New Leashes on Life - A Fundraiser for Kat

I've been remiss in posting, taking a little longer than expected to recover from hospitalization for the Type A flu that set up base camp in my lungs. Some complications came up in my blood work which showed concerning low levels of white and red blood cells, hemoglobin and iron.   I don't have any other symptoms of a serious blood disorder  such as bruising, weight loss (yeah right), etc., so it might all be flu related, autoimmune, or just side effects of the low iron (I've been prone to anemia since childhood) but they are going to do a bone marrow biopsy this week.

I've just put it in God's hands at this point   But it's given me a lot to think about.  About how very fragile we all are, and how quickly the sand in our personal hourglass heads south.  I think of those around me battling their own health issues, Ed B., Stormdrane, Kelly Grayson, and now my young friend Katherine A. (gunwriter and blogger Kat Hel) who is scheduled for a double mastecomy in a week due a sudden diagnosis of cancer.  I was able to send a few dollars to

• Kat's Defense Fund which I hope you all can do as well, as this young married Mom of two can really use the help.  
• Reminders of what riches some of us have, even if fleeting.  

I remember back to my Mom's last days - I was pretty young when we lost her to cancer, but not so young I don't remember.  I recall those last conversations where she was talking to me but her eyes were fixed elsewhere like she was already somewhere else, waiting for something else.  Her voice was in her room, her form, but she was already gone, already beneath and beyond the knowledge of this earth.

I don't remember what she said, only the tear on her cheek as she was not ready to take that step out.

She was 10 years younger than I am now.

I still think of her, of my Stepmom, of my brother and stepbrother and my Dad, gone now. I think of them as I walk near the railroad tracks by our home. I walk early in the day or just at dusk on days Partner is on the road.  The traffic is quieter and you can still hear the earth breathe if you listen carefully, as if it just came out from under the ether and it's not yet aware it's awake, or what that awakening will bring.  I see small insects on small pools of water that formed from the last storm, not in the air, and not underwater, simply skimming the surface caught between those two points, fixed in time.

As the sun comes up, the river that winds through our village gleams in the mirrored blaze of a new day, the trestle across it a black arch from which soon the trains will rush past as people go into the city for the day's toil. I hear the rumble of the first train, my signal that it's time to head for home, the sudden sound a startling suggestion that time is rushing past, iron and will hopefully keeping us moving forward.

This day?  This day is a gift.  Even in all of the times in the air in which I came close to ending my day in something that would not buff out, I never had the sense of mortality that I carry now, that I may carry now for the rest of my days.  I think of the little plaque my Dad had on the wall of his home as things were taken down for the sale "This is the day the Lord hath made, let us rejoice and be glad in it."  I used to read that with all the imperial dismissal of youth and think "that's all good Dad but what about next week or next year?"

Sunny D. Lab is home, at her rambuctious age, I leave walking her up to a young lady from our village who takes her out between playtime romps with "mom" in the back yard.  But I remember walking the much more docile Lorelei, who used to join me.  When we first adopted her I felt like we had the only agoraphobic dog on the planet.  She was terrified of leaving the property, even on a leash.  She'd lived six years in a small pen in a building with a single light bulb for light, having litter after litter of purebred puppies.  When she could no longer bear puppies, she was not retired to a warm, loving home, but surrendered to a shelter, a small blessing considering other alternatives that such dogs face.  

She didn't know what sun was, or grass, or playtime. She only knew what it was like to be inarticulate and dispensable. She learned sun and grass and play pretty quickly.  Walking on the leash away from the house took a few more months as she learned to trust and explore. It wasn't long before she was running ahead, little clouds of yellow Lab floof in her wake, joyous in the sweet, consoling victory that is freedom.  When her arthritis kicked in when she was about 10, Partner built her a motorized escalator up the steep steps into the house, so she could still enjoy her yard time.  A winch, some lumber, and a weekend of work and she was the happiest dog on the planet, riding it up and down to freedom into her final days with us.

Twelve years ago I wrote the Book of Barkley, having learned much of life through the eyes of a dog (though I still shake my head at the negative book review because "it wasn't about a talking dog!").  I'm still learning.  I've learned to be strong, not as men are strong because they have neither doubt nor hope, but because I have both.  Doubt enough to know how precious is each breath, and hope that keeps me headed towards the light.

The earth takes one last bite of the sun's rim as it ascends, and I break for the trail like a covey of quail flushed from hiding.  I treat each day as if it is my last now,  as one just never knows.  I hurry home on legs that have stumbled and found strength again, galloping through avatars that mark the stockpile of time, eyes on the horizon that calls like a brandished saber.  I near home, my somewhat tattered old red shirt my personal shot-torn flag that marks my passage as I round the last bend in the road before my destination.

I was released from the hospital 67 years ago, born not yet to remember what life would bestow.  This time, I came home from the hospital born to remember what my life has been before and what a gift each adition day is.  Our own bodies are unfaithful to themselves, the earth, and the heavens sometimes it seems, obvious to our desires. Too many of us lately have left us and too many are fighting to stay.  Too many people have gone from this world seemingly forgotten.  Except for those who still believe the promise, confess the faith, and remember all that is worth remembering. 

This is the day. . .

Tracks of Black and White

I carved our names upon a tree
simple words marked a plaintive plea
The text incised on darkened wood
with trembling hand as best I could
But in so writing tears would fall
for the bark's surface was far too small
Still my hand etched away in vain
with faith that it would be seen again
hope that these small woundings of a stem
might speak to someone who passed by them
I hope they see past the mark or stain
to small etched cuts of the heart that remains
Brigid 

Did you ever cut your initials into a tree? (and no, it's not a great idea tree-wise). Or etch the name of a secret crush back in school days, absently in a journal, not being able to think much beyond the words that made up the name of your beloved?

