Stanley, Maury and Jerry

We are back in frozen Europe. I know the US is cold, but I wonder if people in the US realize what is happening in Europe. Well, do you? England, which rarely sees snow, is frozen over. It was -17 Celsius in Scotland last night, which I think converts to -394 Fahrenheit. The BBC is abuzz. The UK doesn’t have anywhere near enough salt. Rumor has it that they will stop serving margaritas until the crisis has passed.

Part of me thinks that there have to be more compelling subjects to write about than the weather, but a greater part of me sees the wisdom in the words of Stanley Kunitz – a poet whom I was recently introduced to by a reader of this blog. Kunitz said, “Weather is a form of communication. There is an exchange between the self and the atmosphere that sets the tone for the entire day…Each of us is a very sensitive keyboard.” So, against a frozen Dutch backdrop…

Yesterday there was a very strong wind here, and I braved the elements and took Maury out for a walk. He dons a blue argyle sweater for such occasions. I put on long johns, which sadly didn’t stop my glasses from freezing to my face. In spite of the cold and wind, I saw a dozen people on bicycles and lots of people skating on the canals. I was surprised at one point to hear a splash to my left, and turned and saw that a heron had landed in an unfrozen spot next to a culvert that went below a road. Apparently the road kept the canal from freezing at that point. The ducks have all disappeared from the canals (where did they go? Spain? Africa?), and this lone bird was the only wildlife I saw. The heron looked large, proud, fierce, and defiant. This is the sort of animal you have to be to survive out here on your own. I am no heron – although I have to admit I feel alone on this side of the Atlantic a lot. But I don’t feel anywhere near as strong or ferocious as this heron looked.

A short time ago, Maury and I ventured out again. It is yet another endlessly gray day – sometimes I think the earth has swallowed the sun. The temperature was similar, but we didn’t have the wind, and since my glasses weren’t hurting my face, we took a walk almost twice as long as we did yesterday. We walked down a path where the bank of the canal is actually an apartment building. The heat from the building keeps the water warm, and there was a long stretch of water that was not frozen. And there were the ducks. I tried to count and had totaled over 75 when I gave up. It looked like all the ducks from all the canals have come here. I don’t know much about ducks, but I imagine at night these guys all huddle close together and keep each other from freezing. Even if they don’t, it’s a nice image, and I’m going to think the ducks all work together to survive.

I am a duck, not a heron.

Jerry Drachenberg responded to my last blog by asking how to find community. I honestly don’t know the answer to that, Jerry. I suppose you start by realizing you need it. I saw a picture of you last night as a pall bearer at a dear friend’s funeral a few days ago, so I imagine you are a lot more connected than you give yourself credit for. This much I know. Take a look at the heron and the ducks. We’re ducks, my brother, we’re ducks.