The Waiter on the Bike

A bit behind on my biking chronicle, but with good reason. Yesterday we biked 100 kilometers. That’s 60 miles! Not bad for seven people in their 70’s!

 

With stops for lunch and water and such, the ride took some 9 hours and we didn’t get to our hotel in Trento until 8:00 or so. Since it was about 85 degrees for most of the day, all opted to shower before dinner and it was like eating in Spain— we finished dinner at 10:30 at night. Along the way of the seemingly endless ride, we passed through so many different little eco-systems, many that felt wholly reminiscent of other places I had biked. The winding switchbacks just like the Slovenian trip when we crossed the border into Italy, the ride along the lake could have been Crystal Lake on the Rails to Trails path up in our summer northern Michigan place, the sweeping views at the top of hillsides similar to moments in our France bike ride, a moment along a river that could have been in Salzburg.

 

No photos to document it all because I finally volunteered to lead the ride, which meant following the orange dot on my phone, cross-checking with its map, listening to the Siri-like voice giving me directions, most of which were either wrong and or just too confusing to follow. The map was a better bet. 

It was the most complex route of all we had taken and often needed “re-calculating” the route, including in busy, trafficked towns.

 

But I liked being out in the lead and rising to the responsibility of getting us where we needed to go. Truth be told, we all underestimated just how long 60 miles was and I thought of the song from Spamelot, “This is the song that never ends,” substituting “trail” for “song.” Near the end (but not near enough!), the tension grew as my phone battery was down to 4%, my electric bike was down to one bar, and my hearing aids (useful to hear the non-useful voice guide) were on the edge of running out. I do believe we could do this trip on regular bikes, clear maps and some better signage and no hearing aids necessary. But when the electronic versions worked, it did make things just a little bit easier.

 

Often at this point in a ride, we would stay two nights at one place, but the next morning, off we went again for another 65 kilometers—about 40 miles— to the next town of Bolzano. Again, temperature in the 80’s and direct sun required many stops in the shade for the needed drink of water. This path was much more straightforward than yesterday’s, parallel to the river the whole way and not crossing and re-crossing over and over again as it did the day before. We arrived at the hotel in Bolzano at the much more reasonable time of 5:00 pm, an hour to shower and then out into this bustling European town with its pedestrian cobblestoned streets, innumerable outdoor cafes and tempting gelaterias (we succumbed). What a pleasure to sit in eat outside in the cooling evening, bodies thoroughly exercised—100 miles in two days!—and feeling permission to eat to our heart’s content. The town abuzz with congenial human conversation and stopping for a moment to just take it all in, it's hard to imagine that there’s so much evil afoot. And why? How simple it would be— how simple it is— to just break bread together and clink glasses and stroll the town with our double-scoop gelato. 

 

And yes, still conflict. I left out the part near the end of the 60-mile ride when I felt unheard and abandoned amidst the tension of my declining electronic charges. I had ridden to the top of the hill and the agreement was to follow me. But when I waited at the top, no one had and the waiting stretched on to 10 or 15 minutes and no attempt to contact me to let me know what was going on. Finally, with my dying phone, I was able to call my wife and she said the group decided to go a different route. Without letting me know in a timely manner. When I rode down the hill to meet them, I didn’t direct my anger at any one person, but made it clear that I was pissed off and sulked for the remaining ride into town. When we finally checked in, all retreated to their rooms with a heavy vibe in the air.

 

But I WhatsApped them all and suggested we meet for dinner, both because we were starving and I wanted to clear the air. So after we all showered and then gathered for dinner, I calmly expressed what happened from my point of view, without blame or shame. Just as I was finishing saying my peace, the vivacious waiter came to set our table and sprinkled flower petals around. It was a perfect gesture to put it all behind us and get on with a lovely outdoor dinner with the best music any restaurant has offered yet—some quiet, recorded guitar music without a thumping beat in earshot.

We left the restaurant in good spirits and then they lifted up higher when the waiter came riding by on his bicycle waving a scarf one of us had left at the table. Such kindness and generosity. So I suggested the photo below. 

 

Tomorrow is a shorter bike ride and then we have two days at the next place. Time to re-group and do a little laundry in the sink. 

 

Unplugged

My daughter Talia asked me in a short text how the bike group was getting along and I said, “Mostly fine. But for my taste, too many phones!!” Every single meal they’re out, sometimes needed, sometimes not. But this morning was the worst—every single person except me either talking about their phones or trying to make something work on their phones. I just had to leave—too damn depressing.

 

When we’re riding, it’s not too much of an issue, but still, the route is on the phone and every time we stop, even when in front of a sign that says, “Bike route to your destination—this way,” it’s five to ten minutes heads down trying to interpret the little purple dot. It’s really maddening. Same thing when we arrive in town trying to find the hotel. But I just walk up to the nearest person and they happily give me directions—which today actually got us to the hotel better than any purple dot.

 

These are good people. But it’s a sign that the machines designed for addiction, for sidelining human relations, for insidiously wearing away at our confidence to trust our intuition, are doing their work masterfully. Amongst other things, they teach us that we always have to know precisely where we are and where we’re going, which is diametrically opposed to the way the growing Soul actually works. If we’re a bit lost for a while, so be it. That’s where the fun and the stories come from.

