Autumnal Melancholy

October 31.  Halloween.  And, of course, the last day of October.

What's up, you ask?  Why is this my first post in eleven days?  After an early start that had seem to promise another great and prolific blogging year, this will be only my fifth post in October.  Making October 2021 my poorest monthly showing -- quantity-wise, at least -- since October 2019.  October must, at least for me, have some miasma hanging about it.

September?  Different story.  September had a lot going for it.  There was my bruising but exciting climb to Rachel Lake.  The tense and hopeful excitement of my pre-travel Covid-19 test.  My fantastic week on the shores of Lake Como, Italy.  My first attendance in person at a Seattle Symphony concert since the pandemic began.  And, at the end of the month, my eagerly awaited Pfizer booster shot.

And October?  Well, there was an enjoyable visit to Boston in mid-month.  Otherwise, the month was flat and listless.  Like a return to pandemic isolation and inertia, but without the pandemic justification.  No wonder I've had a hard time finding something worth writing about.

But of course that's not really an excuse.  In past years, my posts have often displayed considerable enthusiasm for the most trivial of subjects.  An example?  How about my posted fascination over my state's changing slightly the numbering system on its auto license plates (6-29-2010)?  No, there were things to write about in October -- they just didn't capture my attention, they didn't interest me.  I just stared out my window blankly, gazing at the rain and gray skies. 

I had brain fog, I guess.  Even without having had Covid-19.

I just came back from an afternoon walk through the Arboretum, near my house.  Two miles on paths through beautiful changing foliage.  The sky was dark blue, the sun was shining, the trees had just reached the stage that makes for beautiful photography -- predominantly yellow foliage, punctuated occasionally by the bright scarlet of Japanese maples. Some trees are still completely green, and others completely bare.  Nature's diversity on display for my enjoyment.

And I did enjoy it, but with an enjoyment tinged with melancholy.  The way as a kid you enjoy the last day of Christmas vacation; the way I enjoyed my last day at Lake Como.  The sense that the Universe was putting on one last display of fireworks for me, one last celebration before the end.  The end, at least, until the first buds of spring, an event that on October 31 feels like a lifetime away.  The remaining green leaves will soon turn yellow, and the yellow leaves will fall.  A month from now, all the deciduous trees will be skeletal, the blue sky will have faded to the perpetual winter gray of the Northwest Corner, and the rainfall will be constant.

In fact, the blue skies of yesterday and today were already a mere interlude, following 36 hours of continual rain, rain that managed to flood my basement garage.  More rain tomorrow has been planned, rain that will get November -- and the winter of 2021-22 -- off to a proper start.

Yes, I know.  Thanksgiving will come in a few weeks, and then Christmas.  Oases in the desert of melancholic gloom, but oases at which we can't linger indefinitely before trudging out once more across the barren sands.

At least I have my cats, who have become notably more affectionate since the temperatures began falling.  I take comfort in their affection, even though I know deep in my heart that it's a faux affection, a seeking for a warm lap, a comfortable bed.  But I take whatever delusional solace I can get from their hard feline hearts.

But we'll get through this, both my cats and I.  Melancholy is derived from the Greek for "black bile," and the change of seasons has probably had a physical effect on my emotions.  It will pass, as my hormones -- my "humors" -- are adjusted.  As the black bile is replaced by the happier, summery humors of "blood" and "yellow bile."

But, meanwhile, Halloween?  Bah!  Humbug!  Those little brats will get no candy from me.  I'll turn off the front lights and spend the evening reading in a back bedroom.

A long weekend in Boston

As I posted on Facebook last Saturday, "If I had to leave Seattle, I could survive in Boston."  I was half way through a brief -- four days, including air travel -- visit to the Boston area, a trip that was living up to all my expectations.  I find that I feel comfortable and at home in Boston (as a tourist at least) -- more than I might in many other American destinations.

I stayed in the same Cambridge inn (bed & breakfast) as on past visits.  Only a couple of blocks from Harvard Yard, which I crossed frequently on my way to and from the Harvard subway stop.  Each crossing giving me a reason to wish again that I were still a bright eyed and bushy tailed college student.  Or even a tired and exhausted one.  

The only real pre-planned portion of my visit was a visit to Concord -- an expedition similar to my side trip to Salem at exactly the same time of year in 2018.  Massachusetts Bay Transit (MBTA), which runs the buses and subways in Boston, also runs commuter trains to outlying suburbs.  I took such a train from North Station to Salem three years ago, and I took a different train from the same station this year, a 40-minute ride to Concord.  Both Salem and Concord are full of historical and literary allusions.

I had visited Concord once before, as part of a rental car tour of New England in 1992.  This time, my travel was solely by public transport and by foot.  After a brief ramble around Monument Square -- in the heart of Concord -- I walked some 45 minutes out Walden Street to the "pond" made famous by Henry David Thoreau, now part of Walden Pond State Reservation.  

