Fleur-de-Shinrin-Yoku

I signed up to celebrate the Vernal Equinox with Shinrin-yoku—translated into English as Forest Bathing. 

Here I was at the Arboretum at Penn State, not seeing a forest or planning to take a dip. This is a man-made, sculpted place. It’s too damn cold for the first day of spring. Shut up, Laurie

Lucy, leading our two-hour session, says the definition of the practice, which was named by the Japanese in the 1980s, is closer to “immersing yourself in nature”.  This body-and-mind exercise highlights the importance of the natural world to human health.

It was a blustery, gray afternoon. Just a few days earlier my milk jug greenhouses were nestled all snug in their plant stand, blanketed in snow.

I’d read about this eco-therapy practice years ago, but it wasn’t until 2022 that a class came to the Arboretum at Penn State.  I signed up but was wait-listed. Demand was so great that they scheduled a second class.

Lucy explains to the 8 of us that we are here to slow down, smell, see, feel, and hear nature.  She leads us down the paved path. She gives us a prompt, lets us wander for 10 minutes or so, rings her chimes and we gather in a circle to share our discoveries.

The first prompt is the notorious March gusts that pummel our parkas. What signs of wind do you notice?

The bark on the birch trees flapping. The tall poplars shivering and bowing in the sky.  The oak leaves waving goodbye to winter.

Lucy talks about the full moon the other night.  The last full moon of winter is called the Worm Moon, she says, because worms start to get active. As do robins. 

She asks us to look for signs of warming soil, of spring’s emergence. 

Chipmunks digging holes. Snowdrops, Siberian squill, and winter aconite painting the brown earth into bursts of color. The vivid green and pink frills of new leaves on the false spiraea (which I grew along the bank of the Mill Creek for years, but never noticed her early face of spring). 

Lucy approaches a bucket of 3-legged camo stools and asks us each to take one.  Find a place that calls to you and sit for 10 minutes, absorbing everything. 

I choose a spot near a Southern Magnolia, puzzled that it can survive Central Pennsylvania winters. The leathery, deep green leaves are scarred a bit. It was a hard winter. But the tree is strong and full, and I can’t wait to return to see and smell its southern blossoms. As I drift to memories of Charleston my attention is drawn to the silent power of the bare, gray wisteria trunks twisting and squeezing a steel pergola. 

Others are mesmerized by a cocoon that looks so fragile dangling from a twig or the witch hazel’s yellow blossoms hugging each other on slender branches.

We gather around the koi pond.  Weeks ago, it was frozen, Lucy recalls.  Now the wind dances across the surface. We close our eyes, hold out our arms and turn until an interior voice calls to stop. We open our eyes. The sun peeks out of Cloudy Valley skies.  A whisper of brilliant orange glides through the frigid water. Two more follow. 

Lucy holds out a basket filled with scrolls tied in yarn. We each choose one.  We find a spot to reflect.  I sit on a bench dedicated to Jean: wife, daughter, sister, mother, aunt, grandmother, friend, and nurse.  I unravel my poem on parchment:

Spring by Mary Oliver

“Somewhere a black bear has just risen from sleep and is staring down the mountain. All night in the brisk and shallow restlessness of early spring I think of her, four black fists flicking the gravel, her tongue like a red fire touching the grass, the cold water. There is only one question: how to love this world.

“I think of her rising like a black leafy ledge to sharpen her claws against the silence of the trees. Whatever else in my life is with its poems and its music and its glass cities, it is also the dazzling darkness coming down the mountain, breathing and tasting; all day I think of her—her white teeth, her wordlessness, her perfect love.”

The bamboo grove rustles. A distant woodpecker thrums on a snag. A helicopter churns above. I read about the perfect love of an awakening black bear and ponder womanhood, motherhood.

As we gather in our circle one last time, Lucy pulls out a thermos. Inside are heated river rocks (in a 200-degree oven). She gives one to each of us to hold in our hands. We share our thoughts. 

One day at a time. Live in the moment. Seize the day. Notice the little things. Be present. All of the clichés simmer into the warmth of the smooth river rock I clutch.  Laurie Lynch

Remembering:  At end of day, I was getting ready to fix dinner and “pulled a Nonna”.  I pushed up my long sleeves and out popped a tissue onto the floor. My mom always had a Kleenex or two at the ready, stuck in the cuff of her sweater.

Reading & Eating:  I’m hooked on Amor Towles.  I started with his 2021 novel, The Lincoln Highway, recommended by friend Jan who doesn’t steer me wrong.  Love his writing style and clever storytelling. Then I moved to his first, Rules of Civility. It is captivating and I even found a great recipe for Closed-Kitchen Eggs, passed down by Katherine Kontent’s Ukrainian family.  I’ve cooked lots of eggs in my life but this technique eluded me until now. It’s a winner—easy cleanup.

