We must have been perfectly prepared for the storm: in line with Murphy’s Law, we didn’t even get any actual ice. Snow, sleet, freezing rain, slush, some wind. That’s it.
Nothing like what we remembered from Indiana 17 years ago. Which was, you know, good. I’m sure my foresight will be duly rewarded on some other occasion, hopefully one that doesn’t threaten life or limb.
As far as I can tell, we’re as prepared as we can be for the ice storm expected to hit the DC area any minute now. It’s supposed to rain and freeze all night, and I fully expect to wake up to a house without power. Our town is full of trees: lots of beautiful old trees growing under, over, on and around power lines. When we moved in last spring, one of our neighbors told us that anytime there’s weather in this region that causes power outages, it’s pretty much guaranteed that our town will be out.
So, we’re expecting to deal with that tomorrow, although I’m prepared to be pleasantly surprised. The best case scenario would be if we had power and yet the federal government was closed, but I’m not holding my breath for that one.
At any rate, we have food, we have water, we have batteries, flashlights, candles, matches, two snow shovels, fire starter sticks (but no firewood; I’m hoping to rely on neighbors if that becomes necessary), a battery-powered radio, and a carton of rice milk. The biggest challenge will be getting coffee; I’m hoping it won’t come to making it with hot water from the tap (our water heater runs on gas). But if that’s what I have to do, that’s what I have to do.
On my trip to Oregon last month, I was eager to visit the coast, and chose Cape Meares as the destination for a day trip. Although Cape Meares is best known for its offshore nesting bird colonies, it’s also lovely in the winter. We hiked a short trail from the lighthouse, through old growth, and then toodled on down the coast to Netarts and along the Tillamook River to check out the winter sights.
All of the below photos were taken on my seven-year-old Yashica T4, which I still love and am relying on again during this time of waiting for my Konica to come back from the shop.
Three Arches Rock, from the trail.
Cavity in a tree stump.
Snow on the trail.
Walking between huge old trees.
View of the ocean, from the trail.
Snow-covered moss on a tree trunk.
Trail, on the way back down.
Last view of the ocean, before heading back to the lighthouse.
Beach at Netarts.
Having spent so many years in places where winter starts on November 1st, it’s still somewhat shocking to me to have winter come in with a vengeance in February. I’ve already adjusted to the idea that winter is mild, it’s in the 30s, blah blah blah and then, wham! Suddenly my hair is standing on end from static electricity, I’m slathering on body butter like there’s no tomorrow, and I can’t work in the basement for longer than an hour or so without starting to chatter. I’ve taken to wearing my silk long johns in the house, along with slippers and the standard several layers of wool, because (as I’m sure is the case everywhere) natural gas rates are still going up up up. I haven’t quite gotten to the hat stage, but if I had some of those oh-so-punk-rock fingerless gloves, I wouldn’t be above putting them on.
Along with all of this comes the inevitable sinus infection. This year’s isn’t so bad, but it’s dragging and I’d really rather just not have any more head congestion. Enter my nemesis: the Neti pot. I have been (strongly) encouraged by my acupuncturist to use the Neti pot to clear out my sinuses and prevent a lingering low grade infection. And, I have used it before, and it’s not unbearable (8 years of competitive swimming left me with a chronic shoulder injury and the ability to control the flow of air through my nose in pretty much any way you might come up with). It’s just not that fun, and it’s a pretty ignoble endeavor, bending over a sink to pour salt water into your nostril. Yeah. Not to mention kind of messy.
But, in the interest of remaining off of antibiotics, I will get out the little pot, polish it up, and follow the recommendation of the person I pay for such advice.
Right after I put on another sweater.
For the past two and a half years now, I have been getting acupuncture treatments with five element acupuncture practitioners. All of the people I’ve seen at Crossings graduated from the same school of acupuncture here in Maryland. Five element acupuncture is a variant of traditional Chinese medicine (I’ve heard it described as ‘Chinese acupuncture using Japanese needles’), although I don’t know enough about these fields to say more than that.
One thing I’ve liked with this style of medicine is the way in which the diagnosis and treatment resemble a logic puzzle, which, as the daughter of a mathematician, I have always enjoyed. From symptoms and patterns that may be the same in a variety of people, the acupuncturist determines the causative or constitutive factor of the imbalance. What this means, in my lay interpretation, is that the imbalance may manifest as symptoms in any element, but the root will lie in the element that is dominant or formative for the person. Each of the five elements is associated with various factors, for example an emotion, a time of year, and a color. There’s plenty written about this, in both more clear lay person terms and in more accurate technical ones; I apologize for vagaries of understanding or expression in this brief synopsis.
I bring all this up because winter, the season we’re currently in, is the season that corresponds with my constitutive factor, which is water. For me, with my auto-immune thyroid disease and history of structural alignment issues, the imbalances have been varied, but treatment in water has had the most success in improving my overall health and constitution. In terms of the logic puzzle aspect, reading a description of the seasonal element (provided by the folks at Crossings) is a bit like reading a description of your astrological sign: it’s eerily familiar, and it brings into the light things about yourself that you wouldn’t have listed if asked, but which are clearly there when called to your attention.
When I read that description, the concept of holding two opposites in the same vessel particularly resonates with me, even in as simple a way as my relationship to the season. For many years, winter has been my favorite season. I love the crisp air, the colors, the quality of the light, the clarity of the moon and stars, the starkness of the landscape, and all of the activities that come with it, from playing in the snow to the baking and cooking of winter foods. Yet, I was hardly ever truly comfortable during the winter season: I became cold very easily and found it difficult to impossible at times to warm up again, and I suffered from incredibly dry skin. Since my thyroid disease has been diagnosed and properly treated, I’ve learned that both of these difficulties are common with low thyroid function: the ability of the body to internally regulate temperature (I had inverse problems of being easily over-heated in the summer) and to use water ‘properly’ in systemic maintenance. What is interesting to me, then, is the correlation with an imbalance in the water element in the physiological symptoms I had, but also the way in which I mentally and emotionally enjoy the season even with the attendant physical discomforts.
To sum up, I gain a great deal of nerdy pleasure from discovering the layered ways in which my physiological experiences, my western medical diagnosis of disease, and my acupuncture treatments align. The convergence is remarkably intellectually satisfying to me. And, unlike many people I know, I find that I have absolutely no curiosity about the mechanics of acupuncture. The system is clearly described, internally consistent, and I am more healthy than I’ve been in years, even by the measures of western medicine. That’s good enough for me.