Winter Is Ever In Her Spring, And I Shall Flail Away Like An Inflatable Man

I've been reading through a collection of Henry David Thoreau's short works, a volume that includes A Winter's Walk, Reform and the Reformers, Walden, Walking, Ktaadn, and Life without Principle, among a number of others.  I just wrapped up Ktaadn, and - this being my first experience of it - have been captivated by his description of these northern woods that C and I live amongst.  

Though clearly part of Thoreau's shtick, I am perpetually drawn in by his manner of highlighting nature’s duality, her quiet resplendence and utter hostility: that she will both warmly invite us into her bosom and yet, on some other occasion and for no apparent reason, will attempt to quite literally eat us alive.   Could it be that we twist our ankle on a tree root because we unconsciously crushed a trillium or that we glimpse a wild porcupine because we recently planted a Douglas fir?  That would be pure and utter superstition.  Right?  I acknowledge that this tactic of personifying the earth’s sweet and ugly side should get old, or familiar, or at least lose some of its power, but alas, I'm a sucker for it.  It's my siren's song, and I can't stay away.

My sister, R, on the pond

The Great Thaw has begun in the forest.  I am not saying that warm temperatures and melting snow will be a normative feature of our approaching weeks, only that the psychotic swing of temperatures has begun to dip into a reasonable, life-giving range, and that I believe (likely a foolish decision) we will begin to see a slow stepping-down of the stern winter rule, and that Lady Spring will draw up her gown and begin her slow, mesmerizing walk into the spotlight.  Meanwhile I’ll be doing the used-car lot-inflatable-man dance every time I walk to the dumpster.  And falling on my can.  Frequently.

It all makes you wonder, are we intended to live in such places?  At this point, the question is moot, of course, but still… do you ever think it?  And not only here, but even further north?  Because – NEWSFLASH – people are living up there.  And they are not just surviving, but building cities.  They are dragging toboggans on the sidewalks and cooking crepes.  It’s magical, so much so that I suspect it is very well another dimension altogether, and not just Canada.  That would be boring.

A few weeks ago, my sister, R, drove her little 5-speed northward, past the river, through the woods, and yes, even up our icy 3-mile driveway to stay (and play) with us for a week.  She got to experience so many things that we habitually take for granted: pure stillness, first tracks through the snow, snowmobiling on the pond, broken plumbing, washing ladles with the Hobart (which is also known as being washed by the Hobart), and again, stillness, because anything that good deserves a second mention.  A highlight of her visit was an overnight trip we took to Canada. 

Folks, our northern friends know how to live.  They don’t plow the snow off of walkways.  Instead, they offer to rent you a sled, because being dragged across the snow is far more fun than a simple walk in the cold.  They have civic events that revolve around ice and shivering.  They preserve spaces in which to explore the winter world, and they facilitate its good use.  They somehow manage to house bees on their rooftops in February and in an act of heavenly goodness, use menthol in their steam rooms, a thing you should consider for your own, assuming it is not an imaginary steam room, like mine is (it's very large, if you were wondering).  They also make entire bodysuits out of fishnet, which seems rather hazardous considering the nasty weather, but that slides because everything else seems so cool.

And so the drive of man is relentless.  He finds a manner in which to survive the biting cold and rash, unforgiving weather.  In the most unlikely of circumstances, he discovers how to mess about in the snow, enjoying the winter conditions in the same way that a small child goes bananas at the threshold of a playground. 

So as the sap races from the sugar maples and memories of subzero temperatures fade into the recesses of my mind, I look forward to the gentle whispers of spring. She has not arrived, but is arriving all the same.  And I shall wave my arms like a used-car lot-inflatable man to beckon her forth.  And she will come.  

And soon after, I imagine, she will spin on her heels and leave.  But that is how such things go, I suppose.

Sometimes You ARE The Show.

It’s been a full month since I tapped away even one word for this blog.  I’m sure some of you have moved on to more reliable sources of entertainment: news radio, bulletin boards at the grocery store, seeing images of Mary in your cereal bowl.  However, if you still have one fingertip clinging to the edge of the cliff, I want to thank you for your tenacious (and probably unrewarding) determination to wait for me.

I really like a good recap, but I hesitate to do that song and dance because my summers are busy, and I feel like last year all I gave you were a whole bunch of strange lists and awkward reviews about things like buying a van, riding a collapsible bike, and life with natural deodorant (a year later I can tell you that while I feel waaay holier-than-thou for leaving anti-perspirant chemicals behind, I finish a hot day stinking like a bag of Spanish onions).

