50 words for rain on the roof?

Fallen leaves marinate in the rainwater pooling on the Nuthatch’s deck rail this morning.

CAN YOU HAVE AN URBAN MYTH about the Arctic bush? When does it become a Rural Myth?

The myth I’m thinking of is the one about Eskimos or Inuits having 50 words for “snow.” Or is it 500? Is it, in fact, just a myth?

I swerved back and forth over this fogline of thought early this morning as I lay in bed after a long night of rain.

The Nuthatch has a metal roof. Practical and durable for a wet climate. Safer than wood shakes in the summer fire season. It happens that my bed in the loft is situated such that my head is right up against the inside of that roof, with only some knotty pine, a bit of insulation and a veneer of plywood and tar paper intervening. So when it rains, I hear it.

Here’s the jack o’lantern I carved on Wednesday, before the rains. Good news in the forecast: Sunday is supposed to be dry and warm. Happy Halloween!

Usually, it’s soothing. Last night, it was pretty damn loud.

As my Pacific Northwest neighbors know, we’re having a soggy week, and it’s not over yet. For the Seattle suburbs, the National Weather Service forecasts up to 2 inches of rain tonight. There’s a flood watch in effect. Even my rain-shadowy San Juans could get another inch in the next 18 hours, they say. Normally, this corner of the continent is the drizzle capital of North America.

Last night on Center Island I heard the rain start in the wee hours and continue until I arose around 7:15. For hours on end water seemed to spray from a great firehose in the sky.

As I lay in that limbo zone between groggy sleep and hoping that Galley Cat would finally get up first and make the coffee, I came up with this list of terms for rain on my roof, based on the sound effect.

POUNDING: This is a new one I invented last night. Been to the symphony? Know what tympani are? It wasn’t a good night’s rest. Thankfully rare, though with climate change, who knows.

DRUMMING: This term is more common, denoting steady precip. Familiar in poetry and song. Think “Little Drummer Boy” and “rum-pum-pum-pum.” We get it now and then.

PATTERING: Here’s where I’m lulled to pleasant sleep, with the satisfying feeling of being safe and warm inside my cozy cabin. The trees and moss outside are finally getting the moisture they need. Common here in spring and autumn when the forecast calls for those ubiquitous “showers.”

DRIPPING: See “Pattering,” just not so definitive. The preamble, perhaps. A nagging reminder to clean the gutters, which filled with fallen leaves and fir needles in Tuesday’s big wind storm.

OK, four isn’t fifty. It’s a work in progress. But the rainy season has only just begun.

It’s the bomb (cyclone)

That’s my street, where autumn leaves blazed into color late this year. Most will likely blow away in this storm.

I’M HUNKERED DOWN THIS OCTOBER SUNDAY in Wee Nooke, my tongue-in-cheekily named writing hut on the rocky knoll behind my cabin, and the cyclone has arrived.

A far edge of the cyclone, anyway.

I feel pretty safe and, with an under-the-desk electric radiator roasting my feet, cozy. My 6-by-6-foot cedar shack sits in a mossy clearing, clear of falling branches. But as I look out my windows the trees are definitely dancing, as Barbara always described it.

The media is full of headlines about this Bomb Cyclone, a term that evolved from “bombogenesis,” which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration calls “a phenomenon that occurs when a mid-latitude cyclone rapidly intensifies, dropping at least 24 millibars over 24 hours.” Headlines in some of the more sensationalist media are greatly overstating the severity, especially the American version of Rupert Murdoch’s British tabloid, The Sun, which shouts “Seattle to be hit by BRUTAL (sic) subzero weather storm that will ‘rival a hurricane’.”

Yeah, right. Local news media say Seattle will experience relatively mild storm conditions. The idea that temperatures will be “subzero” is some bored headline writer’s fantasy. (It is the season for magic mushrooms in the woods.) Last I looked, the National Weather Service reported that Seattle’s temperature was 57 degrees F.

Tracking winds and weather is an obsession among us Center Islanders. No big surprise there, considering how reliant we are on boats or planes to get us anywhere but here. I love my classic 1957 runabout, but WeLike isn’t a rough-weather boat. I don’t leave the dock if there are whitecaps, which generally occur with winds of 13 mph or greater. (For the nautically obsessed, that’s Force 4 on the Beaufort Scale, on which Force 12 is called a hurricane.) In high winds and roiling currents, WeLike can rock and roll to rival Mick Jagger.

So how do we get our wind predictions? Practically everyone I know uses a smartphone app called Windy.

As a card-carrying Luddite (well, we would make cards if an electronic printer wasn’t required), I’ve rebelled against “apps” since the first techie child decided it was too much trouble to use the full word “application.” But with Windy, I’ve totally caved. In fact, I shell out $20 a year to get the upgraded hourly forecast rather than the free summary that is limited to measly three-hour periods. The localized forecasts’ accuracy is impressive.

