The Melody of the Mountain

By: | July 14, 2023

This past weekend, I climbed Glacier Peak with a friend of mine. Glacier Peak is Washington’s fourth-highest mountain, and also one of the state’s five stratovolcanoes. (Perhaps you’ve heard of one of the others; I know I have.) What distinguishes Glacier Peak among its volcanic kin is its remoteness. It is at the eastern edge of Snohomish County, and you can’t see it from any of the major highways and byways unless you really know where to look. Also, the approach to the start of the standard climbing route is at least twelve miles long, depending on where you set up your high camp. Some of this hike is through lovely cool evergreen forest, and some of it is through lovely open alpine meadows, but a lot of it is just up up up a series of unrelenting switchbacks. Then, of course, there is the climb itself: five miles and four thousand feet of glacier and mountain until you reach the summit.

All of which is to say that, for me, there is a fair amount of slow trudging. I wish I could claim this gave me a chance to savor the sights, sounds, and smells of the various habitats I trudged through. Instead, when I trudge, my mind inevitably finds a musical figure to play over and over and over, so that my steps can serve as a metronome, since they are, after all, already ploddingly metronomic.

I trained as a classical pianist when I was younger, and for the longest time the piece I turned to for extended trudges was Beethoven’s 32 Variations in C minor. The theme, just eight measures long, is a haughty melody over stern chords that descend a chromatic scale, but the first three variations are comparatively light and quick, as those chords are arpeggiated with repeated notes and then exchanged between the hands. These variations could accommodate a range of walking speeds, my steps falling on various beats as the needs of my heart and lungs dictated.  

Beethoven served me well on hikes and climbs and treks for years. But I’m older now, and slower, so for Glacier Peak my mind added a new piece to its repertoire: J.S. Bach’s Prelude in F minor from Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier. I was primed, having just started learning the piece a couple of weeks before after hearing it on a commercial or podcast or something. But it suited the trip well: it is slow, smooth, and somewhat plaintive, while also, in its way, relentless, an exercise in quiet perpetual motion. Playing it, you never really get a chance to stop and collect yourself; Bach is always asking one hand or the other to keep the steady pace of sixteenth notes. Oh, you might pause slightly, bring some thought to its conclusion, but by then the next phrase has already begun. One writer described the piece as having an “awe-inspiring sense of inevitability.” Maybe there’s a metaphor in that, or maybe it’s the elevation getting to me, but the notes keep moving, and moving, the tension building, breathless almost, until, before you know it, there you are, at that loveliest of closes: the Picardy third. And the view isn’t bad, either.

Photos by the author

There are Two Kinds of People: Those Who Make Their Beds and Those Who Don’t

By: | July 12, 2023

I was at the pharmacy the other day, waiting for my flu shot, when I spotted a book called Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life…And Maybe the World. It was written by a retired U.S. Navy Admiral. In his tongue in cheek synopsis of the book at the Guardian, John Crace explains that the admiral learned about the importance of bed-making during Naval SEAL training camp:

Every morning, we would have to make our beds. If the task wasn’t done properly, we would be sent on a 10-mile run. Making my bed taught me the importance of getting my day off to a good start. Years later, when we finally captured Saddam Hussein in Iraq, I was intrigued to notice that he had never made his bed. It’s that kind of laziness that can lead to the downfall of any dictator.

Which is exactly the kind of thing that a bed-maker would say. As if folding sheets and positioning pillows could impose order and predictability on a chaotic, uncertain world.

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who get up every morning and make their beds, and the people who don’t bother. In case it’s not obvious yet, I’m one of the latter.

It didn’t occur to me that bed-making was such a telling detail about a person until I noticed that my friend Rosemerry’s bed is always perfectly made. I asked her if she made her bed every day, and she confirmed that she does. I confided that I never make my bed. (Technically it’s not just my bed or hers. We both have spouses who share our beds, but they follow our habits.)

