamental need to luxury (if that's the right word?) To braid sweetgrass would have been not only a useful task / art form, but the time that it would have taken to practice this would open up the human ability to create story, love, dedication, and belief surrounding it: enter the story of Skywoman. We want so badly in these times for a bundle of braided sweetgrass to have already been created, laying on a table, and perhaps study it is a vestige of some other time, some other groups' conception of art, trade, story. We are forever looking at the surfaces of things, assembling bits and pieces of information that might allow for brief understandings of things, or for moment's of appreciation. While the reality of contemporary time plays out in a kind of barely manageable hurry, from thing to thing, and that hands-on crafts and vocations are seen as either idiosyncratic or for folks who have a lot of 'time on their hands.' Again it is at this instant of thought, where an outward appreciation is stirred but incapable of following through with one's own connection, that is the crux of Kimmerer's most essential question: how to get to sustainability without a positive relationship with the very thing we would like to improve upon..the condition of the earth. Educators who are self-trained in the subtleties of knowing what their students need, might here say that curriculum, them, must cover some of the 'underneath' techniques in any given course: the botany class certainly must come know the plants, the accurate sighting, the accurate make-up, components, conditions, and structures; but under that what are the stories, the histories, spiritual references, and, what are the uses of such plants that we could engage in ourselves in order to experience 'plant-time?' If our calculations are correct, it will be, ironically in many cases, 'time' itself, how experience it, what comes from it as we engage in a discipline (braiding), that will be the deeper educator than even the original intentions of the memorization of plants. The Land Ethic came to call for our folding of the 'land' into our conscious mind, creating a personal and public ethic that would elevate soil, for example, into our daily system of care. Many readers saw that one of the challenges of this call to ethics was bound to be that it didn't necessarily call for hands-on right now. To think and to do are two parts of an ethical sequence. Every class in botany or environmental studies should devote a quarter of itself to a craft, an art form, or whatever is chosen not only 'to touch' the earth but maybe more importantly to open up time of devotion. In those minutes and hours, the students will have formed a positive relationship with earth that will alter their answers to the same questions.

"New Year's day and a newly fallen snow, completely covering the ground. So pristine in the early morning sun it makes me wonder why no one ever sings about dreaming of a white new year. A fresh start." – Klaus, from Weathering Winter: A Gardener's Daybook






August 14

Conducting a short two hour nature writing class at the USFW was poignant reminder for me to start taking some of my own advice a little more seriously – get outside! Stay in touch with nature! Sketch it out! Write! How easy it all is to talk about and, surprise surprise, how hard it can be to follow through with it yourself. A few things had come together by that moment, 10 in the morning at the Brices Prairie USFW Visitor's Center – a beautiful green building directly inside a wonderfully maintained prairie, stocked full of butterfly weed, compass plants, goldenrod, and abundant dragonflies. Just a week before I had the chance to participate in a day long educator's session at the Leopold shack in Barraboo, only an hour from Madison, and of course the beginning of so much of the writing from Sand County. I met a variety of folks interested in the same things I was. We went through some exercises that we could all then use ourselves further down the road, for nature studies and incorporate into our own classes. A favorite was laying out little plastic sheet of sorts down onto the ground and drawing with markers some indications of a variety of wildlife and water phenology. I drew some long-tailed weasel prints which walked up to a recent fish kill along the river. Some turtle eggs had been crushed, on the drawing, by human footsteps and a little river scooted by at the edge. You know, I remembered remarking to myself, as we were all crouched down drawing such things and looking at our little guidebooks, that of course it takes some real time get back into natural things no matter who you are. A walk down to the shack was quite a reminder of the spartan needs of such a shack. A one room, with multiple beds and shutters as windows drilled to place by large screws and nuts. Mosquitos must have been something here...lucky for the fireplace, I suspect, burning raw wood as something like a smudge fire. Quite a fond memory and one that is so easy to re-write about. Now, this day at the USFW, we walked around that prairie together. I and another fellow who had been a tech arts teacher for years and who was an on and off again writers, we walked along a wide trail through the prairie coming up with ideas for journals and for education. When was the last time I had done this, I asked. The crickets all the way loud as any white noise you might think of indoors. Wind rustling through the long grasses and prairie thistles. Doesn't take much, not really, I was thinking the whole way through, to replace some of those static images we carry around with us all the time, with the far more compelling images and sounds of nature. But you've gotta do it. Talking about things will never work. The teacher, I thought, had better be ready to participate themselves, or it is all for naught...

