4th Night

I didn't do much on the Fourth of July. It's one of my favorite holidays, but there were no fireworks, no grilling out, no red-white-n-blue cake for me. Instead, I spent the day marathoning episodes of the TV show New Girl, and the evening at a rock show featuring local talent.

This is not to say that I completely missed out on national fervor. Six days before the Fourth of July, way back in June, I heard the boom and crack of fireworks outside my window. These weren't a pop here and a fiery spray from a Roman Candle there, but rather a serious fireworks display that crackled above Lake Monona.  I live a half-dozen blocks from Lake Monona, but when I stepped outside I could still see the sprays of light from my tiny balcony. Or rather—I could see some of the fireworks through the leaves and branches of the trees outside my house.

Despite the somewhat terrible view, I couldn't leave. The loud, celebratory nature of fireworks around the Fourth of July usually drenches me with a glorious feeling of solidarity and pride. I might even go so far as to call it patriotism, which is a word I associate purely with politics and firemen.

This year, though, I started thinking. Having missed the memo that the celebrations were starting, I spent my time watching the fireworks remembering other July 4ths.

One year, watching the fireworks sparkling over Lake Michigan with family in Petoskey.

Another year, at my neighbor's house, happy after an afternoon of sun and blue pool water.

The times I ran the Fourth of July 5k in my Michigan hometown of Whitmore Lake. The reading of the Declaration of Independence at the library. The Kiwanis club frying up chicken dinners until the scent of fried chicken wafted across the town. The small-town parade that I marched in as a high schooler. Watching the fireworks exploding over the lake from a friend's deck. After dark, taking a pontoon boat out for a cruise and watching the occasional firework blooming around the lake.

These memories sifted through my mind as I watched Madison's fireworks through my tree branches. I wasn't homesick, exactly, but certainly nostalgic. It's difficult leaving home for a city of 300,000. For me, this is especially true because am acquainted with very few of that number. It made celebrating Independence Day in the traditional fashion almost impossible.

I ended my day with a rock show, however, and that was great. Very American.

City of Many Ways

“Just like Ann Arbor, but bigger,” I was told. Similar, maybe, but not exactly alike; although it's true I moved here partly because the trees wouldn't make me homesick. Instead, they make the horizons here almost familiar.

Madison is a biking city—and, according to some people, one of the best in the United States. There are streets where cyclists are granted equal status with cars. The street I live on, for instance. My neighbor has propped a sign near the road reading, “Mind Bicycle Boulevard,” with an illustration of a bike, a heart, and a car. 

I see cyclists, dozens of them, every day. Despite this, I wasn't brought home to the meaning of a “biking city,” until I was riding a bus that was held to the speed of four cyclists zooming along directly in front of it.

Madison is a foodie city, too—which would be wonderful, if I could afford to eat out as often as I have some new place suggested. This place has the best Laotian, that place offers amazing gyros. I hear things like that all the time. Bloody Marys. Fish n chips. Italian. Cheese. Sandwiches. Indian. Fru-fru drinks. I have a list of recommendations as long as my arm and leg to check out once I have a decent job.

The thing that I can really get behind is the Saturday farmer's market. Tents stand in lines around the capital square, each bursting with fresh produce, cheese, honey, flowers, or bread. Masses of people move from one tent to the next, a sluggish stream of humanity that skirls and eddies around the stalls. One couple stops to exclaim over the snap peas. Another walks by with a bright bouquet of deep red lilies and purple Canterbury bells. Parents keep a close eye on small children. A few people have escaped from the mash of bodies to lie under the trees shading the capital lawn.

One tent full of dried bird-house gourds is fronted by a grinning man, and the next sells lamb skins. I find myself drawn to the tents full of colorful produce. I don't have the budget for organic lettuce at $3 a head, but in making my circuit around the square, I find better deals. For my farmer's market haul, I bring home small sweet onions, new carrots, dirty young beets, and a cutting of rhubarb in seductive red. I'm more than satisfied.

So...not just like Ann Arbor. I find myself missing Top of the Park, and meeting up with friends at Arbor Brewing Company. I have yet to find a bookstore equivalent to the Dawn Treader. There's no Zingerman's Deli. But I think Madison has its own wonderful corners, and its own festivals and farmer's markets.

Where I Live Now

I've been living in Madison, Wisconsin, for just over two weeks. That's long enough to be forced into figuring out the bus system and where to do my laundry, and definitely long enough to be bummed about not having a job.

It's also long enough that my internal clock has gone bonkers. Without a job, or any real schedule, I've been sleeping nine or ten hours a night, waking up tired at eleven a.m., and just starting to think about supper at half past nine in the evening. It doesn't help that my room only seems to get sunlight at around 5:38 in the morning, when I am not remotely ready to open my eyes.

Today, I aim to reset my body.

This is my plan: a little exercise. Healthy sized meals. Getting out of bed in the morning before 10 a.m.

I started with a run down the next street over, although calling it 'running' is maybe too ambitious. I have an embarrassing tendency towards the golf jog, which is little more than than a glorified shuffle. But today, it's better than doing nothing.

Where I live, on the isthmus between Lake Mendota and Lake Monona, it's only a few blocks from anything. From the corner of my street, I can see the capitol building. Three blocks over is James Madison Park, where I can watch the sun set over Lake Mendota. In the opposite direction of the park is Willie Street, which is home to a lot of restaurants and other small businesses: a baker, a butcher, a glassblower, a cat-centric pet shop.

One street over from my apartment, though, is mostly residential homes shaded by friendly, giant trees. There are neat gardens, and fancy gardens, and a lone front yard with nothing but thigh-high weeds. I passed a school with a small community plot full of young tomato plants and raspberry canes straining against their ties. There are houses of all sizes and the occasional apartment building. More importantly, in the middle of this city, with its population over 240,000, I can do my little shuffle-run down a street where the loudest noises are the birds calling from the tree tops. It feels surprisingly like home.