CHROMOPHOBIA – The Fading of America

Did you know that some animals can see only in black and white? I suppose that speaks to the economical manner in which Nature divvies out her gifts. Why, for example, waste color perception on bats, whose sonar can pinpoint a mosquito in total darkness?

I’m happy that we human beings are not among that achromatopsic number. Creation must have figured we’d need color vision to distinguish between fair and forbidding skies, and between poisonous and benign critters.

And, now that we’ve evolved a bit, color perception may not save our lives, but it does set us apart from other species, allowing us to experience beauty and awe. To express ourselves. To make art.

    Once those vibrant hues strike my cornea,
    it seems my optic nerve transmits them right
    to my soul.

I love color. I’ve often written about it as another form of nourishment for me. But, sadly, being a Minnesotan, much of Nature’s show of color is stolen for about six months a year. With the exception of the occasional cardinal or chartreuse parka, winter’s pretty much a gray-scale affair up here.

Sally’s and my annual late-winter escape to Mexico feels like a feast to me—a smorgasbord of color. The animals and birds, people’s clothing, the sea…even the buildings. Once those vibrant hues, in all their values and shades, strike my cornea, it seems my optic nerve bypasses my brain and transmits them right to my soul.

FILM NOIR IT AIN’T
I don’t like the the narrow spectrum of color we entertain in much of U.S. culture, especially up here in the stoic, Germanic- and Norse-influenced northland. Nine out of ten Minnesotans not only paint their houses white, gray or tan, but apply the same esthetic to their clothing. Alas, for many of us even our skin dares no color.

Over the past few decades, my appetite for color has also been increasingly denied by the car industry. Look for yourself; pick any parking lot, any random stretch of freeway traffic. Before you come to a car with any color worth looking at, you’ll count off at least ten with none. White, gray, dark gray and black.

Reminds me of my all-time favorite broadside by a film critic: She managed to portray the scope of raw human emotion ranging from A to....B.

Hello! Life is not a black-and-white movie.

CANDY-APPLE CAPTIVE
I wonder if there’s not a parallel between our tastes in color and other facets of our culture. For example, might the steady surge in the number of post-apocalyptic novels and films stem from the same dreary pessimism that our color choices do? Or vice versa?

In music, might the trajectory of heavy metal, goth and rap be mirroring the dystopian darkness seen in other aspects of art and design?

It’s gotten to the point where, when I’m out walking, I’ll sometimes stop next to a car with real color and just marvel at it, in all its rich, super-saturated, mica-flecked glory.

SHOWING YOUR TRUE COLORS
I hate to tell you, my chromophobe friends, but a little color can go a long ways toward brightening these otherwise dark, dreadful days. Besides, black and white is not who you are. You know you're more colorful than that.

So if you have a truly vivid jacket, or sweater, or skirt (maybe leftovers from some long-gone fashion craze), put it on for your next walk—or even if no one's going to see you but your cat. Maybe just a bright scarf. And wear some lipstick—if that’s something you’ve perhaps let slide during the quarantine.

Fly your flag, be it the Stars and Stripes, a rainbow banner or that of your favorite football team. String up your Christmas lights. Nothing fancy; maybe just a colorful smile shape. Break out that gaudy flamingo and stick in your nascent garden.

And while you’re at it, trade in that ghastly, ho-hum family sedan for a hot-pink Bimmer. What do you think?

Spring flowers, verdant trees and lush lawns will be emerging soon to cheer us. Come late June, those of us with white skin might gain a little color there too. Then maybe we can put away the show of color we donned to brighten our sheltering-in-place…o-o-or…we could paint the house orange.

THE SIGHS OF PINES – And Other Sounds of a Pandemic

The bigger the tree, the more wisely it speaks.

I live in the heart of Minneapolis, a mile from the bustling University of Minnesota campus, and less than a block from interstate I-94. So I’ve gotten used to the constant din of tires on pavement, faulty mufflers, air conditioners, lawn mowers, trains and planes. Sally and I pretend the ever-present freeway hiss is the surf, piped in from Zihuatanejo, our second favorite place to live, on the Pacific coast of Mexico.

        Other, more subtle voices of Nature
        get absorbed in the urban sound sponge.

We do hear birds here in the city, but mostly just those within half a block. It’s kind of like trying to spot the Milky Way or Northern Lights through the veil of urban light pollution; they just can’t beat the competition.

Other, more subtle voices of Nature are lost entirely, absorbed in the urban sound sponge. Sounds like gentle rains, pigeon wings, soft voices…and the sighs of pines.

What a shame the latter. I’ve spent a fair bit of time in true wilderness, where pines speak uncontested. They forecast the weather; they shush you when you’re loud; and they lull you to sleep.