On to Segovia

"It is the center of the most ravishing and troubling, sensuous and mystical of all Spanish spectacles – Holy Week in Seville." – Fuentes, from the Buried Mirror











August '18


The small old cities outlaying beyond Madrid, Avila and Segovia, are geographical and architectural impressions of a distant past that has been so well preserved as to create the illusion that history is still alive today. One says that it may be illusion because we are never quite sure – especially here from the states in which the cathedral is not part of our cultural tapestry – whether we are merely picking through facade or investing in something that is real. As we visited Avila one cannot help but feel this tug and pull all the way through. Home of St. Theresa, a sainted Carmelite who pushed mightily for stricter reform on the conduct of the monastery of the time, is without a doubt highly revered – she was reformer, participant, writer, missionary and creator of multiple other convents. Yet what a strange impression it leaves on the traveler to see that all of the religious iconography and all of the building, books, statuary, have only visual fodder for tourists. The town of Avila is a fortress and overlooks the valley, walls substantial, and walking platforms for Roman soldiers to watch for the advance of peering tribes. Seemingly to protect the religious contents that live inside. In America, we may have a tendency to build back over such ramparts and start anew. Older churches tend to blend in with the community but the neighborhood and the church seem to be two separate distinct features of our history. In Avila and Segovia the cathedral and monastery are the community and we can see a hundred little instances of the hints of life at that time. The aqueducts in Segovia tell us that water had been added into the cultural priorities of defense and religion and whatever farming or herding might have been the chief pursuits of that time. The castle at the end of the town reminds us of rulership and another instance of a separation between the religious center and the administrative necessity, obviously in charge of the military, fed by farmers surrounding. At the least, these walks and these observations remind us of the elemental nature of life in the Spanish village.

Elemental Madrid

"Look at the map of Iberia. It is like a taut bull's skin, crisscrossed by the paths left by men and women whose voices and faces we in Spanish American dimly perceive." – Fuentes, from The Buried Mirror










Before you meet your guide for a first foray into tapas in Madrid, there are images of long dark streets full of pulsing bars and all other sorts of eateries; or maybe longer yet calles, bright and elegant, showing the same numbers of people but by brightly lit windows, perhaps along the Grand villa. And then you meet your guide in your own hotel and he is quite enthusiastic, Australian by origin, but speaks a variety of languages, one of them certainly Spanish. The small district that we walk to is the so called Bohemian Arts district, but indeed there is nothing that strikes you as particularly Bohemian, but instead it is quite regularly beautiful, the small tapas hubs crafted in deep woods and advertises by artful signs. We sit in the back end of one as a Spanish crowd nibbles at smoked salmon and Iberian jason. Small cold glasses of cerveza are handed out at an intensely fast pace and the regulars, who no doubt know the bartenders well, do nothing much more than raise their glasses and make brief eye contact and there is another and then another landed on the table. "The jamon here is all from nearby farms. The Spanish take their jamon very seriously and this is probably the most common tapas that you will ever find." Those thin slices are layered across the plate and, even despite the chewiness of the fat, eats so well – much like raw bacon – that it creates a certain kind of craving that can only be satisfied by the cerveza in the other hand. We tried the dried salmon over a simple white cheese similar to mozzarella and then some stuffed olives. The tapas culture seemed so elemental and obvious once you began that night's ordering and sampling. Because the entire table tends to order the same tapas, you have something so easily to talk and comment about as you sit and await the next one in order. They are both light but with enough substance that you are not drinking on an empty stomach but you are also not going to get so full as to want to end the evening as a result of a bloated stomach. We went to two other tapas bars, tavernas, one a wine and cheese shop offering a wonderful concoction of gorgonzola, honey, olive oil. The Riojo wine became a necessary balance to the creamy subtleties of the cheeses. Our final stop was for the sweet: a thick slice of cheese cake, dashed off by a dark chocolate, and paired by a brut of sorts. We walked back past a packed jazz venue, "one of the true jazz spots in all of Europe." The district was just picking up now. It was a tuesday night. Many, including no doubt families, would not see their beds by one in the morning, only to wake up a handful of hours afterward, ready for espresso and toast.