Closed-Kitchen Eggs

Whisk 2 eggs in a bowl with grated cheese and herbs.  Pour into pan with heated oil and cover with lid. Peek occasionally, and when it’s done, you’ll find that the eggs are puffed, lightly browned without burning, and easy to lift out of the pan. Mmmm. 

Next:  A Gentleman in Moscow. That’s the name of Towles’ book I am reading, not a comment on the current, tragic world situation.

My garden bulbs of spring

Fleur-de-ArtWalk

Our Saturday was a blank canvas. 

No to-do list.  No kitchen duty (leftover pierogi from yesterday’s Our Lady of Victory Rosie’s Pierogi Lenten Sale). No garden chores (I had hoped to do a little milk jug seed sowing but stopped by the recycling center yesterday as they shut down for the weekend—no plastic milk jugs until Monday). No nuttin’. 

So we went for a walk. 

Sandy 4.0 and I go for 2-3 walks a day around Pleasant Gap. But on weekends, we try to branch out.  A Nittany Mountain hike, Slab Cabin Creek sledding hill romp, a Lemont Village saunter.  This morning, we went on the Color the Marsh Art Walk at Millbrook Marsh Nature Center, Puddintown Road, State College. 

Millbrook Marsh is about two miles from my mom’s old house. Sandys 1, 2, 3 and 4 have all taken this trek.  It was an especially good walk for my mom because there is a boardwalk path through the marsh—flat, stable, no mud or rocks—yet you are right in the middle of nature.  I always liked taking her there for my peace of mind. On several bends in the boardwalk, you can look up at a distant hill and see Mount Nittany Medical Center. I figured the more we walked through the marsh, the less time she’d spend in the hospital. 

It worked.

When I was an elementary student in the 1950s, our school bus drove down Puddintown Road, past Meadow Pride Dairy, and into Houserville.  Along the way we picked up several kids, including one we called “Puddin”, and continued to our school in Lemont. In the late 1990s, a 12-acre farmstead and 50 acres of wetlands became Millbrook Marsh Nature Center.

Enough reminiscing.  On today’s walk, with not a leaf in sight, we enjoyed the color and creativity of 32 paintings by locals, ranging in age from 5 to 50.  We saw several pair of mallards, but alas, no muskrats—the native foragers of the marsh.  Laurie Lynch

Fleur-de-Craving

My sister Lisa (16 months younger) and I both lived in the Lehigh Valley during our childbearing years. I was there, with my mom, at the midwifery center for her first birth, son Lamar. A year later, I had Marina. Then she had Lia. Then I had Richard. Then she had Lake.  

Like many mothers-to-be, we analyzed everything about our pregnancies. Lisa was a firm believer that if you crave a particular food, it is your body telling you that you need a certain vitamin, enzyme or amino acid.  With Marina, it was watermelon. I couldn’t eat enough of it. Luckily, she was born in August. For Richard, it was rice pudding that we found at a diner in Nazareth.  To this day, I think that’s why he makes a fantastic pot of saffron rice (and I have no confidence with rice, pudding or otherwise).

Nine months after my mother’s death, I’m craving again. After a white-out winter in Happy Valley, it’s fresh asparagus and pineapple I collect in my grocery cart. 

Since I started gardening I’ve had two rules: Never buy a supermarket tomato and never buy supermarket asparagus. Of those two, I only eat fresh out of the garden or what I froze from my harvest. 

Well, in February I broke the asparagus rule. Chalk it up to a deep yearning for Spring. As for the pineapple, its golden flesh is just brimming with sunshine, something that’s been scarce around here.

I guess you could say I’ve been pregnant with possibilities.

That’s why in February and again this month, I’m saying, in my sweetest voice, “Welcome to University Wine Company.” 

I’ve become an occasional weekend hostess for a wine-tasting room a few miles from home. 

It all started with one of my mom’s AOPi sorority sisters.  Linda sent out an email explaining that Natalie and Jinx, dear friends of hers, and their son Jeff, opened University Wine Company in November.  Many moons ago, Linda (a retired kindergarten teacher) had Jeff in class. She swears she only served grape juice at the snack center but now he’s president of a wine company.  Go figure.

UWC is a beautiful, timber-beamed, wide open (COVID-correct with masks and social distancing), three-story winery. Jeff makes wine on the first floor while everyone on the second and third floors empties the bottles. The problem was, Jeff’s parents made plans to spend February and March in Florida, and needed people to work behind the counter of the tasting room on weekends. 

