Cross-country Skiing Christmas Present

     It was 11 below zero the first night of my Christmas present from my son, Ela: three days of cross-country skiing with him in Methow Valley, in the north Cascades. 

    Or course, it wasn't quite that cold the afternoon we got there—just above zero, maybe. We went straight to the rental shop, rented skis for Ela, booked a private lesson for the next day, grabbed a map of ski trails, and took off on our skis.

    At first I was disappointed. It was so flat! I wanted hills, and although the flat, snowy field was beautiful, the skiing was boring. But when we got to the hills and the woods, my spirits rose. Now it was really beautiful, and the skiing was challenging and fun. I was in my element.

I am the figure in white, in my element.

    After an hour's warm-up ski on the flat the next morning, we met Eric, our ski instructor, at a different trailhead.

    Skiing at Methow is either skate skiing (not my cup of tea) or classic cross-country—on groomed trails, in tracks, suited for the skis Ela had rented. I have backcountry skis, suited to the kind of skiing I usually do but too wide for the set tracks at Methow.  I told Eric that what I really wanted was tips for backcountry skiing, and he had plenty for me. Push from the straps of your poles, not from the grip. Swing from the shoulder. Don't flick your wrist. Never equalize your weight on the skis going uphill. He showed me how to swivel my hips to make turns on the downhill. He showed Ela, who, though a good snowboarder and a pretty good novice telemarker, is new to cross-country skiing, how to lift one ski out of the track to slow himself on the downhill. He took us off-trail to demonstrate techniques in deep snow.

    The special thing about skiing at Methow, Eric told us, was not the amount of snow but that it is so cold that the snow never melts and the skiing is always good on the groomed trails.

    When the lesson was over, Ela and I kept skiing, heading up Doe Canyon, by far my favorite of the five or six trails we skied those three days. Up and up and up, climbing hills, until we were far above the river valley, then a glorious fast downhill, on the wide groomed trail, swishing side to side, all the way to the river again

    After a late lunch at our cabin, we went out again, this time skiing out the back door of the cabin to the trailhead and onto the hills up Jack'sTrail, not as steep as Doe Canyon, but still pretty good.

    Our last day at Methow we were out skiing early. It was zero degrees. Not another soul was out. My nose hairs froze. Ela's hair was frosted from his breath. We skied fast, warming up, relishing the sunny spots, by the river, through the woods, over the glorious snow.    

    We skied six times in our three days at Methow. We started every morning with Ela's good coffee and ended it with good pub food. We thrilled to the bright cold weather, the beautiful snow, the fun skiing. Now it was time to pack up and leave. Ela drove us carefully over the icy, snow-swirling passes through the Cascades back to his home on Vashon Island. The next morning I took the ferry to Tacoma and then the train to Eugene and drove home from there.

    It was the best Christmas present ever—the wonderful skiing, the sparkling cold weather, the learning and the practice, all that beautiful snow, and the ever delightful companionship of my son. 

Stopping to view Goat Wall in the sun.

    Thanks, Ela. It was fabulous.

(All photos by Ela Lamblin)

    

And the Snow It Snowed

     I woke up Sunday morning to two inches of snow, and snow still falling.
    Immediately, I drove my car the half-mile down the hill to the paved road. Then I walked home, secure in the knowledge that I could get out if I needed to, whatever the snowfall.

    The snow fell all day, accumulating about 16 inches. That night, as I was eating dinner, dark suddenly crashed into the house. Power outage. I finished dinner by candlelight, then read by headlamp. When I turned off the headlamp before getting into bed, the outside world leapt into existence glowing as though electrified as the moon, hidden behind trees, set the world alight. The Big Dipper danced on its long handle over the mountain.

    Clear skies were brief. The snow fell all the next day. Without electricity the silence was silver. The outside world was pristine and white, the snow deep both on the ground and on the trees and falling in a slow, steady, soft drift from the sky. 

    Electricity returned just after midnight. The next morning I thought I should walk down the road and dig the car out, so I put on my ski boots and gaiters and plowed through the deep snow,

trampling a trench I could use for anticipated walks up and down the hill with my groceries in a backpack. Before I had gone very far, a large downed tree, tangled with several smaller trees, blocked my path.

I couldn't climb over it or walk around it. Without access in or out, I was truly snowbound.

    I don't mind being snowbound. Actually, I kind of like the coziness of it, But I had important travel dates coming up, and I didn't want to miss them.

    Maybe I should have the road plowed.

    And spoil all that pristine beauty? No! What a sacrilege to the cold white cathedral.

    Maybe I should change priorities. 

    I called my neighbor with a snowplow.

    He came up and plowed my road into an ugly muddy mess.

    Later I walked down the plowed road to dig the car out. Uneasy about driving the car up a now slushy road, I left it in a more protected spot and walked home, where I sat at my desk, my back to the plowed driveway, watching the snow-laden forest in its pristine, white, glorious beauty.

