The Descent of Winter

Earlier this year I moved to Duluth MN, which for many weeks of the year can claim to be the icebox of the US. While there's no telling where the heart will lead, in my case it was here. Susan has been here since 1979 and that was good enough for me.

To be sure, others come for the salt-of-the-earth people, for the thriving art scene along the North Shore, for the glorious views of Lake Superior, or for easy access to the output of Bent Paddle Brewing—but what people don't do is to come for the balmy weather. (There are better locations for working on your tan.)

Although here it is October 6th and we still haven't experienced a killing frost (Susan and I harvested fresh basil this afternoon), the "high" tomorrow—and I use that term loosely—is projected to be a crisp 45 degrees. So here we go; time to make sure that the furnace filters are clean.

Fortunately, I like winter. To be sure, I don't particularly like ice, but I love creating a warm cave in our double bed each night, snug beneath the down duvet. I love hot soup for dinner, accompanied by cold butter melting on steaming rolls. I love how the diamantine stars dance on a clear new-moon night in January, sometimes accompanied by a curtain call from the Aurora Borealis.

In Duluth we expect the summers to be shorter and the winters to be longer. Even knowing that however, it's hard maintaining a good attitude in the face of spring's shy appearance. April is the cruelest month of all—when the calendar says it's spring but the ice persists in the harbor, delaying the start of the shipping season, as well as gardening. In anticipation of that Susan and I have finagled a Schaub sibling rendezvous in San Antonio for the first weekend of April in 2017, which we expect will net us a 30-degree gain in differential ambient temperature (we'll be trading 40 degrees in Duluth for 70 degrees in San Antonio—quite the upgrade). Will we be ready or what?

It was interesting this summer (when I was in Rochester for five weeks, getting my stem-cell transplant) that whenever I told folks that I was from Duluth, most southern Minnesotans commented on how lovely it is up here. This stood in sharp contrast with the opinions offered by most of my friends (living in balmier climes) who immediately expressed sympathy for what they considered my Nordic exile. (Oh, you poor boy.) Over and over I've had to explain that I like living in Duluth. Winters have never been a  problem for me, as long we've had enough dry firewood and good caulking around the windows.

As the thermometer drops, Susan and I start turning our attention toward holiday cooking opportunities: there will be Thanksgiving next month, followed by Christmas. Those are chances to warm the house from the kitchen outward, with good food marinating with family and good company. Somehow the food tastes better when it's cold outside.

Winter is also the best time for reading. For a couple years now I've been on a serious campaign to reduce my material possessions, with special attention being given to the enormous volume of books I've gradually aggregated over the years. Essentially I'm trying to turn around my habit of buying books faster than I read them. As a frame of reference I've plowed through 23 titles in the last quarter. As soon as I complete a title (I tend to alternate between fiction and nonfiction and have very eclectic tastes) I turn it over to Susan: either she can hang on to it to read herself (maybe one in four), we send it on to Goodwill, or I deposit it in one of the free lending libraries sprouting up in Amtrak depots these days. Slowly but surely, we're debooking the house, and I'm having a lot of fun getting exposed to all manner of ideas and wordcrafting.

You just gotta like winter.

Not Falling Behind

Susan put on wool socks yesterday—a sure sign that fall is in the ascendant. Also, we can't help noticing that it's getting darker and darker when the alarm goes off at 6:15 am each weekday. It's not our failing eyesight; it's an inexorable seasonal trend.

At least it is in Duluth. At COB Monday, the ice cream shops will shutter their windows until May, even as the locals begin to shudder in the presence of breezes off the lake. So the wheel of the calendar is turning, and I'm gearing up for the fall process season—where I'll (cautiously) step back into the rhythms of an itinerant consultant, freshly recovered from getting my multiple myeloma under control these past seven months.

Though it's too soon to know exactly how much of my health I've regained (or how much I've been able to maneuver the cancer into remission), it's not too soon to begin living the life I can with the health I have. In 10 days I'll board the westbound Empire Builder (train #27 if you're scoring at home) for the City of Roses. In Portland I'll be met by Luz Gomez, who will drive me the rest of the way to Medford, where Weekend IV of the Pacific Northwest facilitation training will be hosted by Ashland Cohousing.

I can hardly wait for the opportunity to teach again. It's one of the things in life I enjoy most, and is a great fit with my accumulated knowledge (40+ years of group living and almost 30 years as a process consultant) and limited energy (as I gradually continue to rebuild my stamina following the stem-cell transplant in July).

Two weeks after my gig in Oregon (note that I'm protecting a week of recuperation in between), I will be in Richmond VA starting a different version of my two-year facilitation training—this time in the Southeast (centered around NC and VA) hosted by Richmond Cohousing, a forming community in the capital of the Cavalier State. Following that I'll be enjoying fall in Duluth, leading up to a trip to the City of Angels to see Ceilee and my grandkids in late Oct.

If I have my way, I will springboard off the end of that visit to use Los Angeles as my point of departure for a romantic (and heroic?) traverse across the breadth of North America to attend the fall organizational meetings of the Fellowship for Intentional Community at La Cité, a well-established ecovillage just east of Montréal. 

