Hollow time
The middle of winter is a cave, a hollow place to curl up and dream, maybe about bears
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Hollow time
Breath of winter, breathe on me. Breathe into me the cold air, trailing clouds of vapor—into the space between worlds, a space thin and brittle as fresh ice.
Winter is hollow time, carved like an ice cave between liminal space and solid reality.
Snow shifts into drifts outside our windows and sifts into the cavities in our souls. Breathe on me, Winter, fill my lungs with purity.
Winter’s breath acknowledges the light that creeps in, a little more each day. In the garden, on ice-coated branches, cardinals and blue jays and red-shafted flickers show brave color.
Into ourselves
Hollow time is interior time. This is the season when we seek coziness and comfort. We retreat to caves, dens, wigwams, igloos. Warm places.
Outside, the trees are dignitaries, wrapped in robes of certainty. Nothing is more certain that a perfectly conical cedar or the drooping branches of a weeping birch. All these trees, a symphony. Bare branches and evergreen dressing.
This week I chased a gibbous moon, what the poet Alfred Noyes described as “a ghostly galleon.” Here it is captured in the limbs of an elm.
Later in the morning, the moon is a tiny dot in a blue sky. Same tree, different angle.
Winter activity
Even though I grew up in Minnesota, I’ve never ice fished. Still, I’m fascinated by the idea. Just you and a hole surrounded by a little shack. Maybe with a little propane heater and a Thermos.
Ice fishing
Cut a hole in the ice, then wait. Secure in your little shed. Below, the fish glide in the water, So frigid, so icy, so clear. Cast your mind toward those fish, Gliding beneath your skin, Ideas below consciousness, Glimmers of what could be. There is no tomorrow, just now Just fish gliding silently by, Glistening, strong, seeking your bait— Rise, rise, good fish, fill my soul.
Triad
Three words
Bar
Bare
Bear
All three words have negative aspects: bar, impediments; bare, vulnerability; bear, a creature to fear or a weight to carry. But as well, they have strength and purpose and connection.
Bar
Crossing the bar is an archaic term for crossing over, leaving, dying. A sandbar is an impediment, as are iron bars and crossbars and anything else that bars the way.
Not every use of bar is negative, though: you can raise the bar, place a bar bet, lift barbells. As a lawyer, you are called to the bar; as a waiter, you might tend bar.
Bare
Bare is a wintery word. Bare trees, bare weather. Not a time to go unclothed or to bare your teeth, but maybe a good time to bare your soul.
No season is a good time for telling a bare-faced lie.
Bear
As a verb, bear is a word of enduring, of holding on, making an effort, straining toward, taking up. The noun is a big, furry creature, feared but also admired. Bears speak to our imagination. Sometimes, I want to rage like a bear in winter. Except winter is the time when bears are hibernating.
Bear with me here. I’m getting my paws tangled in honey and words.
Bears in song and story
Bears are popular story characters. In her Substack, “Books I Love,” Claire Cameron reviews a new book, Black Bear: A Story of Siblinghood and Survival, by Trina Moyles.
Trina and I share a love of black bears. This book is about her experience learning to live alongside bears while working in a fire tower on a wildlife corridor. It’s also about her relationship with her brother. It’s this combination that has seared this book onto my heart.
Black Bear was published Jan. 6. It’s on order at the Multnomah County Library.
Children’s books are full of bears, from Winnie-the-Pooh to Paddington Bear, Corduroy, and the armored bear in The Golden Compass. And don’t forget Goldilocks. I could also mention The Bear, a coming of age story by William Faulkner, which I confess I have not read.
Cartoonwise, enjoy Yogi Bear (one of the world’s great puns) and his pal Boo-Boo.
Bear ditties
Fuzzy
Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair. Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t very fuzzy, was he?
Bulgy
Algy saw a bear. The bear saw Algy. The bear was bulgy. The bulge was Algy.
Bearing weight
One of my morning writing exercises turned into a romance about a bear:
The bear is unhappy because he’s fat. He hears about obesity all the time on TV. He notices he is a bit zaftig (that’s Yiddish for, er, plump). So he decides to try what the TV doctors recommend: exercise and diet.
First, exercise. The bear starts running every morning in the neighborhood. Problem is, he scares the neighbors. He’s used to his prey being fearful, but people are shooting at him!
So the bear switches to diet. He buys a bunch of the foods the TV docs recommend. The berries are okay, but the kale is problematical. Bears eat berries and other animals and fish. But this bear, being fat and lazy, has been eating pizza and microwave popcorn while watching TV. And kale is not pizza-friendly.
