Ruminations on Winter in California

The dead of winter where I live, is the time the gates of heaven open and water comes down every few days to bring life and green the land. There is nothing dead about winter here.

Only a few hours’ drive, the deepest snow in the United States can strand travelers even today, just as it did the Donner Party over a hundred and seventy years ago. You can certainly think of that swatch of California as being in the dead of winter. The story of the Breen and Donner families is taught in fourth grade of every California school. DH was told he’s descended from the same Breens, and so we’ve earned the right to reside over those lethal hills and past the freezer zone, on the beautiful always spring-like coast.

I don’t write this to make you jealous. ‘All y’all,’ seized by cabin fever and thinking just about now that you’ve had enough winter, take heart and some hot chocolate. Sunny is not all it seems.

“A sunny place for some shady people.” This saying by a clever writer, made me think how vivid writing works. It’s about delineating. It’s about marking contradictions, pointing differences, making a line that pops.

California is all about lines. It’s a land of extreme if adjacent climates. A state that shines in exploration even as it cultivates a shady subculture of folks running away from this that and the other, including norms of decency held onto by older cultures in older states. It’s a tantalizing contradiction from which great human dramas are born, told, written, filmed,  and like all life— eventually evaporate.

Reminding the creative self to cherish these lines, and raising a glass of soymilk to the sunshine.

RAIN RANT or-- No Gaslighting,* Please

*A term borrowed from the movie GASLIGHT, meaning to make one believe she’s lost her mind and what she sees and knows just isn’t so.

I’m sitting by my window and watching yet another deluge, blessed rain though it is. I’m wondering about reality and perception. What else is a writing person to think about, under these wet circumstances?

The State of California officials tell us we’re still in drought, even with the snow-pack twice the normal average and the rainfall more than twice the normal pre-drought.

So much for trusting these governmental agencies. Brings up the Yiddish saying: you can’t pee on my back and tell me it’s raining. In this case, it is you can’t tell me we’re parched while we’re drowning.

Oh, I know. I’ve read the explanations. I’ve considered them seriously. I tried to respect the experts who said that maybe one percent of the state is still in drought. Maybe the snowpack will melt too early. Maybe April showers just won’t be.

And maybe my cats are not crying for food, but telling me they’ve decided to run for the presidency. Oh, wait. That last one could be true.

It’s never a great thing to manipulate the reality that's right in front of our noses, even for “good” or “noble” intentions.

One such explanation "for the good" is that if the drought-watch agencies say the drought is over for now, people won’t conserve water in the future.

News Flash: California has had droughts cycles for as long as I’ve been here, (that’s a very long time) and we have shown we know how to respond.

What is more likely to happen is that the next time we have a real drought, we’ll not believe what well-intentioned government agencies say.

Even worse, we won’t believe our own eyes.

Gaslighting is only all right in fiction, where it is a requirement. Outside of creative storytelling, it’s not okay. OK?

Tell the truth, Ruth.

HOLIDAYS OVERLAP

Although they fall roughly on the same month, only a few times in every century do Christmas and Hanukkah actually occur at the same time. That is-- the first day of Hanukkah (beginning the evening before according to Jewish tradition) is also Christmas Day. Christmas Eve is also the evening of first candle lighting. 

This is one of those years.

If you celebrate both, or either, this one’s for you—

SEASONS and SEASONINGS

Where I live, the seasons are barely delineated. Call it year-round spring, and you wouldn’t be far off. But we do our best to pretend to have, at least, two seasons.

Winter is ushered with a change of bed quilts, from the light colored and thinly stuffed to the heavier, darkly rich hued kind. 

When my kids were little, the content of their dresser drawers would change— with lighter clothes placed at the bottom and sweaters floating to the top. New pairs of socks would replace the odd unmatched singles of last year, and sandals got pushed to the back of the shoe drawer.

In truth, we can just about wear any of the clothes any time, and the bedding would not make a real difference either way. But we pretend we can’t, really, in order to have the illusion of change. Unlike folks who have what we here call “real weather,” we don’t change our tires to snow tires, and we don’t use antifreeze. We don’t need to get the snow shovels from the back of the garage, and we have no use for thermal underwear. For those who go on ski weekends— their gear is specialized, but this was never part of my life in California.

But one seasonal thing is not a pretense for me. One word sums it up: SPICES. Specifically— Cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, and that thing we call allspice, which isn’t all the spices mixed together but a kind of pepper from a West Indian tree.

Sure, you can use these in summer, and people of “real weather” think of these seasoning as ushering Fall. But in some mysterious way I find a strong urge overtakes me to start spicing and baking and stewing and sprinkling with the above as soon as November comes.

That’s today. Can you smell it all the way from my kitchen?

As the gingerbread is baking and the pumpkin soup is simmering, I reflect on how this relates to writing stories. I don’t want to write the same story over and over. I mark a new story with new and distinct words and expressions. In this way I know I am entering a different territory. Words, used like seasoning, tell me I am here and not there, and should address perception differently.

 Just as I will now dress differently.

If this sounds like a stretch, just come over and get a whiff. I’m not kidding.