Cure for the Bleak Midwinter

I was in a mood so dark it devoured all visible light and distorted the fabric of the universe. That didn’t take much effort, because there was almost no visible light that day. Because it was winter in western Washington. For twenty days, gray clouds had hung over Puget Sound like wet wool, steadily dripping rain and bloating the earth until it could hold no more and overflowed river banks and created a lake of every park and a sea of every lowland. I was getting no work done. I was horrible company. I had to go. But where?

One early morning, I studied NOAA maps and found a patch of ‘rain shadow’ on the eastern slopes of the Cascades. That very afternoon, I could snowshoe through a pine forest, have lunch among bold chickadees and grey jays, watch martens and foxes cavort on the sparkling powder, all in that little oasis of sunlight. I packed hastily, in a sort of fever, emptying cabinets and bins and closets searching for long-forgotten gear. But finally I was ready. My pack was full, my camera charged, my truck packed, my thoughts already drifting toward the serenity of a breezy mountain meadow.

I leapt in the driver’s seat, set down my coffee, adjusted the mirrors and turned the key.

Click.

I tried again.

Click.

I tried again but the truth had already sunk in. The truck’s battery was dead. And not just ‘I need a jump’ dead, but depleted of any future potential to bring a motor to life. There would be no mountains this day. No gray jays and snowshoes. No need for that packed lunch or thermos of tea. By the time I could install a new battery, the short December day would be over.

What do we do in moments like these? For an instant, I saw myself from the outside, a downtrodden man in an overpacked truck not going anywhere, a humorous scene of best-laid plans gone astray. But shortly the humor vanished and I’m ashamed to admit I abused that steering wheel a few times while filling the cabin with profanity that curled the pages of my field guide. Then the tantrum passed and it was just the old dark mood again and the tapping of a steady drizzle on the windscreen.

The answer, however, was right in front of me. My gaze focused beyond the drops on the glass to the sagging old Honda sedan parked in front of the truck. The kids’ car, awaiting sale to its next owner, unused for a season. I could salvage this day, taking the kids’ car to some local wetland and perhaps get a few shots of waterfowl. (Maybe even a trumpeter swan--no, that was asking too much.) The kids’ car couldn’t handle snowy mountains, but it could manage a wet valley. But would it start?

Yes it would. It fired without hesitation. And I was off for a day’s excursion, with a peculiar, mild elation for having escaped total failure. I might not see the sun, but at least I could see something besides my water-logged lawn.

I went south, toward a county park called Chinook Bend, where the Snoqualmie river snakes through restored wetlands. There’s a variety of habitat there and always at least a few birds. But when I arrived, a steady rain shrouded the swollen river. I put my camera under my jacket and walked into the park anyway. Sensible as always, the birds were sheltered somewhere else, waiting out the squall. I forged on, crossing the wet limbs of a beaver dam, ducking through a new forest of cedar plantings, and arrived at a secluded pond. Several pairs of ring-necked ducks floated on the shimmering surface. A group of mallards arrived. That was better. At least there were some birds. I took a few poorly-lit pictures and walked back through the mud.

I met a fisherman at side of the road where we were parked. He was decked in gear--from a giant flyrod to a vest with thousands of pockets to a canister of bear spray. We nodded to each other but made no eye contact--a standard Seattle greeting--and then a surprising compulsion took hold of me. I spoke to the stranger.

What are you fishing for? I asked.

He mumbled something I didn’t understand, and I thought the conversation was over, but then the two of us stopped. Perhaps we felt a sense of comradery, being the only two fools out. We each smiled vaguely. Then he said, Oh we don’t catch fish. We just collect gear. He motioned to his ensemble to illustrate the fact. But, I’m trying for steelhead. You know.

Then he asked, Are you out for a walk?

I explained that I was photographing birds.

He asked, with genuine interest, What kinds of birds do you see around here.