Short words are easy. It's the long strings of words that can break us, or make us. In the middle of a presentation today I had a blank moment and what came to me was "I lost my train of thought".

Where did that expression come from? Though we use it for everything from absentmindedness to excusing our disjointed ramblings by its loss, it was elaborated four hundred years ago by Thomas Hobbes in a somewhat different meaning:

By Consequence, or train of thoughts,

I understand that succession of one thought to another which is called,

to distinguish it from discourse in words,

mental discourse.
When a man thinketh on anything whatsoever,

his next thought after is not altogether so casual as it seems to be.

Not every thought to every thought succeeds indifferently.

Hobbes was quite the thinker, probably why Bill Watterson chose the name for his sardonic tiger in my favorite comic strip.

My personal lumbering boxcars of thought, speeding on through this railway station we call the Internet, is fueled by very early mornings, and a couple of cups of coffee, needed to get me moving as my days often start well before sun has risen.


Train of thought. The term just doesn't seem to fit our new age, when abundant discourse is sent forth in the click of a mouse, words and and ideas flirting between computer terminals in nanoseconds, with voluminous paragraphs abbreviated to simple text messages. In an age where entire freight cars of words are reduced to tiny particles of matter, the term "train of thought" seems to be a disappearing trail of smoke in our vocabulary. Sonnets and poetry reduced to . ;-) and "luv ya" in our rush to our next appointment. People spend hours each day texting and twittering without as much as a spoken word to someone they care about. If Hobbes were given a blackberry instead of a quill, would he have written Leviathan?

Log trains passed behind my house when I was a child. Passed down through the forested hills where we romped, grew up, fell in love and carved our names on trees. As they traveled down those hills towards the timber mills at night, their path would cut shadows across our neighborhood. I remember as a small child how the sound would intensify as my Dad would read to me at bedtime, as shadows would slide over the wall above my bed, over the model boats and planes and trains my brother and I played with. And with the shadow came one of the first sounds of my memory, the mournful wail of a train, competing with my Dad for sound, so he would speak louder and more clearly, forcefully driving each word outward, the phrases connected and intact and uninterrupted and in that moment I discovered my love for words. And for trains.

In daytime we'd ride our bikes along the tracks, looking for diesel smoke in cold air, throbbing engines, hoping for a quick glimpse. The yard at the timber mill had more than one track running into it, and as two trains would arrive, you'd hold your breath in fear of a collision, only to have one veer off and stop, while a long line of cars safely passed. I think of the missing man formation, in which a squadron of fighter planes performs a low pass, one separating and flying off to the heavens. A ballet of mighty machinery.

I'd memorize the names on the cars going by, forming the words in my mouth while smelling the fresh smell of wood going into the paper mill. So many cars, so many words. Each leaving a memory, branding my thoughts with its impression, burning into my head with the sunlight streaming through the slats. Carrying it's load of mighty trees fallen to make paper for which the words will one day affix themselves. Paper clean and bare with promise.

Behind my house, a new train, miles of unexplored tracks to walk, tracks crossing across the landscape of this new life, when viewed from the air, almost forming letters, writing of new adventures. A poem composed of ancient ties and abandoned depots, a sad lament to the forgotten forms of old trains, to lost thoughts and the art of speaking in deep clear sentences, now reduced to emoticons and abbreviated texts. How do you reduce your feelings to 3 or four letters, and quick clips of syllables that mean so little? Words sent through space, silently with no weight.


My Dad hasn't read to me at night in decades but until his death at 101, he regularly sent me letters, real letters, though his household had email and a cell phone. The letters were written in clear, flowing script that belied his years and in which he talked with steady and unflinching repose, of watching all his friends pass on, of navigating life in a body that aged long before his mind. He wriote of the family and of his days of laughter and prayer, words of humor, of inspiration, of compelling faith. Sheets of paper that for years have charted a course for me through adulthood. Sheets that lie carefully tended, fragrant and dry in a drawer, where I will treasure them now that he's gone, abiding strength still radiating from his descriptions of love and loss, the papers having a weight to them of his life. A weight that will keep me anchored.

How do you do that with a text message, how do you convey such feelings of family in a smiley? How do you explain what it feels to live, to breathe, to love, to fly, in a twitter message? For those thoughts make up boxcar after boxcar of the steady motion of thought, sturdy boxes of space and time, their spaces containing the heavy load of lust and longing, pride, fear and desire. A train barrelling forward in steady progressions as moving clouds fly overhead and shafts of sunlight peer through sliding cars, into their depth. As others transmit through satellites and space, I watch the landscape from the viewpoint of the train. Structures of iron lace, the suddenness of buildings, clouds of morning mist all crossing my line of sight, my muscles straining with the curves through corn shrouded fields, moving with the train, thundering through empty fields of past loss into meadows washed with light. I rush into the rain as the cars gain speed, waters cleansing the windows on which I look out on life. I hurl words into the darkness of an upcoming tunnel and wait for their echo back.


Train of thought rushing on. Life viewed as a passing landscape in which I live in the midst yet best write about it only as it has passed my window, a memory behind me trailing in the smoke of the engine. I don't have a Smart Phone.  I wouldn't have the faintest idea how to do a "Tik Tok" video.  Only on rare occassion do I text. I journal and I blog. I blog for me, to release words that need to come out at the end of the day. The stories may be too long to catch the interest of the masses looking for quick, short entertainment, of which there is plenty among the white noise of the Internet. My communications outside of here as well are lengthy strings of words, heartfelt messages splayed out on paper, their sincerity driving their movement, under my pen, the words stringing out behind me. Sometimes I hit send, somethings they just stay, hesitant to go beyond the confines of my longing.