 

I think my training in both Jazz and Orff has made me different from most folks. I don’t say that in an arrogant way, but I do wholly trust my intuition knowing that it sometimes “doesn’t work” but then leads me to something interesting—maybe even more interesting. Like a good Orff teacher or Jazz musician, you need to know the general territory, but the point is to feel your way through the chord changes or children’s responses and see where it leads you. 

 

After some 30 miles biking today in our first day of full sun and hot weather (almost up to 80) in shorts and Tivas (well, I wore my Tivas), we arrived at the town of Belluno and wandered through the town in search of gelato ice cream. Nice to feel like a tourist in a town and we also found a restaurant the way I like to. Not going online to Google “Best restaurants in Belluno” but just follow your nose—and ear. The moment we hear that disco beat, we turn the other way. In this way, found a lovely restaurant with an all-Italian menu which we mostly deciphered without phones and a blessed silence beyond the murmur of human conversation, not a single recorded note assaulting us. 

 

Determined to short-circuit people whipping out their phones when we sat down, I invoked the way my daughter Talia often offers an interesting prompt to a conversation and suggested one to the group: “Tell us about your first trip to Europe.” (One of the group members, Heide, is from Germany, so she talked about going to England.)

And wasn’t that delightful! Four of us took that trip between the beginning and end of college, that impressionable time when you’re so ripe for adventure and new tastes and new ideas. Stories tended to be short and not so much about the impact it made on young minds and hearts (though I suggested that could be Theme Number Two for a different dinner), but still fun to hear and evocative for the people telling them. Unplug from your phone and plug into your living memory. That's the lesson.

 

Tomorrow is a 60-mile (100 kilometer) stretch, literally twice as much as today. But there is an option for a train at the 40-mile mark if needed. We shall see. 

My First Art Lesson

As promised, here is the first art lesson I’ve ever taught. Seven elements of yesterday’s living art gallery that made it distinct and memorable:

 

1)   The painting themselves, created by international artists invited to contribute and mostly low-key in putting their names to their work, were a stunning variety of styles, evoking artists as diverse as Picasso, Chagall, Matisse, Braque, Diego Rivera, Richard Diebenkorn and more. 

                                        Evocative of Diego Rivera.

2)   Zooming in with my camera to isolate a section of the image created a feeling of several distinct works within one painting.

The whole painting.

A close up, evocative of Diebenkorn.

3)   The integration of the paintings with the exterior walls of the house where they were displayed.    

A painting incorporating a real window.

Real flowers in the window and painted below.

4)   The exquisite aesthetics of the houses themselves part of the total effect. 

 

Also note a touch of Chagall here.

5)   The larger frame of the Dolomite Mountains behind the whole scene. 

 

Didn’t get a photo of a painting with mountains behind, but here’s one from the village.

6)   The integration with the village as a whole, as if it were a normal part of the daily life rather than a precious, separate piece of “art.” All so low key, with no other tourists there, no admission price and as mentioned, the artists’ names downplayed. 

7)   All of the above.

 

Apologies that I don’t have my art teacher wife writing this lesson, but she’s off in town looking for gelato and perhaps it’s interesting to get the non-artist perspective. 

Visual Splendor

The constantly changing views of the Dolomites as we bike is feast enough for the eyes. But today, I had the most remarkably aesthetic visual arts experience of my life. Far from a dedicated museum-goer, I’ve done my fair share and believe I’ve seen most of the top-100 paintings in museums far and wide. But today, almost by chance and certainly a spontaneous casual decision, three of the seven fellow riders decided to detour to see some murals in three small hill towns—Masarie, Pianezze and Cibiana, to be exact.  I chose to go mostly because we were getting close to our destination and I didn’t feel finished with biking, especially as the sun had finally emerged and not a drop of rain all day. Also, I noticed the detour included a long steep uphill and I love the feeling of switching to Turbo on the e-bike and gliding upwards.

 

So off we went, my wife Karen and Terry, little imagining what lay ahead. We found our way into the first town and lo and behold, there were some murals on the exterior walls of houses that were impressive and captivating. We parked the bikes and started strolling and there were more around every corner. The town itself felt wholly deserted. Certainly not a single tourist, but also very few townspeople out and about and everything looking closed. 

 

But no matter. The murals continued to astonish us and then we realized there were two more towns in shoutin’ distance with more. By the end, we had seen 60 or 70 and taken 90 to 100 photos. 

 

What precisely made this so different from going to the Tate Museum in London (which we just had) or the Guggenheim in Bilboa or the Museum of Modern Art in New York or the Louvre in Paris? (I could go on. There’s a lot of famous museums in the world!). It’s worth it to try to articulate it, but much better with photo examples. As this will take a little time to select key ones and comment on them, I’ll just share screenshots of the photos I took today without comment and if there’s time after tomorrow’s ride, do my homework. 

Stay tuned.