Days in Salamanca

"Pachamama is a goddess revered by the indigenous people of the Andes. She is also known as the earth/time mother. In Inca mythology, Pachamama is a fertility goddess who presides over planting and harvesting, embodies the mountains, and causes earthquakes."











It is written of Spain that no matter how much you may come to love the rustic countryside or the lively streets of the cities at night, it will be, in the end, the Spanish people and their zest for celebrating the long and sunny days the best. There's no better example of this shift than finding oneself at a small little place like Pachamama, on the other side of the Tormes River, at ten at night diving into a steak as large as the plate itself, and realizing that it is quite possible you are eating early, not late. It takes the mind, body, spirit some time to come to this shift; in America, we are now quite interested in eating our dinners as early as possible, so as to digest, then getting ourselves to bed by nine so that we can dial back up our schedules as early as possible: a quick bowl of cereal, a cup of coffee, a rush to a car, a rush to a school, a rush to a job, and then, as we ponder our hunger for a few hours, decide on that quick lunch counter we can get to with whatever spare time we might have. Let's face it, after a short while in Spain, we all ask the question 'how do the Spanish get away with this?' It's a question that is so not new that the writer has to wonder if it's worth asking. It wasn't until I cut through my steak that night, under the lights of the outdoor patio, under the fading light of the long Salamanca day, the I too would have thought it nothing more than cliche, go with the flow, eat when the rest of the folks do, and leave it at that. But I now want to know more and I want to know if I could get away with any of this back here in our fairly rigorously maintained schedules of the great midwest. The first thing that is recognized after a few nights in Spain is that there are a lot more hours to account for in any given day than what we are used to. It is not abnormal in the least for the standard American to already visualize a night of watching sports before the altar of the TV (I too watch far too much baseball) even before we arrive at home. This comes, I assume, to a feeling that one's day needs some escape, not an extension, as the Spanish might. If we have spent the last eight hours generally doing things that we would never choose to do – whether in terms of tasks or environment – than our homes become places to hide, escape, and generally get away from. The Spanish, on the other hand, are merely reengaging one more time at night and the hours from 8 until 1 or 2 in the morning are experienced much like the second part of the day to be enjoyed, to wander, eat new foods, and breath in the night air sprinkled with stars. This is one of two main revelations that I experienced in Spain: there is more life to be lived here because nights open up not as escapism, either via TV or bar drinking, for example, but a time of magic, wonder and culture. This insight alone is life altering, for unhappiness, we imagine, comes from our minds and bodies simply not living the way that they would choose naturally, a near definition of American culture. Virtually every component of American life that is deemed healthy, or a part of wellness, is something that is ardently added on – a good workout, a diet, a cleanse, time stolen back for meditation or maybe for plucking the strings of a guitar in ones basement. None of these things work seamlessly into the contours of scheduled lives; instead they are add-ons, escapes, or contrasts to our lifestyles. As I was sitting there in that seat out on that outdoor patio with my steak as big as a plate, I knew that I didn't particularly want that large of a portion of red meat and had actually made a mistake of choice as I ordered. But it was ten at night. I was still up. Awake. Alive. Looking out at the groups of people coming in for simple, not drunken, drinks. The steak was quite beautiful. Later that night I slept the sleep of a saint.

On the Streets of Salamanca

"Living as we do in the age of the baseball cap, it is rare and refreshing to discover a genuine hatter – one that provides a generous selection of elegant and practical hats not only for ladies and gentlemen but for shepherds, farmers, amateur aviators, adventurers, jungle explorers, and nostalgic crooners." – Peter Mayle, from Provence A-Z