            They spoke to me. In whispers I’d
            have missed a month or a year ago. 

SH-H-H-H...
One recent windy day, I was out on one of the twice-daily walks I’ve been taking since the corona virus pushed us all into more sedentary routines. By now, the route’s become so familiar that I’m finding I hardly notice little natural wonders along the way.

In a small park just off East River Parkway stand a half dozen medium-sized white pines—I suppose you could call them adolescents. Usually, I pay them little heed—except I like to walk through their soft skirts of rust-colored needles.

      So much worry, so much stress over this 
      pandemic nightmare, released just like that.

That day, though, something was different. This time I heard them speak to me. In whispers I’d have missed a month or a year ago, before the city’s volume got turned down. Breathy words that soothed me, counseled me not to worry, to tap into my core of hope and faith just as their own roots reach deep into the soil for nourishment.

PHOTO: Arbor Day Foundation

That chafing of long, supple, five-to-a-cluster needles, like brushes on drums, brought me to my peaceful center. Without thinking, I took a deep breath and sighed myself. So much worry, so much stress over this pandemic nightmare, released just like that.

I stood there in awe for several minutes, savoring that delicious windfall gift, a precious and timely reminder I’d never have discerned above typical workaday ambient noise. And one that lightened and brightened a day otherwise muted by dreadful, deafening habit.

FALLING SNAIL – An Ode to Corn Snow

It’s widely claimed—and as widely debunked—that the Inuit have a hundred or more words for snow. While it’s true many Inuit terms are long composites including numerous descriptors, I don’t figure those count as words any more than the English “heavy, drifting snow that fell in a narrow band across the state.”

In fact there are only a few Inuit words for snow, including aput for snow on the ground and qana for falling snow. So no surprise that my search for the Inuit term for “granular snow caused by repeated thawing and refreezing of flakes in the atmosphere” came up short. So the English “corn snow”—actually quite a good, concise descriptor—will serve quite nicely.

                                                         ~ // ~ // ~

A squall of corn snow, that late-season holdover of winter, makes me smile today.

Halfway between snow and hail—let's call it snail—corn snow forms during convective storms and disturbances, whose updrafts cause snow to repeatedly thaw and refreeze. It tends to happen in mid-April or even early May. That’s when fluffy snow flakes might melt during their slow drift through the above-freezing air, maybe before we even see them.

But corn snow’s hardy little pellets plummet to earth nearly intact. Then, to the delight of anyone in tune with such minutiae, instead of settling softly onto the sidewalk like so many fluffy feathers…they bounce.

It’s all because corn snow barely qualifies as snow and doesn’t quite meet the definition of hail. For, though it does derive from snow flakes, once it’s been through the atmospheric wringer, it’s no longer crystalline.

And it’s not really solid ice either. A hail stone has the heft, the clear-to-translucent shine of ice, but a corn snow pellet, since it still has air in it, is lighter and nearly opaque like whipped egg whites.

The shape and mass that allows the granules to survive “re-entry” are the same qualities that make them drop straight down. Less chance one will blow into your eye.
                    Theoretically, skiing on corn snow
             should be quite amazing.

And corn snow is the only kind that doesn’t melt when it lands on a warm jacket or hat or skin. Nope, it just bounces off, with all the satisfying pit-pat of raindrops but without the wet.

Theoretically, skiing on corn snow should be quite amazing, slickened by both a physical transformation, melting under pressure, and what’s called an extensive physical property, roundness.

So, in addition to the thin film of melt-water that the vehicles of most winter sports glide on, you’ve also got all those tiny ball bearings rolling under your skis. Should be slick, right? (Maybe not, since skiers call it “poor man’s powder.”)

Have you got any favorite corn snow stories or observations? We’d love to hear them!

THE BANE OF BREATHING – Should Twenty Feet Be the New Six Feet?

As the reputed “wonder man,” I reflect here on the rewards of noticing and celebrating life’s many small wonders. It’s a pretty easy gig when I’m feeling safe and secure; not so easy when the world is in turmoil and many of us fear for our lives.
Nonetheless, I’ve always preached that wonder lives virtually anywhere—indoors as well as out, in arctic cold and Saharan heat, all around us…and even within us.
It also exists in the ominous black tunnel of the worst imaginable crisis. In something as simple and taken-for-granted as a breath. Except that in this tunnel that breath could be deadly.
                                                       ~  //  ~  //  ~

I’m getting pretty good at paranoia. Not so much when life is normal, but for sure now that we’re facing a pandemic.

So, during these days of social distancing, I’m keeping a keener eye than ever on how people are behaving. And for the most part, I’m impressed with how thoughtful my fellow Minneapolitans are being, not just hugging their edge of the sidewalk, but swinging wide onto the lawns and boulevards. A generous interpretation of the CDC’s and NIH’s six-foot guideline.