This screenshot from Windy.com shows the whirling winds off the Washington coast on Sunday. The gray flag at upper right pinpoints Center Island, noting windspeed and direction.

Today, the Windy map shows a huge, scary spiral of counterclockwise winds off the Washington coast, centered 280 miles offshore and whirling toward British Columbia. Much of it is bypassing Seattle, but the San Juan Islands are picking up more of the storm’s fringes. As I write, we have steady winds of 25 to 30 mph out of the southeast, drawn by the offshore maelstrom.

The good news for Nuthatchers, me and Galley, is that we’re on the west-southwest quadrant of Center Island, so we’re not getting the brunt of those southeast winds.

And, frankly, winds of this magnitude are no big deal for us, in most respects. We’ll get this kind of windstorm four times in January. What sets this apart is that it’s only October. We should still be enjoying some sunny fall days.

The sobering factor to Windy’s forecast for the next 24 hours: Starting at 9 p.m. and continuing through the 6 p.m. hour tomorrow, my island is supposed to get nonstop winds exceeding 30 mph. Gusts will near 50. That’s a war of attrition on our tall trees. I won’t be surprised if some come down.

A saving grace: We’re getting little rain with the storm, whereas the outer coast expects dumping rain and flooding. And this early in the season, after a summer drought, our ground isn’t yet softened by saturation.

I’m as ready as can be. WeLike is out of the water, on a trailer, in as safe a spot as possible. I chopped a lot of firewood and kindling these past few days, so heat won’t be a worry (even if those subzero temperatures arrive). If power goes out for long, I have a generator, which I fired up two days ago for a pre-winter check, so I can keep my fridge going. And I did a major shopping expedition this week to Costco, Fred Meyer and Trader Joe’s. The pantry overfloweth.

So, bring it on, if we must. Wish us luck against falling firs. On behalf of me and my app-loving neighbors (and I ask your forgiveness), I leave you with this earworm, of which I owned the 45-rpm vinyl back in the day: The Association’s 1967 mellow-rock hit, “Everyone knows its Windy.”

Solitude and good company

Friends Dave and Jill Kern met the barn cat when we visited Lopez Island’s Horse Drawn Farm last week.

I HAVEN’T LIVED ALONE since I had my crummy little apartment connected to the beauty parlor on 10th Street in Mount Vernon. It became a much nicer apartment when Barbara moved in after we married in December 1979. We were there together for only a few months before our first cat, Bing, adopted us by coming to our door and meowing as if the building was on fire, then marching right in like he owned the place. Suddenly we had a Maine Coon kitten. We became cat people by default.

But we were soon willing to face eviction for Bing, since the crummy apartment’s landlord didn’t allow pets (could they make the place crummier?). Called on the (threadbare) carpet, we moved to a larger, newer apartment a mile or so away. I would describe it as, um, crappy.

We loved the Skagit Valley, and my young spouse worked two jobs to supplement the pittance I made as news editor of the local weekly. But ultimately our relative poverty and the quality of our apartment living had a lot to do with my decision to go to graduate school, hoping to improve our lot in life.

So 40 years ago this autumn Barbara and I moved to Chicago, a place she would badmouth with gusto until just about her dying day. Much of that had to do with my leaving her there on her own winter quarter when I went away to take part in Medill School of Journalism’s Washington, D.C., program. She couldn’t accompany me; her job at the Northwestern University library was paying our bills. She called it her PHT (Putting Him Through) degree.

Of course, Chicago produced a record-cold winter, and she had to trudge to work with a six-foot woolen scarf wrapped entirely around her head. For years, it made for a funny story to share with friends over a glass or three of good wine. But she never forgave me.

Throughout our 41 years of marriage, that was the longest period that we were separated. Until last April. It’s been six months since she died in the Nuthatch Cabin’s front room.

Now it’s October. I live on a small, isolated island. Wind and rain have chased most neighbors to the mainland for the winter.

Solitude doesn’t suit me the way it does some. After living with my best friend for 41 years, I guess that makes sense. “How are you doing?” people ask. I know they mean “without her.”

The answer is, I’m coping, more or less. I get out of bed every day. I exercise. I read, I write, I cook. I run to the top of the rocky knoll with Galley Cat, who is my little ginger-colored bundle of joy (who only occasionally bites if I pet her too hard).

So I’m not entirely alone. I say good morning every day to Barbara’s photo, the sexy, come-hither image she mailed me when I was 18 and gone to Florida for college. On the back of the black-and-white print that she made in her own darkroom is penciled “Hey, Sailor!” Her distinctive, curlicued script can bring me a smile or a tear, depending on the mood.

