| I rode my bike along the Lake Monona path that parallels John Nolen Drive where cars race off to work. I was the occupant of one of those cars a little over one week ago. I rode past the Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center and took the elevator with the glass sides up to the concourse with the fountain that is the signature for the structure. I walked my bike over thousands of salmon-colored tiles until I came to the intersection of Wilson Street and MLK, Jr. Blvd. -- one corner of the square block occupied by the City-County Building where I worked until very recently. It's the place where voluminous records of all kinds are kept in boxes, file cabinets, and in computer systems. It's the place to go to for proof that you were born and proof that a loved one is legally dead. It's the place where relationships are legalized with marriage licenses issued by the County Clerk's office. Before the new courthouse was completed a few months ago it was also the place where judges finalized divorces. The City-County Building is the home of one of the Dane County jails and the sole location of the juvenile detention center. The spirits of people who sat awaiting trials still haunt the now vacant hallways and benches outside the courtrooms. Their physical embodiments have shifted to the new courthouse. I believe that every building has its own vibration, spirit, or feeling and that virtually everyone can tell if they are in a synagogue or prison, T'ai Chi center or mortuary, library or rendering plant by just knowing -- just feeling the place even when deprived of the senses we usually depend on to tell us where we are. You are a part of the building if you are a jail inmate serving nine months behind bars, a temporary resident of the juvenile detention center, a parent sitting in the hallway outside the detention center suffering the excruciating ambivalence of simultaneously wanting your child returned to you and wanting him sentenced to a juvenile prison many miles away because there is a part of you that believes that such a stark separation is the only thing that will save his life. You are tied to the building if you work in the county executive's office or the mayor's office; if you work for the Alternatives to Incarceration Program or the Madison Municipal Court; if you file the reports, catalog the records, announce the public meetings, create the bid specifications for assorted goods and services, inspect the houses, file the zoning permits, issue the marriage licenses or file the divorce decrees. If you ever have need of any of the services, you are a part of the building. I was very happy and thankful that I could ride by on my bike without going inside. Almost 10 years as a city of Madison police officer and nearly 14 years in the county executive's office had earned me that right. I'll go inside again. Maybe just to say hello, or to get a permit or document of some kind. I like many of the people who work there, and know many of the people who wander the hallways or wait outside offices. It's inevitable that I'll walk through the doors again, and it's not necessarily onerous. But not today. The City-County Building looked tired and sad. The colorful banners that once added excitement and even an air of festivity to the entrance barely flapped in an aggressive wind. It was like the whole building had ring around the collar. Like a load of wash in which whites and colors were mixed together and everything came out looking dingy. I pedaled a little faster and crossed the street at Doty and MLK, cruised past Starbuck's where the usual people were assembled, and crossed the street to the delightful path that circles the State Capital building and deliberately rode clockwise which is against the usual flow of foot traffic, but there was no foot traffic at this hour. Then I glided down State Street to the Memorial Union where I had an unexpectedly wonderful breakfast of homemade corned beef hash and eggs. I sat at a little table in front of a window in the Rathskeller and ate and sipped a steaming cup of coffee while looking out at Lake Mendota and the colorful and vacant chairs strewn about the Union Terrace. I flipped through the morning paper with the exquisite freedom that came from knowing that I would not have to respond to any of the news of the day. I would not have to have an opinion about the latest tragedy in the troubled neighborhood de jour. I would not feel compelled to tell one of countless countervailing stories. One of these days we will have to come to the understanding that we are all in this together. We all live downstream from somebody, so what we put in the water matters. We all pay for prisons in multiple ways, so it is in our collective best interest to figure out who is in prison, why they are there, why half of the prisoners in this country are my complexion, and then do something about IT. I will continue to try to do something about the many ITS, but not in the ways I have tried thus far. There is a time and a venue for everything. It's time for me to approach the raging bear of