29 May 2012

Meditating and Moving the House




This morning I sat down in our second floor bedroom to meditate. The chair began vibrating. It became stronger. The curtains started swaying and, since I was looking out the window, I noticed the house was moving to and fro. Then it started making circles. This was no mystical experience, as it turns out. I noticed a few people hurry out to the street from their apartments. They stopped, looked back at their building and waited. I felt motion sick.
         This was our third earthquake since moving to Lucca. On the 20th of this month a fairly strong earthquake with epicenter in Emilia-Romana, one of Tuscany’s neighboring regions, crumbled some buildings, killed a few, and left many shut out of their homes for several days for fear of strong aftershocks. I was asleep when that one hit and although many felt it here in Lucca I was, for the second time, oblivious. This morning’s quake was 5.8 on the Richter scale with the epicenter near Bologna, I believe, affecting many of the same areas as the last quake (technically many consider this an aftershock from the quake on the 20th). Some had just moved back in their houses when this one hit. One priest was killed when part of his church crumbled, at least fourteen others have died, and information abounds on today’s La Repubblica site where you can find all of the details.
         As for us, Niko and classmates didn’t feel it at school and neither did Lauren who was walking around town, but at Ingrid’s school they felt it and spent the entire morning outside playing games. As for me, I will attest that it was pretty puzzling for the first few moments, disorienting for the next few seconds, and disconcerting for quite awhile after that, this house of concrete set so quickly and easily in motion. After that jolt of adrenaline to start the day I decided that sitting was even more important than before, but took the liberty of moving my meditation session outside. 

22 May 2012

From Bianchi to Giro d’Italia: My Love for the Bicycle



 I finally learned to pedal without constantly stopping or crashing, round and round the garage and then on jaunts of a hundred yards down the street—maiden voyages that seemed like I had crossed the country—on a small red Schwinn. A Huffy dirt bike followed with the requisite wheelies and occasional jump down a hill in the yard, then the department store ten speed, facilitating travel to friends’ houses. When I was fourteen, though, and finding limits with my current steed and having discovered a touring event called the Minnesota Ironman when hundreds of cyclists rode past our house on a route of either 62 or 100 miles, I knew I had to do it, too, stated the case for something more substantial and my parents helped me buy my first racing bike.
         It was a Bianchi, that color Bianchi, the dreamy, other-worldly celeste green that was then in fashion and has come back into style of late. It was clean, it smelled of fresh grease, never-ridden rubber tires and a leather saddle, the frame smooth to the touch and bearing the blue stickers which spelled out its brand, so full of vowels, enticingly foreign and suggestive of another land that for decades had worshipped the sport I’d just discovered. I kept it in my room, marveled at it, washed it, adjusted brakes and wondered where it would take me. Sometimes I rode it, too.
         One of the first cycling maxims I learned was that crashing was not so much about the ‘if’ but the ‘when’. It was only a matter of time, I was told. For me it didn’t take long. First came a head on crash with the front grille of some monster of a car driven by a seventeen year old on a rainy day ten miles from home as I was making a left-hand turn. I came to with a ring of people standing around me, couldn’t feel my legs for a few seconds and was taken away to the hospital by ambulance. There was the broken right hand in a crash a couple hundred meters from the end of a road race two years later and a summer of washing dishes and gaining dexterity with my left, some road rash acquired on group rides, one tumble involving a horse who jumped his fence before running alongside the pack and then cut bravely in front of us. He escaped unscathed.


