Of Mice and B-bikes

I steel all my courage. At the bottom of the path through the CU campus and across the creek is the B-bicycle station which I have carefully cased previously, its red bikes on display. Ive already walked a couple of miles to get this far, and today I intend to check out a bike for a short spin. I follow the instructions to insert my credit card.


On my first try, with only 30 seconds of insistent beeping allotted to pull a bike from the rack, I get confused and press the silver button which is only to be pressed if you have a special B card which I of course don't have. Three beeps tell me the bike has been "successfully returned," still locked tightly into the rack, not my intention at all. But since I have 24 hours of usage for my $5, all I have to do is swipe my credit card again and this time I hastily yank the bike out of the nearest slot. I now have the B-bike in hand and, happily, no onlookers have seen me fumbling.

A small sign on the bike says "B-cycles will self destruct when ridden on commercial sidewalks and pedestrian malls."


I imagine what this self-destruction might involve: whooping alarums? A poof of smoke and perhaps for drama a small lick of flame? A mechanical recording that warns "this bike destructs in 30 seconds" or perhaps simply "I can't do that, Lynn?"

My plan is very simple, anyway. I will ride the bike strictly on the bike path from here to the next station, just past Broadway--about 7 blocks. But this does take courage on my part, because I've always been nervous on bikes: a wobbling, unassertive rider too shy to call out "on your left" when I pass a pedestrian. And I am also doing the unconscionable (given my frequent exhortations to my children); for this short experiment I am Biking Without a Helmet.

I keep my backpack on my back rather than using the basket, hoping it will be more stable. I try to remember the last time I was on a bike. I take a breath and careen off down the path, which is not flat of course since each bike path underpass involves a small dip down and back up again. Despite my ability to walk relatively long distances, I'm out of shape bike wise and actually have to suppress my humiliation and briefly walk the bike back up from the underpass at 17th.

It is an unstable but quick ride, and the sharp pain in my right hip from my walk that had caused some limping a bit prior to arrival at the bike station has magically disappeared, perhaps because the hip got a rest as I sat on the bike using muscles and joints in different ways.

But my relief is palpable at being able to get off the bike again, push it back into an empty slot in the rack behind the Municipal Building, and observe the reassuring triple beep and green light indicating that it has been successfully returned without self destruction of either me or bike.

For my $5 I can do that again and again anytime in the next 24 hours free, as long as my rides are under an hour. And rest assured, if I try it again today, it will be another short ride. I love the concept though, encouraging alternative forms of transportation with these $1000 smart bikes that are tracked by GPS and are suddenly so readily available along our Boulder Creek Bike Path. I hope they end up being successful. Biking as an alternative does seem to make sense for me and my hips, so maybe I'll continue to take baby steps like the one today.

Requiem for the BookEnd Cafe

It’s like a missing tooth you keep feeling around for with a wistful tongue.  My favorite espresso joint in Boulder closed on May 1. A kindred spirit who also loved the place sent me some photos to remember it by.  I keep thinking I’ll head down there, and then realizing it is no more.  Why was it so special?

For one thing, it was attached via an inviting brick archway to the independently-owned  Boulder Bookstore, one of my favorite places in the world.  A person could sip a latte, then go next door to peruse the inviting shelves, then come back for more latte, and repeat.  BookEnd had old red brick walls, and shelves filled with ancient tea tins and pots.  There was a large ball of string on display, and a huge painted wooden frog.  The soundtrack was usually playing music I enjoyed and the overall hubbub of the place was enough to energize, but not so much that it overwhelmed.  

You could sit next to the tall windows and people watch for hours as the parade of humanity* which is Boulder’s Pearl Street ambled by.   Or you could sit outside at the stone tables next to the black iron grillwork and listen to that long-haired old guy with the beard who sings pretty well, knows the words to every folksong ever written and always seems to know which one you want to hear next.  Chess players, students, tourists, silver-haired groups in lively conversation, writers, families--all found a cozy place to hang at Bookend.  I can only hope for a swift resurrection.

*The Pearl Street parade can include the likes of a small boy balancing a luminous green-purple peacock feather on his index finger as his proud father looks on, a smiling young couple holding up a sign offering “Free Hugs,” several people in a row on mats doing yoga on their backs and offering to balance onlookers on their feet, a ragtag band with a guitar, washboard and fiddle singing fast jazzy tunes in raucous harmony, a flamethrower and juggler explaining to a member of the audience how not to toss the axe up to her  while she’s pedaling the unicycle lest bloodshed occur, a blonde belly dancer undulating to a languorous drumbeat gradually building to a fast crescendo...and so much more.

