Christmas Reflections

I miss these woods.

We used to live a block from this scenic trail along Putnam Creek in Eau Claire. This trail is where I first began jogging back in the summer of 2008 after returning from a conductors' retreat in Maine.

Returning to Eau Claire in winter, particularly around Christmas, gives me a chance to remember all of the things that I used to take for granted - things that were just simply a part of everyday life. The fact that I could walk a block from my house and find myself lost in thought, in the middle of quiet woods, surrounded by trees and shaded from the sun, is somewhat astounding to me at this point in my life. I get used to my surroundings very quickly. Things that now seem miraculous to me (like this image) were at one time commonplace at one point in my life.

This year I resolved to be a better Catholic. I decided to go to church, put in the effort and try my best, despite the challenges, to have a better faith life. Somewhere along the way, I completely wandered off the path. I became lost in my day-to-day life and I forgot to think about anything spiritual. I went from going to church weekly, volunteering at a soup kitchen, reading something spiritual every day and being reflective to basically nothing. I stopped working or even trying.
 
As it turns out, faith is difficult. It's a constant journey, a constant interaction, and I find it very hard to believe at times. It's not always easy to "feel God's love" especially when one feels disenfranchised or begins to question things in one's life. I struggle, as I have my entire life, to think about Jesus when I become impatient with others. I struggle to believe when there is a tragedy or when I see so many people's hearts hardened against one another in conflict. It's a tough world out there and the future is never certain.

So I sit here typing on the Eve of Christmas.

I wish I could say I had a epiphany today or that I know something miraculous is going to occur at midnight mass and I will be overwhelmed with joy and God's love. I would like to be certain that there will be something in the homily that will open up for me a profound understanding of humanity. I simply can't however because life is uncertain. I don't know what is going to happen and I don't know when or if I'll ever get back on solid spiritual ground. It's amazing that the faith that I used to take for granted is actually quite elusive these days.

Returning to the town that I called home for thirteen years and rambling through the woods through which I've walked hundreds of times is a good reminder of the beauty of life. Seeing the quiet, white, snow-covered landscape, the snow laden trees bare of leaves, and  feeling the crisp, icy winter air stinging my cheeks is a good reminder of the miraculousness of existence.

Christmas too is a reminder that, despite the enormous uncertainties of life, there is tremendous comfort in knowing that whenever I can get my act together, I'm always welcome at the table.

Goin' Driftless

The view from our campsite (almost).

Last weekend I took a trip to the Northeastern edge of Iowa to go camping with my longtime friend Chris Hahn. Our camping adventure brought us to Pike's Peak State Park on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River. While not the Pike's Peak of Colorado fame, it turns out that this area was surveyed in the early 1800s by the very same Captain Pike for which the more famous mountain is named. Here the Wisconsin River flows into the Mississippi and creates an impressive valley and river bottom filled with winding wetlands and river channels as far as the eye can see. As Chris said, "I was never not amazed."

Every time I come to this part of the country I am struck by it's beauty. Awhile back I wrote about living in this area for a year during the 2003-04 school year when I was teaching at Caledonia Area High School. That year of my life left an indelible impression on my soul. It was a year of profound loneliness and isolation - just me and two cats in my three bedroom house in Spring Grove - when I would literally drive 45 minutes to La Crosse just to donate plasma so I could get out of town for the evening. What strikes me most is how the terrain, so rugged, so beautiful, untouched by the glaciers 10,000 years ago (thus "driftless"), seems at times like it is ready to swallow me up. There are so many hills and streams, so many corners of the earth, that at times I feel as though I may be on the verge of disappearing forever or discovering something new. The winding roads seem endless and the feeling of immensity is almost overwhelming.

During this year of my life I became familiar with Iowa native and folksinger/songwriter Greg Brown. His music became a soundtrack to my travels over the hills and ridge-tops and through the river valleys throughout that year. With each passing mile I listen to his poetic brilliance telling tales of woe and sorrow, happiness and humanity, humor and compassion. Some of his most profound music reflects a sense of history, melancholy, and connection to the driftless area. His voice is low, grumbling, boomy, and has an earthy quality that itself is very reflective of the terrain - almost like distant thunder rumbling over the coulees to the west, gradually spreading across the river valleys in the distance. It is unrefined, raw, and out of tune, but at the same time immensely soulful, human, and beautiful. I can almost hear the sunset in his voice.