         There was never any question of stopping, of course, of giving up the sport just because maybe, possibly, the next crash would be much worse. We’d even started wearing helmets and I lived in Minnesota, not in the French Alps. The draw of cycling had not too much to do with its apparent danger. Even before the racing aspect began to appeal to me it was the freedom of the bicycle, the travel under my own power, the ability to explore new roads on my own and without a map, the sounds of wind, cranks and gears and the regularity of the pedaling cycle coupled with my breath, the smell of asphalt or rain or freshly cut grass or even, on chilly days, the warmth from underneath vehicles while waiting at stop lights; it was feeling satisfaction of effort and fatigue and it was the discovery of the sport. It was all of this that kept me coming back to my two-wheeled friend.
         I learned that cyclists didn’t stop due to misfortune, however serious. In 1996 there was Lance Armstrong and his testicular cancer (which spread to lungs, abdomen and brain), his surgery and chemo and rehabilitation. Oh yeah, and his subsequent seven Tour de France victories in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005. But even before him came the first great American cyclist comeback story, one who wore the maillot jaune in the Tour even before Lance. It was Greg Lemond, he who was shot by his brother-in-law in 1987 (after his 1986 win of the Tour de France) while out turkey hunting, suffered from lead poisoning and carried 37 shotgun pellets embedded in his skin for the rest of his racing career. After struggling with appendicitis and with tendonitis in the knee he made an awesome comeback in 1989 to win the Tour in its final stage, a 25 kilometer time trial in which he had to make up 50 seconds on Laurent Fignon who led him in the overall standings. Leading the equipment revolution in time trialing by using aero helmet and aero bars, Lemond blasted through the course in an average speed of 54.545 km/hr or about 34 miles per hour (a speed difficult for most to achieve even for a few seconds on a downhill—give it a try!) and bested his rival, winning the Tour de France by 8 seconds. A come back within a comeback. Inspiring? And how.       
 

         The man against himself aspect of the time trial and that day Lemond took the Tour with his unfathomable performance probably played a part in my subsequent competitive leanings. I drifted more towards triathlon where decent biking and running (and very average swimming) added up to more competitiveness than in cycling or running alone. It couldn’t be beat for variety, either, and there was always some aspect to get better at. After some years away from the sport I came back to enjoy it in 2003 and raced for four seasons, including a few cycling specific events on a race car track. I even bought a new bike. In 2006 I dug into my savings and purchased special race wheels. I tweaked my training schedule and thought I was finding smart ways to train better and get faster and I did, for awhile. Then, training for the 2007 season, I did too much (a quantity so difficult to determine until after the fact) too soon, didn’t listen to warning signs from my knee, didn’t rest enough, didn’t want to give up, didn’t want to quit, kept hoping the next round of physical therapy and exercises would be the one that would finally cure me, but every time had those hopes dashed with recurring problems from the knee. I haven’t been able to race since.
         When I knew I’d be coming up for sabbatical all sorts of possible destinations came to mind. We finally decided on Italy. Lucca, a city of about 85,000 in Tuscany, would be our new home town for the year. “Why Lucca?” many people here have asked us. Besides many other factors (not too big, not too small, centrally located with good train system, etc.) it seemed to come down to the fact that Lucca itself was flat, the area inside the walls had many reduced traffic zones facilitating walking and cycling, and the town was encircled by a car-free twenty-foot wide four kilometer path. I guess I kind of also had in the back of my mind impossible dreams of riding with Italian cycling squads through the mountains, having coffee at a bar Sunday mornings with the local club before heading out on a three hour ride, but had consciously seemed to have settled on my new world of great-grandfather-like two-wheeled locomotion. Flat terrain, pedestrian speed, close range. Lucca would fit the bill.


         I could still watch cycling, and I was in Europe, and not far from France, so within a couple weeks of our arrival I arranged a brief foray to see the stage of the Tour de France that went through Briançon. This experience in itself deserves a whole blog post, but I’ll just summarize it by saying it was the highlight of the summer even though we only saw the riders in person for a few minutes as they rode through town and up a steep hill.


Then there was the under 23 European Cyclocross Championships right here on and at the base of the walls in Lucca! Mud, running up hills, powerful cycling, flashing colors, broken bikes, determination, courage—all this and more were on display throughout the day's races. 


And finally last week the Giro d’Italia itself. How amazing to be able to walk to the train station, take a thirty minute ride to Montecatini Terme and see the riders arrive after nearly seven hours of racing! 