But the words will always will be my own, the track they follow a mystery until that next bend is rounded. Words composed of past journeys on ancient rails, washed clean by wind and rain, and tempered by time. A story written to the mournful sound of a train whistle echoing through abandoned dreams and ancient memories, waiting for the echo of my words.

Saving Daylight

Rise and Shine.

Daylight saving time is still messing with my internal clock.  Thirty years ago, I could put in a 14-hour duty day flying, walk off the airplane at 11 p.m., and be back in the cockpit at 7 a.m. (the time spent getting to and from the hotel did not count as your legal "rest" back in the day).  I'd do that over and over, getting the occasional whopping 10 hours of rest in there to be legal, and still be bright and chipper.

Now, the only chipper I can conjure up is the wood variety I'd like to lob the alarm clock into just to hear it ground into bits.

Getting up early was even easier as a child. In Summer, we'd fling ourselves out of bed at the first rustle of a cereal box, eager to see who could get the prize out first.  Actually, the day the box arrived home, I would carefully slit open the bag, extrapolate the prize, examine it carefully, then carefully suture the bag and leave it for my brother, who then spent the rest of the prize-less day attempting to blow me up with water filled missiles (which said something about both our later career choices).

As soon as we were fed, out the door we went for a day of play, running so fast that we'd not feel the hot cement on our bare feet, cooling off only with the garden hose. It was probably just as well we didn't yet realize that 20 years later, we'd be running after something so hard we never felt it burn us.

Now, I'm spoiled, starting my day early for the most part because I want to. I've come to enjoy that quiet time before the city fully awakes when the sun rises over the waves that splash upon the shore of Lake Michigan with the lightness of youth, then vanish with grace and little resistance on the shore. It's those moments upon the shore, early in the day, that remind me of the ocean of my childhood, when I realized how much the water could bring and had yet to realize all it could take away. Some days, I'll have a couple of hours to myself before making a phone call for some consulting work, time to wander and dream, write, or bake a loaf of bread. On other days, I hit the ground running like a dog hot on the trail of a squirrel, eager for the chase. Each kind of day makes me appreciate the other.

There is a marked difference between getting up early because you want to and because you HAVE to. 

Getting up at 3:00 a.m. to ride a boat across the Columbia River Bar (which makes the Toutatis (Parc Astérix) roller coaster look like a stroll) to fish for salmon? No problem. Up at 4 to set up in a tree blind so you are in place as the first rays of sun shine their dapple promise of light on a 12-point buck.  Love to!

But it's another thing when that alarm went off at 5:00 a.m. because I had an early morning Zoom call with the Transportation Secretary of Angria or something.  There was no sun, or even the promise of sun, just an intense dark blue, almost black, that is not a color but an entire absence of color.  The room was cold, and I'd open the window, but not only would that make it colder but it would make my room smell like dead autumn leaves after it rains.  

There had better be coffee. If it is decaffeinated, remember I have crime scene tape.

But if you are like me you do it, because it's what you do, it's what you are, someone that says they'll do something and will, someone that doesn't believe in others being responsible for your bills. You are someone who had any inclination of entitlement wiped off their face by parents who remembered what it was to go to bed hungry growing up. It's trusting in the Lord in all things and caring for others while still remembering Galatians 6:5. For each one should carry their own load. 

I remember a day in the field, in unseasonably warm temperatures, that stretched into days, only time for a fresh biohazard suit with a handful of what I still think were hamster pellets and a swallow of liquid before going out again. I remember shouting directions and orders, trying to keep my team safe, where at the end, I could only speak in a scratched whisper, like a violin of which all the strings save one were broken in a final crescendo that ended like a blow.

I remember stopping at the store late on the way home, for a bottle of wine that might help me obliterate the images in my head, when the clerk said something about "I hate working nights."  I just smiled, thinking that at least she didn't have to put her clothes aside at the end of the shift to be burned, as I went home to try and forget. 

 

After days like that, getting up early now, completely clearheaded and at peace, eating a warm scone in my office while I write a technical analysis of some evidence for an attorney is a piece of cake.  

Retire, everyone said - you can sleep in, you can be a "trophy wife" (at my age, I think I'm a "participation trophy" wife).  Retire yes, trophy wife, no.  I found out many years ago, when dating someone who was wildly successful, that I was just something pretty to be worn on his arm, like that watch that cost as much as my car, only to find that when the day was done, and the business contract signed, I could be removed just as easily at the end of the night.  No thanks.  I'm happy with a husband who works as hard as I do, who will get up at o' dark hundred to make the coffee, if need be, just as I am known to be up early to make him sandwiches and pack some homemade cookies from my secret stash for an unexpected road trip.  Because, after enough late days and early mornings in a lifetime, you realize what truly is important. It's not living long enough to forget; it's living long enough to remember fully.

When the alarm goes off tomorrow, and I wake to dark skies, I'll smile with the thought of the grace of another new day crashing upon the shore, if perhaps in just a while longer.  I may be God's child and occassionally someone's technical expert, but at heart, I'm a vagabond without a master, and for all I cannot control in this world, that snooze button is mine. 

Back in a few

EJ brought home a flu bug (one that apparently the "flu shot" didn't cover this season), and I got it, and had to go to the hospital with some breathing issues.  Spent most of the week there, getting treatment with a respiratory therapist and a bunch of other anti-flu drugs, and am home now, recovering nicely.  

As I was sitting in my hospital bed drinking the "Ensure" they gave me I thought "great, it's just because I'm old. . . ."  The nurse read my mind and said, "3 other people hospitalized with the same thing here this week were in their 30's.

I felt a little better.