Innisfree, Part II

“But I, being poor, have only my dreams. I have spread my dreams under your feet; tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.”

William Butler Yeats 

On a cool, sunny Tuesday morning I peer through the window of the Innisfree Poetry Bookstore and Café. The windows are no longer papered over with fine poetry and are now clear and newly washed. There are people inside; the place has finally opened. I hesitate, but then a man stands up, opens the door and says, “Lynn?”

He’s recognized me from my blog picture. I’ve actually found a bookstore and café where everybody (or at least somebody) knows my name. I walk into a small but beautiful space with long narrow counters along the front windows and down the center of the cafe where a person can sit and sip coffee while perusing fine poetry. A shiny new barista’s station sits at the back with a chalkboard listing espresso options. The wooden bookcases are filled with a mouthwatering variety of poetry: Jack Kerouac, Leonard Cohen, an extensive selection of Charles Bukowski, and much, much more. I know I’ll be back again for a more in depth perusal.

The owner’s name is Brian. He’s Irish and has the Irish love of good poetry. He and his wife Kate met and fell in love at a poetry workshop and have had the dream ever since of opening a small poetry bookstore and café. The circuitous route toward this dream included a stint in the Peace Corp, working with Navajo tribes in Arizona and teaching language arts. Now he and Kate have settled in Boulder among friends to raise their two young children. And I find myself standing inside their dream.

Care has been taken with every aspect of the space: sun streams in through tall windows, all manner of good poetry is arranged invitingly on the warm wooden shelves, and they have chosen to serve fair trade coffee roasted by the local company Conscious Coffees, who have their own dream of sustainability and simplicity, delivering their coffee by bicycle in reusable steel cans.

Standing inside this Boulder dream feels good and right. I highly recommend that my vast blog readership check out this fine place on the Hill across the street from the Sink. Sample the good coffee and find some poetry that speaks to your heart—tell 'em Lynn sent you.

24

Today I have a son who is 24 years old.  He’s many things including a mountain climber and a risk-taker—and he loves Boulder.  I know well that he also has a growing wanderlust and I would predict road trips and other adventures in the not so distant future.  Neil Young really had it right:

Old man, look at my life

Twenty-four and there’s so much more

Live alone in a paradise

That makes me think of two.

Love lost, such a cost.

Give me things that don’t get lost

Like a coin that won’t get tossed

Rolling home to you…

                              Neil Young

When I was 24 it was 1977.  Just a few months before my September birthday, M and I had packed everything we owned (mainly books, a typewriter and two guitars) into a tan square-backed VW and moved ourselves from Bloomington, Indiana (where at the time both cheap housing and jobs were in scarce supply) to Boulder, Colorado, mainly to follow our dream of living near the mountains.  I had graduated two years before.  We left everything behind in Indiana—all our friends, our family, our low-paying jobs, the abundant green of Hoosier woods, the orange-red of the Indiana fall.  I am surprised now that we had the courage to make such a monumental change, but at the time it seemed like exactly the right move.  We did have each other, after all.

It was May.  We were blessed with warm, summery weather and we had no idea how lucky we were about that—we camped in a tent for a week at the Wagon Wheel Campground up Four-Mile Canyon, and then we found rooms in a house on the corner of Arapahoe and Lincoln, right across from the public library.

Our housemate was a very strange ex-Californian named Peter, who was older than he wanted us to think, and who had been writing a screenplay for many years.  He was short, blond and tanned, and looked like a misplaced stubby little surfer.  His mother was wealthy and he seemed to have a limited but steady income from his mother to follow whatever dreams he might have.  He had once been a member of a cult on the West Coast, the subject of the screenplay.

We weren’t in Indiana anymore.

The year we came to Boulder a lot of construction was going on along a street called Pearl; they were building some kind of new-fangled outdoors mall where the street would be closed off for a few blocks and only pedestrians would be allowed. 

We were both writing a lot—M in longhand, I with my trusty little electric typewriter that my grandfather had given me when I started college.  We’d saved up enough money to not have to work for at least a couple of months.  It was a time of shining hope and vast optimism.  Ten years, later, Shannon, you were already one year old.  Happy 24th ! 