Here are a few of my favorite tracks - essential for me every time I travel through the driftless area:

I like this first choice, because it is so poetically brilliant. Also the image of existing in the "Going, Going, Gone" really reflects the way I feel when I travel in the driftless area. It also brings me back to those lonely winter evenings early in 2003.
Here in the Going, Going, Gone

This is true melancholy:
Sleeper

An artist looks back at his life - covered by another great folk artist:
Ani Difranco covers The Poet Game

And because it's not all melancholy:
Canned Goods (Live)

It's beautiful storytelling and as I get older these tales resonate with me more and more.

Me and Golf: A Tale of Destruction

I like to think this is what I always look like when I play golf: calm, collected, and dapper.

I swore I would never play golf again. It was the summer after my senior year of high school and I went out for a fateful round of golf (it also turned out to be my last for several years) with my good friends Paul and Chris. We were all pretty bad golfers generally speaking - I think Paul was the best of the three of us - but we were nothing special. Three hacks really.

Let me preface this by saying that my style of golf is more of a "get the most for your money" type of game. I don't want to hit par, because I'm wasting my money. I'd rather spend my time in the trees, the rough, the ponds, and the bunkers than play straight down the fairway. Anyone that plays par golf is a sucker because they aren't spending nearly as much time on the course as me. And I paid the same as them! Suckers.

For starters Chris brought a sword. Not a fake, cheap, plastic sword, but an honest to goodness sword that he purchased in Spain. It was part of his set of clubs. I think it took the place of the sand wedge. I had no weaponry but I did have 25 golf balls and a full set of clubs (13 clubs/25 balls) handed down to me when my step-grandfather on my mom's side of the family passed away. I also had a temper that I brought to the course with me that day.

I've always been a bit of a hothead. It's something I've had to work to control my entire adult life. Age, wisdom, and a wonderful wife who lovingly points out what a jackass I am when I get angry have helped me deal with my temper issues over the years. Needless to say at age seventeen I was not so cool under the collar. This combined with my overall sour outlook on life at the time earned me the much coveted "Oscar the Grouch" award from my senior class in 1997.

The round started fine enough. We all had horrible tee shots on the first hole but I figured we were "just warming up." By the fourth hole, however,  I had lost at least half a dozen balls in the woods and ponds and I think I had already scored 30. "It's okay," I naively thought, "we're playing 18 today." I figured it would all smooth out by about hole five or six.

At some point in the middle of the round, Chris was the first to crack. Early in the back nine he shanked a shot into the tall grass next to a pond, tore off his shirt, grabbed his sword, and began hacking away at the grass to find his ball. I started to lose it soon thereafter. Chris was merely my trigger. After going through another six or seven balls I chucked one of my long irons into pond (so far for the round: -1 club/-12 golf balls). I began to, as they say, "lose my shit."

On the very next hole I hit a second shot that flew into the trees (-13 balls) and began carving out an enormous divot in the middle of the fairway with my 7 iron. I did not replace this divot. Instead I stormed away to try and recover my ball which was, as it turned out, hopelessly lost. On the next hole I hit a shot from the rough that bounced into a pond and, in a fit of rage, snapped my 6 iron over my knee and winged it into the underbrush.

At this point with Chris and me both shirtless, and Paul not having too bad of a round, a lone gentleman who had been playing directly behind us (it will be noted that he was much better and much faster than us) asked to join our threesome. Unfortunately for this nice, talented gentleman, he had no idea of the boiling cauldron of rage that was slowly making its way around the course that day.

I tried to pull it together in order to be a gracious host. I really did. In spite of my previous offenses to the golf course and to nature itself I managed to compose myself to welcome this guy into our group. That is until we hit our next tee shot. When my ball careened into the woods down a steep slope and out of sight I began to weave "a tapestry of obscenities that as far as we know is still hanging in space" (to quote Jean Shepherd) over the greater Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area, and once again stormed off to find my ball which was, once again, hopelessly lost.