My hope is to negotiate the entire trip from Los Angeles to Ham-Nord QC and back to Duluth via choo choo—to the extent possible. It will take me five days and 4839 train miles eastbound (with a sharp dogleg right in Vancouver) plus two days and 1505 miles on the rebound (from Montréal to St Paul via Schenectady and Chicago). It's a fantasy train trip, and includes a ride on the Canadian (Vancouver to Toronto) end for end—it's the only long distance train across the continent that I haven't ridden. I'll get home in the wee hours of Nov 9 and will happily spend the rest of the month in Duluth, snuggling with Susan and giving thanks.

While Wikipedia cautions would-be travelers on the Canadian (Via's train #2) that the scenery can get monotonous (lots of pine trees and lakes), I am, after all, a deeply experienced bourgeois in backwoods canoeing and have a special affinity for both the North Woods and the Canadian Shield (the Precambrian granite that dominates the terrain from Winnepeg to Toronto). As it happens, in the early morning hours of the fourth day the train will chug through some of my most familiar territory in western Ontario, including a refueling stop in Sioux Lookout, from which I've launched many a canoe trip on Abrams Lake. So I'll be fine. 

My trip aboard the Canadian will simultaneously be both eye-opening (new scenery, especially as we crawl through the Rockies where we'll glimpse Banff, Jasper, and the impossibly picturesque Lake Louise) and nostalgic. A nice mix. 

While I'd much prefer to conduct this journey with Susan, she has used most of her vacation days to support me in my health crisis this year and she feels the need to stay closer to her desk at St Paul's the remainder of the year—paying back the church's kindness and understanding in letting her take off a good deal of time while serving as my main support. I'm fervently hoping that 2017 will be more characterized by our traveling together for our mutual pleasure than for attending to my medical treatments.

• • •

In closing I note that one of the regular features of autumn is the shift from daylight savings back to standard time, the mnemonic for which is "spring ahead and fall behind." Looking backwards, it's easy to see that my health was falling behind last fall (though I didn't know it at the time, my deteriorating back ultimately resulted in my hospitalization with excruciating pain and the discovery of my cancer). This year, ironically, I'll be "falling ahead," taking advantage of the change of season (when vacations are over and communities return to full strength) to reenter the orbit of my consulting career, cherry picking the aspects from which I derive the most pleasure (and believe I'm delivering the most good).

Hopefully, this year there will be no falling behind.

The Door to Winter

As the last days of October wind down, the color is starting to fade from the trees. The sorghum is all in barrels and we've pulled from the garden all the vegetables that frost would ruin. We are in that period of grace between fall and winter, when the harvest is essentially done and the wood heating season hasn't yet begun. It's time to exhale, sleep a little later in the morning, linger over coffee, read during daylight hours, and otherwise savor the change of seasons.

For me this interlude has defined boundaries: it started when we stopped stoking the boiler for the final sorghum cook Thursday afternoon, and will last until this coming Thursday morning, when Ma'ikwe and I drive to Chicago, en route to Ann Arbor and the coming North American Students of Cooperation Institute, Nov 4-6. That will start a six-week stretch where I'll be on the road excepting only Thanksgiving week and Nov 15 (when I'll be home just long enough to say hello, do laundry, and have a warm dinner at home). When I return after that six-week run, it will be no-doubt-about-it winter.

During the next five days I'll have time to take a walk or two (where I'll be able to feel the Earth turning toward dormancy—it's not the same just looking out the window); to have unhurried follow-up conversations with Sandhillians who revealed tender personal tidbits during recent check-ins at community meetings; to go back and handle non-urgent administrative tasks that were set aside during the rush of harvest; to catch up on trip accounting that has been stockpiled since August; to get down on my hands and knees and scrub the floors clean; to enjoy a season-ending celebratory sweat with my community. I'll also have the time to make a small dent in my Honey-do List at Ma'ikwe's house. While most of this will wait patiently until the winter, one thing needs attention right now.

The Door to Green Housing
The most pressing item is constructing a door to her greenhouse, which was the highlight of this year's construction season. She has a boarder interested in living in the greenhouse this winter, but that plan hinges on having tight door where there is now only a gaping hole. The greenhouse was built as an attachment to the southwest corner of her house, and will serve both as a food growing area and as a thermal buffer. The main entry to the house will pass through the greenhouse, as a glorified entranceway.

While others have constructed the earthen walls, put on the roof, and installed the windows, I signed up to custom build the door. The trick to a tight door is getting the sizing right, making sure the framing on the hinge side is dead plumb, and locating the strike plate accurately. This challenge is exacerbated by the fact that the concrete work upon which the threshold will rest has no relationship to level, and I have to be careful not to cut any of the wood to final dimensions before I know exactly where the threshold will be.

The construction sequence is additionally complicated by the greenhouse being at Dancing Rabbit—while the tools needed to shape things reside at Sandhill, three miles distant. It does not escape my consciousness that there is irony to handcrafting a door for a Green building by driving back and forth between construction site and tools. Fortunately, my embarrassment over this will be overcome by my successfully installing a sound door.