It seems reasonable to say, after spending only a few days in Salamanca, that to visit is to love it. What do we seek in travel? Sunshine that runs high and clean and that washes across a brightness of architecture that is naturally golden anyway. Labyrinthian roads that are so narrow barely a small BMW can nose along its cobblestones. Mammoth wooden doors chiseled out to fine art. Food at every turn and every back alleyway. Pleasant people. Adventure. In a word Salamanca is an adventure for the eye. Although we spent our first day here in a wild dream state, post jet lag, and that  in that state of mind the entire city looked like a Cezanne, the city had quietly and comfortably become known to us, located as we were right along the Paseo del Rector, no more than two blocks from the Puente Romano, itself a bridge that still shouldered original Roman handiwork at some 26 archways. Underneath the bridge, a bike path that split into both directions and at either end. The American, as he begins to eye up a city, especially in his home state, continuously awaits to stumble across patches of the city that should not be trespassed due to safety concerns, but Salamanca brightens and gratifies once more on this front, and has a sense of a quaint village filled with, gasp,

happy people at virtually every curve in calle. We had stationed on our schedule a bike tour through our tour guide and walked up along Calle Vera cruz past Universidad de Salamanca to the bike shop where we met three bikes parked on an uphill. We assumed that the guide would be English speaking only because our drivers and guides to this point had all been Spanish but spoke English certainly far better than we could Spanish, but our guide did not. She was exceedingly kind and offered to do the tour anyway with her slight ability as she said with English. What most certainly could have become a pitfall in our tour became one of the more memorable two and a half hours of our entire trip because it was our best and only forced interface with the language. At certain spots we would stop to take a look at a view of a building, the bridge, a cathedral, and by exchanging back and forth our comments in our respective language we were able to work out the context of what we were trying to say. At one point she showed us the backside of a manufacturing facility, quite old, dilapidated, and something to do with such factories not doing so well in this region right now and I asked what it produced. There was no way for her to say the word in English and so she quickly looked it up on her phone and it turned out it was fertilizer that was produced there, not the most elegant product for the outskirts of such a dazzling city, but nonetheless understandable. We had a short laugh, and she called out, "ok, c'mon" and we launched out to our next stop down the path.

La Cocina Espanola

"We started up the road into the woods. It was a long walk home to Burguete, and it was dark when we came down across the fields to the road, and along the road between the houses of the town, their windows lighted, to the inn."
– Hemingway, from "The Sun Also Rises"










August '18


I had remembered the list of tapas inns and more formal restaurants that our receiving tour guide in Salamanca had written out for us. At that moment, before we had even walked into the city, sitting there on the couch in the lobby of Hotel Rector, there would have been no way to fully understand what a daunting task it must have been to quickly sign off only a small handful of places to eat in a city that is, without exaggeration, door after door after door eating establishments. With a quick glance at the website, I could see that el Mason de Gregor located at the far edge of the Plaza Mayor and did not need any reservations before the true dining hours of eight and beyond. We arrived to open tables, white tableclothed, on the sidewalk, and the waiters dressed in full white regalia, dark haired, and quite serious. Next to us the conversation from the table was interestingly English (from England) and something that had more of a Dutch accent. We felt now, surrounded by Spanish speakers, our own American, and European English to our right, like we were steeped inside an episode of Poirot or some other similarly cosmopolitan program. There is nothing quite like this and takes some time to wonder about at a later time. The air here still quite light, but under shade from a boulevard tree; some minor car traffic along the calle near the Plaza; other small restaurants just around the corner beginning to fill up; the air warm; the waiters serious; and a menu that offers some

ver elegant offerings...these are the moments that I think we visualize as we are thumbing through our tour guides and daydreaming of what it might look like. Salamanca never fails the traveler at this level of wishful thinking and as my own suckling lamb arrived and Carly's lamb chops (5), we were literally imbibing Spanish culture. There are several things that makes, in my mind anyway, after a short visit, a soulful refuge of culture is its labyrinthian side calles, uncountable eating establishments, and all commanded over by the original intent of the city as both a university and religious mecca. One could possibly make the point that this moment is a sort of golden era of travel because, compared to the past, these major influences – university, religion, eating establishments – are experiencing relative peace, if not relative and full belief. If religion had been all powerful in the past, sometimes to the point of control and violence (think inquisition) or if the university did not always have such influence (think its early conception in the 1500's when it was trying establish credibility), these things are now all in tact and beautiful and very accessible in time of peace. The next morning we would take a bike tour of the city with a native Spanish speaker from Salamanca. She was very pleasant and willing to share in her insecurity over own ability to speak English. There was no animosity in her demeanor, something that most Americans are sensitive toward as they travel Europe. I was nothing more than another man with a daughter on equal terms with this wonderful guide. As we sat at the table at meson Gregor, it was similar. It was neutral and professional. The suckling lamb was a carver's dream, knifing away at portions for what seemed an hour. Carly learned to cut away the purely meaty portions of lamb chops and when she had succeeded in getting to the red it was something of an accomplishment. The table next to us continued to speak in hushed European tones. The plaza Mayor, just beyond the arch in sight was beginning to whisper in the streets.