I even got to stand with hundreds of others post-race, squashed together as Italians do so well, and watch the live taping of an interview about the day’s stage with some of the top riders, including today’s world best sprinter, Mark Cavendish, and one of the world’s best sprinters in the 90s and early 00s,

Cavendish and baby daughter soon after stage 11

Mario ‘The Lion King’ Cipollini (who, it turns out, was born in and still lives in Lucca!) or, ‘Super Mario’ as he was often called—or simply, loudly, followed with a blast of an airhorn, “MARIO!!!” which the crowd called out several times. The next morning I drove, bike in tow, close to the Tyrrenian Coast, parked, and rode a kilometer or two to the town where that day’s stage would start. After admiring the teams’ large and colorful coach busses and their squads’ scores of top of the line bicycles on display and watching kids get autographs from any pro rider who appeared, I started towards the start line, as did the Giro riders themselves. It didn’t feel too bad to get passed by the likes of Ivan Basso or his teammates.


         The morning after our arrival in Italy I had poked around in the basement and, in a dark corner, found two adult bicycles that, given the encrusted dust, cobwebs and animal hair, looked as if they hadn’t been ridden in a few years. After some serious scrubbing they looked like they’d be usable and indeed, after the addition of a kid seat to each, we’ve ridden them every day, whether to bring Niko to and from school (we bought Ingrid her own bike), pick up groceries, ride into town for special events,


or basically for any type of commuting or transportation within a two or three kilometer radius. It’s also true that we were trying to go without a car, and did so for five months, but finally yielded to the pressure of cold and wet weather, difficulty keeping up with the groceries and a desire to explore more than trains or combinations of trains and busses would allow and rented a car for the rest of our stay. I became quietly fascinated by the spectacle of the daily riding world here. How could these Lucchese people manage to talk on a cell phone while weaving in between thick pedestrian traffic and avoid crashing much less putting their foot down? It was a sixth sense, I was sure, so unnatural was it for me to see folks in their seventies and eighties agilely guiding a bicycle through town along with two sacks of groceries and only occasionally ringing their bell to ward off would be blockers of their path, 


a mother in heels headed to daycare then work, so stylish and so smooth in her riding despite a fifteen month old on the tiny seat in front of her and a three year old on the seat behind her, the nonchalance with which scores of riders soldiered on in the rain holding umbrellas overhead. So this bike riding and bike culture was a bit different than what I’d experienced back home but I was getting used to it and at least I was rolling myself—albeit with a bike I could hardly lift with one hand.



         Have you ever had to work hard to convince yourself some less than desirable condition was okay, or even good? As in “yes, whatever it is is not great but quit complaining already?” Like you know you want more somehow, you want it to change but don’t want to admit it because you know you should be happy with how things are and try hard to appreciate what you have, keep hoping that this bad situation will resolve and work actively at trying to change it but it never does, you keep trying to think this way, to convince yourself, but have trouble succeeding? Yes? Let’s have a beer together sometime. I can relate. While my knee permitted me to commute around short distances on the flats, I couldn’t help feeling the excitement and joy of the sport of cycling all around me, noticing cyclists in 


groups meeting for a lunch hour ride, weekend training session, individuals out for a morning spin, every one dressed up in what looked to be professional kits. Back in the States this would make you the fodder of skilled racing cyclists’ jokes, the over the hill weekend rider shaving legs and dressed in the latest and most colorful pro team’s jersey and shorts, complete with matching shoe covers and helmet, but it is a given in Lucca. Here it is all about la bella figura. There actually are quite a few pro teams that train in the area, too, especially from the Netherlands, from what I’ve been told. But mostly those I see are everyday cyclists and they don’t even necessarily race but do dress to the hilt and draw nary a glance in town or in country, so common a sight they are. I am one of those husbands and dads who will almost always remark to his wife and kids, “hey, look at that cyclist/group of cyclists!” the instant they’re visible, so exciting it is for me to see them. Lauren and the children are used to it and gamely put up with me but since the injury I’ve had that surge of excitement pointing them out but it’s been followed by a bit of emptiness and a tinge of resentment and the effort of trying to be happy with what I have (at least I can walk!).
         A guy can only exert self-control for so long, though. I finally threw caution to the wind and talked with Cristiano at the local bike shop. He took my measurements and pieced together a decent used road bike with a compact gear system which would allow me, in theory, to go up hills, however slowly. 