Rosemerry also has a tidy desk and a tidy closet and a tidy house. I asked her why she makes her bed and she said that her parents trained her to do it in second grade by promising to get her the canopy bed she coveted if she would make her bed every day for 30 days. “After that, I always made my bed,” she said. “I like the way it makes the room feel neat.” Living in an efficiency apartment during grad school reinforced the habit — she hated having an unmade bed in the middle of her living space. Now, she said, “I think it marks the end of the night and the beginning of the day. It’s a ritual. Symbolic. Let’s do this!”

I understand the benefits of having a morning ritual, but mine — a walk up the hill with my husband and our dog — feels a lot more useful and productive. My walk gets my heart pumping, helps me clear my head and connects me to my loved ones and my place. Making a bed, on the other hand, feels like a useless task.

What’s the point? My bed is used for three thing: sleeping, sex and sorting/folding clean laundry. A made bed is unwelcoming to the first two tasks, and for the third, I simply throw the comforter into a position that provides ample space for the laundry pile and it’s all good.

Admiral Bed-Maker argues that making your bed isn’t pointless. It means that by the time you leave your bedroom in the morning “you will have accomplished the first task of the day.’’ And that, he said, “will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task, and another, and another.” By the end of the day, he said, “that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed.”

To which I say, well, maybe that’s how it feels if you’re a bed-making type. If you’re like me, doing a bunch of tasks first thing just makes you feel justified in slacking off later in the day. What I notice when I go running before work is that I start the day with a great sense of accomplishment. I’m also a little tired and I feel entitled to take an early lunch. I’m not sure my overall day becomes any more productive. I do think I eat more snacks.

As a non-bed-maker, I have some science on my side, though I’ll admit it’s not conclusive. A 2001 paper titled, “The well-made bed: an unappreciated public health risk,” highlights “the hazardous habit of bed-making, pandemic in North America. Not only is this recently evolved practice unhygienic, the mechanics of straightening the corners and fluffing the pillows is physically injurious and adversely affects the mental well-being of our population,” the authors write. “A well-made bed is a fertile breeding ground for bacteria, fungi and other vermin.”

Yes, they’re being jokey about the dangers of pathogens like “Strip Bucknakedus” and injuries like “sheet turner’s wrist,” but an actual study from researchers at the Kingston University concluded that dust mites (which can provoke allergies) cannot survive in the dry conditions found in an unmade bed. “Leaving a bed unmade during the day can remove moisture from the sheets and mattress so the mites will dehydrate and eventually die,” study author Stephen Pretlove told the BBC.

Some researchers have dismissed the dust mite study’s conclusions, saying that many houses may have enough humidity to host the mites, whether or not the bed is made. Also on the pro bed-making side: a series of studies suggesting that meaningless rituals (like performing a series of random gestures) might help people increase their feelings of self-discipline. Cool, if you’re into that.

The internet is full of discussions about the merits of a bed-making habit, and what I see when I read them is that the purported benefits of making the bed appeal to people who derive a sense of agency and comfort by imposing some kind of order in their lives. And the reasons to skip making the bed convince the people who accept that the world is full of chaos and who don’t value order for order’s sake. I’m not convinced that bed-making can turn one kind of person into another.

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This post first ran on  November 12, 2018.

Snapshot: Overthinking lawn decor

By: | July 10, 2023

In June I spent a few days in the suburbs just east of Oceanside, California. (I actually just dedicated five minutes to figuring out whether it was actually Oceanside or Carlsbad, or Encintas, or Lake San Marcos, but we stayed in a nondescript chain hotel — a Hampton Inn? a Holiday Inn? a Marriott? — and all I remembered was that it was next to a Home Depot, of which there are also a zillion, so I gave up on searching.) Everything around us was connected by perfectly paved four- to six-lane roads, with few sidewalks and no pedestrians. One morning I’d gotten up at 5am and decided to take a walk, and the only option I could identify was a little neighborhood right across the street from the hotel. I walked up the hill, savoring the quiet and appreciating the plants we don’t have up here in Seattle: birds of paradise, palms, succulents galore. The houses were enormous and mostly looked the same; I expected the interiors to look something like the inside of a Cheesecake Factory. There were Mercedes and BMWs in the driveways.

I saw this sign in a garden alongside echeveria and aloe. I’ve heard the platitude before, I could not stop thinking about it.