You need to walk that distance to appreciate how close Thoreau's cabin retreat, built on land owned by his friend and fellow author Ralph Waldo Emerson, was to the town.  The park itself is fairly large, and very nicely maintained.  The "pond" itself is fairly large, more a lake, but one that can easily be circled on a 1½ mile lakeshore path.  The site of Thoreau's cabin is clearly marked, and excavations have determined its exact location.  The site has become something of a literary shrine; Thoreau worshippers have brought stones, over the years, and constructed a stone pile and a number of cairns next to the place where the cabin stood.

To simplify matters for automobile-oriented visitors, an exact replica of the cabin has been constructed near the visitor center on the main road, and furnished exactly as the author himself is believed to have done.

So I visited the cabin site, and walked around the lake.  The path on the far side of the lake passes within feet of the track from Boston, at a point that the train passes shortly before it arrives at Concord station -- a development against which Henry probably would have protested vehemently.

I returned to town, had lunch at an excellent coffee house, visited the  Old Hill Burial Ground -- scary Halloween-appropriate tombstones climbing a steep hill adjacent to the town center -- and walked out to Orchard House, the childhood home of Louisa May Alcott, which served as the background of the family in Little Women.  I have never read the novel.  If I had, I might well have taken the offered tour of the house, but I suspected I would have missed most of the literary allusions.  So I satisfied myself with an exterior photo, and trudged back into town, taking the next train back into Boston.

Next time I visit, I'd like to explore the road from Concord to nearby Lexington, and the Old North Bridge, where the shot was fired "heard round the world."  But I'd really need a car to do that.  Or even better a bike, as some guidebooks suggest.

The rest of my time in Boston was largely spent re-visiting favorite spots from earlier visits.  I had dinner Friday night in very enjoyable outdoor seating adjacent to the Quincy Market near the waterfront.  I spent a morning at the Museum of Fine Arts.  I explored the waterfront from South Station to the North End.  I prowled about Beacon Hill, dodging a number of small tour groups, their members' eyes glazed with exhaustion, and arriving finally at that apex of Boston residential life, Louisburg Square.

My final morning, Sunday, was spent wandering the Esplanade, along the Charles River, eying the sailboats and the occasional swan, until I reached Harvard Bridge.  I crossed the bridge, partly for the river view and partly to observe how MIT fraternity members back in 1958 had calibrated the bridge in "smoots" -- each smoot being about 5'7" (in conventional measurement) -- the precise height of Oliver R. Smoot, the shortest member of their pledge class that year.  The paint is still fresh on the sidewalk, marking off every ten smoots.  "The past is never dead," as Faulkner once said.  "It's not even past."

And with that deep thought in mind, I returned by subway to Cambridge, picked up my baggage, and headed back south again to the airport.  

Yeah, I really like Boston.  In some ways, in its history and its traditions, it is quite different from Seattle.  But something in its spirit feels similar.

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Photo:  Memorial Church, taken at night from Harvard Yard.

Outside the box

 

If, like me, you're a bit of a science buff -- maybe leaning toward science fiction -- you may recall something unusual that happened four years ago this month.  Something odd entered our solar system, shot past us, and departed.  Not unusual, of course, for a comet.

But this differed -- apparently -- from ordinary comets.  It made strange accelerations.  It left no tail.  It was shaped flat like a pancake.  It was -- as this month's Smithsonian magazine puts it -- "unlike anything astronomy had ever seen."

Everyone was interested, of course, and various scientists suggested various theories.  One of those conventional theories may be shown in the future to fully explain the observations..  At present, however, they all seem unsatisfying.

One prominent scientist -- Braham Loeb, a Harvard professor who has made major contributions in the study of black holes and in other areas -- says out loud what we laymen have all been thinking.  Maybe the object was an alien visitor? Maybe, he suggests, its unusual shape was attributable to a light-powered sail.  The scientific community was, for the most part, aghast.

The thrust of the Smithsonian article -- aside from presenting interesting biographical background and a personal profile of Dr. Loeb and his co-workers -- is to show how conservative scientists can be when presented by observations that don't fit within accepted constructs.  Dr. Loeb takes care to say that he is not advocating for a conclusion that Oumuamua (the name given the object) is of alien origin.  He just feels that it's a viable theory, and that any theory that isn't contradicted by the factual observations needs to be considered.

Loeb notes the outraged refusal by some fellow scientists to even consider the possibility of Oumuamua's being an alien craft.  "The level of vitriol can be like a middle-school playground," he observes.  I myself am reminded of the early refusal by physicians to consider Joseph Lister's theory that infections are spread by physical contact.  I recall a "You Are There" mock-documentary from the early days of television in which physicians were portrayed as highly insulted by the suggestion that they should wash their hands before surgery. 

In 1869, at the meetings of the British Association at Leeds, Lister's ideas were mocked; and again, in 1873, the medical journal The Lancet warned the entire medical profession against his progressive ideas.

--Wikipedia.