But be watching, this particular strain of Type A Influenza goes into pneumonia very easily, and there have been several thousand deaths in the US already this year from it.  Personally, Covid for me was like any other head cold; this was nasty.

I'll be back in a week, taking some time away from the computer to just chill and recover.  - Brigid

Taking Home the Bacon

I'm sure since it's February, most people have already given up on the New Year's resolution to "eat healthier".  I recently read a healthy eating blogger's words that each piece of bacon I eat takes a day off my life, all I could think of was "wow, I should have been dead in 1914!'

But I don't drink (gave that up years ago), eat junk food, or any seed oils/fake fats so a weekend treat of the stuff our grandparents lived off of is fine with me.   I had my physical on Friday, and after the nurse gave me the usual "what do you mean you're not on ANY meds?" she took my blood pressure, looked puzzled, took it again, and said "it's 106 over 61, is that normal for you?" (omitting what she wanted to say that was "I've never seen anyone your age with that blood pressure).

So I'm not starting that "no bacon" thing any time soon.  Especially when our forecast of temps in the 60's gave way to snow, 20's, and 40 mph winds.   Biscuits and Gravy just seemed the thing to do (recipe is for 3-4 folks, adjust as necessary).

• roughly 1/4 pound bacon
• 1/3 cup flour
• 1/3 teaspoon Himalayan pink salt
• 1/4 teaspoon cracked black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon maple sugar
• 2 and 1/2  cups milk plus 1/2 cup half and half (both at room temperature)

 click on this picture to enlarge, Sunny D. double dog dares you

First, cut the bacon into thirds. Put it into a large skillet and fry it over medium heat until cooked but not too brown. Remove the bacon and keep it warm. Stir the flour into the bacon grease (you want no more than 1/4 cup of fat, if you have really fatty bacon or make extra pieces, remove any excess fat beyond 1/4 cup and save for your green beans).

Whisk over low to medium heat until the flour absorbs the fat and is just turning golden brown.  Add the salt, maple sugar, and black pepper. Stir the milk a third at a time, whisking after each addition, allowing it to warm before adding additional milk.  Stir it in slowly, using the whisk to keep it from getting lumpy.  Simmer (not a full rolling boil, please!) for 3-5  minutes, until thickened, increasing heat as needed but NO more than medium. Serve over fresh Southern Biscuits  (no cans!) sprinkled with the crumbled bacon pieces and a pinch or two of Sweet or Smoked Paprika.

Retrievers in Sick Bay

Mom, I know you've been in the recliner with a blanket for a few days cuz you have a "bug" but just a reminder, I have a toy, and I am a retriever, when you're ready.  - Sunny D. Lab

Love's Fine Blade

A Man's morning shave ritual.  It's something that's been done for centuries, even in the days of rampant beards, a number of men preferring to remain clean-shaven. My brother always had a beard. With his red hair, build, and height, he very much resembled a Viking until cancer took 120 pounds off his frame, tempering his blade and honing his spirit.

Dad tried to grow a mustache once. It was in the early 70's, and was less than successful.  Dad had fine, dark red hair that gave rise to a mustache that was thin and sparse. I remember my Mom looking at the final outcome and trying her darnedest not to giggle and failing. Dad looked at it with a wry smile, shrugged, and went back to the bathroom and shaved it off.  Mom wasn't trying to belittle his efforts; her love fluttered over all of us like small wings, whisking away tears and brushing aside fears.  She treated Dad the same way, but oh dear Lord, was that a sorry-looking mustache, and even Dad realized it.

So from that day forward, each and every morning, Dad was in the bathroom shaving. For most men, the morning shave is something they must do each and every day.  It's done whether there is a houseful of kids bustling around, or they are on their own.

I remember my Dad's ritual, which remained as long as he lived.  After he did his morning workout (which he did six days a week for 80 years), he'd go shave.  He would never use an electric razor or any shave cream in a can.  No, Dad always had a mug of fine soap, a high-quality brush,, and a regular razor, with a straight razor when he wanted an extra-close shave for a special occasion.

I remember vividly those winter mornings of childhood, all of us dressing quickly, not so much that the house was cold, but hearts and blood and minds weren't quite awake yet, and movement was with willful purpose until such time as the chocolate milk or the caffeine kicked in. Dad would come through the kitchen from where he worked out, giving my Mom a kiss, the morning sun highlighting the freckles on her face, then a kiss for each of us, still in our pajamas, our faces innocent of either guile or water.

While my brother and I tried to stay out of his way, he'd shave, the tiny half bath, which was his bathroom, filling with steam. He was careful with the straight razor, pulling it over his features as carefully as if they were oiled glass, rinsing it in hot water, as the dark stubble on his face brushed away like filings from a new gun barrel.  I simply watched from the kitchen table, carefully and quietly.  Dad was so intent on his task that, before he even drew down that fine blade for its first stroke, his attention was almost perceptible in the air, surrounding him as fragrance does, leaving a subtle impression of his intent long before the act was complete.

When he was done, he'd finish as he started, with a clean washcloth doused in extra hot water, laid on his face to steam it.  Then he'd finish with a splash of aftershave.  There were only a few that he would wear.

Brut was beyond popular when I was growing up, one of the first to use a celebrity endorsement to persuade men that grooming wasn't for wimps.  Famed heavyweight boxer Henry Cooper was the original "face" of Brut, urging men to "splash it all over"long before David Beckham had his first shave.

Then there was the Hai Karate. My Dad had some of that and was supremely disappointed, and he used to tease my Mom that his bottle must have been a dud, since he didn't have to fend off any supermodels with karate chops like in the commercials. I don't remember what it smelled like, but I don't think he ever had to fend off Mom wearing it, though, come to think of it, once, when he put on too much, she drove a golf ball from the back yard through the back kitchen window with a Five Iron.