In the end, I gave up on the fifteenth hole because I lost all of my golf balls (-2 clubs/-25 balls for the round). By that time I had stopped aiming and was literally hitting my shots as hard as I could possibly hit them towards the woods. They were flying off in all directions and I didn't care. Chris lost most of his balls too and we wound up leaving the course telling Paul that we would return to pick him up when he finished the playing. We spent the rest of our round at McDonalds. Of course by this point the talented, eager gentleman had long abandoned us. I'm pretty sure he feared for his life.

After this horrific day I vowed to never play golf again. I stayed true to this until, after graduating from college, I cautiously picked up my depleted set of clubs and began to play once more. Eventually I swapped out my old grandpa set for a shiny new set of irons and woods which fit me better and improved my game considerably. Since that time I've mostly* managed to keep my cool, keep my shirt on, and not break any clubs over my knee. And I even manage to have a relatively pleasant time.

*Today I slammed my 3 iron into the ground after topping a shot out of the rough under a tree.

Summer Time Management

I am terrible at downtime. Just ask Kaia. When we go on vacation I usually plan out our entire day from morning until evening leaving precious free time to just sit and read a book, relax on the beach, or enjoy a campfire at night. It feels like a failure if I'm not constantly doing something - usually involving historical sights or hiking in the woods.

That being said I'm also really bad at summer. Usually I end up with several weeks to catch up on studying, practicing, or tackling an ever growing pile of books on my summer reading list. Of course this isn't a real "problem" per se, but it can lead to a slight dilemma for me. Since I have so much I want to do and so much time, the trick is to figure out how to create structure for my time so I don't do what I did yesterday which involved a lot of wandering around the house starting a new task every ten minutes.

This table was clean prior to yesterday afternoon. Unfettered additions to my "pile system" of organization have created what some might call "a mess."

For me the solution lies in the handy-dandy "to-do" list:

The to-do list.

This little tiny piece of paper, in theory, is my saving grace. It will keep me from wandering from task to task throughout the day and give me a blueprint for what comes next. If all goes well I will feel productive today. We'll see how it turns out.

The Bike Trip

At the Genoa City Public Library after mile 218.

  Last week I biked 218 miles from Champaign to the Wisconsin border. It was the centerpiece of a pledge drive to raise funds for my youth orchestra and an organization in Crystal Lake called Turning Point that provides support to women and children who have been victims of domestic violence. I'm still waiting to hear the results of our pledge drive but I hope that we did well.

This is the longest distance I've ever biked in my life. It far eclipses the previous long distance of 60 miles and change from Eau Claire to Downsville and back. Kaia and I took that trip together to celebrate our second wedding anniversary back in 2007. This time it was me, my bike, and miles and miles of cornfields.

The first day was the longest - 90 miles. This was also the most boring part of the trip as I crossed the flat, windy farm fields of Central Illinois from Champaign to Kankakee. There were a few interesting sights along the way: small towns with cute town squares, hidden streams and rolling hills, an inn that was built in 1840 (now a private home), and county roads that amounted to little more than two ruts across a cornfield. Life off of the interstate, while not as scenic and picturesque as Northern Minnesota or Wisconsin, is splendidly bucolic.

This is a county road somewhere in the middle of Illinois.

Taking a break for lunch in Onarga.

On my second day, and the next 76 miles, I crossed into more interesting terrain along the Kankakee River and northward along the Wauponsee Glacial Trail. The day was cool and windy and I struggled to bike against the strong gusts blowing out of the north. I also stopped more frequently to take in the sights along the river and also to see the TNT storage bunkers along the trail south of Joliet. My ride became more harrowing as I crossed into the suburbs. Small county roads turned into four land state and federal highways. I road the narrow strip of asphalt between the lanes of traffic and the dangerous, gravel shoulder. Eventually I found may way to Aurora and the Fox River which led me to my hotel. Kaia joined me in the evening of the second day and we had dinner in Batavia and strolled around the town.

After finally finding the Kankakee River State Trail. I made several wrong turns and biked at least a mile out of the way before I arrived at this sign.