This past summer, Loeb initiated a project to coordinate a large number of telescopes worldwide to seek out other Oumuamua-type objects.  He doesn't know what he'll find.  He calls the project a "fishing expedition."

Fishing expeditions have prompted many advances in scientific knowledge.  If he finds nothing, he finds nothing.  The alien theory still won't be disproved, but continuing to pursue it -- at least with our present level of knowledge and technology -- will seem less urgent.

Of course, we all hope he does find something, that some contact with a superior civilization will not only be a scientific coup, but will have a dramatic effect on how we all view the meaning of life, and of the universe,  and of our place in it.

It would be wonderful.  Or would it?

Star Trek ("IRL")

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before!

Those of us who were sentient during the late 1960s recall the voice of William Shatner, in his role as Captain James T. Kirk, commander of the USS Enterprise, introducing each episode of Star Trek. Shatner was a household name back in the days of those first three seasons ("The Original Series").  Among certain groups of fans, he probably still is.

Shatner is still alive, over a half century later. Looking a bit stouter, perhaps, at the age of 90, but probably still capable of taking a starship out for a whirl.

We'll soon find out. Shatner is scheduled to blast into space on Wednesday, October 13, at 9:30 a.m. (EDT). He will be flying in the New Shepherd NS-18, developed by Blue Origin, the space travel company owned by Jeff Bezos. Shatner probably won't captain the ship, of course, but at age 90 he will certainly be an impressive and adventurous crew member.

Blue Origin's motto is “Gradatim Ferociter” (“step by step, ferociously”). I love it.

I'm impressed that Shatner is about to experience in real life the adventure he portrayed so memorably as a young man.

So impressed that I'd like to imitate his feat.  In high school, I myself played (I blushingly admit) a leading role in our school's grandiose production of Around the World in Eighty Days.  I'm tempted now to achieve the same feat in real life, just like Shatner.  Circumnavigate the earth in eighty days.  

Of course, in Star Trek, Shatner traveled throughout our galaxy.  Wednesday, he'll ascend only 63 miles above the earth's surface.

Maybe I should similarly lower my sights.  Maybe I'll just drive from Seattle to Spokane.  In one day.  

Tempting the Fates

Sometimes, I tempt the Fates.  Not through bravado.  Usually through stupidity, through not thinking through the consequences of my choices.

As I've discussed before, I more or less glided through my visit to Italy last month, testing negative both before flying to Rome and again before flying home from Milan.  I had endured eighteen months of pandemic, and had apparently escaped contact with the virus.  Two weeks ago, I prudently sought out the flu vaccine.  One week ago, I even more prudently received a Pfizer booster shot for my Covid-19 vaccination.

I seemed to be in great shape.  In great shape, and making choices.

Then, Saturday, I had a couple of sneezing spells, along with a tingling in my throat.  That night, after lying down in bed, I had some coughing, which was easily controlled by a cough suppressant.  My throat continued to feel odd on Sunday and Monday.  I was able to talk myself into imagining a mild headache. 

Some of these symptoms could have been side effects from my booster shot, but not the sneezing.  They all could have been simply signs of a cold.  But sneezing has, in fact, been one of the "breakthrough" symptoms afflicting those vaccinated against Covid-19.  Oh no, I thought, a breakthrough infection just days before my booster would have made me immortal.  Monday, I made an online appointment with a mass testing effort run by a partnership between the University of Washington and the City of Seattle.  Because I claimed I had "symptoms" -- real or imagined -- I was given an appointment just two hours after I applied.

Before I'd really thought this through.  Do I really want to risk a positive test result, despite minimal symptoms, shortly before I'm scheduled to fly to Boston?  My symptoms are so mild as to be ignored in better times.  But, of course, these aren't better times.  

So I go to the campus outdoor field where the tests are being administered.  I was assuming that I'd be given an antigen test, as I had for my Italy travels, with a result within fifteen minutes.  But -- I had "symptoms."  Therefore, I had to be given the far more sensitive PCR test, a test that picks up the slightest presence of the Covid virus.  And, because the lab work is more complex than that for the antigen test, I wouldn't know the result for one to three days.

Even with an appointment, the scene of the testing is crowded and has more the flavor of a county fair than a doctor's appointment.  But the lines move fast, and before I know it I'm given a swab and told to collect my own sample from my own nose.   Which I do.  It tickles a bit, but isn't painful.  

And then I wait.   Why did I do this, I wonder?  I wasn't ill, or close to it.  I didn't need to risk a positive test result, and be forced to stay in my house for ten days while feeling in perfect health.  Possibly risk my planned trip to Boston.

This morning, I receive a text telling me that my result is available.  I go on-line, using a secret code they provide me, and pull up a page.  The result:  "None detected."  "None" being no viruses, I surmise.  I read further, and am assured that this is a "negative" result.

I'm relieved, but I feel that I unnecessarily tempted fate.  The three Greek goddesses, the three Fates, continue weaving at their looms.  They smile gently at me and wink.  

They let me get away with it this time.