I was getting tired of weekends spent Zooming and Skyping with no in-person interaction, unless you call jabbering to Sandy 4.0 “interaction”.  I do appreciate his kisses and waggles and cuddles but I needed more.

So, I have a colorful, fabric wine glass mask and pour 2-ounce tastes of our Wine Flights, three wine glasses suspended in an individual rack, to all sorts of masked strangers.  We’ve had adult birthday parties, nurses de-stressing after a long week, families with children who romp on the third-level while their parents sip and chat, and couples who share a romantic bottle of bubbly Ovation in front of the fireplace.  We need to card those of questionable age.  After trying to focus on the small print of driver’s licenses and doing mental math, I figured out as long as they were born in the last century, I was good. 

I’ve washed hundreds of wine glasses—wash, rinse, sanitize for 30 seconds. Then, air dry and I wipe each glass with a coffee filter to prevent water spots. (So far, I’ve only broken one glass.) We also serve mugs of hot mulled Sangria. Even in winter, the U-Chill wine or hard apple cider slushies that Jeff started the business with 10 years ago are popular. 

I get paid in tips (the first I’ve gotten in 45 years), bottles of wine, conversation, and purpose. Last weekend I worked with Lou, married for 65 years to a woman he’s known since he was 14. Lou and I met in the 1980s when I was working the education beat for the CDT and he was a new principal in town.  The weekend before I got a lesson on staying calm when customers flood the entrance all at once, thanks to Pam, a pro at hospitality services. 

If you are out and about in Centre County, or just traveling online, check out www.universitywineco.com  It’s full of possibilities.  Laurie Lynch

Fleur-de-2Fisted

We’ve all heard of a two-fisted drinker. 

Well, this winter I’ve been a two-fisted reader. 

In one hand, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times.  In the second, See You in the Piazza: New Places to Discover in Italy.  Or it might be better to say that while hunkering down this winter I was caught I the middle of dueling May(es). 

It’s been a study of contrasts. The first for centering and introspection; the second, for escape and delight. Both are necessary for a woman (or man) of a certain age (or any age, really.)

Katherine May had some life-altering events to deal with and let reflection, adventure, and literature lead her through her winter.  Frances Mayes (you may have read some of her other books, Under the Tuscan Sun andBella Tuscany) decided to leave the familiarity of her adopted Tuscan village and explore lesser known stops in Italy, starting in the north and drinking, eating, and exploring her way south to Sicily.

May leads the reader through an exploration of winter, from September to March, a few months shy of the typical hibernation of a dormouse—one of three native mammals to hibernate in the United Kingdom.  (Bats and hedgehogs are the others.)  She takes the reader on travels to Iceland, Stonehenge, Norway, and even chills out with a plunge into the Whitstable New Year Sea Swim.  Off she goes, to Narnia, Green Knowe and Moominland.

She writes about wolves—and the lessons we can draw from them. “In the depths of winter, we are all wolfish,” she writes. We are always hungry.  “A little craving might be a rallying cry for survival.”  Rather than trying to finalize our comfort and security, perhaps it is better to accept endless, unpredictable change, she suggests.

For me, one of the most fascinating sections of Wintering was Mays’ discourse on the “terrible threes”.  No, she’s not writing about toddlers.  Instead, it is an affliction I know all too well.

“The dark insomniac hours when my mind declares itself, fully fired, in the middle of the night,” writes May. “It always happens at 3 a.m.: a long way past late, but too early to surrender and start the day.”

Been there, done that. Night after night after night.

May makes sense of this phenomenon by researching the work of historian A. Roger Ekirch, who studied diaries and letters of people living before the Industrial Revolution.  They wrote of a normal night being divided into “first or dead sleep” and “second or morning sleep”.  In between, there was an hour or so of wakefulness, known as “the watch” when “Families rose to urinate, smoke tobacco, and even visit close neighbors. Many others made love, prayed and … reflected on their dreams, a significant source of solace and self-awareness.”  

It was a time when people went to sleep early, at first darkness, to save on candles.  Street lights didn’t exist. It sounds a lot like 101 Timber Lane in December and January.  As the sun sets, I might light a candle or two just to add an interior glow to the end of the day before I head back to a bath and bed.  Even though we have lights, I turn most of them off, power down my phone and computer, and settle in with just a bedside lamp for an hour or so of reading.  No wonder I’m up to experience the Terrible Threes.

“Here is another truth about wintering: you’ll find wisdom in your winter, and once it’s over, it’s your responsibility to pass it on,” writes May.

Meanwhile, who the heck cares about wisdom when you’ve got Italy?  But actually, Frances Mayes imparts such varied wisdom—historical, architectural, cultural—about the immense soul of a country not much larger than the state of Arizona.