PHOTO: New York Times

So how did they come up with that number, six feet? The answer suggests a question: What is it that those epidemiologists do? I mean what is their job? My guess is that they walk a fine line between recommending what they know people should do and what they figure people actually will do. Set the number too low and it won’t help; too high and folks might not feel like complying…or even believe you.
             How could we have let all those poor suckers
             believe that six feet of distancing was enough?
             It should have been twenty.

The epidemiologists’ goal, after all, is not to save everyone from exposure to COVID 19; it is to save the greatest percentage of us as is reasonably possible, given all the variables, including human nature. Perhaps they’ve decided that six feet is a measure most of us can understand. It’s all about “droplets,” they say.

ONE PERSON’S DROPLET…
As I observe my fellow human beings exhibiting a range of compliance from 0% to about 300%, it’s got me thinking a lot about those realities. That thinking, informed certainly by history, tells me it’s quite likely that, sometime well after the corona virus has gone back into hiding, we’ll all learn the truth about social distancing.

Palm-to-forehead, we’ll lament God, how could they have let all those poor suckers believe that six feet of distancing was enough? It should have been twelve…
or twenty.

It might come down to the definition of what is meant by a “droplet.” Current wisdom says COVID 19 is spread primarily by droplets of saliva or mucus expelled by a cough or sneeze. Subject to gravity, they supposedly fall to the ground before traveling six feet from an infected person.

But consider this: droplets aren’t the only liquid specks coming out of a person’s mouth. Normal exhaled breath is basically vapor, which is, after all, nothing more than still-smaller droplets. And this vapor, like other aerosols, disperses into the air, which can carry it considerably farther.

        To me you’re not average and very few of you are Joes. 

In a study of how flu viruses are propelled, environmental health researchers at the University of Maryland found that droplet dispersal does indeed happen not just through coughs or sneezes, but also in the vapor produced in normal breathing. MARYLAND STUDY

And then there’s wind.

IT’S A BREEZE
Air moves. So I figured if I walk past a heavily-breathing runner or biker somewhere along East River Parkway at that officially-suggested six-foot distance, and there happens to be a breeze coming my way—even the air wake generated by that person’s movement—their breath could easily be on me, swirling around my head, in a matter of seconds.

And there’s the chink in my six-foot armor.

Further supporting my paranoia, an MIT researcher suggests the corona virus may be able to waft up to 27 feet from an infected person’s mouth—though this conclusion apparently has not yet been rigorously tested. MIT RESEARCH
 

          Consider double-arms length distancing as you might
          the filter used to remove lead from your drinking water.

So here’s what I’m asking of my loved ones: Please, please be careful out there. Use more caution than’s being asked of the average Joe. Because to me you’re not average and very few of you are Joes.

Keep in mind the illustrations above showing just how widely, and quickly, a human breath disperses. Think of that as you approach others—and be aware of which direction the wind is coming from.

Consider double-arms length distancing as you might the filter used to remove lead from your drinking water; if a filter fine enough to remove the 85 percent of it that's deemed safe by people who don’t even know you, wouldn’t 90 or 100 percent be much better?

INFECTIOUS SMILES – As If For the First Time

Many of you know of my occasional column here on OMW, As If For the First Time. It’s about noticing and celebrating the simplest, most ubiquitous small wonders in one’s life. Experiences so commonplace, perhaps so repetitious, that
we may no longer even notice them.

A hot shower, the sun, water, an autumn leaf, eating an orange or strawberry—it’s
a fresh look at things like this, seen from different points of view and employing as many of one’s senses as possible.

                 I think about them for an extra few seconds,
                 just long enough for wonder and gratitude to
                 come into sharper focus.

WELLSPRING 
Well, this COVID 19 nightmare is really shaking up my sense of what can and can’t be taken for granted anymore. I'm starting to see lots of things as if for the first—or perhaps last—time. By forcing us into our homes, this menace also forced us into ourselves. By confronting us with our own mortality, it’s tapping into a wellspring of awe and gratitude that far too often runs dry.

I don’t know about you, but during these uneasy days I’m finding more and more of my fleeting observations worthy of at least a moment of reflection. So, instead of unconsciously dismissing them in a blur of indifference, I consider them for an extra few seconds, just long enough for awareness to come into sharper focus.

POWERFUL GESTURES
The latest of these little epiphanies came yesterday as I was out walking. It was a pretty gloomy afternoon, a cool, drizzly approximation of November. Still, there were lots of people—and nearly as many dogs—strolling along the bluffs of the Mississippi.