Dad gave that up for Old Spice, which he wore from then on, though once in a while he'd put on "Stetson" cologne and give Mom this look, and she'd giggle, and we'd go have a sleepover with our beloved Aunt and Uncle.

The last time I went home before the house was sold, Mom's giggling laughter but an echo in the walls, Dad gave me a big hug and I could still smell the Old Spice on his shirt, that "Dad" smell that's both reassurance and comfort.

Now, there's not just aftershave; there is cologne, shampoo, body washes, and shampoo/body washes (and what's the difference?).

Most advertise themselves as smelling like "fresh glacier extinguishing a giant forest fire full of deer in heat" or something like that.  I think the perfect man's natural scent would be a mysterious combination of gun cleaning fluid, coffee, bacon, and woodsmoke, but I loved Dad's Old Spice and the sandalwood scent my husband wears.

I'm happy my husband has much of the same ritual as my Dad, with the soap in a mug and the high-quality brush. He shaves at night after I've had my bubble bath, and as I curl up on the sofa with a s mug of herb tea. he'll begin that ritual.  He's shaved in hundreds of hotels, in countries all over the world, the ritual much the same, yet there's something almost peaceful about the act performed in one's own bathroom, in one's own home, small rituals of sameness.

Many of us wander all over the world, the esteemed and the obscure, the bold and the invisible, earning beyond the oceans our riches, our scars, and our destiny. But when we go home, we render an account; we sweep away the things we picked up that pull us down as we surround ourselves with the familiar, with that which is cherished.

When he is done, he'll join me on the couch in his bathrobe,  the house quiet but for hundred-year-old sconces on the walls that lend the room an aura of timelessness.  We won't talk much but of  books we are reading, of things in our home that need repair, or simply our day as we sit and stroke the flanks of a rescue dog that lies beside us. Such rituals are as fine as a blade, as comforting as stone. Shared, they are as bright and uplifting as the flash of sparks as dulled blade and stone meet.

There won't be any trips back "home", Dad gone 5 years now, but I remember the last ones vividly.  I dreaded the changes I would see in his physicality and changes in his world. But when I went home, and my frail Dad gave me an affectionate bear hug of welcome, he still smelled like Old Spice, and I was six years old again.

So much has changed, I remembered as I took one last look at my childhood home before the keys were passed to another family.  It was a house that saw both the lives and the deaths of my two moms, of my brother's presence that still thundered through the rooms, the walls now missing the medallions of his courage. So much gone, swirled down the drain with past and present tears. But still, I look at the world as I did those long ago mornings, carefully and quietly. And when my husband gives me a hug, and I breathe the familiar scent of shaving soap, it is the same feeling I had in my family home so many years ago. In that moment of ritual, I'm at peace, safe, and loved, with a future that is too far away to fear.
-Brigid

Warning: Cape Does Not Enable User to Fly

The cold this last week has been brutal, with temps in the minus 40s with the wind chill. Even on a calm day, it was in the minus numbers.  Not unheard of in Chicago, but it's been about 3 years since we had a January this cold.  The streets are empty but for the occasional passing car, only one brave dog walker out, stopping for a moment in the bitten shadow as a little dog in a Cubs dog hoodie stops to leave a message for a White Sox fan on a frozen tree. 

I grew up in a very small town near the Washington coast (in reality, we could be in Oregon in a few minutes by just driving across a bridge). Snow in the lower elevations was unusual; if there was any at all, school would be canceled.  I don't remember any days below 30, but we would have been out anyway. Snow was not cold; it was not working or worrying. It was a divine benediction that spread itself out onto the world where we waited with glee. Grabbing an inner tube to ride down the cleared foothills, shoving a couple of cookies in our pockets, we would head out into the dazzling white, heeding the siren call.

There, I would simply wait my turn with my tube on a small slope at the lake we called the "widow maker", content to just sit and look up into the wonder as we waited our turn. That tube was not my transport to the stars; it was a defiant gesture against the mortality that grew closer to the edge of our vision every year.  It wasn't a simple inner tube.  It was a defiant shout.  It was my superhero cape and my shield. 

Then, I'd launch myself with abandon out into it, flinging my form down onto an inner tube that was traveling downhill much faster than my dad would ever approve. There was nothing but movement and emotion, snow in the amber fire of my hair, my cheeks flushed, body arching up into the air, trying to maintain the moment that I knew would come crashing down much too quickly. At the bottom of the hill, chest heaving, I'd simply look up into the sky and say thank you, for that moment, as time gathered itself back up and started ticking again.

Face flushed with anticipation, I'd pat my pocket to make sure my cookie was secure, and I'd trudge back up the slope again to join my brother at the top.  As I peered down into the void, I'd say, "I probably shouldn't do this." Then we'd launch ourselves off yet again into space, remorseless and laughing, flying down the slope, potent, strong, as free as an eagle, not knowing yet as a child, that even for the eagle, all space can still be a cage.

Then we'd come inside for hot cocoa and maybe a little TV. My brother loved The Rifleman; I loved The Adventures of Superman, which was in syndication at the time. Mom even got me a Superman costume for Halloween once, and I was so disappointed when I saw the little warning tag that said "Warning - Cape Does Not Enable User to Fly. I loved the show, but the junior scientist in me probably wasn't the first nerd to notice that Superman's home planet was Krypton, and the fictionalized mineral from that place, kryptonite, was his undoing in many an episode, as it rendered him weak.  I knew Krypton was an inert mineral. Inert bodies do no harm, seek no revenge, provoke no hostilities. They shouldn't be of any concern. Yet sometimes those inert things, those small things, are the ones that hurt you the most. For lurking out there for Superman, Kryptonite was just waiting, biding its time (or another episode) until it would weaken the hero. 

