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.

  

Marco Polo

Marco Polo is well known as the adventurer from Venice who traveled to China in the 13^th century. No small task, I imagine, without the help of planes, trains or automobile, no hotel reservations, no Starbucks or indeed any cafes, and no Google translator. The mind boggles how he and his father and uncle not only traveled that great distance but were received with great hospitality by the Emperor Kublai Khan. Apparently, the Emperor was impressed by Marco’s intelligence, though hard to image that Marco had mastered Chinese or that there was a translator in Kublai Khan’s court that spoke Italian. 

At any rate, he appointed Marco as his emissary and sent him on diplomatic missions to present-day  India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Vietnam and Myanmar, as well as traveling extensively through China—for 17 years! He chronicled his adventures in a book called The Travels of Marco Polo, so if I want some details about how he did this—and I do— guess I’ll try to find that book. 

 

Meanwhile, Marco Polo is also a tag game played by kids in swimming pools. The kid who is “it” has to close his eyes and then shouts out “Marco!” and all the other kids answer “Polo!” “It” continues to call, the rest continue to respond, and in this way, “it’ tries to find someone to tag using sound location. 

 

It’s a fun game to play, but not so fun for others to have to listen to. Once at a pool, my mother, unaware that this was a game, was being driven crazy from the repetition and walked up to one of the kids and said, “If you say that one more time, I’m going to kill you!!!” It took some explaining on my part to the rightfully upset parent that my mother simply misunderstood that this was a game and I apologized on her behalf. 

 

Marco Polo is also the name of the airport in Venice. But apparently, not the only one. Karen and I flew in from the tiny Luton Airport outside London and upon arriving, got a message from Pam, one of the other 5 friends on the bike trip we were about to begin. We thought we should take the shuttle to the hotel together, so my wife called her and they tried to figure out how to meet in the airport. Pam kept talking about meeting at the Water Tower and Karen kept telling her there was no Water Tower in sight. After ten minutes of confusion, I got on the phone with Pam, tried to clarify whether she was on the first level or the second and made a plan that she would walk from one exit door to the other and I should do the same in the opposite direction. Neither of us were in sight. 

Finally I asked, “What’s the name of your airport?”

She replied, “Marco Polo Airport.” 

And then the lights went on. “We’re in Venice Treviso Airport!!” Some deep metaphor in there, as each must have been thinking the other was crazy until we realized that we were in two different places! It was like playing “Marco Polo” in two different swimming pools.

 Apparently the Marco Polo Airport is for International Flights outside of Europe and Treviso for more local and European ones serviced by the bargain-brand airlines like Easy Jet, Ryan Air and others. (We took Ryan Air.) The penalty for our cheap flight was an 88 Euro taxi ride to our hotel instead of the free shuttle. Oh well.

 

At the end of it all, we all finally convened at the hotel, ready to begin my 5^th European bike trip, Karen’s 8^th. Stay tuned!

In Beauty It Is Finished

I loved reading people’s comments on my Yorkshire Dale photos—“Beautiful!” “Gorgeous!” “Lovely.”  Testimonies as to how hungry we are for beauty in our lives. 

 

It is not incidental. It is central. 

 

When we settle for utility bereft of beauty, forced-air malls over open-air markets, hotel breakfasts of stale muffins and bad coffee in Styrofoam cups with views of the parking lot, we are diminished. 

 

First in the English countryside, now in the Tyrolean Alps, splendor is all around. The magnificence of the natural world, the care taken in architecture, the food carefully cooked and attractively presented— it makes a difference. Seeps into the soul and reminds us that we are made for beauty. If we can remember that, then it makes sense to preserve it, to cultivate it, to create it, to savor it— in the way we live, the way we love, the things we make, the things we cherish. 

 

The arts, of course, are part of the landscape, but more important is the sense of artistry in everything we do, everything we are. I’ve heard that the Balinese have no word for “art” and simply suggest that everything they do (a lot!) that we call “art” is simply doing things well, with care and attention. So here I am, with six others, about to begin our 10-day bike trip in the spirit of one verse in the Navaho Night Chant:

 

“May it be beautiful before me. 

May it be beautiful behind me. 

May it be beautiful below me. 