    This morning the driveway is covered with another three inches of beautiful white snow.

Ghost Words

    Ghost words are actually and in fact words that entered the dictionary by mistake and were either discovered and deleted—ghosted, as it were—or gathered lovingly into the language in spite of their ghostly ancestry. 

    "Dord" is an example of a word taken into, then out of, the dictionary. It was written down as a synonym for "density" because in the original entry, the lexicographer added, helpfully, after "density," "D or d," meaning that "density," a term of physics, could be spelled with or without a capital D: "Density, D or d"—"Density, Dord." It was an easy mistake to make, but it became a ghost word when it was removed from the dictionary in a huff.

    "Syllabus" is an example of a word with a ghostly, i.e., nonexistent, ancestry that was left in the dictionary in spite of the error that birthed it. In some 17th-century scriptorium, a scribe copying words into a dictionary came to the Latin word sittybas, defined as a parchment label. In the dim light in which he was working, he apparently didn't notice the crosses on the "t"s and created the word "syllabus." In time, the meaning also got twisted, from a "parchment label" to "a list," and on to the most common modern meaning, "a list of lessons for a class."

    But I like to think of ghost words as wraiths, hovering into the language and then evaporating. "Crapulous," for instance, a word for the way you feel after you've eaten too much—isn't it a shame that that word became a ghost? Elflock— hair that elves have tangled—is another ghost word (by my definition) we could use today—much better, don't you think, than "bad hair day"?

    I wish curglaff, the shock felt at a cold-water plunge, hadn't turned into a ghost. I would love to be able to say, as I plunged into a lake at 10,000 feet, "Wow! That was a great curglaff!" And I still could, I guess, even if no on knew what I meant, except that I probably won't remember it. It has only a spectral existence, flitting through the linguistic atmosphere as insubstantial and unsnatchable as a ghost.

Incivility Comes to My Little Corner of the World

     A few days ago I posted on the local "nextdoor" website: "I need, as my son said, 'a man with a shovel' to divert the water on my driveway to the side ditches. Any ideas?"

    I probably should have added that this was a paying job, though I thought it was obvious.

    Someone named Amy Templeton, whom I don't know, responded: "Can't your son do it? I see so many women out here expecting the neighbors to bail them out. If you can't handle rural property, or do it yourself please go back to the city."

    How astonishing.

    (1) My son lives in another state.

    (2) I am 80 years old. Am I expected to dig ditches?

    (3) I have lived on this property for 50 years. (I built my own house, too, if that is a relevant fact.)

    (4) I didn't come from the city. The only time I have "lived" in a city was when I was at college in Nashville, Tennessee, where I lived on campus and seldom went into town, and again in graduate school in Eugene, Oregon, again more on campus than in town.

    (5) Why would this writer assume that I wouldn't pay my helper?

    However, it is beside the point that Amy Templeton had no idea of those facts, as she couldn't be expected to know them. The point is how rude it was to attack me—any person—in such a way.

    I was taught as a child to treat all people with respect—and, for my parents, that included Black people, which was not always the case in the South, where I grew up (in the boondocks, by the way, Amy, not in the city). I am grateful for that upbringing. I wonder why Amy wasn't taught the same thing. Is she of a generation that weren't taught to be polite? Did she have a harsh upbringing that left her bitter and resentful? Or has a general air of incivility, disrespect, and permission to attack people you don't know permeated so deeply into our society that it touches even those of us who don't live that way?

    

A Staycation in Ashland, Oregon

     Let's say you live in the mountains and a friend who lives in town has offered you her house while she's away for five days. Here are a few tips, in case that happens to you.

(1) A staycation! Accept excitedly.

(2) Pack the car with everything you think you might need: skis, since you'll be an hour closer to the ski trails; yoga gear and clothes (this is not an excuse not to do yoga for five days); computer, books, hiking clothes and poles, dinner-out clothes and ski clothes and hang-around-the-house clothes and everyday shoes and dress-up boots and hiking boots, and don't forget your ski boots and poles, too.

(3) Leave your work behind so you don't end up doing everything you do at home except in a different place. Be free to do things you can't do at home, such as:

(4) Walk twenty minutes to a coffee shop every morning for a leisurely cup of coffee.

(5) Go to a poetry reading at the college and a dramatic reading at the local bookstore and especially go to the local theater to see the new Bob Dylan movie.

(6) Browse the bookstores and clothing stores. But watch your wallet; it could empty fast.

(7) Slip around the corner to a pub for dinner and have the best beer you've ever had (pFriem pilsner).

(8) Once you figure out how to work the remote, sit on the couch and watch movies, like Erin Brockovich, The Pianist, The Great British Bake-off.

(9) Meet a friend for dinner.

(10) Meet a friend for a hike.

(11) When it's time to go home, leave a nice thank-you gift on the table and be sure to lock the door behind you as you leave the house.