 

 

Dancing in Cortina

As expected, I put on my worldly hat yesterday to take care of business that had piled up— registration for my summer teaching, dates for Fall workshops, my new book finally printed and the many next steps to get it out into the world, my next Podcast. It was 2:00 in the afternoon before I left the hotel, took off that hat and became again an anonymous two-legged-being wandering through the city on a blessedly sunny day.

This view outside my hotel window offered an enticing hillside and that’s where I started to ascend the road outside of town. Past some boys practicing scoring soccer goals without an adult in sight, past the Austrian-style houses that remind me of Salzburg, soaking in the warmth of the sun and arriving at two inviting benches. There I sat looking back at the view back to my hotel and writing in my journal. Nothing to achieve, nothing to resist, no one to convince, nothing in particular to do but just sit in the fullness of the moment and enjoy the privilege of being a living, moving being. 

 

Then winding back through town, excited about going to the little produce store we discovered last night to get some welcome Happy Hour snacks—cheese, crackers, tomatoes, red pepper, cucumber, mixed nuts. But las, for reasons unclear, it was closed! A little reminder to be open to outcome, but not attached to outcome.

 

Met up with the group and enjoyed the cherries and nuts two of them had bought last night and then began the decision about dinner. If I may mildly complain, most of the group has drunk the Kool Aid of finding everything on their phone and I suggested we simply wander in the town and peek in at different restaurants. They ended up agreeing and we found a lovely place with some choices other than pizza, treated ourselves to gelato and walking back, peeked into the lobby of a 5-star hotel. There was a grand piano there and I started to play some jazz. A hotel employee came over but instead of sternly telling me to stop, had a big smile on his face and started snapping his fingers and then grabbed Pam and they started jitterbug dancing together while I played Jeepers Creepers and gave me a high five at the end. Yeah! That’s the world as I want it to be. 

 

Back on the bikes tomorrow and hoping the rain will not accompany us.

  

10,000 Words

 If a picture is worth a thousand words, here are ten of them from the Dolomites.

Whether the Weather

                        Whether the weather be cold

                        Or whether the weather be hot

                       We’ll weather the weather whatever the weather,

                       Whether we like it or not.

 

This fun speech piece has become a standard part of my workshop teaching. In the last two days (two weeks), it has been a standard feature in my life!

 

The first day of the biking trip was actually a 9-mile hike up and around three of the magnificent peaks of the Dolomite Mountains. This whole area is part of the Tyrol Region of the Alps shared by Austria and Northern Italy. All signs are in German and Italian and whole towns have two names—Toblach/ Dobbiaco, for example. The architecture is distinctly Austrian and the cuisine a mix. 

 

We took a bus up to the first of five Refugios that dotted our hiking trail and off we went. Temperature in the 50’s, overcast, but no wind or precipitation. The paths were lined with people of all nationalities— this is apparently quite a tourist destination. The views were consistently stunning and the mountains shrouded in mists that would both obscure and then reveal, a constantly shifting verb of scenery. We passed some snow in the field, felt a bit of wind kick up, hiked through slight drizzle and near the end, endured a two-thunderclap torrential downpour that soaked us through and through, with a teasing four minutes of warm and welcome sun. The cliché in some places—“If you don’t like the weather, stick around for five minutes”— must have originally come from this area. 

 

The next day was the first of actual biking and before setting off in earnest, we rode to the Grand Hotel in Toblach, which had both a nature museum about the area and a cultural center honoring Gustav Mahler, who came to this town near the end of his life to compose some of his most memorable works—the 9^th and 10^th Symphony and the Song of the Earth. 

 

And then we began. On a dedicated bike path with the road to one side and the river on the other. Slight uphill for the first half and downhill to Cortina the second half. The constantly shifting weather held true— a few minutes of sun, overcast, drizzle and then torrential rain, just at the moment that we passed a restaurant. We sheltered there for lunch in clothes as wet as if we had jumped into a pool and had an overpriced but delicious bowl of polenta with mushrooms and cheese. My one regret is that I didn’t think to bring rain pants, which would have been lightweight enough to pack and extremely useful. My raincoat was enough for the top part of the body, but pants, socks and shoes soaked through with cold rain was far from pleasurable. 

 

A respite from rain after the lunch as we re-mounted our bikes and then the torrents again just as we came into town. At the same time we were trying to figure out on phones where the hotel was. Pam and I got separated and with that cold, beating rain relentlessly coming down, finally figured out we had overshot it and miraculously made our way back to where our companions were already checking in. We indeed had all “weathered the weather, whether we liked it or not” and there was certainly an element of adventure to it that was almost fun. But we were all grateful to change into dry clothes and be inside a warm room. 

 

Today the sun is out, the air still chilly and a “day off” to do as we will. My wife went off with another to meet some people high up in the mountains, but I passed on the $30 lift ticket and early morning rising to just enjoy a day of leisure, catch up on worldly business, roam around the town (hopefully in the sun) before setting off again on the bikes tomorrow. The view out my hotel window of the newly snow-capped mountains, a balcony inviting me to write in my journal or read my book or just gaze out at the scene, a produce store nearby that will be perfect for a picnic lunch. Happy for it all.