“Pasta is the national anthem.”

“The music of many corks popping.”

“Aromas of pastry and bread exhale from open doorways.” 

Aren’t your senses just itching to escape as soon as this pandemic is over to enjoy the wisdom of travel?

If Italy is your desired destination, Buy This Book.  In the meantime, here are a few Frances Mayes’ vintage travel tips: 

–Look for a restaurant with a little bed symbol.  That means you can have a nice dinner, plenty of prosecco or vino, and not have to drive. You simply walk up the stairs to your room.

–If you suffer from Stendhal Syndrome (becoming overwhelmed by too much beauty), take a break and drink a cold glass of water.

–At a restaurant, if you are not sure about what to order, ask the waiter what he recommends. 

–Gold slippers.  One of Frances’ packing secrets.  Golden slippers signal glamour, she writes, and transform casual into dressy.

–And, take a not-so-subtle hint from “Franny’s” husband Ed.  He has a simple rule he wants carved on his tombstone: No checked luggage.

Cin cin!  Laurie Lynch

Written on Slate: “In the midst of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.” –Albert Camus

Fleur-de-Cathedral

Let me tell you: The squirrels don’t care.  Not about Fibonacci numbers. Not about the Black Forest. Not about Gothic cathedrals. Well, maybe they care about the flying buttress-like branches of evergreen cathedrals.

I took an August morning walk under a majestic bower of conifers not far from my mom’s home.  The cicada symphony was tuning up as the morning fog lifted.  It is an outdoor cathedral of elderly pines and Norway spruce that I used to visit quite often as a young teenager, walking our family dog, Bear.  It’s been years.  No, decades.

The arms of the Norway spruce arc toward the heavens until they tangle in amongst the branches of the next spruce, creating tall, vaulted ceilings.  Off each large branch are dozens of dangling branchlets of short, dark needles, dancing like a stallion’s mane.

It is a holy space; holier than I’ve visited for some time. As I look down, there is a mosaic of copper and green scales from immature cones littering the soft ground.  Then, I notice the russet-colored cobs. We are enjoying corn on the cob; the squirrels are gnawing on spruce on the cob. In case you are interested, they don’t chew typewriter fashion, but instead, go round and round, starting at the broad end until they get to the tip.

Norway spruce is the tallest native tree in Europe, towering to nearly 200 feet. They were planted on this side of the Atlantic for their majestic evergreen form and because they grow quickly, 3 feet a year in their first 25 years.

The female cones of the Norway spruce are up to 8 inches long. They are concentrated on the higher branches.  Their male counterparts are found lower on the individual tree, so that the female cones are pollinated by the wind blowing off male cones on other trees, an evolutionary trick to prevent self-fertilization of individual trees.

In August, the cones are green (they turn brown as they age). Their scales overlap like shingles on a roof, with two tiny, naked seeds wedged under the base of each scale. Those seeds are what the squirrels are after, as they strip each leathery scale from the core.

The scales are arranged in geometric spirals.  This brings us to an Italian mathematician named Fibonacci who lived in Pisa from 1170 to 1230 during the time of St. Francis of Assisi. Fibonacci was fascinated with conifer cones and other spirals of nature, such as petals on pinks and delphiniums, leaf arrangements on oaks, beech and cherry trees, and seedheads of poppies and sunflowers.

The mathematician became famous for a mathematical progression which he calculated and is now referred to as the Fibonacci series:  1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, etc. Each number in the list is the sum of the two preceding numbers. The scales of Norway spruce cones are arranged in two distinct spirals, one clockwise and the other counterclockwise, with a 5/8 arrangement.

Clockwise … hmmm. Perhaps that is one reason clockmakers in the Black Forest (Schwarzwald) of Germany were drawn to Norway spruce cones.  Beginning in the 1700s, they fashioned the cast iron weights of their cuckoo clocks after Norway spruce cones, the predominant conifer of the Black Forest. And that, in a nutshell, is why Norway spruce cones are sometimes called “cuckoo clock cones.” Laurie Lynch

Bull Horn Peppers:  When Norway spruce cones are green look for green Bull’s Horn peppers in your farmers’ market.  We’ve been getting them in our weekly market share.  My favorite way to prepare them is to remove the tops of each pepper, slice it lengthwise and remove seeds. In a small bowl, mix crumbled feta cheese with a dash of olive oil and chopped mint leaves.  Stuff the peppers with the mixture and brush each pepper with a little olive oil, placing them in a Pyrex baking dish that was also brushed with olive oil.  You can then put them on the grill or broil them in the oven until the peppers soften and start to brown at the edges.

