It is all very well to survive the abundant months of the spring and summer, but in winter, we witness the full glory of nature’s flourishing in lean times.
—Katherine May, from “Wintering”
•••
And so I winter, here in a place where they have winter, unlike my place, which has, at best, a half-pint version,
except in times of great drenches, which continue to cut swaths through my home turf two states south,
while up here in the mizzle of the Pacific Northwest, winter lands mostly gray and chilly, except for the day
of my arrival when it lived up to its rainy reputation. It is, it turns out, a good place for wintering. To quell
throbbing head and straining throat brought on by the Big Bad Bug, I go commando in the hot tub
twice a day because the last round of this virus taught me that a good sit in sultry water
can quell symptoms enough to make one feel downright normal. Even in winter.
Now I relish the quiet—birds at the feeders go about their business with so little fuss
it’s as if someone switched off their voices. Meanwhile, the greater world conducts its
missions: a submarine under heavy escort by weapons-laden destroyers, accompanied
by a tug and small guideboats, lumbers up the canal outside my window, where
eventually, I’m told, it will submerge and head into the darkness of the coldcold sea.
Which makes wintering on land so much more appealing, waiting for what I can’t
control to pass, oddly content, watching muted light dance softly on ship-generated
wake, noticing tiny greening bits arising on the brown-tipped butterfly bush, as,
high up on their patient, slender branches, the alders must be sprouting similar buds,
me down here, marveling that I’m here to see it.
Submarine escort up the Hood Canal / Photo: Jan Haag
Issac Newton never envisioned a color wheel like this: yards of fabric folded into neat squares,
lined up horizontally on seven shelves, slender volumes of possibility nestled together in a
full-spectrum rainbow—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. Two more shelves
of patterns, top and bottom, call to Terri as she pauses, runs her fingers over ones
that call to her, looking for the next right piece. Amid such a wealth of material,
I ask, how does she choose? It’s like finding the right word for a poem, she says.
You pull something out, unfold it, consider it, refold it, tuck it back.
Eventually, the right one chooses you, though perhaps not in that moment.
Sir Issac, who figured out the color spectrum in 1704, arranged the hues
in a circle to show which follows which, and which complements which,
a man who understood the permutations of in between, of locating, say, the just
right shade of blue, as Terri finds in a piece of cloth before her. She will cut it, stencil
tree rings onto the fiber, sew slender strips reminiscent of alders wintering
outside her large studio window onto the new square, which will become
a quarter of a larger square. If I look closely, the scent of sleeping trees rises with
words embedded in the textile alders’ trunks, forming a tiny found poem:
leaves dance in delight, joy awaits with morning, shine light for all to see.
may meaning shower pure love on you— precious, beautiful life.
Terri Wolf sews an alder tree-inspired piece of fabric art, the second in.a series of six panels, in her studio in Port Ludlow, Washington / Photos: Jan Haag
Al’s bird feeders are diligently attended by all manner of small-winged neighbors I see from behind the glass. He has left all five full for the wee birds who flit like butterflies, land, peck and flee, making it hard to see them clearly, much less identify them.
At times like this I wish for the knowledge and experience of my birding friends, who might pronounce one “nuthatch” or “junco”’ or “wren” or “finch.” I manage “bird” or perhaps “tiny, flitty bird.”
Even looking for their likenesses online, I cannot tell—they’re here and so quickly gone. Maybe this one is Sparrow and that one Chickadee. Terri saw Flicker yesterday.
As if it matters. I imagine the birds don’t care who’s who as long as there’s room on a feeder for their winter-cold feet.
Terri and I watch the seed line slowly sink in each feeder, which Al will refill upon his return. I so admire these humans’ commitment to the birds intently watched by Dewy and Quince, the ginormous cats, from their permanent indoor perches.
The birds don’t seem ruffled by the presence of potential predators. Perhaps they know they’re safe from teeth and claws on the other side of the glass.
Or perhaps they’re supremely confident that their quick movements will keep them safe, relieved to find food on the coldest days, these bird-size containers of sustenance thoughtfully refilled with plenty to last them into spring.