May your hands always be busy

May your feet always be swift

May you have a strong foundation

When the winds of changes shift

May your heart always be joyful

And may your song always be sung

May you stay forever young

                              Bob Dylan

Paper Bird

In my continuing effort to get a life outside work, we ventured down to Pearl Street for this summer’s first Bands on the Bricks event, featuring a homegrown Boulder band called Paper Bird. Paper Bird is an intriguing 7-member musical mixture with three female vocalists doing strong, tight harmonies, a banjo, a bass, a guitar – all spiced up with the occasional Dylanesque harmonica riff and a jazzy trombone. Once in awhile one of the women whips out a trumpet and blows a few bars to punctuate a song. Almost all the tunes they do are original and despite the fact that the sound mix wasn’t quite right and the vocals didn’t come through optimally, I became an instant fan, going so far as to buy both a t-shirt and their first CD, “Anything Nameless and Joybreaking.” They have a new CD coming out in July called “When the River Took Flight” that I’ll probably try out as well.

I’ve been listening to the CD in my car all week – a vintage sound and interesting lyrics (which you know I am a sucker for from my previous blogs). Example:

"If i sewed together all my illusions of youth i could make a coat that would keep me warm in December. if we laid all of our desires side by side we'd be walking on broken glass for miles.

chorus:  if i ask enough questions with no hope for reply would i understand the structure of love? i'd like to understand the structure of love."

                                              Esme Patterson, Paper Bird

It’s a satisfying combination of not-easily-categorized bluegrass, jazz, blues, folk—they were a breath of fresh air. If you haven’t heard them before, give them a whirl.

Rainy BoulderWalk

Before our walk we gaze out at the backyard, where the cold rain continues and the grass appears to have grown a full inch overnight.  As sometimes happens between couples who have been together for a long time, M and I simultaneously remember a Ray Bradbury story about a planet where it has been raining for the last seven years and the children who have never seen the sun:  “All Summer in a Day.”

Colorado natives are not accustomed to multiple days of steady rain, and that’s what we’ve had.  Sunday morning we decide to break out the ponchos and risk our lives to stroll along the Boulder Creek bike patch in the epicenter of the flood plain.  We park our car on one of the upper levels in the nearby parking garage “just in case,”  and ponder whether we would hear the rush of the hundred-year-flood in enough time to climb to safety above the creek path.   

Along the wider than usual creek, the water rushes by.  Two kayakers carry their gear past us on the way up to their usual launching point.  “You’re really going to try it today?” M asks in amazement, and they chuckle nervously.  The water is high, but not as high as we’ve sometimes seen it.  The underpasses are partially dry and still walkable.  The rain lightens after awhile, then pounds down heavily, then lets up again, a pattern that repeats again and again.  The clouds throw a heavy cloak over the Flatirons and the rare deep green of the foothills.  At Eben Fine Park a group of gung ho runners soldiers ahead with their sprints and stretches and then heads up the creek trail, their coach running effortlessly alongside them uttering words of encouragement. 

Chief Niwot sits, stoic as always under the downpour, and the birds seem to thrive; the excess water does flush the worms out of their hidey holes.  It is cold for June, around forty degrees.  Last night the steam rose up from our outdoor hot tub and the rain drops made circular patterns on the surface of the   water encouraging meditation on the present moment. 

Yes, it’s a cold rain for June—but we remember the drought days and watering our thirsty flowers with gray water from the bathtub, and are grateful for life and rainfall, knowing as we do the strong connection between the two.

The Existential Garage Sale Manifesto

I walk through Sobo (South Boulder as the cognoscenti call it) this Independence Day morning. On Ash I encounter a small garage sale with a difference. A brown cardboard sign is posted with the Gothic lettered title: Existential Garage Sale

In very small black hand-lettering beneath is a lengthy diatribe on how we all have way too much stuff, how we have multiples of stuff we don’t even need singles of, how we’ll all feel a lot better if we unload some of our stuff and find ways to reuse the stuff we have. How stores like Target are filled with unnecessary stuff like many brands of toilet paper when it would be better to have one superior brand of toilet paper and be done with it.