Written on Slate:  “We don’t have to live great lives, we just have to understand and survive the ones we’ve got.”  –Andre Dubus

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fleur-de-Sung

We haven’t put a spade in the garden and I’m already learning from Limerock Court community gardeners.

At our kickoff meeting this week Sung, one of our Korean gardeners, asked for help in identifying a flowering plant from a photo on her iPhone.  It was a dark pink, cup-shaped flower with lance-shaped leaves and surrounded by Korean calligraphy. Two words were written using the Western alphabet: Mimosa pudica, the only thing I could read.

Sung explained why she wanted to find the plant.  It is used in Korean culture for dying fingernails. Sung remembers as a child rubbing the flower mixture on each fingernail, wrapping fingertips in cellophane before bed, and waking up in the morning with orange-pink fingernails. Her mother did it as a child too, and now that Sung’s daughter Grace is 5, she wants to pass on the botanical tradition.

Hmmm.  This sounded like a tough one. I Googled images of Mimosa pudica,  but the photo she showed me was a different plant. Mimosa  has compound leaves—the photo of the mystery plant did not.

I started searching for “natural dyes for fingernails” and “Korean fingernail dying”.  Eventually, I hit the information jackpot: Bong Seon Hwa, the Art of Korean Finger Dye. And the best news, it is not a rare, exotic plant used in this process but Impatiens balsamina,  also known as Garden Balsam or Rose Balsam, and probably available at any big box store or nursery.

Impatiens balsamina  is native to India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Myanmar where it has been used as a medicinal herb to treat everything from snakebites and warts to constipation and hair loss.

The process of dying fingernails is pretty straightforward, Sung explains.  Gather some flowers and leaves, sprinkle with salt and “smush together”.  Then you put the resulting liquid on each nail and wrap.

“Usually we do it before bedtime because we can’t wait that long time while we are playing,” Sung says of the traditional event of summertime. She sent the accompanying photos—and there is even a children’s book describing the art. Laurie Lynch

Written on Slate:  “A children’s story which is only enjoyed by children is a bad children’s story.” C.S. Lewis

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fleur-de-WildLife

The other evening, right at dusk, I saw an amazing sight: A herd of 11 deer in my mom’s backyard.

I tried to take a photo but my camera battery was dead.

We’ve enjoyed groups of three or four deer all winter long. We even put out dried corn, much to the delight of the romping squirrels, and, I’m sure, the deer.  The deer trimmed the yews, which were way overgrown.  I loved watching them bound across the snow, white tails waving like flags.

But,  eleven!

I called the township office.  The secretary suggested I talk to Frank, a fellow in the township office who used to work for the game commission.  Frank tells me this is the time of year for deer to gather in herds. As soon as the females start giving birth, they’ll separate into smaller family pods.  “Food and shelter,” Frank says, “that’s what they’re looking for.”

They’ve found that, and a small pond for drinking, at 101 Timber Lane.  The corn feeder has been retired.

Meanwhile, at my-home-away-from-home, the office, we have a different wildlife situation.  For two days a male cardinal has been flying into the window, attacking his reflection.  He’s claiming his territory, but boy, is it annoying.

I am in a windowless alcove; the office behind mine has the windows.  The mild-mannered estimator who works there had a bid due at 3 p.m. yesterday.  This avian hammering had to be a distraction, especially on deadline.  When he left for lunch, I leaned a few blueprints and a metal roofing sample in front of the windows, and taped paper over the rest.

The cardinal was undeterred.

Just before 3 p.m., the estimator submitted his bid for a $1 million-plus roofing project.  Then, he quietly walked out of the office.  This is a young man who claims “calm” is written into his DNA. He came back a few minutes later and I asked where he’d been.

“I tore the nest out of the bush.”

This morning, Mr. Red was at it again.

Then, the National Guard stepped in.  The fellow across from my desk heard the racket. (He had been out of the office yesterday.)   He got a roll of bright blue painter’s tape and placed two Xs over the windows and draped the blue tape on the boughs of the evergreen, like swags on a Christmas tree.

Crash! Rat-a-tat-tat. The blue tape was useless.

So NG got a roll of plastic, cut off a long section, and draped it over the bush.

“I figure if he’s inside the plastic, he won’t be able to see his reflection.”

Wrong.  The bird just knocked it down and continued to mount his attack.

Then a guy from the sheet metal shop came to the rescue.

