Bittersweet

Greetings from St. Ignace (pronounced, by the locals, IG-niss) on the beautiful Upper Peninsula of Michigan! It's 8:30 AM, and I've just seen off my five bike-riding friends on the first day (56 miles) of their ride and have returned to the Econo-Lodge where we spent the night, and which has an Internet-connected computer in its lobby for use by guests. I never imagined it would be so easy to blog today!

Of course, I'd rather be riding my bike, though the weather right now (cloudy, chilly, misting a bit) is not so tempting. But I admit to being a little teary as I drove away from the ride start. That's the "bitter" part of "bittersweet."

Still, as alway, I try to focus on what I can do, not what I can't. So here's the "sweet" part: Yesterday, five of us took our bikes on the ferry from St. Ignace to Mackinac (pron. Mackinaw) Island, and rode the eight-mile circumferance road that hugs the shoreline. It was a gorgeous day, the scenery was magnificent, the route was flat, and my friends tell me I was grinning from ear to ear. I was thrilled to be on my bike, having a fine and easy time of it, somewhere other than the Soiuthwest Bike Trail in Madison, which is a half-block from my house. The only slightly difficult part of the ride was near the end when we turned into a fairly stiff headwind, and I no longer had the breath to chat with Janet.

Highlights of the ride: Lake Huron and a great view of the Mackinac Bridge, a very long suspension bridge that connects Upper and Lower Michigan; lots of flowers, both wild and cultivated; the breccia outcroppings high above the shore, including a lovely natural arch that we climbed quite a lot of steps to see. (And I didn't find the climb difficult....) Also, the sense that the world could be a much calmer place if cars were banned everywhere, as they are (and have been since the late 1800s) on Mackinac Island. The only modes of transportation are bikes and horse-drawn vehicles. There are a lot of really gorgeous, big, old, and I'm sure expensive houses on the island, and it was amazing to think of how the materials arrived at the building sites, which are by no means all close to the shore. But there were, after all, thousands of years of human experience with large-scale construction projects before the invention of the internal combustion engine. It did remind me, though, of the abandoned Model T Ford on Sand Island in the Apostles, which Gertrude Wellish, a Minneapolis school teacher had used in the early 20th century to haul materials to build the summer "cottage" where I stayed for three weeks in 1998 when I was Artist-in-Residence at the National Lakeshore.

One more bittersweet moment from the past week: On Friday, I had my last cello lesson with my fabulous teacher, Carina Voly. Carina has accepted a great job with the New World Symphony (that's the sweet part), which means she will be moving from Madison to Miami next month. I'm really happy for her, and for the New World Symphony and its young musicians, whom Carina will help make the transition from conservatory students to professional teachers and orchestra members. But for me, I'm kind of devastated. Carina helped me make the transition from 55-year-old non-string-player to 63-year-old intermediate-level cellist who enjoys participating in easy (and non-auditioned) orchestral performance. Along the way, she's put up with my extreme performance anxiety and my unreasonable expectations of myself as a musician, and--most recently--has helped me figure out how to work around the chemo-induced neuropathy in my fingers. She's irreplacable as a teacher, and I'm not quite sure what comes next. I managed to control myself when we hugged goodbye, but as soon as her condo door closed behind me, I burst into tears....

Ah, well. Time to move on with the day. As usual, not sure what it will bring: maybe sitting on the shore of Lake Huron, proofreading Facing Fear. Or proofreading in a coffee shop somewhere, if the weather doesn't improve. And if it does improve, perhaps riding my bike back from De Tour Village (tonight's stopover) to meet my friends as they end their ride.