Two thoughts immediately occur to me: 1) Despite the fact that I already have too much stuff, I really must find something to buy at this garage sale to reward the creator for this unusual and timely sign and 2) one man’s superior toilet paper is another woman’s bathroom crisis; I remember an old friend’s trip to Poland several few years ago when she was told to take toilet paper with her because of tp shortages. Shortages of Toilet Paper! That’s deprivation.

In any case, I found a dog-eared and annotated $1 copy of Eudora Welty’s “The Optimist’s Daughter” to buy, and had a short conversation with the existentialist, a relatively young man. I complimented him on the sign, and he told me he had sold it to a guy for $100 and would be handing it over once he moved away. I gave him another $1 in tribute to the sign.

He said he was “trying to be a good socialist through capitalism.”

“Easier said than done,” I remarked in return, and we smiled at each other. Another fine day in Sobo.

The Greening of Boulder

Rain has been more plentiful than usual this May in Boulder and I’m reveling in the sight of unusually lush green foothills and trails.

We walk from South Boulder up to Chautauqua, down to Pearl Street for a writing session at Bookend Cafe, then home in the pouring rain, and we’re happy. Our walk is in a parallel universe with the massive 10K Bolder Boulder footrace also occurring in town today but we walk alongside many of those who've completed the race as we make our way home in the downpour.

It was also May when we first arrived in Boulder in 1977, with every belonging we had packed in a tan square back VW (two guitars, a tent and cook stove, our clothes, and a remarkable number of books). For the first few nights we pitched out tent along the creek at the Wagon Wheel Campground in Four Mile Canyon outside town.

That year the weather was mild and very dry. Colorado’s arid climate and the muted sage green and gray of the Flatirons were a radical change from the emerald green forests of maple, sycamore and oak in southern Indiana. We were luckier than we knew, since May in Boulder can be quite rainy; some years, late season snowstorms cruelly weigh down and break the flowering fruit tree branches. It is only after many years here, some during severe drought, that we fully appreciate the precious rain when it comes. So it’s been raining all Memorial Day weekend in Boulder and I’ve been falling into grateful sleep each night to the steady, gentle patter on our roof.

Up in Chautauqua the sage was abundant--we each picked and crushed a leaf; the delicious scent filled me with peace and joy. When it’s been raining this long it seems as though all the green plants come out of hibernation and suddenly it looks a lot like Ireland without quite so many pubs.

Also in Chautauqua Park is a small circular flower garden with four pebbly paths leading up to an oblong sign that proclaims, in multiple languages: May Peace Prevail on Earth. As I’m reading the sign and saying my own little prayer, a woman drives by, leans out the window with a smile and calls out “Peace for all the world!” I do feel peace in my souI right here, right now in Boulder.

Water

It is hotter than hammering hell in Boulder today, verging on 100 degrees. The nice thing about Boulder is that no matter how hot it is, very cold water from the mountains flows through pipes, out of our faucets, and into our glasses for drinking. A quick cold shower can provide an amazing sense of well-being and refreshment, even in the heat of the noonday sun. Water is the beverage of choice for me, and I can’t seem to get enough of it this time of year.

A few years ago, we had a drought in Colorado and had to save our "gray water" from bathtubs and sinks to keep our flowers and grass alive. It was a bleak time, but I think it resulted in more mindfulness and appreciation of water and how to conserve it. I am grateful for this simple thing--fresh, clear water. We are so very lucky – for many people in many countries of the world clean water is an unobtainable luxury.

Hearts on a Swing

On Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall is a life-size sculpture by George Lundeen called “Hearts on a Swing.” The young girl sits on a swing with a row of hearts carved on the backrest, with a small smile on her face. The girl on the swing looks a little like my younger sister Nell, and always reminds me of the summer more than 25 years ago when she came to live in Boulder for awhile. We lived down on the 600 block of Marine Street then and had a great front porch, with a swing. We would sit on the porch, play guitars, sing folk songs.

We were younger and freer, very carefree it seemed back then, before my children were born and while our family was still intact. One evening Nell and I strolled in the warm summer air down the street to a little grocery store to get some cherries and ate them on the way back to the house.

As we walked back, eating the cherries on the way, a porch full of young men called out, “Hey, ladies, will you share your cherries?”

“Gentlemen, please,” I replied in my driest voice. We walked on, laughing. I confess it felt good to be admired, even in so crude a way. I remember it as a good summer.

