I’m a road-trip kinda gal, but a few days ago Jesse asked if I wanted to fly to Boston with him. I was packed and ready to go faster than you can say Beantown. Though I had only been there once, briefly, ten years ago, I love Boston; plus I was eager to spend some time alone with my man.
It was a quick trip — we only had one full day in Boston. Jesse had to work and I was there to research The Quarter Millennial Experience which is a play I am writing. The QMX takes place on a commuter train in Boston so I visited places that would be familiar to the characters: the Freedom Trail, a train station, the North End (Boston’s Little Italy), the Holocaust Memorial, the Irish Famine Memorial, Chinatown and two museums. I spent a grand total of $15 — the price of museum admission.
Walking around Boston. I was headed to the Old State House which is the red brick building in the center.
While I walked around Boston and people-watched, Jesse had a site visit for a multimillion dollar show he will be working on next month. His work-day cost several thousands of dollars. When we met back at the hotel that afternoon, he said the information gathered at the site visit could have taken place over Zoom and a couple emails.
The difference in the way we “spent” our days is representative of how my husband and I spend our lives. He’s a spender; I’m not. He’s strategic and corporate; I’m artistic and have a short attention span. He’s the best at what he professionally does — always in demand. I’m…dispensable. After twenty years of marriage, we’ve given up trying to change each other, but we haven’t given up on each other.
It’s a simple thing to love someone and be loved back so sustaining our marriage is somewhat brainless for us. No one has ever tried to break us up and we both have an “us versus them” mentality about society. No way in hell are we going to let society win. Besides, marriage is a place to be fully human with another person. Where else can you say that is true?
I have to finish my chores, which includes weeding the vegetable garden, watering the plants with rain water I collected from the last storm, stirring the compost, and scrubbing the floors with hot earth-friendly soapy water. And I need to work on my play. While I do that, Jesse will be invoicing and working on estimates. When we’re done with our respective tasks, we’re headed to a nearby nature preserve for a hike which is something sustainable we always enjoy doing together no matter how different we are.
Thanks for reading! -Connie
P.S. I took the featured photo about a week ago at the forest preserve we will be visiting later today. The prairie is really coming to life and will be even more beautiful and colorful now through July. Here’s how to RSVP for a free public hike at that preserve.
The most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten is seared maitake mushroom steak served with vegetable succotash. My husband and I recently went out to dinner. When I saw this listed in the entree section of the menu, I gasped with delight…and a little bit of horror. It was expensive: $28.
“Should I?” I asked Jesse. “I mean, we’re trying to save money. I mean…should I?”
“Yes.”
***
When I ordered the entree, the waiter shook his head and said, “That’s not a real steak, you know. It’s a mushroom.” I looked at him, smiled and intuitively pointed to “seared maitake mushroom steak” on the menu. I tapped on it for extra emphasis. “I know,” I told him. “That’s why I’m ordering it.”
Then he then looked me in the eyes, slowly blinked and walked away.
In that moment, I felt “seen.”
Not seen for who I think I am — a lady who knows her mushrooms — but seen the way most people see me — which is with little to no respect.
The waiter most likely serves hundreds of diners a week. He probably “sees” each person the second they are seated at his table. The menu isn’t that long — he can probably predict what each of his diners will order and how they will tip.
We all get sized up and thin-sliced every single time we leave the house.
***
Jesse and I recently took a trip to Boston. He had a site visit at the convention center and I was there to research my new play which is set in Boston.
Jesse travels quite a bit for work and knows his way around an airport. Though an efficient traveler, he does not like traveling. A few years ago he told me that traveling has turned him into “a pussy.” He said if was going to continue traveling for work, he was going to have to make some upgrades.
“Oh sure,” I said, not really knowing what “some upgrades” entailed. “Do whatever it takes.”
Soon he had apps downloaded, TSA Precheck, frequent flier points constantly accruing and was traveling in first class. He knows how to pack with one carry-on and one for the overhead bin. It’s rare when he has to check any baggage.
When I knew we would be flying to Boston, I (someone who rarely flies) was excited that I would finally get the chance to observe my man in action. What was Airport Jesse like? What would I learn about my husband of 20 years?
***
At the airport, he whisked me through TSA Precheck and into the United Club Lounge for a hot breakfast. When it was time to board, he leaned into my ear and said, “It’s about to get intense for about twenty minutes.”
I thought that meant our gate would be busy with people lining up to get on the plane. It was, but that’s not what he meant. He meant he would be busy intensely judging people.
Jesse is kind-hearted and fun-loving but also freely admits his cottage industry is “bein’ a dick.” It’s part of how he deals with constantly traveling and constantly dealing with people. We are all always vulnerable — we have to protect ourselves in whatever way makes sense to us. So now that you know that, he here’s how Jesse protects himself.
He proceeded to point out every person who was waiting at our gate:
That’s the old woman who pretends she doesn’t know what she’s doing so she can get to the front of the line.