Al’s bird feeders, Port Ludlow, Washington / Photo: Jan Haag
(If you are oogied out by mention of bodily fluids, you might want to skip this one! I quite understand…)
•••
Naturally, I employ Dr. Google’s expertise:
Snot, or nasal mucus, is a helpful bodily product. Your nose and throat are lined with glands that produce 1 to 2 quarts of mucus every day. You swallow that mucus all day long without knowing it.
Yeah, OK, so why this overproduction, this turn-on-the-endless-waterworks already?
Increased snot production is one way your body responds to colds and allergies. [and the Big Bad Bug] That’s because mucus can act as both a defense against infection and a means of ridding the body of what is causing inflammation in the first place.
Yeah, OK, but if I swallow it daily without a problem…
Normally, mucus is very thin and watery. When the mucous membranes become inflamed, however, mucus can thicken. Then it becomes the runny-nose snot that is such a nuisance.
You said it, Dr. Google! And then the scratchy throat flashes its green light self to the fat snot, both conspiring to keep me coughing, despite lozenges and honey throat-coat and hot tea. Water. And lots of Vitamin C. (C’mon, immunes!)
Bright spot: It’s washing the oogie germs outta me, which I need to keep from my kind host. Thus, isolation—don’t walk around spewing snot, Janis.
So what do you recommend? I ask Dr. Google.
Gentle nose blowing (in addition to what I’m already doing). Vigorous nose blowing can actually send some of your mucus back into your sinuses.
Sigh.
And, from deep inside my mucus-y head or perhaps my reliable heart:
This, too, will pass, my friend. EGBOK.*
•••
*EGBOK: an acronym favored bymy Grandma Keeley: “Everything’s gonna be OK.”
So on the third day of Lent I’ve got COVID, it turns out, the day after a day of travel when so many strangers came to my aid as I made my way on public transportation in a city not my own.
I think of them, because—forgive me— I shunned the mask I’d worn on the plane as I walked Seattle’s drizzled streets, shedding and spreading germs I didn’t yet know I had, turning my prayers into protective pleas for all those I have inadvertently infected:
Dear gods of fortification,
Shield the young masked man I sat next to on light rail from the germs that have made me feverish, not to mention kind strangers like Ann who led me up the escalator out of light rail darkness, then two blocks down the steep hill, as well as the young woman who sheltered me with her umbrella as, my hands full, we walked another block toward the ferry and my trip across the sound.
Most of all, safeguard Terri, my friend whom I’ve come to support as she works on her memoir—we two who live two states apart—the protective mask of Zoom usually between us.
Now I rest in her downstairs bedroom as I repent and regret by a window that looks out on a most glorious day, the serene water stretching its blue heart across the canal.
I watch a small boat in the distance head south, sending perfectly spaced, accordion-pleat waves toward this placid shore that I occupy for a time— giving up a bit of health, sequestering for part of this Lenten season,
coming as I am—as we all are, healing, trusting, breathing— into a perfectly imperfect moment.
Sick room with a view, looking out on the Hood Canal near Port Ludlow, Washington / Jan Haag
You’d think it’d be simple, to allow the stomach to swell, feel the balloons of your lungs to fill, your chest to rise like one of those balloons lifting skyward
—and breathe.
But you find that as you try to inhale, the vines you once thought so sweet, decorated with little valentine-shaped leaves, have Godzilla’d their way around the sacs that frame your heart,
and by golly, inflation feels nearly impossible. Of course, it’s possible. You’re still here, drawing breath, even if they’re short, shallow ones, and you can’t for the life of you think why this should be so.
And then you notice your full eyes, your damp cheeks, your nose that, while dripping, feels packed with cotton, and you think, Oh, yes, that’s why.
When emotion emerges from you as bodily fluids, you have to remind your lungs, Inhale. Exhale. You know how to do this. Again. Inhale. Exhale.
Feel the vines loosen. Hand your fluttering heart a large drumstick, the kind with an amply padded end.
Say, beat. Again. Again.
And breathe. And beat. Breathe and beat. Until you can rise, teary and spent, and remind your lower limbs: one foot, then the other foot. One foot, other foot.
And there you go, off into the next thing in the next place, you and your lovely lungs, taking in oxygen, putting out CO2, you and your always-beating heart powering your powerhouse brain, those arms and legs and feet—
the breathing and beating you, so very much a part of this thrumming and humming world.
Güd wrtr 