Once adulthood hit, snow days were simply known as "work days". My flying had me based in Los Angeles on the West Coast for the most part. I do NOT miss flying out of LAX. The layout of the airport was so large and discombobulated the first time I landed there; my copilot told the tower we were "student pilots and needed progressive taxi instructions to the United Gate". He laughed and got us there, but it was never my favorite airport. But just being able to sit outside by the pool on a layover when it was snowing somewhere in the Plains was magic.

But it was no surprise that people actually get on airplanes to go places OTHER than LAX, so it wasn't a surprise that I spent too many nights flying into airports in Montana, Idaho, Colorado, and Nevada when it was brutally cold and snowy. You'd start out thinking "oh this won't be so bad", then the sky would go from clear to a menacing outburst of fury, as if all the air had turned on you in confrontation, the tenuous earth only a memory beneath you.  Superman managed this with just a cape - we had computers and radar and jet fuel, and the weather was kicking us to the curb. In what seemed like just minutes, the wind would pick up further, the ice would start hitting our windshield as the copilot hurriedly told the flight attendants to be seated, and we'd look at each other with that "I could have been a mild-mannered reporter" look as Mother Nature whacked our backside with a stick.

But soon, we'd be on the ground, using differential power to SLIDE into the gate as thundersnow growled in the distance, the ramp a growing ice rink, while, once stopped, the passengers lined up like cattle trying to get inside to the barn where it was warm. But we got out and made sure our aircraft was safely in for the night, knowing we'd be back in 8 hours (yes, back in the day, your time spent traveling to and from the hotel to sleep was part of your legal "rest"). The airplane wasn't any warmer in the morning, but that was our job.

So, winters in the Midwest were not the surprise for me that many thought they would be. When I bought my first home here, my family said, "Oh, she'll move back out here in a year". But 30 years later, I'm still here, waiting for yet another major winter weather system coming down from the north with a lofty and mighty sigh. Like death and taxes, you are not exempt. Winter will arrive, not with a whimper, but a howl. It’s usually preceded by a trumpet of doom from the news channels, which are often wrong. I usually just check the radar on my computer to see what the weather is actually like out there. At least that way I could see the severe weather coming while Accu-Hunch was predicting another six inches of sunshine, while on sunny days, they’re predicting doom and gloom.

Sometimes the weather was boring, and dressing it up with doom and gloom might have boosted ratings. I don’t think it does the unwary any good when an unreality was made a possibility, probability, and then a matter of fact, for no other reason than fear becoming words. Perhaps it's just from all my years aloft, but I've learned to read all the markers in the sky. When this last system came in - it did not look comforting. The summer storms, I've learned to predict. You might get a heads-up in a monotone voice on the radio that warns of “rotational potential” in a tone that could just as easily be saying, “We’re going to have to break that bone again.” Other times it was simply “surprise!” as the sky became an angry mob of clouds. The radar usually gave you a pretty clear forewarning. But winter here was nature's crapshoot, and I learned to prepare.

This last storm, there was de-icing salt by the back steps in a pet-safe bucket, and shovels for both the front and back porch. The flashlights were set out in easy reach, the beeswax candles available in each room, and an extra blanket was out for the bed and the dog's crate, should the power go out. Night soon descended, and the snow began to fall in heavy drifts. As it did, the sounds around me changed. I couldn’t hear it within the house, but from the porch, as I let the dog down the steps to the fenced yard, the town’s main street a block away went almost silent. What few cars are still out are enveloped by the snow, their sounds muted to a few ponderous thumps as they drive over what was either a Village road repair or a trap set by Wile E. Coyote for the Roadrunner.

The freshly shoveled driveway had a patina like an old wall plastered by hand. The trees were bare but for a brace of foliage that clung on with a death grip, screaming into the wind without words, plucked with a cold hand that tosses their cries to the ground like colorful scraps of paper.

After shoveling, salting, tending to the house and the dog, I'd like to think I was Superman, but inside the house, I know there will be those reminders of things that have flown far away - three small wooden containers with dog toys or collars resting on them, my brother's favorite mug for hot drinks, photos of so many I've had to say goodbye to, and a house empty tonight but for myself and a pile of books. A good night to read something; to savor the fire that flowed from a writer’s mind through fingertips to be burnt upon the page, then doused with the water of laughter or tears and wrung out again. My mom always said there was no interrupting me when I was immersed in a book I loved. The house could burn down around me as I embraced the words even among the flames. I remember Mom saying, “She’ll love everything that hard. That will be both her blessing and her curse." My own personal kryptonite - I'm not quite sure why, standing out in temps that would cause frostbite in 20 minutes, I'm thinking that, but I couldn't help it.

I looked up before letting the dog back in. A snow-charged mass of clouds hung unbroken over Lake Michigan, darkening the sky.  By contrast, the air around the house's lights held a crystalline clarity, the sheen of a glass dome, which the merest movement of air might shatter.  Another light is seen through this starry night, a night of wonders and far-away mysteries revealed for just a moment as the clouds break, a low crevice in the glittering, ice-cold that was space; a place where the earth was just one tiny fallen leaf whose cries only God could hear.

I couldn’t help but think that I’m in some kind of cosmic snow globe, and as the porch shuddered slightly in the wind, I wonder if heaven had tilted the earth just a little to watch the flakes swirl around the lone form of one of its humble creations. I wonder if God could look down through that tiny fissure in heaven and see me down here, wearing my brother’s old coat, pulling it around me for warmth that was beyond fabric or insulation.

I squeezed the salt out of my eyes as the light disappeared. For just a moment, there was no snow, no wind at all, just a single star that sparked from the break in the clouds, like a single spark expelled from a soul's fire. A lull had come, the holding of a stormy breath, and I knew I had better get in the house now, the door now only a beggar’s prayer against the incoming cold and wind.