“They’re not bad eatin’ ’’.  It was just before lunch …

I decided to check out Penn State Extension’s wildlife information.  In spring, many male birds see their reflection in a window and think another fellow is entering his territory. Most birds stop doing this after they have a mate with eggs in the nest.  Except cardinals.   They will keep it up year-round.  Bird experts suggest putting a mirror somewhere close by (but not too close) so the cardinal will think his rival has moved—away from your window.  When I went home for lunch, I put the orphaned mirror sitting in the garage in the back of my Scion.

NG went out again and put the plastic over the window. When I returned, I leaned the mirror along the side of the building several feet from the popular window but behind a pipe, so it would be secure.

As we were nearing quitting time, we hadn’t heard a peep or a crash.

“That plastic did the trick,” NG said with pride.

I kept quiet.

The estimator will not want to keep looking out a window covered in plastic and blue painter’s tape.  And my bet is that the cardinal won’t either.  He’s busy jousting with that handsome fellow in the mirror …

Linus

My grandmother Nives used to say that things come in threes. She was always right.

Before I left for the day, I opened an email from our neighbor who keeps sheep and chickens in my mom’s barn.  There is a new addition at 101 Timber Lane—Linus.  Isn’t he the cutest!  Spring, the animals are telling us, is here. Laurie Lynch

Fleur-de-BeBiking

It’s funny how things stick with you. Looking over my photos from Ghent I was surprised at how many were of horses. I was transported to 8^thgrade. My parents got home from the parent-teacher conference and I was in deep water. Mrs. O’Neill said she appreciated my interest in reading BUT I had to start reading books on topics other than horses.

Eventually I heeded her advice and unlatched the pasture gate. A world of mysteries, memoirs, botany, biographies, landscape design, cooking, travel, adventure, and later, novels, novels, novels lay open before me.

On my recent trip to Ghent, as I rode my bike down canals and across cobblestones, the horse-lover in me appeared behind the camera lens. Bicycles, as transportation, were a close second.

Street Art Pony

In Ghent, bicycles are woven into the culture, as cars are in the States. It helps that the landscape is flat and the network of bike paths along ancient canals is extensive, shaded, and quite beautiful. Bike racks abound, and my biggest fear was that I would “lose” my bike in the rows and rows of bike stands.  The first thing I did was tie a green ribbon “tail” on my rear rack for easy identification.

 

If you’re riding a bike in Ghent and see a steep set of stairs to get to an upper level plaza, no worries. There is probably a trough gutter at the side of the staircase to roll your bike up as you climb the steps. The city makes biking easy.

Tire gutter built-in to stairway

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Add-on bike ramp

 

 

 

One afternoon I was sitting on a bench along the Kanaal Gent-Oostende and realized school must have just let out. The bike path swarmed with parents pedaling bicycles with carts on front holding their youngsters. Some have bench seats and can hold up to four children. The carts also have rain canopies for inclement weather.

Home from school

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’d love to see more bicycle-friendly options adapted to the U.S.  That’s the beauty of travel–learning and expanding your horizons.  Laurie Lynch

My Belgian Buddies:  Belgium is home to the massive Belgian draft horse or Brabant, used for plowing the rich, heavy soil or to pull carriages. Here are three I met in Ghent.

‘Bout Those Books:  My latest reading fascination is the Cormoran Strike crime novels. My sister sent me The Cuckoo’s Calling and now I’m zooming through a library copy of The Silkworm.  The author is Robert Galbraith, a pseudonym for J.K. Rawling. Yes, that J.K.–author of the Harry Potter series.

Coming Up in the Next Blog: How a report on Ghent cafés led to VIP tickets to Opera Vlaanderer to see a Lehigh Valley-born tenor starring in Philip Glass’ Satyagraha …

Fleur-de-Koffie

Cappuccino met Slagroom

Some people may think it odd that I would seek out cafés in Ghent, that I would make a point of reading descriptions, listing names and addresses, and then search for them.

I beg to differ. When I moved back to State College, Café Lemont was on my way to work. It was also, conveniently, about three-quarters of the way on my weekend bike rides. The baristas there were the first faces I saw in the morning, the first smiles of the day, the first friendly banter I encountered. I can’t tell you how important that is—and all for a $2 cup of coffee to-go—greetings that light up the morning and T-shirt slogans that brightened each day.  And yes, plenty of cream to pour into that dark roast to make it a lovely shade somewhere between Benjamin Moore Saddle Tan and Valley Forge Brown.

So I indulge in the caffeinated brew, here and abroad.  In Belgium, café beverages include not just coffees, teas, juices, and chocolate, but beer, wine, liqueurs, and cocktails. But, let me remind you, I rented a bicycle for two weeks, so I was concentrating on the non-alcoholic beverages at cafés.