May it be beautiful above me.

 May it be beautiful all around me. 

In beauty it is finished. 

In beauty it is finished.”

 

 

Love, Admiration, Fear & Hatred

“We all want to be loved. Failing that, admired; failing that, feared; failing that, hated and despised. At all costs, we want to stir up some sort of feeling in others. The soul abhors a vacuum. At all costs it longs for contact”

 

               My grandmother asked me to tell you she’s sorry— Fredrik Backman

 

This explains so much. Those who choose hate, who try to stir up fear, are admitting the vacuum in their own souls, their failure to merit admiration, to attract love. Every human deserves some measure of unconditional love, but also needs to step up to the mark of their own highest promise to be wholly worthy of love. So much of the willingness to be brainwashed into hatred and fear that we’re seeing in the world today is our incapacity to love ourselves and others, our inability to admire things worthy of admiration. If our family or school or culture refused to see our best possibilities, then we are vulnerable to being seen through our worst. What is intolerable is to be invisible, to be left alone without contact. So it behooves us all to choose wisely. Do we want to live lives that inspire the love of and from others, that merit admiration, or are we content to be feared, hated and despised?

 

As I wrote in my recent book, if no one invites us to join the band and do the work to express ourselves through the discipline of learning an instrument, the habit of playing in harmony with others, the work of immersing ourselves in beauty, then we might join the gang. Not just the violent street gangs of teens, but the gang of the fundamentalist churches or mean-spirited political parties or conspiracy theory trolls. If we can’t stir up feelings of love or admiration from others, then we’ll troll their Facebook posts or Substack writings and shoot out our hateful venom at those who are actually doing the work to think, feel and care. 

 

And so education. Not only to develop our capacity to think, to feel, to care in a conscious and intentional way, but to create learning communities dedicated to making sure that each child be welcomed, valued, seen, celebrated and encouraged to fulfill their highest humanitarian promise. It is  perhaps the most needed and radical act that reduces the toxic practices of contemporary life, refuses the invitation to fear, hate and despise. 

 

As schools all over the country finish up their year, a grand salute to all the teachers and institutions that take that work to heart. 

Parting Glances

Back to the story line. After the Fashion Museum on Friday, with a lovely exhibit featuring two sisters, Susan Collier and Sarah Campbell, we walked on to the Tate Museum and strolled through an exhibit of J.M.W. Turner paintings. I’m about as familiar with his work as the average educated person, but was surprised by his tip toward abstraction painting storms, snow and sea—all before 1851! He deeply influenced later artists like Mark Rothko who quipped, “Turner learned a lot from me!” Rothko was born 50 years after Turner died! 

 

Ate dinner at Paddington Station (our favorite Underground Stop), a little indoor Food Court with the dreaded pounding disco, but good food options (fish tacos/ Indonesian Mee Goreng) that we could thankfully take outside away from the hammering beat. Home to our place far away at Hayes and Harlington, a neighborhood with a wide range of ethnicities and feeling somewhat home to be amongst them. 

 

The next day, the insistent rain continued, so I bought a little umbrella and the first chance I tried to use it, it turned inside out and just about broke. A $9.00 purchase for 9 seconds of use. Hmm. Met my Turkish friends Betul and Mert (cross-reference with my time in London last June if you’re so inclined), for a sumptuous late-afternoon lunch at the remarkable Dishoon Indian restaurant. We had hoped to take in a show later, but missed the cheaper prices, so the new plan was to look for a yarn store for Karen, a bookstore for me and maybe find a Jazz Club. 

 

During our 8-mile walk around many neighborhoods yesterday, we had kept our eyes open for books and yarn, to no avail. Then Karen looked online and found one a 20-minute walk from the restaurant, but it was marked as closed. So imagine our surprise when we walked out of the restaurant, turned right and the store next door sold yarn! And had just what Karen needed.

 

Thinking the gods were with us, we strolled down to the canal to a charming bookstore on a boat in the water with a pixie-‘ish man at the cash register. I was determined to find a book by Wilkie Collins (contemporary of Dickens) titled No Name. Seems if I could find it anywhere, it would be in London! But not so. They had one copy of his book The Moonstone that I had read too recently. Browsed a bit on the boat, first time I ever shopped for books getting a little seasick. No inspiration, off we went walking along the canal to searach for another bookstore. 