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The Trifecta, Or, How to Haunt Yourself for Years to Come

By: | July 7, 2023
Black and white photo of a bedsheet ghost standing outside in the grass. The person is small, and their white sneakers can be seen. They are glowing faintly.

In 2016 my editor assigned me an article about a then-recently identified genetic association between three medical conditions: postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), hypermobile Ehlers Danlos syndrome (hEDS), and mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS).

As it so happens, I have all three of these. After minimal reflection, I decided to take a journalistic risk and write the story in the first person, including some information about my own illness experience. I talked about my bizarre sunlight allergy and joint dislocations, and the stress of not knowing when my immune system will detonate next.

I talked, too, about how the three conditions often come as a box set: people who have one of them are more likely to also have the others. In my article, I called this comorbid trio “the trifecta”— just my flippant way of emphasizing their interrelatedness.

Seven years have passed. In that time, scientific knowledge of all three conditions has advanced, albeit not as much as I’d like. My symptoms and daily experience have shifted, as has my relationship to my body. The way I talk about my illness—including whether I talk about my illness—has changed. I’m not embarrassed by the 2016 article, exactly, but if I were to write it today, I’d approach it very differently. “Still, what’s done is done,” I would say. Ordinarily.

But this damn article just will not rest.

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Small Rhythms

By: | July 5, 2023

My 16-year-old is leaving alone for a month of language school in Tokyo. Being born and raised outside of towns under population 700, closer to 300 in some cases, should put a dizzying spin on the experience. We’ve had epic urban adventures together, but not off this continent, certainly not in the vast compression of Tokyo. Send up a good thought for the kid because I’m understandably nervous. Meanwhile, I’m absolutely assured that they’ve got this.

I have three pieces of advice. You’ll be traveling solo, so double your wits about you. If you’re curious about something, if it draws your eye, explore farther. And, find small rhythms.

The latter is my joy. Helen Fields wrote about it for LWON last week with her sidewalk mulberries.

I advise that whatever rhythms you chance into, take note, brushing teeth at a wash basin before bed, sending out a text from the same place (to your dad), leaving the host family door and turning left (or right) to walk into the city. Every day you’ll spot the same odd street sign, blast of graffiti, or a constellation of gum stains on the sidewalk. Nod to them as you pass. Begin to detect the cadence in the encounters you have.

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An adventurous reunion

By: | July 3, 2023

My best friend lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Despite meeting her over Zoom every Saturday since 2018, I’ve only seen her in person a handful of times. So when she came to visit me this Spring we decided to do something deeply silly to celebrate. Ottawa is not known for its high sophistication, but we do, apparently, have a restaurant that serves 44-course dinners. The four-hour seating sounded perfect for a thorough catch-up.

I’ve walked past Atelier nearly every day for years thinking it was a condemned house. It’s just across from the Booth Street complex, the old Canadian government geology district that is being razed, and it had a grated window, no sign, and kind of a rusty staircase railing. Rough-blasted boulders form the yard. You have to know it’s there, is what I’m saying.

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Snapshot: Mulberries, Sidewalk

By: | June 30, 2023

It was a Wednesday morning, the last day in May. I’d been at the emergency room until the wee hours with a loved one and I needed to be asleep, but my brain had other plans.

Me: how about sleep?

Brain: Alternative proposal: how about obsessing over your problems, such as this loved one who is currently in the hospital?

Me: [sigh]

But I know a trick or two after 47 years in this brain, so after a while of trying to soothe it back to sleep with a book, I put on presentable clothes, tied my shoes, and took my brain and my body out for a walk.

I took one of my pandemic walking routes around the neighborhood. I don’t remember much about this walk, but I can tell by the evidence that I stopped to take a picture. I’ve lived around those black sidewalk smudges for decades, but only in the last couple of years have I realized that they are a sign to look up and stuff my face with mulberries. I don’t even remember if did that this time. I continued on to my local coffee shop, bought a latte, downed it, went back home, and conked out for a few more hours. (Like I said, I know some tricks about this brain.)