The next morning I woke up and biked the remaining 31 miles to Crystal Lake, along the Fox River the entire way. I passed through Batavia, Geneva, St. Charles, Elgin, and Algonquin. I took a wrong turn and biked up the enormous Huntington Hill in Algonquin before finding out that the trail actually avoids the hill and makes a much more gradual ascent to the top of the river bluff into Crystal Lake. At least going back down the hill was fun.

The view along the Fox River in Aurora.

I found this sign after I had crossed the bridge. I did notice that part of the bridge was missing...

After arriving in Crystal Lake and meeting up with students from the orchestra and board members, I decided since we are so close to the Wisconsin border that I should just continue on to Genoa City (right over the border). The next day I biked the final 20 miles and change into Wisconsin... just to say I did.

The arrival in Crystal Lake.

Scenes from the Cornfields

Here's me at Lake of the Woods Forest Preserve in Mahomet. This was at the 1/3 way point on my 50 mile trip early last week.

The roads and railroad tracks in Central Illinois all run either North-South or East-West. Period. There are no curves. It's just straight lines as far as the eye can see. This makes navigation pretty easy out here.

This turkey vulture was eying me up as I pulled in to Philo on a trip last weekend. He must have flown off because I looked like slim pickings.

Yes, a hill is great cause for alarm in Central Illinois. They have warning signs to explain the danger.

This is a covered bridge over the Sangamon River in Lake of the Woods Forest Preserve. It was built in 1965.

"Holy crap. A river."

This is me on the parade grounds of the dilapidated Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul. I had just biked across 20 miles of windy terrain from Mahomet and I was pretty tired. The wind was blowing 25 miles per hour that day - and not from the "helpful" direction.

39 Miles

I just returned from a ride across the cornfields to the north of Champaign-Urbana to the bustling metropolis of Rantoul and back. Total distance: 39 miles. Lucky for me it wasn't too hot. It was 51 degrees and it rained on and off for most of the return trip.

Here are some photos of the journey:

This is pretty much what it looks like for most of the trip. I hear there's a crossroads out there where you can meet the devil and learn how to play the blues.

I did find a road with a curve and figured it was photo-worthy.

Rantoul has an airfield. It used to be an US Air force base from 1917-1993. Now it's called "Chanute Air Museum." You can see the planes for miles on your way in to town.

It began to pour on me five minutes before I reached town so once I arrived I found the closest thing to a shelter I could, hunkered down, and waited for the storm to pass. I felt like I was in a post apocalyptic future because the streets were deserted, there were these enormous planes just sitting there, the sky was grey and rainy with thunder in the distance, and there was not another living soul around anywhere.

The rain never completely let up (it showered and sprinkled intermittently for the remainder of the trip) so I got back on my bike and returned, soaking wet, to Champaign.

Good times.

Bike Trip Training: Week Two

Today I biked an easy 29 miles from Champaign to Mahomet and back. My route took me on flat, straight county roads. Nothing but fields and dirt and tractors for miles and miles.

This was nothing like the harrowing 36 mile ride I took on Sunday. The first half of the ride was directly into a 30 mph wind blowing out of the north. This made the ride home extremely easy - I just put my legs up and coasted the entire way - but the first 18 miles was brutal.

I'm trying to prepare myself for all weather related contingencies.

So far the training is going well. I've managed to bike just about every other day for the past week and a half and I'm getting to know all of the country roads around town. I even discovered some relatively pretty parts of the area on my bike trips. One thing I've noticed is that even when I take a wrong turn it's easy to figure out where to go. For instance one can see the McFarland Memorial Bell Tower on campus in Urbana from Tolono which is 10 miles south. Getting lost on the farm roads around town is difficult to do.

For my next ride, I'm hoping to make it to Rantoul and back - which will be a bit over 40 miles. I'll make sure to bring my camera with this time.

The Little Things

Recently Kaia and I made a whirlwind trip to Eau Claire for Easter. We were up and back in two days but we managed to bring our charcoal grill home with us. It's been almost two years since I have been able to grill a brat or a burger so within days of its arrival in Champaign (actually I think it was more like hours) I was grilling:

Right before Easter I made a beer. Somehow I managed to fit the brewing process in between dashing from gigs to recital rehearsals. This weekend we finally bottled the beer. The recipe is a clone of the New Glarus Spotted Cow (which is unavailable outside of Wisconsin) called "Speckled Heifer" that I ordered from Northern Brewer. It ended up tasting pretty good in the test phase: 

I can't wait until it's carbonated and chilled in the refrigerator.