Streets of Salamanca

"Parrots, stars, and in addition the official sun and a brusque dampness brought out in me a meditative taste for the earth and whatever covered it, and the satisfactions of an old house in its bats..." – Neruda, from "Contradicted Communications"










Puente Romano

Night comes
and she settles down
(I am thankful)
slowly over the Puente Romano
where I am drawn
so much
like a walking ear
to music
spilling out of the doorways
of sunken taverns.
Night comes and I find myself
in love
with things only of age,
of the brittle
imperfections
of centuries' old
cobblestones and arches
that I imagine
assembled by the hands
of leathery Romans – wives
must wonder
at what happens
to we men,
that imagination,
how carved stones
turned to story boards
of times past
would have tantalized
us far beyond
the flesh of this time.
We walk inside
the glow
of the streetlamp
together,
the city in one hand,
night of Cervantes
in the other
and just as any love
it is disappearance
as always
that is the vice of man.
Rio Tomes,
spillway of silver
rocks and brick –
these are the trinkets
I might hold
of history
and stand as a fool
waiting
outside the cafe
at night
as the last light
clicks off inside
and she never
arrives
to open the wide
wooden door.

My Spanish Kitchen:
A Panoramic

"Just then, from one of the boats tied up to Brown's dock, a rocket rose with a whoosh high into the sky and burst with a pop to light up the channel." – Hemingway, "Islands in the Stream"











The jet lag had not last long after the first day and Sam was very happy about that. It was one of the things most feared, he remembered, of traveling overseas and losing the six hours. If you don't make up the sleep jet lag can stay with you an entire trip and a cast a shadow over everything that you did. They had woken up at the noon the next day to the buzzing of the phone on the side table next to the bed. The room was so dark that it would have been impossible at that moment to tell what time it was exactly; there were brown shudders that left absolutely no light into the room and it felt much like a cave, very cool, very dark, the walls like concrete. "It is time to get up," he said, as he reached for his phone and saw that it was 11:30 in the morning, only half an hour before the time that they were to pick up Allyssa. This would be the end of it, Sam thought, all of this work to make this trip, the mother would be furious, the only rule that they had for the entire trip was to pick up Allysa by noon, a simple seven minute walk across the city village and there were the dorms at Juan Frays Collegio, as simple as that. "Everybody will have to get dressed right away." He lifted the blankets off of Sarah's head, who always slept with covers up over her face and especially her ears to stay warm. "You can go by yourself," was the first thing that she said, of course. "No we must all go ever there, we promised," Sam said. He had turned on the main light in the hall and the room was now quite light and white and it seemed unusual to have slept for 12 hours, like a time travel, and he felt a sort of lightness throughout his entire body and felt like he could go on forever now that the jet lag was washed out of him. He walked over to the Katie's bed. She would be far more difficult and of course would not want to walk over for any reason whatsoever and so he thought about leaving her right there and they would be back quite soon anyway. "Katie, it is time to get up, we don't have any time. No showers." In the bathroom he quickly put on as many clothes as he could quickly find and combed very quickly, then flipped an espresso pod into the machine and let it run for two cycles, the coffee aroma smelling so spectacular that he wished he could sit right there and drink coffee all morning, a little cream, watching the street just below the window where the student's cars had parked, and the balconies above were quite with colorful flags waving from them. He looked at his phone, a missed call, from Allyssa, "where are you, my director is wondering." He knew this could be the end of things right here. He had worked so hard for this trip and did not want it to end this way, not like this.