However, after shuffling (and chuckling) through last summer’s posts a bit, I guess I’m ok with a signature recap.  The only downside is that I’ll have to keep collecting fun and often unfortunate experiences to share. 

Or is that really an upside?

O Canada

We’ve done it, folks.  About a week and a half ago, I crossed the border for the very first time since living here in the shadow of our French-speaking, poutine-eating neighbor to the north.  

A couple of things I noticed:

1) They still use payphones in Quebec.

2) Amy Grant was playing in a McDonald’s.  In 2012.  I wasn’t that fond of her in 1998.

(Fine, I was.   What can I say?  She put my heart in motion.)

3) Blinking green traffic lights.  What could they possibly mean other than “GO.  No wait, I’ve thought about it, and I’d really like for you to stay there for a minute.  No… actually, GO”?  Canada makes traffic lights as well as I make decisions:

not well.

After the trip, I know I’ll return so that I can experience more of what French Canada has to offer, from a plethora of rivers to Japanese food and Cirque du Soleil.

On the other hand, I’ll have to figure out what to do at traffic lights.  Other than panic, that is.

She’s Going Down, Captain

So, about three weeks ago or so, C and I took our little jellybeans (whitewater kayaks) down a section of the Winnepesaukee River in New Hampshire.  It was an awesome and pretty demanding run for two relative newbies like us (low water, man-made obstructions), but we were really loving the challenge.  Were.

Three-quarters of the way down the run, I got sucked in next to a rock and flipped/wet-exited.  I mounted my upturned boat like a pool-toy alligator and rode it down the river for a bit, until I came to an old train trestle.  The alligator pulled right of a pile-on, but I wanted to go left.  In an act of God perhaps, I pushed off of the boat and swam left of the pillar, obtaining some great bruises along the way (three weeks later, they are still hard as rocks and a pretty yellow).  Bruises acquired, I washed into an eddy safe and sound.  Without my boat. 

Where was my boat? 

After some hunting, we found my 6-foot vessel, hidden under a foot of whitewater in a hole formed by a broken piece of the cement pile-on.  This was, in effect, a perfectly boat-sized (or human-sized?) hole - a realization that could make any person appreciate a couple of bruises and a swim.

I never thought we’d see her again, but with the help of my Super Dad, Hero Husband, a winch and a pair of come-alongs, my green jellybean was lifted out of the depths, albeit bent and battered.  The miracle was fully realized about a week ago when I took her back out for a run on the Moose River, in almost perfect shape.

Stuck in the Middle

Last week, I had the joy of my first mammogram.  It was totally precautionary, with negative results, if you’re wondering.   However….

Do you know that thin, sensitive skin on the inside of your upper arm?  The area that, when you see it tattooed, makes you cringe involuntarily? 

Imagine someone taking that part of your arm and pressing it between two metal plates.  When I use “pressed” here, I’m not implying any kind of human force, two small hands pushing the plates together.  I am trying to convey the feeling of having your chicken wing clamped tight by a robot that has suddenly become self-aware and has a serious beef with something you said to it three years ago at Thanksgiving.

Smashed.  Squashed.  Flattened.

(Oh, and it’s actually not your arm).

All by a really nice lady with cute bangs.  If you ever find yourself in this circumstance, I can only hope that the technician is so peachy.  I also hope that your chest is made of rubber, because mine wasn’t when I went in, but I’m pretty sure it is now.

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So there you have it.  Thankfully, some other great stuff happened during this last month, like seeing my three beautiful nieces and the rest of C’s family, a fun trip (or two) to NYC, great spring cook-outs, friends having their first baby, welcoming new staff to camp, and seeing a Prius full of really happy labradors.

I’d like to swear that I’ll be better about posting, but you know I’d be full of it.  I do, however, promise to try.

And For Their Final Act

I'm sure you're tired of the exclamations that I start these posts with, but... I'm not.

Holy Toledo.

Last Thursday, C and I (with some very valuable help) loaded our every belonging into a 26-foot U-Haul truck, went out for sushi with the best mopper/sister, and returned home to fall asleep on an air mattress in our house.

For the very     last     time.

And what's remarkable is that it felt ok.  It wasn't like I was leaping for joy or popping some bubbly or having any kind of warm, fuzzy feelings, but all the same, I wasn't weeping and clawing at my hair, which really must be some kind of small victory, don't you think?  Maybe more than small...

What's also remarkable is that the very mattress that we slept on has been continuously inflated for... wait for it... FOUR YEARS.  And it hasn't leaked, period.  If that doesn't totally shock you, I don't know what to say, other than to say  lay off the meds, for both our sakes.  This is my shameless and enthusiastic plug for the Simmons Beautyrest air mattress.  Go.  Buy one.  Mine's flawless, but if yours pops, don't come crying to me.  I'm sure it will be your fault.