I knew the risks at stake and that my knee hadn’t been doing great, but just couldn’t help it. The depth of the bike culture here and the enticing hills encircling the city were too much for me. So there I was, he of the Bianchi racing bike bought in the States twenty-five years earlier now the proud owner of a Trek bought in Italy (and guess what? the bike shop even bears an English name ‘Fast & Furious’ !)! I still like to think I have some rationality and hopefully bring a bit more wisdom to bear than before, however, so I didn’t immediately (or later, either, in fact) head out on a mountainous multiple hour adventure. Over several months I’ve probably gone out only fifteen to twenty times on rides usually around an hour long. My speed? Well, the readout is in kilometers per hour, so without doing the conversion to mph it looks pretty good! My actual, slower speed really doesn’t bother me much. Although that and getting into the danger zone with longer distances preclude me from group rides the small adventures I’ve had on this bike so far have already made the purchase worth it. I’ve ridden up through olive groves during harvest on switchbacks, explored back country roads barely wide enough for one car, come across small churches several centuries old, descended through small towns at a pace making me thankful for a bike with quality brakes, gotten away from the pollution of the plains and smelled fresh grass, flowers, mud, found the clean air with my eyes, too, making the views of the nearby Alpi Apuane mountains and Alpennine mountains even more stunning.


         If one has never found the deliciousness of the sweet and bitter in competition, if one has never been drawn to it repeatedly and felt extremely alive and challenged at the same time it might be hard to understand why a person would put his body through such struggles as are necessary to find his potential, to find his limits. One of the beauties I found in endurance sports was the opportunity to compete against myself, to overcome perceived obstacles and find ways to improve that didn’t depend so much on how well others performed. But there was the flip side of that where limits were not accepted and improvement gradually became more important than enjoyment and satisfaction with what I had. Watching the Giro riders, all younger than me now, as they prepare for a day’s stage, I realize they no longer appear so much as immortals and superstars as Greg Lemond did to me when I was a teen. I appreciate what they can do, and am still amazed by it, and inspired, but it is somehow different. And yet, watching them race I vicariously feel the thrill of competition. Even as they start a stage, I can read the anticipation on their faces, the determination or joy or nervousness. That day is another opportunity to challenge themselves and push themselves to their limits. Many make the sign of the cross as they head off past the official start line, knowing that they can do their part but that there is always chance out there, too, that there is the unknown, a new day’s adventure to come. They have not yet met their limit, have not yet realized their potential, and the possibility and hope present in them is palpable.


         Inching up Tuscan inclines or cruising down them, rolling steadily across the plains, the dreams of athletic improvement I had most of the first part of my life have been replaced by another vision of transformation that will be equally, if not more challenging. So simple in theory but difficult in practice, it is to get back to what spoke to me initially in the early days of the Bianchi, to in every moment appreciate whatever situation presents itself, to notice more often and savor the strain of muscles as they move, the taste of a drink of cold water, the rich odor of a freshly plowed field, a smoothly spinning chain and cogs, the sight of a little boy pedaling, slightly unbalanced and jerky, away from his Dad who’s let go of the boy’s seat, has stopped jogging after him and let his son ask a few times, “Do you still have me?” letting the question go unanswered, letting him pedal away and set off on the rest of his life, making his own adventure, a whole world to discover.

10 May 2012

Venice : La Serenissima



When I heard Venice was known as “La Serenissima”, I marked out a weekend in early May on the calendar as the construction vehicles continued to churn away next door and metal pounded metal. What a great place to spend a few days in peace and serenity before the big trip home in June! I looked it up and Wikipedia told me that, originally bearing its name due to its “title as one of the “Most Serene Republics”, the state existing for a millennia based out of Venice, La Serenissima Repubblica diVenezia, or the Most Serene Republic of Venice, in modern times has a reputation “widely based on its preference for economic supremacy over military might, despite its long history of war and conquest.” Hmmm, not exactly what I was thinking when I saw the moniker, but close enough I supposed. La Serenissima in the 21st century surely spoke to the longing of so many of us to get away from it all to this city of connected islands, to listen to Vivaldi, cruise down the canals slowly with our white and black stripe-shirted Gondolier rowing away, crooning operatically, while we sipped champagne and looked into each other’s eyes…and plus, not too many battles had been happening there lately and how could Venice’s “economic supremacy” hinder our dream of a few days in paradise? I reserved our seats on the train.