The bear is getting grouchy. Nothing seems to work. And on top of that, he is very sleepy.
So the bear switches off the TV, settles down at the back of his den, and sleeps. For several months.
When he gets up, he schlepps to the bathroom and steps on the scale. Hey! He’s 120 pounds less heavy. He literally slept off the weight.
Now the bear is hungry. Maybe he’ll have a kale salad with salmon. He can eat it in front of the television.
On TV, ads make him worry about toenail fungus. He tries to check out his claws, but bears have poor eyesight, and he can’t be sure.
Grumpily, he gets up to nuke another bag of popcorn.
Dieting ditty
Chard, not bacon Or maybe both Fat and antioxidants. What we know about food That is, what is healthy Is always in flux. No carbs or gluten, Eschew sugar and salt. Caffeine is bad, then it’s good. Maybe we worry too much About the foods we eat. Just buy from the market’s edges— You know, where the produce And fresh things are displayed. Leave things that are processed behind.
——
Or, as food journalist Michael Pollen famously wrote:
Eat food
Not too much
Mostly plants
MAX mishap
Ohmygod! I’m gonna die! Here I am, trapped in my wheelchair, stuck on a MAX light-rail track. The bumpy ride over the tracks had jiggled a footrest loose. It fell off and is jammed under the chair. I can’t move.
I feel like Nell Fenwick, tied to the train tracks by Snively Whiplash in “Rocky and Bullwinkle.” She’s always saved at the last moment by Dudley DoRight of the Mounties and his horse, Horse.
But there are no horses here. I’m desperately trying to figure out how to abandon the chair to the next approaching train. I could roll out. But where would I land? Of course, the chair would be totaled. And light-rail service would be majorly disrupted.
At this point in my panic, Dudley shows up. A man who had been waiting on the platform at the transit center kneels next to me and wrenches the footrest from under the chair.
I am free!
I don’t even miss my bus, because my savior runs to flag it down just as it is pulling away. In the rush of boarding, I have time only for a hurried “thank you!” to the man who saved my life.
Thank you, Dudley!
Getting my fix
It took the rest of the day for me to get the chair fixed. The folks who could do it were in deepest Milwaukie, the other side of the moon from the Gateway Transit Center. It took me about two hours to get there by train and bus, riding with both feet crowded onto one footrest.
On the last leg of this trek, boarding a bus, I encountered a species of bus driver I call the “underdriver.” Most drivers will get up to raise the seats to accommodate wheelchairs, if other passengers haven’t already done this for them. This driver didn’t do that. I had to lean over and push the double seat up myself. Usually that’s no big deal. But today, with my feet forced to share just one footrest, I was feeling forlorn and pitiful. Until I snapped out of it and enjoyed the drive.
At the medical supply outlet, the mechanic was out on a call. So I holed up at the nearby Starbucks, charged the chair, and did some writing. Another hour ticked by.
When the mechanic got back, it just took hime just 12 minutes to find a new screw and reattach the footrest.
Then the ride home: Another route, just buses (3), no trains. A stop at a supermarket on the way. I forget how long it took.
Check out
Capricorn time
Just a quick nod to fellow Capricorns (Dec.22-Jan.19), the zodiac sign of copy editors. Seriously, most of The Oregonian’s copy desk seemed to have January birthdays.
Earthy Capricorns are often detail-oriented, a good editor’s trait. Because Capricorn is an earth sign, it’s associated with the Tarot suit of Coins, sometimes called Pentacles.
I spotted a guy wearing a Capricorn sweatshirt at a bus stop. He said he’s not a Capricorn, he’s an Aquarius. The sweatshirt is from a bar called Capricorn in Astoria, Ore.
Are you watching clouds?
A couple of weeks ago, I suggested watching the ever-changing cloud show in the winter skies. If you can ever spare a minute or five to watch winter clouds, you will be rewarded.
Sometimes the clouds part. What is inside this white door?
So long until next week
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I’ve heard it said, why keep a cow when you can buy milk? Still, I’m suggesting you invest in the cow.
Love to all,
Fran
—30—
Fran, the MAX/footrest incident was bone chilling. So admire yout true grit in seeing the issue resolved.
My favourite children's story about bears (though it's not really about bears) is We're Going on a Bear Hunt written by Michael Rosen and illustrated by Helen Oxenbury.