The warmth is but a memory, as are most treasured things, but I no longer resent or reproach it for its passing, for I hold in myself the imprint of something so rare and precious, that of the experience. For all that I have lost, I have memories of so many adventures, and God willing, more to be made.  

Back inside, I shook the snow off my boots onto the entryway rug, the warmth wrapped around me even as the wind outside began to howl. I heard a sound outside the window as the neighbors two doors down let their dog out before the worst of the storm. I heard the bark of their dog as it was released, then the shouts as it was called back in from the yard, tattered shreds and remnants of voices snatched past the ear, followed by silence. 

As water heated for tea, I picked up a book from the stack, the black cover well-worn with use, the simple title imprinted in gold.  I read as I waited for my husband to call while the dog snored happily on the couch. Just as I did as a child, I looked upwards and said thank you, for this moment, as time gathered itself back up and started ticking again. 

Today, the cold seems omnipotent, but soon there will be warmth, new life, and new memories. I can' help but think back to the words Superman said of the letter displayed on his chest - "It's not an S, on my world it means hope". 

 - Brigid

Musings from Chiberia

  "In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer". - Albert Camus

Minus 32 here today with the wind chill - a good day to make soup, bake bread, and keep near the stove.  Northern Illinois has only an inch or two of snow forecast, no freezing rain or ice, for which we are grateful.  Be safe out there.  Brigid

Things That Go Bump in the Night

Chapter 53 - Things That Go Bump in the Night - From True Course - Lessons From a Life Aloft.  Independent Author Network Book of the Year Non-Fiction

An aircraft engine has as many variances of sound as a human.  There are satisfied hums, deep-throated snarls, and the incessant whine of someone who is never satisfied, no matter what you do for them.  Then, there is that sound, in and of itself, the sound of an aircraft engine over the ocean at night, when there is not enough fuel to turn back, only to go forward to a faraway shore.

The sea is a broad expanse that neither the eye nor voice can span, and when it's calm, it lulls you into a false sense of comfort as the engines hum, and you gaze out the window with a clear, unconscious eye. You are not pondering thoughts that come to you poignant and silent, the order of your conscience, the conduct of life, and if there really is a proper way to die.  You are not thinking of the operational capacities of a BKM hydraulic pump or your own limitations.  No, you are thinking about the really cold beer you will have at the end of a day and the laughter of companionship.  That is when you hear it, or think you hear it. That sound.

“Oh, that's not right,” you think, and then you hear it again, that asthmatic thump.  As you check EPRs, pressures, and temperatures, somewhere in your head are the words: “An engine-driven, two-element (centrifugal and gear) fuel pump supplies high-pressure fuel to the engine. Loss of the gear element of the fuel pump will result in a flameout.”  You feel no fear, only annoyance, at the callous outcry of machinery and cold water that have caught you unawares, making you give up your daydream of cold beer and warm skin and confirming, unreasonably, your fondness for narrow escapes.

Then it is gone if it ever occurred at all except in your mind, the engine only emitting a steady, slow hum, like somnolent bees.  But your senses are back on red alert, that seeming malfunction that the mind hears on such overwater trips, ministering to boldness as forged as its own pretense of fear. What is it to fly such a vast distance, one youngster asked me once. I replied, “It seems like five hundred minutes of boredom and one minute of stark terror.”

You either loved or hated your ship.  Aircraft, in general, are easy to fall in love with, with their ever-present potency and mysterious uncertainty.  Even as a child, I dreamed of them, watching them fly overhead, the contrails a heroic thread, the sun glinting on their promise. But they varied even within the same make and model, twins from different mothers.

Then there were the mornings when you went out to the flight line and there, on the tarmac, perched four large birds, three of them bright, shining, and gleaming, perfect in form.  And the fourth, older than the dirt upon it, with a stain of fluid on the ground underneath, the Scarlet Letter of hydraulic fluid (old airplanes didn’t leak fluid, they just marked their territory.)  Even if you got a good aircraft, there would be days they could be as unruly as a mule, refusing to start, to move, and occasionally willing to give you a swift kick.  It is sometimes the smallest of things that can be your undoing.

But it's not just your own craft turning on you that you have to be concerned about on such trips.  The weather over the ocean is its own continent.  Perhaps not so much now, but twenty-five years ago, when I was a pup with four stripes on my delicate shoulders that were not yet tarnished, weather planning for ocean crossing was less meteorology and more alchemy. I think about many long flights, our course drawn out with paper, not electronic blips of a satellite fix, a small x marking a fuel stop, a small cross marking our destination, a line marking the path—where we as pilgrims sought out that holy place, that grail of a full night's sleep.

I remember one flight that would have a stop on an island, a piece of land in the middle of an ocean, just big enough for a tourist's fat wallet and the occasional aircraft.  There was a great oceanic storm brewing off in the distance, but it was to have no impact on our flight path, according to all of the aviation weather experts.  Still, as the craft pitched ponderously in the air that was to have been still, even if the sky was clear, there was this nagging tickle at the back of my neck that said: “should have stayed in bed.”  As we passed the calculated point of go on or retreat back to the mainland, the controllers telling us it looked good ahead, the clouds began to build and form, not so huddled we couldn't easily pick our way through them with the right tilt of an antenna, but building nonetheless, and rapidly.

As we got within fifty miles of our destination, the clouds built themselves into 

full-blown thunderstorms, releasing their energy in broken bursts that boomed like the barrage of heavy artillery firing at a very small enemy. The air was full of flying water, heavy sheets of rain that extended well past the individual cells, landmines with updrafts and downdrafts I was trying to avoid.  It was supposed to be clear and sunny, with no alternate landing site required; our biggest concern was what food we could get before taking off again.