 

These canals in London are really the best kept secret of the city. Nobody seems to talk about them, but they’re absolutely charming. The first one we “discovered” last year was near Paddington Station and this was much closer to King’s Cross. They just seem to go on and on and are thoroughly delightful for a city stroll. 

 

At King’s Cross, decided to take a bus to Islington, where there was a larger Waterstone’s Bookstore. Surely they would have the Collins book! And they did have one—The Woman in White, which I had also read too recently. But I did find an Anthony Horowitz version of Sherlock Holmes titled House of Silk, so though we were leaving the UK the next day, it was close enough to matching the book I’m reading with the place I’m exploring.

 

Now we just needed a little café and after striking out twice in bars with that disco beat form hell, found a simple café with coffee and tea and no music throbbing—and the owners were Turkish! In the course of conversation, Betul and I sang (well, I hummed the melody) a few Turkish songs and the waiter came over and joined in! Great fun!

 

By now, it was 9:30 at night, so we gave up on the Jazz Club and parted ways to begin the long Underground Trek back to our hotel. The Northern Line to Hammersmith and City to Elizabeth line, then one more bus, which we boarded. But turned out to be the wrong bus, taking us 20 minutes out of the way in the wrong direction! With the help of two bus drivers, we finally re-navigated back to the right place, getting back by midnight.

 

And now, here we are at Luton Airport. I was steeled for bureaucratic horror joined with outrageous addition charges from Ryan Airlines (trying to check in with them the other night was one of the things that brought me close to calling Suicide Prevention). Imagine my surprise and delight when we walked right up to the counter, checked our bags without fuss or extra charges, were handed our paper tickets and we were done. Went through Security without a hitch, no passport control at this end (not sure why) and now awaiting the gate number for our flight to Venice. A whole new adventure awaits. 

 

PS Below one of the Campbell Collier pieces in the exhibit, a Turner painting and the bookstore on the canal. 

 

What's In a Name?

Rub-a-dub-dub, Three men in a tub,
And who do you think they be?
The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker,

And all of them out to sea.

 

Pop-quiz! What do James Booker, Karen Carpenter, John Constable, Noel Coward, James Dean, William Faulkner, Carrie Fisher, George Foreman, Danny Glover, Stephen Hawking, Susan Hayward, Gustav Mahler, Harry Potter, Adam Sandler, Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, James Taylor and  J.M.W. Turner all have in common?

 

Take a moment before reading on and see if you can guess. 

 

Got it? 

 

Buzzzz! Time’s up. They all have surnames that come from professions. Most of English origin, a few above from German. For some reason, I started obsessing about this and examples running through my mind woke me up far too early. I made a pretty good list on my own and then supplemented it with some simple online research. Here it is. See if your name or a friend’s or a famous person you might know is on here:

 

Baker, Barber, Butcher, Booker, Brewer, Butler, Carpenter, Constable, Cook, Cooper, Dean, Duke, Dyer, Fisher, Foreman, Gardner, Goldsmith, Harper, Hunter, Hooper, Merchant, Miller, Miner, Painter, Piper, Planter, Porter, Potter, Schubert/Schumann/Shoemaker, Shepard, Smith, Spicer, Tanner, Taylor, Warden, Waterman, Weaver, Wheeler. 

 

Most of the above are fairly self-explanatory, but there’s a whole other list that needs a little explanation. 

 

Chandler, (candle-maker), Carter (wagon driver), Cartwright (wagon-maker), Coward (from cow-herd, one who herds cows), Faulkner (falconer), Fletcher (feathers on arrows), Forester/Forster/ Foster (scissors-makers), Glazer (glass-worker), Glover (glove-maker), Grover (tends to trees), Hawking (falconer), Hayward (fence-keeper), Mahler (maker of stained glass windows), Sandler (sandal-maker), Turner (lathe-worker), Walker (Waulker—one who finishes newly woven tweed). 

 

Like the days of the week or the months of the year, we seldom inquire where words and names come from, but I, for one, find it fascinating. 

 

And now I—and you — can get on with the day.