(12) Walk into your own little house on the mountain, glad to be home and grateful for the good time you have had on your staycation.

Cleaning Out the Entry Closet

   The Swedes have a word and, I guess, a concept that we don't have in English—döstädning: dö (death), städning (cleaning): death cleaning, downsizing so your children won't be burdened with your stuff after you die. I thought that's what I was doing when I started cleaning out the entry closet last week, but now I think I was just wanting to be able to walk into it again.

    Basically, I don't have a lot of "stuff" in my house, though I did in the entry closet. Most of it was memorabilia that, sentiment aside, wasn't worth keeping, although when I found a box of puppets my son and I had made when he was small, I gasped with delight. What characters we had created! And the puppet shows we performed with them! But the cloth faces were dirty and the gourd faces had been chewed by insects and the sock dragon had lost teeth, and so on. Out they went. I boxed the good ones to donate to a school, and, yeah, okay, I kept a few, too. 

    When I was cleaning off the shelf of games, I found cards for a game Ela and I had been making up when he was still learning how to write. It was going to be a literary board game. I don't remember what the start and end squares were, but the cards were delightful: "You dropped your golden ball into the well. Go back 2 steps." "The tortoise wins the race. Go forward 8 steps." We must have been reading Robin Hood stories and Arthurian tales at the time because a lot of cards reference those stories: "Arthur pulls sword out of stone. Advance to any intersection." "Little John fights Robin Hood on bridge and knocks him off. Go back 3 steps." The game was never completed, but the cards are too fun and hold too many memories to be tossed. I put them back on the shelf.

    I also kept the Alice in Wonderland chess set Ela made from Sculpty clay–Alice as the Queen, mushrooms as castles, lobsters as pawns, and so on. I don't play chess, but I love these playful chess pieces.

    I don't think I'll do any more beading and I don't paint any more, so why keep the equipment? It wasn't hard to give away such things, or to toss paint that had dried up and children's books that won't have any more readers in my house. I tore the hardback covers off books too ragged to give away and recycled the paper. I don't know if children read books these days, but I took the books I liked best to the Goodwill. They had probably come from the Goodwill in the first place. And I kept the ones with the most sentimental attachment, either for me or for Ela. I'll probably never read The Little Colonel's Hero again, but looking at it gives me a warm feeling from my childhood, and maybe, after I die, Ela will feel the same way about finding the Dr. Seuss and Richard Scary books I used to read to him.

    Still, I got rid of a lot of stuff. Here's a picture of the second carload to go to the transfer station and the Goodwill, as well as a couple of elegant jackets and other special things I'm offering on Jo's List at a good price.

    I found the architectural plans for my house and thought why should I keep them now that the house was built? But I was unsure, so I asked my son. He said they had important information about the house and that I should keep them. That made me uneasy. What if I had thrown out something important? What if I threw out sentimental stuff that Ela would have enjoyed seeing again?

    No matter. What's done is done. And it feels good, now, to walk into the entry closet and see all those half-empty shelves.  It feels like a good way to start the new year.

Christmas Decorations, Present and Past

     Last week, I cut down a little fir tree close to my house and brought it inside. Then I invited a friend to come over for eggnog and tree trimming. 

    It's not a modern Christmas tree, with a perfect cone shape and tight limbs. It's a wild tree. The ornaments don't nestle into branches; they dangle where you can see them. (Look for the origami and other decades-old, hand-made ornaments in the picture.) I found the the tree growing trunk-to-trunk next to a large ponderosa pine. With truncated back branches it nestles close to the banister, allowing walking room to the pantry and the bathroom.

    The Christmas trees in the larger house of my childhood were always ceiling-high and broad-limbed, as Christmas trees from lots were in those days. We, too, had ornaments from long ago, such as twisted tin dangles made from tin cans during World War II. Tinsel had to be hung one strand at a time, the way I still do it. Every year, when the tree was trimmed, my mother would stand back and say, "It's the most beautiful tree we've ever had."

    One year my father built a five-foot-tall Christmas star. Every year after that he would lay the metal strips, screwed into a star shape, on the floor and string the large-bulb, multi-colored lights along the points. Then he would climb onto the roof and erect the star at the peak. Every evening during the Christmas season, we would plug in the star just at dusk. We couldn't see it, but we knew people driving down the road could. (After a while, Dad just left the star on the roof, unlit until the Christmas season.)

    We were so proud of that star! When we had been out and were driving home, down the long, dark hill of Long Island Drive, we eagerly looked for it. We were probably at least a mile away and still high on the hill when we spotted it, colorful and bright and big, asserting itself alone through the distance, in the dark. No other Christmas lights were visible, just our star. We thought it was thrilling. 

    It was that kind of family. Not that we had to have the best of everything but that what we had was so often what we had created. Other houses were more grand, but ours was the Coogle home. Other Christmas lights were more elaborate, but ours was a Coogle star.