Like the decent, God-fearing Minnesotans we are, everyone was keeping their distance.

Given the shared trauma we’re all going through, I’ve decided that, even if we do have to be a bit paranoid about each other, we can certainly manage a pleasant greeting. So, even as we pass well beyond arm’s length, I like to make eye contact if possible, smile and extend a friendly hello.

At times like this, as in times of war and deprivation, even a mute gesture of connection can be extraordinarily powerful, laden with meaning. How are you doing? I know what you must be going through. Maybe I can’t even imagine.
Fare well.

And thank goodness most folks respond, a few even cracking the distant stare that suggests they’re actually somewhere else like on the phone or absorbed in a podcast. But at least they acknowledge me.

A COMMON ENEMY
Okay, so call me a narcissist for expecting everyone to notice me. I realize some people wouldn’t do this in the blissful normalcy of life before the C-bug. I'm glad they're doing it now.

After all, during this, one of those rarest of times in history when every single human being on Earth is allied with each other in fighting a common enemy, I would hope we're learning something.

It could—and should—start with our acknowledging our fundamental oneness with our fellow, rather insignificant earthlings and with this, the only habitat we’ll ever share. I’m afraid that if we do not learn at least that, we deserve neither each other nor this beautiful planet we call home.

IMAGE: Pixabay

Social distancing doesn’t mean we can’t look at each other. It doesn’t mean we can't smile—even if we have to force it a bit—and appreciate these simple gestures for the wonders they are. So thank you, even if you’re hurting, for giving a stranger those elemental gifts of a knowing smile and a simple greeting. The connection works both ways.

       One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself, 'What if I
       had 
never seen this before? What if I knew I would never
       see it again?'             RACHEL CARSON

SHOOTS – The Terrible, Beautiful Irony of This Spring

Have you been wondering, as have I, what the Universe might be trying to tell us? With this waking-to-a-nightmare pandemic? With our natural environment, even before the C-bug, raging, begging us to let up on our abuse?

What irony. A planet, our precious home, reeling under the effects of our arrogance, our thoughtless excesses; and the same planet reminding us of our utter insignificance. Making it quite clear that it’s not really Mother Earth who’s in danger of extinction; it is us.

You know how I know this? These cool plum-and-green fingers of Spring tell me, reaching, as they will every year, for air, for light, for water. Their fragility belies their power, not just to thrust, slow-motion, through anything in their way, but also to penetrate and somehow calm this piddling mortal’s trembling soul.

OFF TO MEXICO – Yum-m-m!

I'm like a hungry man about to sit down to a hearty four-course meal. That's how I'm feeling on the eve of my 28th trip to Mexico.

As beautiful as Minnesota winters can be, they starve us of sensation. Against this backdrop of bland whites and grays and taupes, we're challenged to find the sustenance of color in detail and nuance—like a rosy cheek or a tenacious freeze-dried crab apple. Smells are served unseasoned, frozen in midair. Sound, too, seems squeezed out of its luscious fullness like dried fruit. Even touch is blunted by layers of nylon (most of it black, it seems), feathers and fleece.

   A Minnesotan would be dragged before
   the neighborhood association for painting his 
   house these vivid shades of pink, blue or gold.

In most of Mexico, including Zihuatanejo, Guerrero where I'm headed, climate and culture collaborate to nourish one with colors, sounds, smells and flavors.



The colors: a Minnesotan would be dragged before the neighborhood association for painting his house these vivid shades of pink, blue or gold. The smells: so often they reveal, where sights may not, the real life that's going on beyond the sphere of one's sanitized tourist experience. The tastes: there's nothing dried or preserved about them; they're fresh and true and sometimes surprising. And the touch, oh, the caress of that soft, warm, delicious air pouring in off the Pacific!

Even the sounds of this place transport me: the haunting, three-note pan-flute plea of the itinerant knife sharpener; the blare of música norteña from passing cars and work sites; the other-worldly rasping of a covey of chachalacas. And behind it all, the soft, sure respiration of the surf.



Maybe it's the warmth that unlocks both stimuli and senses. Belying the laid back, unhurried lifestyle, the sensations of Mexico stir in me a subtle sense of urgency. A mango, for example, just picked from the tree outside our villa door, is such a beautiful form just to look at. But no sooner than it begins to blush with full color you have to eat it or it loses its tang and turns to mush. So many beautiful things are transient.

And Zihuatanejo's a place of seamless flow between indoor and outdoor life. With little notion of that confinement we Minnesotans suffer during winter, you sense everything going on —in El Centro, down at Playa La Ropa out on Zihuatanejo Bay—and want to be a part of it all. But it's okay; anything you do—even nothing at all—feels completely satisfying, thoroughly nourishing of body and spirit.