Thursday, January 28, 2021

Snow at Last

   There's an old hippy adage: "Be careful what you wish for because you might get it." 
    I wanted snow, and boy, did I get snow! Tuesday evening the wind howled and the snow flew, and the snow fell, and the wind whirled it through the air. By the time the storm abated, I could rejoice in fifteen inches of snow.
    It is a rare delight to ski out my back door and through my own snow-filled woods. Breaking trail was hard, but skiing in the tracks I made was superb and it was beautiful to ski through the snow-filled woods.

    But fifteen inches doesn't compare to the three feet of snow in 2004, not does this season's ski-from-home compare with that year's efforts. You might have heard this story before, but it is worth repeating.
    I was booked as a Chautauqua lecturer for 3:00 Sunday at the Applegate Library. By Saturday I was already snowbound by three feet of snow. When I talked with Joan Peterson, program coordinator, by phone Sunday morning, we agreed to try to do the lecture if at all possible. I suggested I could ski to Thompson Creek Road if she could meet me there. She expressed apprehension, but I said I would feel like a hero.
    "A hero is one thing," she said. "A martyr is another."
    I said I would make a trial run to see if I could ski the steep hills and would call her back.
    With the soft, deep snow counteracting the steepness, I was able to ski down the first hill. At its bottom three small fir trees stretched across the road, their dangling limbs frozen into place like a lace curtain. I crawled through the stiff branches, then skied down the second hill and up the slope to the snow-packed paved road, where Norm Young was just driving by in his four-wheel-drive Toyota Tacoma with chains on all four tires. He said the snowplough had stopped at the county line and that the road on these last two miles was "challenging with a capital C." He doubted that Joan could get up it in her Subaru.
    I skied to the mailbox, picked up the latest New Yorker and my mail (the mail carrier, had been there on Friday!), and retraced my steps. The uphill skiing was slick but possible. I hoped I wouldn't be doing it in the dark.
    Home again, changing my wet clothes, I was sorry to see that the New Yorker had fallen from my pocket. I called Joan to tell her I could ski down but wasn't sure she could drive up. She said she thought she could make it with chains. She and her husband were still trying to disinter her car from snow, but she would meet me at 1:30.
    I had just time to eat lunch and pack what I needed for my lecture: my metal music stand for a lectern, my laptop computer, sixteen books (yes, all necessary), and a change of clothes and shoes so I wouldn't have to lecture in ski clothes. I slipped my arms into the pack. It was startlingly heavy. I clipped my boots into my skis and took off, but, unbalanced by the pack, I fell at once. Pinned on my back by the pack's weight, uselessly waving my limbs in the air like an overturned stink bug, I somehow managed to release my boots from the bindings. Using the skis as platforms, I twisted to a sideways kneeling position. The soft snow gave no purchase, but, swaying under the weight of the pack, I managed to stand. I made a successful second start, but when I headed down the first hill, I fell again. Finally I was skiing again, carefully and slowly. As I crouched to ski through the tunnel of snowy limbs, I thought, "This is the hardest $200 I've ever earned."
    Skiing over the rise of the second hill, I saw, to my surprise, Tuffy Decker, trudging, wasitdeep in snow, up the hill with a cable over his shoulder, on the other end of which was a yellow Jeep, cockeyed to the road against the snow bank, with two teenagers inside and another man standing in the road. I recognized this as a rescue mission for my neighbor, who was anxious about being able to get in and out. Tuffy greeted me cheerfully and handed me my sodden New Yorker as we passed.
    By the time I reached the road, I was fifteen minutes late. Joan wasn't there, but Louise Nicholson was just skiing past. I dropped my pack under a tree and joined her to ski down the road a bit, thinking Joan might be stuck in the snow somewhere. We skied a mile without seeing anyone, then turned back, meeting, on the way, the Jeep and crew of Tuffy's now unsuccessful rescue mission.
    Retrieving my pack from under the tree, I shoved the books into two heavy plastic bags that Louise stuffed into the two mailboxes on the road. I left the music stand under the tree, put the computer in the pack, bid good-bye to Louise, and started up the hills towards home, slipping badly, side hopping up the steepest parts, thinking, "Someone forgot when we made these plans that I am 60 years old."
    On the way up, I met my only other neighbor coming down, ploughing his long legs through the snow. Joan had called. She had been turned back by the depth of the snow on the uploughed road and was at the Alsenses' (warm by the fire, drinking coffee, nibbling cookies, chatting with Bob and Mary). She had wanted him to ask me, if he saw me, if I could ski down the road to meet her there.
    I considered the possibility for about two seconds.
    Finally home again, I changed my wet clothes and called Joan. She was glad I hadn't tried to meet her. She would call the library to ask Gayle to put a put a note on the library door that the lecture had been canceled. We had done our heroic best.
    I was bone tired. I had skied that route four times, twice down, twice up. I felt more like a martyr than a hero. Weary beyond belief, I stoked the fire, made a cup of tea, and curled into bed to read a slightly damp New Yorker.