         It is true that I heard that Venice plays host to quite a few visitors in May (and June, July, August, September, October….), but I didn’t really worry about that too much. Here was a city with canals instead of streets, “streets of water!” as we explained it to Nikolai in getting him psyched for the trip as he was recovering from a cold a week before we left. When the morning came to walk to the train station he appeared to have completely recovered, the sun was shining, and we could certainly handle the crowds. We’d been in Italy ten months, we could deal with a little jostling in line.        
         We were greeted with swarms of tourists who, like ourselves, were hoping to taste some of the Venetian magic (and many of whom, unlike ourselves, poured by the thousands off cruise ships that would make the Titanic look like a bath toy). As we rolled our suitcase and pushed Niko in his stroller and lugged them both up and down all of the bridges over the canals, making our way from the train station to our apartment rental in Canereggio, we had to be careful about stopping too long to heft a suitcase up or to bend over to hear what Niko was saying (“I have to go pee!”) so as to avoid getting plowed into by the steady stream of pedestrian traffic flowing without abatement down Strada Nuova into the heart of the city. And yes, everything did cost a pretty euro. It’s also true that this vacation proved similar to almost all this past year in that we had to find a pharmacy and get Niko some Tachiprina to make him more comfortable after he complained and rebelled all day Saturday as a fever came and heated him up like a convection oven does a potato (our little baked potato slept a four hour nap Saturday afternoon and stayed in the oven a good twelve hours that night. Once out the next morning, he gradually cooled down throughout Sunday and was soon back to normal). There was Sunday night,
 when a small group of Americans and Brits made up for paucity in numbers with boisterous bravado, overstaying their welcome on the terrace at a restaurant across the canal from our apartment, drinking far too much and talking (when they weren’t yelling) far too loudly. Their fun woke us up at midnight and kept us up for another hour. One gentleman found it appropriate to imitate the New Zealand rugby team’s pre-game war chants designed to intimidate opponents and show their strength. His lone, drunken rendition would’ve been comical had I been alert and ready for cheap entertainment. But eventually the fatigue of another day in La Serenissima conquered all and sleep pulled me relentlessly into its grasp.
         That was about the worst of it, and there was plenty not to groan about, too. Ready for a sentence about the rest, a long sentence, run-on (and on), breathless? Here it is.
         Walking down the banks on the fondamente alongside canals whose water slowly lapped along, pushing against the small boats moored next to old houses crammed together with organico—compostable material—waiting in small plastic bags attached to hooks off the ground for the trash person who wheels his cart—one I saw was blue and named Bertha—clunking up and down the steps  of the canal bridges, as children accompanied by mamma headed to school and a man in a suit strode 
alone to work, shop owners were beginning to pull out awnings, open doors, the morning quiet but not still, tourists on vacation and sleeping in while everyday life for Venetians continued on, a day like any other, jobs to get to, groceries to find, clothes to be washed and hung out to dry, friends to talk with, or running through the streets early, too, every fifty meters a choice, my route’s continuation hidden by twists and turns, alleys, courtyards, immense churches, and I pass them all, sometimes ending up with nowhere to go but back to the previous option not taken and follow that one, thinking naively relative position was safely in mind, that once ready to start making a loop and knowing where the starting point was that merely heading  in that direction would bring feet back home but being ensnared by the twisty 'S'
of the Canal Grande, dizzied by all of the turns and previous trips on vaporettos, these water busses finally the only solution to get bearings back, slow but trustworthy and steadily heading forward, permitting thoughts of how luxurious it is to be able to get lost for awhile and explore, following my nose to another discovery, a bakery just opening and permitting a cache of warm pastries and rolls for wife, daughter and son, such a cliché of American vacation to Europe but isn’t there some truth to these notions we repeat, a trip to a vegetable stand off a side street, talking with the vendor and letting him select what I need according to when it would be eaten, the draw of taking pictures of the fruit markets, these displays of color, this atmosphere of particular sounds and smells we wish to capture or soak up, this life seemingly lived so vividly, talking with the men who know the tomatoes or melons or squid so well, this contact we crave that in so many places has been reduced by
mass scale and do-it-yourself service, or watching dapper waiters in white coat and tie bring out the silver platters of ten euro tea to one table among dozens in Piazza San Marco while a trio plays appropriate music for the atmosphere and cigars are pulled out, cigarettes smoked, the trails of white lazily rising up but soon dissipating, far before reaching the observation deck of the Campanile, San Marco’s bell tower, the wind whipping around up there sending a chill through those who have no jacket so that they soon wait for the elevator to return them one hundred meters below, taking in the entire city and surrounding bays and sea when ear-shatteringly the six o’clock hour is struck by one bell just eight feet above, then another, and a third, and a fourth, understanding now why they can