Now that the semester is winding down I'm remembering what it is like to be a real human being. Things like hobbies and even the idea of a couple of hours of leisure time are beginning to sound not so far fetched. Grad school makes me feel inadequate if I'm not spending every single waking moment working on a project, a paper, or studying a score. Sometimes, though, you just have to stop and smell the roses (or drink the beer from the bottling bucket).

Is It May?

It's been a helluva semester. Only a week and a half to go. Since the last time I wrote in this blog, I've had a few things on my plate:

- I conducted L'Histoire du Soldat with the U of I Chamber Orchestra:

-The next week I went to a workshop at the Cleveland Institute of Music:

-The following week I gave a recital in Champaign:

Two days after this I got to conduct the collegiate premiere of a work that had its world premiere at Aspen last summer (no photo).

In addition to my conducting, I spent the first half of my Spring break in Chicago observing student teachers, played in the pit orchestra for the Champaign-Urbana Theater Company's production of The Producers, and somehow managed to keep myself current in all of my classes. In fact I just turned in a term paper this week! I'm also finishing up my first full season with the McHenry County Youth Orchestras in Crystal Lake. Our final concert of the season is coming up on Sunday, May 20th.

So it's been a little... busy.

The cherry on top of the sundae for me this semester is a 180 mile bike ride (from Champaign to Crystal Lake) as part of an effort to raise funds for a domestic violence shelter in the McHenry County area called "Turning Point" and raise awareness of the youth orchestra program as well. I thought of the idea last fall as I drove along the Fox river from Oswego to Crystal Lake (it's a beautiful stretch) and I volunteered to make the trip and connect it to some kind of fundraiser. I started my bike training this week. Not too bad so far.

While this might be a little bit crazy, I also view it as a great way to shed myself of the stress of the semester and do something I've always wanted to do (of course I initially envisioned rides across Wisconsin or Southeastern Minnesota or along the North Shore of Lake Superior, but the flat, hot, windy terrain central Illinois will have to do for now).

Lenten Thoughts

Every year on Ash Wednesday I am reminded of Homer Simpson. It's strange, I know.

I am reminded of Homer Simpson because spiritually I am just like him. Every week I go to church and I put in my time. Okay, I'll admit, most weeks I go to church but often there is a sense of putting in time or doing it because it's the "right" thing to do and not necessarily because I feel a higher spiritual calling. And then we come to Lent and I am reminded of just how "Homer" I am.

Stay with me here.

This year I resolved to be a better Catholic. I read Rediscover Catholicism by Matthew Kelly and I thought, "I can do this!" I was excited about the possibility of being more involved with my faith life, paying greater attention to the mass, allowing myself to be carried away by the ritual of the church, keeping a "mass journal," and really absorbing the readings each week. I really wanted to give it a shot and I was doing well until classes started. Then as soon as things got busy, I just kind of chucked faith out the window and started to focus on school. And then several weeks ago the bishop of our diocese made our priests read a letter that he wrote, right after the gospel (where the homily is supposed to go), damning the Obama administration and their policy on birth control. And I just kind of checked out after that. Note to bishops: I would prefer if you would please keep politics out of the mass.

That brings us to Lent.

Last night we attended the 9 PM Ash Wednesday mass at the Newman Catholic Chruch on campus. We were joined by hundreds of other students (one thing about attending mass at Newman in Champaign is that there are no children - especially at 9 PM) some dressed in their sweatpants, others in their pub crawl t-shirts or "Chief Illinwek" apparrel, but all were there for a common purpose. And I thought of Homer Simpson.

I thought of Homer because I too would rather be in bed. I would rather be watching television and drinking beer. But I wasn't. I made the choice to go in spite of my desire to be elsewhere. Our priest last night said that Lent is a time to "reboot" yourself in your faith. It's a time of sacrifice and a time of spiritual thought. "Why am I here?" "Why do I go to church?" These are questions to ponder as we spend the next 40 days depriving ourselves - which reminds me, I still don't know what I'm giving up for Lent. My inner Homer didn't think about it at all this year.