I’m not alone, though. I’ve got the feline housemate, who is a bit of a bed pig. I have the birds who are mobbing the feeder this time of year, perhaps presaging the La Niña winter we’re being warned about. Nuthatches and Chickadees go back and forth as fast as their flappy little wings will carry them, caching hundreds of sunflower seeds in the wrinkly bark of my big Doug firs. Or there is the oversized Hairy Woodpecker swinging from the suet cages like a fat teenager trying out the playground’s baby swings.

A Northern Flicker came to visit, dressed in his finery.

A pretty Northern Flicker joined the crowd the other day. We get them once in a while. They always remind me of an English lord in a morning coat and spotted silk vest.

I Skype nightly with my loving daughter. And friends and loved ones visit. Last week old friends Dave and Jill Kern, whom Barbara and I knew in our Vancouver, Wash., days, came up and stayed a couple nights on Lopez Island. We toured Lopez together and I brought them out on WeLike for grilled burgers at the cabin. Dave, a treasured colleague of mine at The Columbian newspaper, is in his 70s now. My favorite memory was his 40th birthday, when Barbara and I rented a big Lincoln and took Dave and Jill to dinner at Nick’s, a famed Italian bistro in Willamette Valley wine country, west of Portland. Since we then considered 40 to be essentially life’s end, on the homeward drive I played and replayed a cassette tape of rocker Barry McGuire’s fatalistic Cold War anthem, “Eve of Destruction.” It rocked the Town Car with the stereo turned on “stun.”

Company is good, along with fun memories. Solitude, I’m forced to cope with.

I am who I am: 5 quick poems

Center Island deer have worked their way into my consciousness. See the poem below.

I’M ENVIOUS of something my friend Daniel has done in retirement. For many months, he has participated in a writing class sponsored by the senior center in Olympia. The instructor has challenged his class with countless assignments in which they delve into their past. As Daniel has shared many of those pieces I’ve learned much more than I’ve ever known about my longtime friend, a long-ago college roommate as well as best man at my wedding. And I’ve watched his writing talents soar.

A recent assignment was a little different. The writers were instructed to compose five quick poems, at least eight lines apiece and no more than 10, with each line beginning “I am…” and completing with a metaphor. Writing time limit: 10 minutes per poem.

It sounded like an intriguing challenge. I decided to try it, and I kind of surprised myself. The time limit strips you bare, prohibiting careful introspection.

Here’s what I came up with. Some of the themes: my feelings of loss, in both personal life and career; aging and widower-hood; my love of nature; my feeling of facing a blank slate, with the scary option to reinvent myself. Other stuff you can figure out.

I AM A WANDERING DEER, munching the tenderest leaves I can reach.

I am the sire teaching his fawn the ways of the wood.

I am the bereft mate, left when hunters shot without regard.

I am the angry buck, clashing antlers with bullies from across the island.

I am a tamed follower of trodden paths.

I am an aimless animal who lunges through ferns.

I am nature’s howl.

I am a wild thing who dances in the moonlight, forever.

I AM A FULLY RIGGED SAILBOAT on a wild beam reach.

I am the lazy seal watching it go by.

I am the eel grass, nourishing life.

I am the papa orca harried by tourist boats.

I am the baby orca leaping for joy as cameras click.

I am phytoplankton, glowing in the dark only if you look.

I am a pretty reef, dangerous if you hit me.

I am a finely balanced compass, never lost at sea.

I AM A WIDE-EYED CHILD sitting by a wall.

I am Father Time scribbling in a notebook.

I am the storyteller with a rapt audience.

I am the screenwriter washing cars and pumping gas.

I am the air traveler boasting of his million miles.

I am the tour guide who knows all the corny jokes.

I am Marco Polo, lost in Mongolia.

I am the streaky old pen, running out of ink.

I AM THE TRAIN you rode yesterday, when getting there mattered.

I am a whiff of wood smoke, lost on the wind.

I am the rain you wished we had, but now there’s no umbrella.

I am the salt without the pepper, and remember when we had oregano?

I am an old favorite dish, and you’ll have me again. Soon.

I am the fresh green broccoli turning yellow in the fridge.

I am the trousers that used to fit.

I am washed, folded and put away, and now what do you do with the dryer sheet?

I AM A NEW CHEVY just off the production line, and forget the old Dodge.

I am the odometer set at 000000.

I am the new-car smell.

I am the first bend in the road up into the mountains you love.

I am the hybrid, with fewer stops at the pump.

I am the blank travel log you just tucked into the glove box.

I am the hot wheels flying off a cliff, and kids do not try this at home.

I am the miles to go before you sleep.