myriad forms of inhumanity from a different path. Maybe an idea will come to me on the bike path. Bear documentaries have taught me that it is a bad idea to mess with their young and it is best to approach them from downwind. I will keep these things in mind. I was happy that I would not have to weigh in on some well-intended policy that would likely have unintended negative consequences for the very people it was designed to help. Instead, I read these things as I would have read a comic strip. The colors of the characters were garish. The predicaments faintly approximated my own life, but I knew that what was being portrayed was only real in the heart of the believer. One luxury of even temporary retirement is that there is more time to revisit the essential questions of what is real and what is our purpose in this dance? The steps change. We express ourselves in different ways at different times, but our rhythm, our essence stays the same unless we give it away. I thank God for my rhythm, my teeth, my health, my family, and so many other things. I am thankful to be able to say "God" without fear of ruffling feathers because God works just fine for me as a way to express the inexpressible, to define the indefinable something that is larger than I am. I wasn't the biggest kid in the New York City housing projects that I grew up in, so I certainly do not have the audacity to think that I am the biggest kid in the universe. I gladly relinquish that position to God. I left the Memorial Union and rode my bike back up State Street, stopping whenever I felt like stopping to look in store windows, to remember how State Street looked 35 years ago, to marvel at the guy who sold fruit on the Library Mall in 1971 and who still sells fruit there today. I stopped at the main branch of the Madison Public Library because libraries are my favorite places in the world. I looked up a book that I knew would have 50 holds on it. To my surprise there were only 22 holds. Maybe I could borrow a copy by my 60th birthday (I'm 57 now), or I could finish any of the partially read books that are scattered around my house, like a beautifully illustrated version of the Tao Te Ching, The Hidden Messages in Water, A Course in Miracles, Pablo Neruda, Writing Alone, or The Zen of Creative Painting. And I must confess that I have a problem with reading. When I read, I want to write. I have a similar problem with looking at beautiful or otherwise interesting art, because I invariably pull out my acrylics and brushes and make canvasses out of muslin and wood that I happen to have in abundance. I recognize that these propensities are not problems at all, but gifts in the form of undeniable urges to create. But I did not intend to write about these things, or maybe it is my persistent intention to express all these things. My favorite piece of music these days is La fille aux cheveux de lin by Debussy. Can't pronounce it, but I love it. It is virtually impossible to listen to the selection while incense is burning without lifting out of your seat at least three feet. What a problem. Like getting sucked gently into a Chagall painting and being forced to fly, or to find yourself as one of the characters in The People Could Fly by Virginia Hamilton with illustrations by Leo and Diane Dillon. I recommend picking up the CD and the book from a public library today. It's free. Best deal in town. One sentence in a book can change a life for the better forever. One note in a song can do the same thing. I continued my ride up State Street and relished the things that had stayed the same and the things that had changed. It all blended into the ride. One block at a time. One smile at a time. Frantic people. Calm people. Worried people. Tranquil people. Young students. Old hippies. Sanitation workers. The arrogant and beautiful mannequin in the window of Sassafras, Ltd. had just as much attitude as she did 30 years ago. The beauty of it was the thought that we are all in the same play with interchangeable parts, and we need to know the lines of our fellow actors because there is always the clear and present possibility that we will be called on to play their role at some time and for reasons that can't always be anticipated. I tried to remember the shops that had been replaced by newer businesses. Sometimes I could remember. Sometimes not. It didn't matter. I was not on a game show. There were no fortunes to be gained or lost, so I kept riding. No need to explain anything. No schedules or agendas. Just needed to inhale scenes and whatever memories remained as they passed by. I found myself back at the intersection of MLK and Wilson. The City-County Building was across the street, but it did not command my attention on the return trip. I blissfully walked my bike down the concourse in the direction of the large fountain, got on the elevator with the glass sides, rode down the path that stretched along John Nolen Drive, with Lake Monona on the other side, and pedaled my way home. |
| Simple things/Lang Kenneth Haynes This morning |
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