Old-School Mokabon

I had 18 cafés on my original list. I eliminated two immediately because I had already indulged during previous trips—Barista (with a coffee sommelier) and Simon Says (where baristas dance the Lindy and harmonize while delivering your order.) Here is the rundown of my stops, and a little on the personality of each place. And, before I forget to give credit where it is due, my first cup each day was ‘Koen koffie’ in Marina and Koen’s kitchen.

 

Red Mokabon Sign Down Alley

Mokabon Café:  My first stop is the Nonno of cafés in Ghent, started by a young Italian man who began a coffee roasting business at this location in 1937. A few years later, it became the city’s first coffee bar. The address is Donkersteeg  (Dark Alley) 35, but nowadays it is most easily found by looking for the Starbucks Korenmarkt,  walking past the front door, and turning right down the alley.  Marina, not a coffee drinker, had warme chocomelk  (hot chocolate) and I had a Cappuccino met Slagroom.  The Dutch language never ceases to intrigue. Slagroom, simply put, is whipped cream in English.

DreamCATchers Cat Adoption Café & Shop,  Schepenhuisstraat 17: By far the most expensive cup of coffee I encountered in Ghent … but for a good cause. We paid 3 euro each just to get in the door to listen to the rules and regulations recited to us by a woman with a cat tattoo on her forearm. Turn off your cell. No flash photos. Put out your hand like you do with a dog and let the cat come it you, if it chooses. Five homeless cats wander around the café, climbing, nesting, stretching, leaping—doing what Belgian cats do. Eventually they find their full-time humans and another five come to the café. Waiter Ulysses teased one cat with a fishing pole and string, but could also translate the Dutch menu if necessary. We could figure things out well enough … Latte Meowchiato, Capurrrr-ccino, Ameowicano. You are there to pay the cover charge, drink the coffee and socialize the cats—but only if they want to socialize with you.

DreamCATchers

Café Labath, Oude Houtlei 1: This koffiehuis is a pleasant stroll from Marina’s neighborhood and could be my low-key regular morning stop if there weren’t so many other places to investigate.

Jungle Terrace

 

Clouds in My Coffee, Dendermondsesteenweg 104:  OK, I knew I was going to love this place just because of the name. It didn’t disappoint. We sat in the Jungle Terrace, near the B&B and around the corner from The Chapel, a loft-space to rent for workshops, meetings, or photo shoots. I asked for a coffee with cream and got a mug of steamy coffee with a billowing puff of slagroom—definitely a cloud in my coffee.

Bar Bidon, Bisdomkaai 25:  This place is hyped for cycling enthusiasts, and sells retro-bicycle brands and accessories as well as lattes and espressos. There are a few outdoor tables and I was lucky enough to snag one, sip on an iced latte, and watch workmen dredge the canal that runs along the koffiebar.

Moor & Moor

Moor& Moor,  Jakobijnenstraat 7: Speaking of iced lattes … this was my go-to café because it was close to the corner where I met Marina after her class. We enjoyed an “Indian Summer” while I visited Ghent (not normal for October in Belgium), so “iced” was the beverage of choice, especially after a sweaty pedal along the canals.

As with many businesses in Ghent, Moor & Moor is no-cash and promotes low food miles. One afternoon I was fortunate to see a bicycling gardener arrive with a baby-blue cart wedged between his two front tires and filled with potted plants. He stopped at Moor & Moor and efficiently planted vines on either side of the shop door and left for his next planting—a job I lust after!

Wasbar, Korenmarkt 37: Throughout cities in Belgium you’ll see Laundromats called Wassalons. In Ghent, if you have laundry to do I’d suggest the Wasbar. Washing your skinny jeans with turned-up cuffs while sipping on a Beetroot Latte has to be the hippest of hip. I stopped by one afternoon and found an outside table to people watch, minus the spin-dry cycle.

Wasbar Outside

No caffeine for me, instead a Limonade with red raspberries and a sprig of mint, and the Wasbar’s carrot cake with caramel and, yep, slagroom.  I must say everything was lekker (yummy).  Up-and-coming beverage note: Lemonade, with add-ons of raspberries, strawberries, apple, ginger, mint or vanilla, was offered at every café we visited.

Wasbar Inside

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

De Olijfboom, Forelstraat 37: The cup of coffee with the most warmth in Ghent was pour-your-own from a thermos at De Olijfboom (The Olive Tree). And it was free. OK, story time.

Koffie at Olijfboom

In 2015 when the refugee crisis began in Belgium, Evelyne, a young mother in Ghent, decided she needed to do something and started posting on Facebook, requesting donations from the community for refugees and asylum seekers. In no time, Een Hart Voor Vluchtelingen Gent (A Heart for Refugees in Ghent) caught Marina’s attention and soon she was helping Evelyne in her spare time.