Thursday, January 14, 2021

Polar Plunge, Squaw Lake, January 1, 2021

     Five years ago my daughter-in-law introduced me to the Polar Plunge, an annual New Year's Day event on Vashon Island (in the Puget Sound), as in many places around the world. (See post on January 2, 2016.)  She didn't participate, but she thought it was something I would enjoy.
    Towards the end of 2020, Leah asked me if I were going to do a Polar Plunge this year. Now that she mentioned it, maybe I would. I couldn't do it in the Applegate Lake because there is no water this winter in that dam-controlled lake. But maybe Squaw Lake, up the mountain from the Applegate Lake…. It's a popular fishing, swimming, and camping lake in the summer, but there probably wouldn't be anyone around now. I would think about it.
    I stayed up late on New Year's Eve working a jigsaw puzzle, as Mike and I had done the year before. At midday on New Year's Day, I suddenly decided that, yes, I did want to do a Polar Plunge. I threw a swim suit, a towel, a warm sweater, and a wool hat in a bag and drove forty-five minutes to the Applegate Lake, then turned up the mountain towards Squaw Lake.
    I had forgotten how rough the road was. I had forgotten how far my destination was from the Applegate Lake and how much higher in altitude. I drove another half-hour. The sky glowered with potential rain. I drove past the main campsites and on up the road. I stopped at a turn-out up the hill from the lake. Another car was there, but that would just have to be as it was.
    Just as I started down the trail to the lake, a young man and woman were coming up it, back to their car. "It's a nice day to be out," the man said, pleasantly, and I agreed. I guessed they had not taken a polar plunge.
    I walked down to the lake, past a picnic table and down to the shore, where there was a good swimming entrance. I did a little ashes ceremony for Mike first, spreading ashes on the rock by the shore, thinking how much he would enjoy being there to witness my swim. Then I stripped off my clothes and entered the lake.
    The water was ice-cold. The only thing keeping the lake from freezing must have been the wind blowing across its surface. I waded in farther. The lake deepened quickly. I let the water slowly fold over my torso, gave a little push, and was swimming. 
    I thought, "How far do I want to swim?" Then I thought, "There's no use being foolish about this," and turned around and returned to shore.

   My body was bright red. I have climbed out of a few other lakes lobstered in the same way: Marie Lake, in the Sierra, where I swam with icebergs; Mirror Lake, under Mt. Hood, where it had snowed the night before and my companion told me the water was probably 33 degrees. That's how I know Squaw Lake wasn't far from freezing—because my flesh burned when I got out.
    It was wonderful. I was exhilarated  I pulled the warm wool sweater over my raw-cold body, the hat over my head, and walked barefooted to the picnic table to put on my boots. I walked up the hill to the car, turned on the heat and the seat warmer, and drove back down the mountain. Before I got to the Applegate Lake, the rain was pelting down. 
    I couldn't stop smiling. I had done a polar plunge in Squaw Lake, at an altitude of 3,022 feet, on New Year's Day, 2021. It was a good start to the new year.
No one was there to witness the swim,
so a selfie is the best I can do for proof.

Thursday, January 7, 2021

After the Storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021

     It's Thursday, January 7, 2021, and there's only one thing to write about.

    I am proud of our brave and conscientious congresspeople who, after the horrific events we watched and they went through at our nation's capitol last night, reconvened to continue the democratic process of confirming Joe Biden as the incoming president of the United States and Kamala Harris as his vice-president. Even Vice-president Mike Pence, shown in the photograph pounding his gavel to proclaim the confirmation (and, alone among constituents, not wearing a mask), let democracy win.

    The violence seems to have brought some congresspeople to their senses at last. Many representatives and senators who had thought they would speak against the confirmation by declaring the election rigged or unfair realized the danger of adhering to, or pretending to adhere to, conspiracy theories and misinformation about the election, which is a kind way of saying they weren't considering the democratic process, only their own electability. Some, at last, retracted their proposed statements about a rigged election. Some, at last, stripped the lies from their faces and, in the face of the violence outside the door, faced truths.

    And those people in the mob that stormed the capitol? They with their Confederate flags alongside American flags (of all things) and Trump flags and Tea Party flags and red "Make America Great Again" hats and signs saying, "Trump 2021" and "Return our freedom"? They who called for a guillotine in front of the capitol to execute politicians? Their thinking is not solid. These people need to take a good Writing 122 course. They need to learn how to discriminate between facts and misinformation, how to find trusted sources, why they can trust those sources, how not to trust what they read or hear from other sources. They need to learn how to keep from believing a thing simply because it is what they want to believe. "The election was rigged" is a convenient thing to believe if you like Trump. "The coronavirus is a hoax" is a convenient belief if you don't want to wear a mask. 

    Yesterday, blame was laid solidly where it belongs: on Trump. Trump, who told the protestors at the rally leading up to the storming of the capitol, to go to the capital and fight. "We will never concede. We love you," he said, truthfully, for there's no one he loves more than his adoring mobs, "You're very special. But go home." They didn't go home. They came to Washington as he wanted them to do. They fought. Trump instigated an insurrection.

    And they lost. It's unclear what they expected to accomplish—and what did Trump expect them to accomplish beyond disruption and chaos?—since it was very clear that the process would continue, that Biden legitimately won the election, that the electoral college results would be confirmed, and that Biden will be inaugurated as the President of the United States on January 20, 2021.

    On the other hand, they did accomplish important things. President Trump at last admitted, grudgingly, that Biden won the election: one step forward. Like other Trump-supporting congresspeople, out-going Senator Kelly Loeffler changed her mind about objecting to the outcome of the electoral college, saying, "I cannot in good conscience object to the certification of these electors." Elaine Chao, Trump's Transportation Secretary, has resigned. Her husband, Mike McConnell, Speaker of the Senate, abandoned the Trump ship. Former Attorney General William Barr, once a true Trumper, called Trump's call to violence "a betrayal of his office and supporters." Conscience over politics: another step forward. 

    Yesterday was one of the saddest, most horrifying days in American history, certainly in my lifetime. Yet at day's end, in a wrecked and violated capitol building, democracy picked up her broken pieces and continued her work. Democracy and truth, together, have kept the country intact.