(from a FB post)
A True Deja Vu Moment…This is a pic out my back door. My backyard goes on for “days”. The only thing that has kept me from really exploring it is “fear of poison oak” –to which I am desperately allergic. As most of you know I have moved away from the Central Coast. I can’t believe that I’ve been here 4 months already! I took a job that frankly “kicked my ass” and I went directly from work, to the shower and then bed for the first 6-8 weeks. On the “upside” I had grown “porky” on my cooking and I’ve lost nearly 20 pounds…I am in “The North” and the sun goes down around 4:30 and “awakes” around 7:30…Being in a sort of forest only accentuates that effect of darkening; the cocoon of green and shadows creeps in even faster than out in the open. This sounds awful until you consider that in late June, the sun won’t set until around ten PM. A few days ago, it had been raining steadily for three days and then, the winds came. Suddenly there was no power. Understand that no power (right now in a cheezy rental) means no lights…certainly. But it also means that there is no hot water (electric hot water heater)- My ice cream was actually starting to get runny! And no water (my water being drawn from a well), no pump; no water. I’d been advised to buy a garbage can, fill it with water and use that to flush the toilet. This tip worked like a charm! Without the router I had no phone, so it got very quiet and dark at my house.This went on for 36 hours, but I consider myself lucky, as there are a few unfortunate souls who have been without power for 72 hours and counting.The rain comes. The soil gets sodden. The wind comes. Trees fall- 99% of them fall and it’s of no real consequence. But it’s that 1% that takes the power lines with them that causes all the problems. I see trucks with chipper-shredders everywhere, as if I were in Buffalo and it had been snowing for three days steadily and there are ubiquitous snow plows plying the roads. So when the power went off I had a true Déjà vu moment. As many of you now by now I’ve moved and it seems to me as though I might have moved to –an’other country! First offFor the first two weeks- I had no cell phone; only text. No Landline. No internet (that would arrive –I was told- in two weeks or so, so I was hoping but, you never know- “Covid has screwed everything up” I was told in a sort of resigned and commiserating tone). The “wiki-wiki people” live here as well. Everyone is on “island time”…I’m learning to my chagrin what that means. Wiki-Wiki means “quickly-quickly!” if you translate it literally. However what it really means is that: “I’ll get to it when I get to it. Don’t call and bug me or I’ll put you further down the list!”
And travel is also uniquely PNW. Every trip, every transaction, every action, every thought acted upon involves one road; one sinuous and (while scenic as heck!) time-consuming highway. I’m told that once I get “on Island Time”, this facet won’t bother me so much. Somehow I’m dubious as heck on that account…but again, you never know. I’ve moved behind the fog and evergreen curtain. Oh “we” (truth be told I don’t feel the “we” here yet, but I’m told that that also will come)… We do have sunny days, and they are glorious and often unexpected and lovely surprises. I mean, you don’t really appreciate the sunny days until you have a few rainy ones…right? Maybe not. Maybe that’s just me. Who knows? Who cares? It’s just that, at this latitude the sun lacks the bludgeoning power it has down south and is simply light, warmth and beauty. While in SLO for at least 6 months out of the year I walked from shady spot to shady spot because the sun was simply too much for me; I was truly upset if I was not able to find a shady place to park the car because I knew it would be an “oven” when I returned if I failed at finding shade. I have not looked for one shady spot since arriving here. For that I am heartfelt and most truly grateful. It will be 90 in L.A. tomorrow and probably near that in SLO. It’s mid January ferchristsakes!! A couple of years ago I was working at camp San Luis and the weather turned hot (low 90’s!) in late January.“This is the only time of the year when I’m not too hot!” I thought desperately. I was not happy, plus I smelled like a goat at the end of the day.
Sometimes I can be very “slow”. It’s embarrassing. I arrived here and realized that since 1980 when I arrived in California, I had been desperately trying to “shed heat”; I arrived here (in the PNW) with the “Wrong Clothes”. As the Swedes say: “There is not really any inclement weather, only people with the wrong clothes”. It took me moving here to realize that I’d been waging a battle that could not be won in that my “inner thermostat” was “set” far too high for California. In cold weather you can always don more clothes; in hot weather- and there is a lot of it in California and likely to be a lot more as the earth warms- there is only so much you can take off…and if you go beyond that…well…nobody wants to see me naked. Let’s just leave it at that.
End Part One