There’s the cool guy who lines up with Group 1 even though he’s in Group 5. They’ll just let him on because he is always dressed hip.
That lady has too much shit and is going to cause a scene when they tell her she has to check her baggage. She’ll tell them she can’t because she has “breakables.”
Oh he’s the cocky businessman. He’s going to tell anyone who’ll listen how good he is at everything he does.
There’s Hung Over Sports Guy. He’s alone but there’s usually two or three other guys with him.
Then Jesse pointed off into the distance.
Somewhere out there is a rich douche who will board late. He won’t be able to put his bag directly over his seat and he’ll create a whole scene about it.
That skinny 20-something guy with the shitty backpack over there will just cram it in. He won’t be careful with anyone else’s belongings.
See that woman with the fuckin’ dog? Jesus Christ.
The loud, fat kid over there who’s who’s saying hi to everyone? No one wants to talk to him. By the way, I was that kid.
By this point he was almost breathless, but he wasn’t done.
Anyone wearing a fuckin’ mask is annoying.
Business partners — the worst — if they sit across the aisle from each other, they’re going to talk to each other in full voice for the whole fuckin’ flight — always men.
Female equivalent is the bridal party but they’re not on this flight, thank God.
By the time we boarded the plane, Jesse was exhausted from all that thin-slicing. We sat in first class because try as I have to influence him, Jesse will never embrace the Bohemian lifestyle. Within five minutes of sitting down, he fell asleep. I watched every single person he described walk by. His descriptions were spot on. When he woke up, he looked refreshed and downright jubilant.
***
Jesse is not necessarily happier when he travels in first class but he is slightly more comfortable. And instead of having to deal with people the whole flight, he just lets them walk by when he’s snoozing in first class.
***
The Bible says somewhere Judge not lest ye be judged. I don’t care if I’m judged. Neither does Jesse. And judging strangers is how we stay alive. I say go ahead: Judge away and rest easy.
Thanks for reading. -Connie
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My daughter Jocelyn is temporarily home from college so we squeezed in a hiking trip at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. It’s located in the upper peninsula of “The Great Lakes State.”
Day One
Halfway into our seven-hour drive from northern Illinois (Rockford) to the central upper peninsula (Munising, Michigan), I realized I forgot to print my park pass. That’s the one-page “proof of purchase” you buy online, print at home and place on your dashboard whenever you park in a Painted Rocks parking lot. If you don’t display your ticket in the national park, you could get fined or, I dunno, towed or fed to the mosquitoes.
Knowing we wanted to legally hike, I texted our motel to see if I could print the pass in their office but she said they didn’t have a printer. She suggested the local visitor’s bureau located a block from the motel.
I called the bureau and a bureaucrat answered. I told her I was looking for a business center to print my park pass.
“You kinda can’t print anywhere in town except here,” she said, “so it’ll cost $5.00.”
“I don’t mind paying,” I told her, “but it’s only one page.”
“Yeah,” she said. “You kinda can’t print anywhere else in town.” She said something about throwing in a map, which we didn’t need or want.
I generally don’t believe in time-travel, but when the bureaucrat told me I was going to have to pay up, I was instantly transported to Cornell College in the year 1991. I could suddenly my college roommate’s 20-year-old voice angry-whispering the following three words into my ear:
bamboozling bureaucratic bullshit!
I don’t know if she still does, but back in the day, Patty had a knack for alliteration. If she felt someone was trying to rip her off — like a tuition hike or an ATM fee — she’d mutter the triple-b with a disgusted look on her otherwise innocent face. Now, 33 years later and with more than 2000 miles separating us, I heard her glorious poetry ringing in my ears.
***
I know five dollars isn’t a lot of money but charging that much for a lousy piece of paper is a crappy way to welcome a visitor. I wondered how many other junk fees awaited us in Munising, Michigan.
***
As I drove, Jocelyn looked up the local library’s website on her phone and learned it would cost 15 cents to print one piece of paper. When we got there, we had the pass printed and tried to pay, but the librarian shooed away the five-dollar bill like it was a pesky fly.
“It would be silly to charge for a single piece of paper,” she said, proving once again that libraries are the cornerstone of humanity and librarians are the best people on the planet.
***
After we procured our park pass, we checked into our motel. It had two beds, a small bathroom and a Keurig for morning coffee. It offered air conditioning but, even better, the windows opened! It was the perfect place to clean up and rest after long, muddy hikes. After we unpacked, we hit the trails.
It was lightly raining and getting late but Munising is on the western “side” of the Eastern Time Zone so we had until 9:22 p.m. to safely hike! In Rockford, we would have only had until 8:18 p.m. This scientific shit blows my mind and if you told me the government has something to do with it, well, I’d probably die.
Anyway, first we hiked an easy half-mile through the Sand Point Marsh Trail, then up and into the North Country Scenic Trail and back. Because it was lightly raining, everything seemed to appear in grayscale (see unfiltered photo above) but once the rain let up, the colors came out in full.