Oh, all kinds, I responded. And then, after a pause, I found myself elaborating to an extent unsuitable for small talk. I explained: in the spring there are spotted sandpipers, in the late summer great flocks of swallows, lots of yellowthroat in that row of shrubs, eagles nearly year-round, and this time of year there are sometimes… trumpeter swans.

I had lost him but that caught his attention. He adjusted his broad-brimmed hat and looked around, as if the swans might be there.

Oh yes, I said, they must spend the night in the ponds through those woods or maybe along the river but in the early morning you often see them fly right over here on their way to feed on the farm fields down toward Fall City. If you come back--on a nice day, if we ever get one of those haha--you’ll probably see one.

The fisherman pledged that he would.

I wished him luck and went on my way, now energized with a kind of manufactured enthusiasm. Also, I realize in hindsight, the barometer had begun to rise. I went farther south to a park along the Tolt River and took a walk as the rain stopped. The sensible birds were coming out. A lone heron fishing on the banks, a pair of common mergansers diving, a red-tailed hawk carving circles in the dark sky, jays, flickers, robins. And then I heard the unmistakable, melodious honk of the swans.

Every time I hear that sound, that trumpet-like ‘huh-HOH,’ I stop in my tracks and throw my head in its direction. It’s so mysterious, exotic, and unhurried. Like a honk from a time you assume has long since passed. The honk of the wild.

I could see the birds in the distance through trees. I tried to get a shot but the conditions were poor and my camera didn’t cooperate. Again and again, I captured pictures of barren branches with smears of birds in the distance. Finally I stopped trying to take pictures and just watched them, just tried to enjoy this chance sighting on such an inauspicious day. And I noticed that these little flocks of swans were all traveling toward the same place--toward the farm fields I had described to the fisherman.

In five minutes I was on the open fields between Carnation and Fall City, where the farmers practice sustainable agriculture and leave some corn every winter for migrating birds. The low foothills rose in every direction. The wind picked up and blew strong. And the sun appeared.

Winter floods had created a vast shallow lake not far from the road. Scores of water fowl filled the lake, cackling and quacking and honking, landing and lifting off, gliding and dabbling. It was a great harmonious colony of birds, a true sanctuary. Canada geese and coots and teal and mallards, all assembled on water that rippled in the fresh breeze and sparkled in the sunshine. And at the center of it all, there were trumpeter swans.

It’s hard to describe the feeling of such a day. The pictures do a better job of it, I hope. There is a sudden hopefulness that you didn’t imagine was possible just hours before. I leapt out of the little sedan, left the door open, yanked out my camera, and staggered toward the lake. I couldn’t help but smile and talk to myself or perhaps to the birds or maybe just to the day itself, muttering nonsense phrases of delight. Just a rush of emotion, totally inappropriate for a middle-aged dude from Chicago. Don’t tell.

And now, in this perfect light with ideal subjects, my camera did all the work, capturing moment after moment of those extraordinary white birds in scenery that looks like it was crafted to showcase their beauty. On a good day, western Washington has a palette like no other place--a blend of greens, blues, browns, grays, stacked in layers against the horizon, all muted like artist’s chalk, all coordinated with the animals that live here.

I took more pictures than I could ever use. Then I put the camera down and just looked around, trying to record that moment deeply--the lightness of the place, the reflection, the buoyancy of the air. Trying to flood my consciousness with these thoughts, this mood, to make a persistent frame of mind that would last when the next round of storms moves in.

On the drive home, I wondered: why does such a day lift your mood, while a gloomy day depresses it? On either day, we are equally alive, perceiving sights, sounds, smells. My best guess is that we have an instinctual elation that comes in conditions where we can get out in the world, we can see our destinations clearly, and we are surrounded with abundant wildlife. These are things that our ancient hominid ancestors needed just to survive. I suppose now they remind us that we’ll live another day, and that such days are possible.

And now that the rains are back, with wet snow in the forecast, I look at these pictures and take myself back to that day. It’s very simple. Just a mental formation.

But it works. It’s my cure for the bleak midwinter.

Trumpeter swans take flight from an ephemeral lake near Fall City, WA.