So Friday morning, we deflated the mattress (for the first time), threw it in it's bag and closed the garage door behind us on our way out.  C hopped into our pickup truck and I clamored into the U-Haul.  There must be a height requirement for truckers, because I had a seriously hard time getting into and out of the cab of this thing.  It was a strange turn of fate when we first laid eyes on our 26-footer.  You know how U-Haul's have those fairly tacky cartoonish pictures of random world destinations?  Like a sumo wrestler and a giant Macy's float in the shape of a Spicy Tuna Roll painted on the side of a trailer with the words, "Visit Japan!" written above the picture in Indiana Jones font?  Well, I'm pretty sure that this particular U-Haul was manufactured especially for us.

Along with a picture of our favorite neighborly woodland creature, our U-Haul was showcasing the up and coming Canadian hotspot - Saskatchewan!  It was like someone just knew where we were headed. I cackled up a storm driving that thing north toward the border - driving increasingly slow, mind you, because if a moose ran in from of that gas hog, there was going to be a very small chance that I'd manage to avoid it.

We arrived at camp around 11:00 PM and unloaded one important passenger - a gigantic jade plant that has been in my family since I was a little girl.  A certain jade plant that was now (sorry mom) frozen solid.  The leaves snapped like sheets of ice, and were scattered on the floor of the truck.  Jades are members of the succulent family, intended to inhabit an arid climate, which is distressingly far from the  -10 degree temperature that night.  I still haven't given up on her, though.  We brought her drooping body in from the chill and I gave her some water and whispered some nice, I'msosorry kind of words.  The next day I pruned off the limbs that felt like water balloons, because there is just no way that a texture like that could be healthy.  So now she's a little ragged, and probably still dying, but we're not letting her go without a fight.

On a related note, this summer I kept a Bonsai on my desk at the rafting office.  This plant, too, got sick and dried up, but I had recently read about the ever-important "cut off the gangrenous limbs or you'll lose the patient" policy and quickly got to work.  A month later, the plant was sailing into the woods where it became part of the earth again, and not simply a prickly naked single stalk of what used to be a thriving maze of branches.  I have a tendency to get carried away with scissors.

So Mama Jade, Kiwi the cat, our air mattress and cookware I haven't seen in a year are finally in one place.  And even though the process was tedious, maddening and sometimes ugly, it's made for a good life story.  And as one of my dear friends, Amy, put it:


Soon it will be all over (for now, for a while) and you'll be settled in to a cozy log-ish home with far fewer moose than you're accustomed to, that is not a small kitchen-less apartment above a restaurant, and that does not come with its own wheels. 


Thanks, Amy.  You always know how to make a girl feel good.

Into The Wild

Yesterday as I was driving downriver to run errands, a huge bird swooped out of the ditch on my side of the road and flew into a leafless tree at the edge of the forest.  It was a bald eagle.  Cool, right?  I turned the car around to go take his picture, which was primarily intended to share here with you rather than bolster my photo library, because to be honest, seeing bald eagles is not totally out of the norm now.  We even had one perched at camp's waterfront a couple of weeks ago, drying off after a plunge in the lake.  

Life is full of surprises.  I don’t think I had ever spotted a bald eagle in the wild until a year ago.  It’s just one of many unexpected things that have come to be normal.

Some others:

• Noticing that a new “custom meat cutting” sign has popped up in town.
• Our outdoor moose thermometer.  I don’t even see the moose anymore.  

What moose?

• The Chevy Suburban in town that Maaco painted in Mossy Oak camouflage.
• That our grocery store is a Quonset hut.            
• Canadians.  Seriously.  
• This view:

Ok, you’re right.  Something this breathtaking can’t feel normal.

• This view:

Ditto.

I guess some things are still pretty special.  

Oh, you’ll like this.  Remember the mice that Kiwi has been catching lately?  Well, we found their trap door.  

Hidden behind one of these moose flags was a perfect hole the size of a nickel that our little field mouse was popping out of at two in the morning.  Remember our moose flags?  We found the escape hatch because Kiwi heard the little guy scrambling his way out of the hole and ran to grab him, but quickly she realized that she can’t climb walls.  We were both a little disappointed.  I’ll let you know how long the strip of duct tape keeps the vermin out.

Also, I added a survey gadget on the upper right-hand side of the blog, so check it out.  I'll get more creative with the questions in the future... you'll be begging for an easy one like this.