A rainbow appeared and soon after we saw a Sandhill Crane family (the parents and their two colts) cruising through the woods. Zoom in to see the colts!
Not long after we saw the crane family, we encountered this lovely little waterfall.
The “tiny” waterfall on the North Country Scenic Trail whetted our appetite for a “destination” waterfall so we ventured to Munising Falls next and hiked a short distance to this dramatic 50-foot waterfall. Even though this picture (below) was taken at 8:53 p.m., there was still plenty of daylight. Amazing.
Day One — Beary the Lede
We saw a black bear! Honestly, this part of Day One deserves to be at the tippy-top of this blog post, but sometimes ya just gotta bury — or in this case beary — the lede.
After we hiked a couple miles from Sand Point Beach, we drove to Munising Falls. That’s when we saw a bear on the forest side (the left side) of the road. I saw its massive black side and some branches moving up and down. Jocelyn saw its face! We instinctively and collectively held our breath as I stopped and backed up our Bronco (our vehicle, not an actual horse) so we could continue to admire it. This lasted several seconds before it realized it was being watched, turned away and “disappeared” into the woods. We exhaled (dramatically, because we’re dramatic people) and continued driving.
The movement of the bear and the surrounding bushes instantly reminded me of the bell hooks (she did not capitalize her name) poem Appalachian Elegy.
We recite this beautiful poem at every Winter Solstice Poetry Caroling Festival so when I saw the bear “stamping down plants and pushing back brush” I instantly “saw” the poem at the same time I saw the bear. I love when poetry lights the way.
And I love that the bear let us see him, if only for a few seconds. Our hearts were pounding and full.
Thanks for reading about Day One. Have you been to Pictured Rocks? -Connie
Poetry Lovers, Here's the excerpt I remembered from the bell hooks "Appalachian Elegy" poem:
night moves through the thick dark a heavy silence outside near the front window a black bear stamps down plants pushing back brush fleeing manmade confinement roaming unfettered confident any place can become home strutting down a steep hill as though freedom is all in the now no past no present
P.S. It’s worth mentioning that Jocelyn works at her college’s music library and occasionally prints a page or two — for free — for students and professors. And I occasionally print multiple pages for fellow writers, also for free. Haven’t we all been in a printer crisis? If you are able, just print the damn pages!
You know those brown signs with white lettering that indicate a nearby attraction? I find them irresistible. Jesse and our kids seem to appreciate them, too. In the 19 years of being a parent, I can’t think of a single time anyone in my family has turned down the “opportunity” to follow a brown sign. I can confidently say we have checked out every scenic overlook, city park, museum, historic building, historic district, statue, sculpture, monument, memorial, bridge, what-have-you in the Rockford region.
Except one.
There is a brown sign indicating a train museum about 40 minutes from home in a town called Marengo. Jesse was the first to hear about this museum that’s a “repository of railroad history.”
“We should go,” he said in 2008, when we only had two kids.
“We should go,” he said in 2009, when we had three kids.
“We should go,” he said in 2010, when we had four kids.
“We should go,” he said in 2011. “It’s family friendly!”
We wanted to go, but the museum has limited hours. Every time we tried to plan a trip, the museum was closed.
“That’s too bad,” Jesse would say.
I didn’t think too much of it because I had only heard of the train museum through my husband. I had never seen a single ad — in print or online — about it. I had never seen a brown sign.
***
In 2014, the Des Plaines Oasis (a rest stop) permanently closed. This was bad news for the Kuntz family. We stopped there every time we went to Chicago. It was the last chance for us to use public restrooms without having to pay a toll or buy something. When the kids were little, this rest stop was essential to a successful trip.
When the Des Plaines Oasis was demolished, we were forced to use the truck stop in Marengo on our way to and fro Chicago. They have cheap gas, clean restrooms and you don’t have to pay a toll to exit or enter 90 but it’s somehow located too close and too far from home and our destinations. It wasn’t convenient but it is what we used. When we started going to this “pit stop,” I noticed the brown sign pointing the way to the train museum.
“Is that the train museum you’re always talking about?”
“Yes.”
***
I’ve lost count of how many times we stopped in Marengo to use the bathrooms. At least 100. And we’ve never once followed the brown sign. At some point, going to the train museum just seemed like work. And Marengo, I’m sure it’s a lovely town, but to us it’s where the toilets live. We don’t even call it Marengo. We call it “The Toilets.”
“Where are you right now?” I used to call Jesse when I knew he was on his way home from Chicago.
“Just passed The Toilets,” he’d answer. (Sometimes he called it “The Terlecks.”)
The Toilets = 40 minutes.
***
Now that the kids are older, we rarely stop at The Toilets in either direction but last week when I was driving Jesse to O’Hare, he said he needed to stop. As I drove toward the gas station, I saw the brown sign for the train museum.
“I can’t believe we never made it there,” I said.
“Maybe when we have grandkids,” he said.
***
Thanks for reading. Does your city have brown signs, too? -Connie
Constance Kuntz 