Late Winter in Seattle: Nietzsche or Dahl?

With half the country digging out from three feet of snow, we're certainly in no position to complain about the weather here in Seattle. Sure, it's been rainy & dreary for weeks on end and every pair of shoes we own is caked in mud and we can't venture out across the lawn without donning hip-waders -- but the crocuses are up, the plum blossoms have emerged, and we keep getting brought up short by the sudden scent of witch hazel wafting through the damp air.

And yet (at the risk of alienating those of you who spent the morning shoveling your driveways again) we have to admit we're not really ready for Spring. Last winter's spectacular Seattle snowfall (see here, and here, and here), had us anticipating at least a couple of runs down Spencer Street on a boogie board before we'd have to face yet another soggy Easter egg hunt. We did make it up to Snoqualmie Pass last month for one glorious day of sledding (and managed to pack enough hot chocolate and extra mittens that departure time could be determined not by numb fingers and chattering teeth, but rather by the onset of a happy, dazed exhaustion: when the part where you roll off the sled onto your back and lie there looking up at the sky starts to take longer than the part where you scramble to your feet and haul the sled back up the hill, it's time to go home). But one day of sledding, however fine, does not a Winter make.

Our own ambivalence about the approach of Spring seems to be matched by the erratic, capricious way it is progressing -- if you can call it progress. It seems like every hopeful sign or joyful moment has been accompanied by a relapse or disaster of some sort.

A lovely outing on a rare sunny day starts out with a delicious cup of coffee, continues with an appraisal of the playground swings at Rainier Playfield (excellent), and winds up with a visit to a grove of beautiful trees -- which, it turns out, have all been cut down somehow in the month since your friend discovered them, despite signs indicating they were to be protected.


Work on the amazing Tree of Life mural that will soon grace the wall of the Orca lunchroom will be interrupted by a trip to the emergency room for stitches after one of the children discovers the PE teacher's cache of golf clubs, and connects rather solidly with his brother's left cheek. (Everyone is fine now, don't worry. And Josie got to see first-hand the process by which the parent of an injured child maintains a calm, reassuring front in the presence of said child, by first disgorging her own panic in the next room.)

A Sunday afternoon break in the rain prompts a walk by the lake and a game of frisbee golf. There's even a rainbow:


And after that, a pilgrimage to Full Tilt Ice Cream -- followed, naturally, by the copious vomiting of blueberry-tinged mac 'n' cheese in the car on the way home. Sigh.

Sometimes it works the other way: pleasant surprises do emerge out of the bleakness on occasion. While delivering School Levy yard signs in the rain a couple of weeks ago (and muttering to myself about the futility of it all) I discovered these furry white buds on a tree next to a trash heap at the back of a waterlogged parking lot.


And then the Levy passed -- hooray! Sure, it's the renewal of an existing levy, so it's more like holding our ground than actual progress -- and the District is still looking at $40 million more in cuts next year -- but that's 23% of the operating budget we don't have to worry about, at least. Good news, for sure.

Some signs are harder to read. Coming out of the Rainier Beach Safeway recently into the fading light of another gray afternoon, pushing a cart laden with a six-week supply of all the unlocal, non-organic, corn-syrupy products the Co-op doesn't carry, I spotted something odd perched atop a street light pole:

Is that -- no, it couldn't be, could it? Yes, it really was -- Tinky Winky!


As I stood there in the chilly wind snapping pictures, I wondered if Tinky had been installed up there by bored teenagers, or gay rights activists using a defunct cultural reference -- or perhaps by the world's meanest (and tallest) older sibling. It wasn't until I'd ferried a dozen bags of Ovaltine, Life Cereal, Stoned Wheat Thins, and other morally suspect groceries from cart to car to kitchen cupboard that I finally decided the sudden appearance of this cheerful, gentle, purple poppet had to be a good sign, even if he was impaled on a row of anti-bird spikes in a supermarket parking lot.

Yet I'm still not sure what to make of this season of fitful lurching, two steps forward, one step back. Maybe all the clearcutting and puking and trips to the ER shouldn't be seen as backsliding so much as backstitching -- like those little reversals you make with the needle every once in while in order to keep your seam smooth and secure. Maybe we're in a kind of Nietzschean crucible that will make us stronger if it doesn't kill us first. And when the Equinox finally comes and finds us still breathing (knock wood) we can be pretty sure the whole thing won't unravel completely and kick us back to the depths of January again. Or are we living out the plot of Roald Dahl's The Fantastic Mr. Fox, an endless tale of back and forth, where every triumph sows the seeds of the next disaster, and every defeat sets the stage for another brilliant escape?

Either way, we've adopted Mr. Fox's theme song as our own. Whether we're gaining wisdom and strength from every reversal, or simply stumbling headlong toward the next catastrophe, this little tune seems to capture a suitable attitude of hopeful determination, tinged with just a hint of melancholy: