Life, death, COVID and recovery among the wonders of winter

LAST NIGHT AS I WATCHED NETFLIX between frequent refueling of my cabin’s woodstove on a frozen February eve, outside the Nuthatch’s dark windows new snow came unbeknownst to me. It arrived secretly and silently, as if on little cat feet.

OK, apologies to Carl Sandburg. But I did get a poetic surprise when I peered out of the sliding door at bedtime and discovered the pristine new blanket of white seamlessly spread like a puffy down comforter across my deck.

FOG

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

Carl Sandburg

No flakes were falling then. They had come while I wasn’t looking, anointing my island with a fresh and lovely purity.

This is the peaceful time of a San Juan Islands winter. No raging winds, no worries of losing lights and firing up generators.

This morning I relished the view from my loft. Having trundled back to bed with a gripping Michael Connelly novel, fragrantly fresh-ground coffee, and toast satisfyingly smeared with avocado, I watched through my front wall of windows as sunshine first lit the tall firs’ white-frosted branches.

Ahhhh.

I have a certain license to be lazy, and it’s kind of nice. On a phone consult yesterday, my Seattle hematologist told me it could be six months before my hemoglobin levels return to normal after a bleeding ulcer sapped my energies at Christmas. It means I’m anemic. So I’m giving myself permission to take it kind of easy. To devote myself to eating and sleeping well. Gradually building up my exercise routine.

I’m dedicated to all that once again after a drastic diversion last week. My dear Aunt Jeanne McLean, my mother’s youngest sibling and the last survivor of that family’s five children, died at age 96. I made the pilgrimage to South Dakota for her funeral.

I debated whether I was strong enough to travel, but my family had always been close to my aunt and her family. As a teen I had invested paper-route money in a Greyhound ticket from Seattle to visit the Dakota relatives on my own. I wanted to go now. I needed to go.

My brother Doug, who would also attend the funeral, made it easy for me. His partner, Lori, whose career tasks included travel arrangements for a globe-trotting employer, suggested I hop a direct flight on Alaska Airlines from Seattle to Denver. Doug would drive from their home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to meet me and we would have a brotherly 400-mile road trip from Denver to Rapid City in his new Outback, sharing hotel rooms along the way.

Smiling weather gods gave us a week of sunshine, the funeral service was nicely done, and reconnecting with cousins from across the West was soul-nourishing.

I moved more slowly through airports than is my norm, but I managed fine. And my brother and I saw a whole lot of scenery, from the snow-frosted Colorado Rockies, to the wide, wide wilds of Wyoming, to South Dakota’s beautiful Black Hills.

I returned to the Nuthatch last Saturday just ahead of the snow, and I’m happy to hunker down here again. I’ve returned to what amounts to a Center Island COVID epidemic, affecting at least eight of my neighbors, some 50 percent of our winter population. So I’m being more of a hermit than usual.

That’s OK, Galley Cat is keeping me company. I hope my fellow islanders feel better soon. I plan on staying warm. I plan on staying well. Wishing the same for you.