Evelyne in Pink

What started out simply as grouping donated items into personal packages for families and individuals sprouted into an actual community center where refugees could find necessities, talk to Gentenaars, get advice for living in their new country, and celebrate holidays and special events with locals and other refugees.  De Olijfbloom, Evelyne explained to me over a cup of coffee, keeps evolving. After the organization received a donation of a virtual wall of bolts of fabric, some women began making cloth dolls, pillows and toys to sell there, all to support strangers seeking a new life in Belgium.  Laurie Lynch

Written in Steamed Cream: “… I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee, clouds in my coffee, and …”  –Carley Simon

Fleur-de-NotSorry

Before going to Ghent, I read about a Concrete Canvas Tour map of the city’s street art.  I decided one of my first stops in Ghent would be the Visit Gent Information Centre near the medieval Gravensteen,  Castle of the Counts.

The woman at the desk knew what I was talking about but said it wasn’t called the Concrete Canvas Tour anymore, and it wasn’t a tour.  She handed me a map entitled Sorry, Not Sorry, with numbered locations of street art and a legend of artists corresponding to the work.

Ghent Artist Roa’s Heron

For all of its ancient architecture, Ghent is a youthful, irreverent city. Hawkers set up stands to sell giant gumdrops called cuberdons  (the Noses of Ghent). A sign above the grill of a Lebanese restaurant reports: I kiss better than I cook. Prior to the city’s October elections, top-hatted minstrels with red carnations, bow ties, kazoos, whistles and triangles, traveled from square to square singing ditties poking fun at each candidate, drawing laughter from the Flemish crowd. Sorry, not sorry.

And, as you walk or bike down narrow streets or cobbled alleys, you never know what fantasy will pop out above or beside you.  I went in search of this oh-so public artwork, perhaps as homage to Kutztown’s Keith Haring, but mainly, just to explore as many corners of Ghent as I could.

Sorry, Not Sorry is the label for street art in Ghent and the city has developed a graffiti and street art policy. Cultuur Gent encourages artists and provides four legal zones for street artists to use as their galleries. With this support, muralists paint under bridges, above street corners and decorate the city with urban art without defacing historic buildings. A group called Eco-Werkhuis  removes illegal graffiti, tags, and stickers in the streets of Ghent, free of charge.

Peter Perch, The Netherlands

On the 2018 Sorry, Not Sorry map, 93 locations and 46 artists are highlighted. Many of the artists are from Ghent; others were commissioned to visit and paint. If you have a home in Ghent you might be lucky enough to get a slip of a sketch in your letterbox. If you approve of the proposed street art for your domicile, you post the sketch in your window to let the artist know.

There is even an official Werregarenstraat,  a narrow alley that doubles as a street art tunnel, where anyone armed with a spray can of paint can get artistic. (They also have piles of sidewalk chalk for youngsters to let their creativity shine.)  Lais posed with her glitter spider on Graffiti Street, as it’s called, while I was there in October and it’s a good thing Marina took the photo. During the first week in November the city painted over the walls to give artists a blank canvas to create new works—and gone is the growling tiger. Laurie Lynch

Lais, Spider, Tiger

Kutztown Keith: A few days before I left Ghent I went into a second-hand bookstore De Slegte to buy a few cards. When I walked out and turned to retrieve my bike, I looked in the window. At that moment, a store clerk placed a giant Keith Haring picture book in the window: Keith Haring, Gegen Den Strich.

I went back into the store and asked if the book displayed in the window was the only copy. “Oh no,” and she led me to a stack of books. I was beyond myself. I picked up a copy, still wrapped in plastic, and carried it to the checkout. I handed the clerk my VISA card.

“I am so excited! My daughter grew up in the same town as Keith Haring and now she’s taking Dutch classes, so this book is perfect for her. A combination of her past—and present.”

Klass Van der Linden, Ghent

I signed the receipt.

“But Madam, the book is in German.”

“Ahhh, well, then after she learns Dutch, she’ll have to tackle German.”

The book is a catalog of the 160 artworks included in the Kunsthalle Munchen solo exhibit of Haring’s The Political Line, May 1-Aug. 30, 2015. Haring, who died in 1990, is described on the Munich art museum’s site as a political artist and visionary. His art on NYC subway walls and city murals drew attention to social ills during the conservative Reagan era, taking a clear stand against capitalist excess, and making a commitment to nuclear disarmament, environmental protection, and equal rights, regardless of origin, color, religion, or sexuality.

Written in Spray Paint:  “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection.” – Anais Nin

Captions: Horses by Cee Pill, Moth by Pol Cosmo,  and Gloves by Matthew Dawn