I haven’t had the chance to reflect on all that has happened in the last month, so I’m not reflecting on it here. I don’t have the brain space to think about anything else, either. I’m not even spending that much time outside. The mulberries did their thing mostly without me this year. I guess I’ll catch them in 2024.

photo: Helen Fields

June Gloomier

By: | June 28, 2023

If you have been at LWON for a while, you might have noticed that I post this one every year–because somehow, once again, it is June. And once again, it is gloomy. But things have been extra-cloudy this year, and people who don’t live in California have noticed! I mean, the Washington Post was even lamenting our gloom, so you know it’s been bad, with a solid month of fog in May and even some unseasonal rainstorms. (If you’re feeling too gloomy to read this post, there’s a charming explainer of how June Gloom works from the LA Times.)

But things are looking up. July will reportedly be flush with sunshine and even heat. Now, about those wildfires . . .

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I used to think the weather was something adults talked about because they were boring. And now that’s me, commiserating with neighbors about the state of our sky, which gave us a glorious, bluebird May and then rolled out a thick cloud carpet on the first day of June.

June Gloom isn’t just a Southern California phenomenon, and it doesn’t only happen in June. But perhaps we give it a name (and May Gray, and, in dire situations, No-sky July and Fogust) because we complain about it the most. The response from an Oregonian friend who visited this week: “Talk to the hand.”

(When I later looked at the Wikipedia entry for June Gloom, the authors concurred: “A similar phenomenon can occur in the Pacific Northwest between May and early July, though the phrase “June Gloom” is not nearly as commonly heard as it is in California due to the frequency of cloudy or overcast weather throughout the year in the Pacific Northwest.”)

Sam Iacobellis at Scripps Institution of Oceanography talked me through how SoCal’s gloom works.  Different parts of the coast offer their own complications, but generally speaking, the cold Pacific water—aided and abetted by the California Current and the upwelling—and a high pressure region, the Pacific High, conspire to form the marine layer clouds that some of us call gloom.

Usually, the atmosphere gets colder as you head up. But the cold water creates a situation where the air near the water’s surface is colder than the air above it: an inversion. The Pacific High pushes air downward, compressing it and warming it. Together, this forms a stable inversion air that can hold a layer of cloud near the water’s surface like an older brother crouching on an upstart sibling.

Gloom often dissipates in the afternoon, as sunshine warms air near the surface. The warmer air mixes into the clouds and starts to break them up.

Of course, there’s a lot more than that going on, too. The gloom is the home of a wild kind of cloud field called actinoform clouds, which, to a satellite’s eye, look like enormous leaves or pinwheels. And the ocean itself might be providing more than just cold water. Iodide released by kelp may turn into cloud condensation nuclei, which could make clouds thicker and more pervasive.

All this fascinating stuff doesn’t prevent me from being boring. But I also think I was a bit too harsh on weather as a conversational topic. Yes, it is something to talk about when there’s nothing left to say. Yet it’s also a shared experience that has the potential to affect everyone.

When someone I don’t know very well says, “this weather is making me crazy,” I feel like I really do understand, more than if she talked about how her kids or parents or work was setting her teeth on edge.

Weather connects me to other times, too. I can imagine the Chumash, who lived on this coast long before the rest of us showed up, standing on the bluffs when the clouds start to break up. Those first rays of sunshine feel so needed that it almost feels like my skin is consuming them; I wonder if one of them felt this way, too.

Even when the gloom doesn’t lift all day, there are ways to enjoy it. There’s a contest that’s been going on for the last ten years or so among a few Scripps employees to guess the number of gloomy days in May and June.

I asked if there was any trick to forecasting gloom. Events that affect sea surface temperature, from the El Niño/La Niña cycles to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation may play a role in the amount of gloom. Iacobellis says the contest is really a crapshoot, but it also has a way of making the gloom seem less gloomy. Each cloud-covered day is one step closer to victory.

Each gloomy day, too, is a chance to think about what’s happening out there:  cold water, enormous swirls of clouds, that lunk of an inversion layer pinning the gray above our heads. Watch out, neighbors, here I come. And now I have even more to talk about.

Today’s playlist:  Crowded House, Weather With You; Len, Steal My Sunshine; The Like, June Gloom

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Images  Top: Eric Gangnath  Middle: marya  Bottom: Steve Lyon