be heard for so many kilometers from here, returning to the maze of streets with no cars, streets with no cars, with no cars, no cars, and walking past designer shops advertising a pair of sandals for seven hundred euros with matching purse for one thousand six hundred euros and the contrast with the young person maybe twenty years old sitting on a main tourist corridor, hair cut close with electric clippers,


hair also incongruously growing out of one side of her face around her eye to cheek and chin, seeing her stricken by this freak show-like anomaly and begging for money, walking past without talking to her or looking directly at her, a watery-eyed lady seeing us unfold a map back in Canereggio and commenting, “It isn’t easy, is it?” and exercising our Italian with her, learning some of her suggestions, hearing her say, when I explain how Niko and I each have a ‘k’ in our names that she thinks very highly of the ‘k’, or eating at a “cheap” touristy pizzeria where Italian is seldom spoken but persisting


 with our waiter in his language, learning he has a brother in CT, answering his questions about us and seeing him snapped out of his usual schtick, being the first tourist on the island of Burano after a forty minute ride out early Monday morning, traveling with commuters, the only one on the outdoor section of the boat, snapping pictures like crazy of the sun hitting the snowy tops of the Dolomites while buoys and boats passed between us, keeping camera out on a walk through this island of three thousand known for lace-making and its colorful assortment of houses, talking with a man who occasionally takes a break to peak around the corner to say good morning to this dog or that cat and at times to a person, too, or asking the slow and dignified senior who has just wheeled himself out to a deserted courtyard for a morning cigarette if I may take his photo, wondering about the story behind that face, heading back to the mainland as the first boatload of tourists arrives, and finally stopping to give some change to a man sitting and begging for money, a man who we’ve passed so many times before like the thousands of others who’ve done the same walking on without even looking and getting up the courage to ask him for his photo and seeing him seemingly glad for the request and attention, thanking
me after the picture, touching him on his arm and he doing the same to me after, being invited inside the tent to sit down with two workers camping out in the center of the large piazza outside the train station after talking with them awhile about why they’re out there, these two workers (and forty others like them) with fifteen or twenty years experience tending to passengers and their every need on the sleeper cars between Venice and Paris now without a job due to Trenitalia’s cost-saving measures, two ladies in head scarves coming up to us and asking us to fish their camera out of the river, serving as the interpreter between them (speaking in English) and the two unemployed workers saying, all smiles, to tell them they are railroad workers, not fisherman, but then watching as they find a long pole and head off to try to fish out the camera while the ladies lead them to the spot saying it’s not the camera, it’s the memory card, it’s the memories they cannot lose, it’s the memories.


            I guess Paradise as it’s popularly conceived would be pretty boring, and Venice is thankfully no such place to me, but for variety and challenges of its own, surprises along with a taste of magic and wonder, La Serenissima is one place I highly recommend you visit. Just be prepared for anything, leave your expectations at home and allow yourself to get lost.