At the Farmer's Market

Boulder’s Farmer’s Market is in full swing each Saturday now, and jam packed with people looking for fresh organic vegetables, flowers, seeds, jellies and jams. People of all ages crowd into the market, including babies in backpacks, children and teenagers in tie-died t-shirts, musicians, and older people of the gray-haired variety like us. After our morning walk we stroll through to find the fresh asparagus we have in mind for dinner. “Just picked this morning,” says the cheery lady behind the counter.

Mark points out that usually when he buys organic vegetables they are more expensive and don’t taste as good. Bah, humbug. We pay 5 solid dollars for the bunch of thick asparagus spears in the spirit of sustainability, and hope they will not be too tough.

We get points for low food miles when we buy the locally grown asparagus. I heard this concept on NPR this week in their new series on sustainability, although I think it is not completely new to me. The concept of food miles is the number of miles a food must be transported to get to you. The assumption is that buying locally produced food is more sustainable because less energy is used. Of course, transportation is not the only measure of energy used to produce food. So if the tomatoes or asparagus at the Farmer’s Market today were grown in a hot house requiring electricity produced from a non-sustainable source, all bets are off on feeling noble about the food miles.

I would imagine bananas a very bad, since they don’t grow in the United States. My strawberries-in-the-dead-of-winter habit is also an issue.

Is there even the smallest sacrifice we are all willing to make for the Earth?

Mark and I are faithful recyclers at least. The Farmer’s Market had several Zero Waste Stations set up. Some of us are trying, but we need to try a lot harder

Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone -
Paved paradise and put up a parking lot. - Joni Mitchell

Kinetic Conveyances

Mark and I walked down to Pearl Street on this pure blue-sky Colorado day, and then over to 29th Street where the Kinetics Conveyance Parade was assembling. In this yearly May event, kinetically designed conveyances are displayed for all to see, prior to a race the following Saturday which starts on ground but includes a tricky run across Boulder Reservoir and its mud flats as well. Designing a vehicle that works well both on land and water, and is a sculpture, and is creative and interesting, is not easy.

There are many, many prizes, not just for winning the race but for all manner of distinctions, including awards for Sculpture, Engineering, Costumes, Team Style, and others with such names as “Don’t Quit Your Day Job,” “Murphy’s Law” and “Best Bribe” (to be blatant). Most participants dress up for the event, and thus we observed black and white Jersey cows with black sparking top hats doing the can-can next to a vehicle with a matching black and white tail, pirates in a vehicle shaped like a shark and sporting an eyepatch, glittery silver dragons with red spikes down their tales in a vehicle with a matching dragon tail, Irish green outfits with red wigs, and much more. The parade includes one pass by the grandstand for official judging, but then another pass by the stand again where bribes for the judges are expected: food, shooters, or whatever else comes to mind. To understand this and other Boulder events, it is helpful to have a reference, thus this pointer to the “Keep Boulder Weird” site for those who need or want to know more.

We spent a little quality time on the upper deck at 29th Street Mall on the veranda of the Purple Martini, sipping our drinks and observing the scene, with a truly extraordinary view of the Flatirons and the more distant snow-covered Continental Divide as a backdrop.

Urban Hikes in Boulder

A few years ago my husband and I discovered the joys of urban hikes. We live in Boulder, Colorado, which is an extremely pedestrian-friendly city. Bike and pedestrian paths with underpasses make navigating intersections a breeze, and of course the constant view of the Flatirons against a Colorado blue sky makes our walks even more enjoyable.

We freeze a little water in the bottom of two Nalgene water bottles, so that when we fill them with water they stay nice and cold, and carry everything we need on our backs. Often we will take care of errands, small purchases, even grocery shopping and wine purchases for dinner on foot during our urban hikes.

The very best part about it, though, is the conversation. Topics range far and wide from the state of the world and country, to the state of our children off at college, to my frustrations and successes at work. It is our best time to share with each other and often the walks will last three hours or more. Boulder has numerous great restaurants, so we will often have lunch out along the way.

We live in South Boulder and can easily head straight up into the foothills from our house and walk the Chautauqua trails behind the National Institute for Science and Technology buildings. Or we can walk through various neighborhoods to get to the brand new 29th Street Mall for lunch at L’s. Or we can head through the CU campus and down the big hill to walk the famous Pearl Street Mall.

When we visit other cities we always wish for the same walker-friendly environment there, since it is a great way to really see a town or city, but we rarely find it. If you know of a good walking town, post a comment and let me know.