Days Lengthen

[Above photo: A small ice pond at Pinelands, where I ski and snowshoe.]

27 February 2022

Without my noticing it, the days are suddenly much longer. The sun now sets at 5:30PM. The period of very short days didn’t last long. And I am still in love with snow. We had a good 6” on Friday; it snowed all day. It is so nice to be warm and inside, looking through the window at the cold, blowing snow as it accumulates on the cars in front of my apartment.

I went to Pinelands Farm to ski, thinking that conditions would be ideal. Surprise! The previous snow had melted with our 50 degree days and then froze. The new snow landed on sheets of ice, making it impossible to groom a track. It was closed to skiing. But open to snow shoeing so I asked to rent a pair, mine being at home. The attendant graciously lent them to me and I tramped 5 miles up hill and down—dale? On one downhill pitch, for I was on the unused ski trail, not following the herd on the snowshoe path, I slid on a patch of ice and fell, twisting my knee. It seems fine now. I’m glad they closed it to skiing as it would have been treacherous. I suppose Harold and I can snowshoe, if the snow is miserable for our trip in 10 days.

A giant has died. Paul Farmer, who started a clinic in Haiti as a medical student, co-founded Partners in Health at Harvard, built hospitals in Ruanda and in Haiti, and taught and inspired many, both in and outside of the health care field, died of unknown (or unrevealed) causes in his sleep in Ruanda, where he was teaching at the medical school he co-founded.  Unlike many driven and accomplished people, he was kind and gentle and much loved by all who knew him. Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains is a wonderful introduction to him, describing vividly his grass-roots efforts to bring health care, and especially HIV-AIDS care, to the rural poor in Haiti, truly the wretched of the earth.

And valiant Ukraine, fighting off the Russian bear.  It is clear why DT initially called Putin’s attack on Ukraine “genius” and “peacekeeping”. Donald never saw a tyrant he didn’t like and Vlad is a brilliant one. I hope we are somehow smuggling lots of stinger missiles and other smart weaponry to the brave Ukrainians. Notably, President Zelensky didn’t complain of bone spurs and flee but remains with his family and those fighting in Kyiv, which speaks volumes to his character. I hate the Russian soldiers to be killed, as well, since they are simply being used as Putin’s cannon fodder, but since they are the invading aggressors in support of tyranny, I do hope they suffer enough that Putin will reconsider. It seems doubtful.  

Our response, which we keep ratchetting up, initially sounded like the unarmed London bobby—-“Stop. Or I’ll shout Stop again”.  Including SWIFT system sanctions will cause pain all around. Freezing the assets of all of the oligarchs may bring some pressure to bear. Joe Biden has skillfully drawn our NATO allies closer and, especially, engaged Germany, which stands to suffer the most from the Nordstrom pipeline sanctions. They should probably sanction the Nordstrom Outlets, as well. That will cause someone to squeal!

I think those who compare Russia’s humiliation after the fall of the Soviet Union to Germany’s after the Treaty of Versailles have a point. But I am glad we enrolled as many of the former Soviet republics into NATO as we did. Putin would go after them in a minute if they weren’t members, just as he is doing with Ukraine. I’m not sure how threatened he actually feels. Napoleon and Hitler both invaded Russia and both were whipped. 

Of course, our leaders are not as peace-loving as they like to portray themselves and we have bloody hands, from invading Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan to assassinating elected leaders throughout Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. I cannot imagine that he thinks Ukraine, however close she is to the West, has designs on Mother Russia. In any case, bullies must be confronted and stopped. But then there is the nuclear question.  This is considerably more frightening to me than the Cuban missile crisis. I heard Fiona Hill being interviewed, as well as Alexander Vindman; it is reassuring to listen to the opinions, however pessimistic, of honest, mature people who know their subject. Hopefully, cool heads will prevail. Why anyone wants to be the President of the US, I have no idea!

I’ve been struggling with Mating by Norman Rush. The man is brilliant and can write. It won the National Book Award. I still found it pedantic, precious, with unreal characters and a pretty ridiculous utopian theme. He’s witty, but every other page has a word I must look up which speaks more to his exhibitionism than to my impoverished vocabulary, I think. He’s writing in the voice of a woman who is constantly analyzing herself and all around her at 7 different levels. Maybe I am just a peasant but I had no interest in meeting any of the characters, let alone reading all 400+ pages about them. The unfortunate thing for me is that I’ll miss the study group discussion since I’ll be skiing with Harold. It promises to be lively and polarizing, I think.