As someone who loves working with his hands, it will be my delight to make this door project the capstone of my last week on the farm before winter. It is metaphorically fitting that I intend to close the opening to Ma'ikwe's greenhouse concurrently with closing the door on fall. As a door builder—and inveterate constructor of metaphors—that symmetry appeals to me.

The Consultant's Time Warp

Tomorrow evening I board the California Zephyr in Ottumwa IA, westbound for the Bay Area. It's the start of a 41-day road trip. At home today it's rainy and cool. The sorghum seedlings are struggling with the low temperatures and Stan is anxious about getting into the fields as we slide past our frost-free date. The black locusts are still in bloom and the black raspberries are just about to flower.

By the time I return from this monster road trip, the days will be at their longest, the gardeners are likely to be looking for rain, and the black raspberries will be ready to pick. I am departing in the midst of spring, and will be returning with summer fully regnant. While it's a lovely time to travel (and I'll thoroughly enjoy my cross country treks—nine days of which will be by train, with their lovely observation cars sheathed in wrap-around windows), I'll nonetheless miss the unfolding of the growing season at home. I won't be here for the first peas and new potatoes (we just enjoyed the last of the 2009 crop at dinner last night). Everyone will have put their sweatshirts into the back of their closet by the time I return, while my shorts will still have winter dust on them.

While there's sadness for me in this, no one has twisted my arm. I travel because that's where I can best deliver the work I love and feel called to do. To be sure, the Internet allows me tremendous capacity for communicating inexpensively and in depth with folks anywhere, and from the comfort of a seat in my bedroom. Also, there are times when I can facilitate by phone. (I just finished a contract with a disbanding group, for example, where I facilitated a series of a dozen conference calls over 12 months, helping members gracefully disentangle themselves—I drafted the agendas, wrote up the minutes, crafted the buyout agreement, and handled escrow during the exchange of checks for people giving up their share certificates. I did everything but shine shoes, yet never had to travel once.)

For all of this though, it's often highly valuable to meet with people in person. Whether it's connecting with FIC donors, giving a workshop on consensus, or laboring with groups trying to get out of the mud, there is a richness and dimensional quality to face-to-face conversations that electronic wizardry cannot substitute for—though I'm mindful of the startling advances in video conferencing and webinar technology. There are times when it's important that people can smell each other and see the nuances in facial expressions and hand gestures. The world of community is built on the bedrock of relationships, and it rarely works to just mail it in or send pictures.

One of the ironies of my life is that it's built around community, yet half the time (or more) I'm on the road promoting it and offering guidance about it, rather at home living it. I think there is an essential and vital quality about my work that derives from my maintaining a living link to community (rather than coming solely from remembered prior experiences), yet I strain that link by being away so much. It's a delicate dance, having a foot in two worlds.

It's also somewhat lonely, in that it's hit or miss whether I've close friends at hand when I want to share what's challenging for me. Sometimes I have to wait, or rely on what's possible with email or phone. Luckily, as my field is community, there is often a wealth of good people nearby—even if I haven't met them all yet. It's a world full of possibility and surprise, and I wouldn't trade my particular brand of craziness for anyone else's.

So tomorrow I'm outbound for six consecutive weekends. "Ahead warp factor six, Mr Sulu."

The Wearing of the Green

Every spring there are a few days (maybe a week) where the grass is far enough along in its vegetative resurgence that it is lushly green, while the deciduous trees, in their lumbering way, lag behind. Here in northeast Missouri we are in that brief window now. The yards look like they're two days away from their first mowing and the trees are still wearing their winter countenance.

To be sure, if you take a close peek, you can see the tree buds are swelling and the leaves are just about to explode out of their cocoons. (Yes, the buckeyes are already leafed out, but those precocious Sooners are exotics in these parts and our woods today are, in the main, still being brought to us by the color Brown.)

It's an odd juxtaposition that I marvel at every year: as if the artist in charge of background scenery was undecided between a somber leafless setting, or something up-tempo and verdant. It's hard to believe that the grass and the trees are participating in the same weather.

This also signals the beginning of the end of our long views, especially over the river valley to our west. The late-to-the-party legions of leaves will soon clothe the bare branches and mask the horizon until the fall denuding. Today we can see the weather we'll getting 30-60 minutes from now just by looking out the window. After the trees leaf out, we'll only be able to see 5-10 minutes ahead, unless we walk down the lane where the drop-off is sharp enough that we can peer over the copse of oaks that define our western boundary.

• • •

March 1 I was in Texas, driving through the night from Albuquerque to Houston. Arriving late morning, I got my first 08 glimpse of this green-grass/brown-trees phenomenon. It's taken six weeks for this road show to creep north—about 100 miles a week. Driving north-south this time of the year is like being inside a Walt Disney nature movie displaying the progression of the seasons through time-lapsed photography. If I were headed to Minneapolis I could see the grass retreat backward into dormancy; a road trip to Memphis would showcase leaves on steroids.

A few years back I had work in North Carolina in late April, two weeks home in early May, and then a trip to New Hampshire following that. I got to see lilacs blooming in all three places. Not bad. (Kind of like experiencing spring with TiVo.)