My copilot was very young and relatively inexperienced, not with the craft, as he was fully trained, but to this whole oceanic environment.  I could sense him getting pretty nervous.  I just smiled and said, “We're almost there.” There is no quitting in this sort of thing, and often there is no going back. You endure because you have a conviction in the truth of what you are doing.  Duty was not just a thing, but a name, that establishes the order, the mortality of conduct and the outcome.

“Skipper?” a gentle voice from my right.

We checked the weather for our landing destination. The wind was very heavy but not beyond the limits of my skill or the aircraft's proven handling, but it was going to be Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.  What concerned me more was the torrential rain, barely enough ceiling and visibility to land, “barely” being optimistic, but enough to make the precision instrument approach and hopefully see the required lighting. There were no other options when the nearest bit of land is hours past the fuel you have.

My copilot, upon hearing the terminal weather, gently stammered, “What are we going to do?”

We were either going to succeed, or we were going to be scorched by a flame that fate would flick at us without pity, with no time to utter any last words of faith or regret.  But I wasn't going to tell him that.

I gave him my sweetest smile and said simply:

 “We're going to land.”

And we did, dropping our nose and descending down into that somber wall of rain and gray that seemed the very stronghold of that small place we were trying to breach, picking up the runway there through the rain at the very last moment, the wind pounding us like surf. When we landed, my copilot wanted to kiss the ground. I simply gave my aircraft a grateful pat on the nose, like the trusty steed it was, as it stood there, trembling in the wind as if it had just run a great race.

I'd never quite seen weather change so violently and rapidly outside of the forecast. Apparently, Mr. “Giant Rotation of Water and Air” took a sharp bend in the hours we were aloft, pushing some weather up our way.  Not yet hurricane strength by any means, just the nasty stuff you generally try to avoid.

After that, I think I was owed my five hundred minutes of boredom and just wanted to go perch on a bar stool somewhere dry.

There have been many other storms, ones with premeditated gales of wind that seemed to have a fierce purpose all of their own—such a furious attentiveness in the howl and rush of air that it seemed to personally seek us out. But that did not summon in me a feeling of fear, but rather, a deep sense of awe in the power of our planet, though I was tempted to say a quick prayer to the Patron Saint of ailerons and rudder, if indeed, there was one.

There were days we left the ramp to launch into that deep sea that is the sky, no one to see us off, as in days of old, where the ships left port while some quiet mothers and anxious maidens cried and waved lace handkerchiefs as they dreamed undrowned dreams. We were on the move so much, most of us had no time for such ties, and our connections were brief sparks from cold stone, unexpected and as short-lived. For now, at least, we just had our crew and crew chief, who, while immensely competent, usually ate tacks for breakfast and was typically as excited to see us arrive as my house cat was when I came home.

There were days of fierce delights, of sunlight that bounced off the nose, like some weaponized ray of an alien craft, its power deflected by mere sheet metal, and more relays that anyone knew (seriously, when they built this craft, SOMEONE was having a sale on relays.) There were nights we hung motionless in the air, with no sense of motion, ourselves a futuristic craft that flew beyond a brace of suns into the darkness, awaiting the kiss of imminent adventures.

It was also long and hard work.  It was machinery that would break in a place of isolation requiring repairs, with a manual you wished you had brought with you, which was like trying to explain the order of the universe with one brief, hazy glimpse of truth. It was heat and cold, pain, and pressure. It was learning to trust equally providence and the immutable laws of physics.  But its reward was great.

I understood the conjured diplomacy of the relationship between earth and sky, alive to its looming dangers and measured mercies.  I bore the power of the atmosphere and the criticism of others, the levy of duty, and the common severity of the tasks that build a backbone and enable you to break bread.  It's a life that will check the edge of your temper and the point of your command; that will affirm the character of your fight and the hidden truth of your fears. It's a life that beguiles as it disenchants, a life that frees you even as you willingly let it enslave you.

Our world was long drawn-out days, a future that disappeared moment by moment into history, and days that fell forever into the arms of the sea or drifted down upon deserts or mountains where they caught and hung on the landscape like clouds. Our world was one aircraft that fired up with a belch of smoke, then hung there, lonely under that smoke, till we were released with a quick salute.

It was an orderly world that revolved around a specific, precise, and measured way of doing something, while working in an environment that cared little about either precision or order.  You were trained in every possible outcome, only to find that one circumstance that wasn't like you were trained for.  Then you discover the most unyielding of haunts of man's own nature, wrapped up in a question like rolled steel, more chilling than your brief mortality.  And that is the distrust of the absolute power consecrated in an established standard of conduct. You can go off the path, right? Boldly go where no man has gone before.  It works out in the movies, doesn't it? Then, in that instant between heroism and insanity, you realize what you are made of, for the only thing that will save you is that trust, and you take off your cowboy hat, get out that checklist, and do what is expected of you.

I don't miss it, and I do, there on those nights, when the golden blaze of sunset bites into the rim of the earth and the night casts its shadow upon me.  On such nights, I see the form of an aircraft overhead, not the modern airliner, but a craft that's seen some battles, one with ancient radios and tired rigging, visible there in the last remnant of light.  I don't see them often, but when I do, I simply stand there in that slant of light, the form moving away to the heart of a sky that is its own vast enigma. Only the moon now watches me, hanging in the sky like a slender shaving of pale wood. I watch that aircraft until it's only a flash of a strobe, one that captures all that last bit of light in the sky, disappearing into the darkness, gone, even as it's forever contained in the center of it.

The sky is an incomplete story and for that I am grateful. -  L.B. "Brigid" Johnson