So perhaps this blog post is the beginning of my Lenten journey.

Single Serving Friends

I'm currently sitting in the "business lounge" at the Wingate Hotel in Schaumburg, Illinois with some time to kill in the morning. About three times per semester, for the past two years, I come up to the Chicago area to observe student teachers in "the field." Most of them are placed in schools in the Chicago suburbs because they live at home when they student teach and commute to nearby schools. It's a pretty sweet deal for them, and for me it's a chance to get out of Champaign and visit the sprawling suburban wasteland that surrounds the city of Chicago. But I digress.

This morning I awoke in the "post-Valentine's day" world at the Wingate Hotel and ate breakfast with all of the other stiffs. It makes me think about this clip from the movie Fight Club, where the main character, played by Edward Norton, speaks of the depressing nature of a travel life of travel - shuffling from hotel to hotel, running to catch flights, always eating out of single serving packages of food. This morning I had a single serving cereal, juice, and yogurt!

I want to make it clear that this is not my life - really. Sometimes I like to imagine that I'm catching a glimpse into that world, especially when I rub elbows with all of the business people dressed in their matching muted color oxford shirts and dress slacks, eating their single serving breakfasts, trying to "be friendly" with their colleagues or complete strangers, and discussing the "plan of action" for the day. Just wait. It gets even more depressing at happy hour when the same people will line up at the bar with their two free drink vouchers given to them by the hotel and attempt to "unwind." Don't worry, I'll be right there with them. I mean, two free drinks - I am not going to pass that up.

WTF Weather?

One of my New Years resolutions was to type blog posts more regularly. How's that working out so far?

So, what's up with this weather? Seriously. This is the lamest winter that I can ever remember. It's got me all out of sorts to be running outdoors in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt in early January - which is what I've done a couple of times in the past week. I haven't even worn a coat in the past couple of weeks here in Central Illinois. I saw people playing golf today.

Welcome to a taste of the post-apocalyptic future.

Well maybe it's not that bad yet, but I'm beginning to wonder if this type of weather is a harbinger of things to come - the new "normal." Gone, perhaps, are the winters of yore: feet of snow covering the ground, subzero temperatures, biting wind chills, and the like. Welcome to golf in January, New Years garden parties, water skiing - not cross country skiing - on lakes that normally are covered with ice, and fishing - not ice fishing - on open water.

It wouldn't be so bad if were not a HUGE fan of winter. I am the kind of guy who likes an arctic blast and a cold-ass winter. I like cross country skiing across a peaceful snow covered landscape. Winter, to me, is a time of tranquility. There is nothing quite like the peace and quiet that settles over a city after a blanket of fresh snow. There is something magical coziness of a house that is battened down against the howling wind, a cup of coffee or tea in one's hand, wrapping oneself up in a blanket, and gazing  at the snow falling outside.

That being said, there are a number of factors that attribute to a mild or severe winter. This year we're apparently under the influence of an extreme positive North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) which has kept the arctic air bottled up in Northern Canada, Alaska, and the Arctic so far, and drawn milder Pacific air into the Midwest. I've become particularly nerdy about the weather this winter because I'm trying to wrap my brain around why this is happening. I've subscribed to some weather blogs and I've been checking out the forecasts for not only Champaign-Urbana, but I've also been keeping tabs on the entire Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois area. For example, did you know that over 2000 record warm temperatures have been recorded across the country since January 3rd?

Before this gets too long and you, humble reader, begin to get sucked into the depth of my obsession with this topic, I shall draw to a close. If you want to become obsessed like me, check out this article on ESPN about climate change and subscribe to this weather blog* written by my favorite meteorologist (yes that's also nerdy). On this blog there are tons of links to information that will help you understand the climate, how its changing, and what the implications of climate change are for our world.

Snow is in the forecast for the next couple of days! And cold! It's about damn time.

*By the way, a shout out to my friend Dan Kronzer for telling me about the blog. I'm hooked now. Kaia says thanks.