I say, a pressure drop, oh pressure
Oh yeah, pressure drop, a drop on you
I say, a pressure drop, oh pressure
Oh yeah, pressure drop, a drop on you
I say, and when it drops, oh, you gonna feel it
Pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure
- "Pressure Drop," by Toots and the Maytals

I might be imagining things, but with the passing of our high pressure system and the cold weather that sat on us for most of a month, things feel different. There seems to be more depth to the woods. (My and Cedar’s attention seem drawn more uphill to the rest of the mountain on our walks.) Sound travels differently. Some days before I get up, I listen for ravens to indicate what it’s like out. Their calls are softer but seem to travel farther on these misty, low-pressure days.

Maybe I’m influenced by Tim, who is home for one more day, and is finding great interest in learning about sounds as he makes electronic music, and thrills to the math of it all. (Those thrill-waves seem to stop when they hit, Dad, but that’s okay. And Tim somehow didn’t seem to share my thrill that residents of Juneau actually heard “sonic booms” from the Tongan undersea volcano eruption; talk about pressure drops… It’s crazy to me to think about those sound waves traveling the ocean all the way from Tonga and then finding release in a thunderous boom in the Alaskan air.)

There’s no question that Cedar’s attention was uphill on our walk today. She actually swam her way through the snowpack in the neighbor’s yard to follow some scent up on the forested hillside, then stopped frequently today for a whiff of something way uphill. Maybe smells travel more easily in this lower pressure air, too? Or maybe the trees are thawing, releasing more of their chemistry, or maybe deer are coming down for a little forest bathing themselves.

My speculation is worth little. But I had a fun memory on the walk today of delighting in Ted Hughes’ use of sound in his poem “Football at Slack.” Back when I first discovered this–when I was in Tim’s shoes, trying to figure out a senior thesis–I interpreted “slack” as slack tide, as if all these extra-bouncy things might be happening at that moment of planetary equipose, or maybe that “slack” also could have had connotations for low pressure, “the depth of Atlantic depression…” (Turns out “The Slack” is actually a region of Yorkshire, England, where Hughes grew up. But long live connotations. These sounds are still bouncing around while Hughes is not, right?)

Football at Slack

Between plunging valleys, on a bareback of hill
Men in bunting colours
Bounced, and their blown ball bounced.

The blown ball jumped, and the merry-coloured men
Spouted like water to head it.
The ball blew away downwind –

The rubbery men bounced after it.
The ball jumped up and out and hung in the wind
Over a gulf of treetops.
Then they all shouted together, and the blown ball blew back.

Winds from fiery holes in heaven
Piled the hills darkening around them
To awe them. The glare light
Mixed its mad oils and threw glooms.
Then the rain lowered a steel press.

Hair plastered, they all just trod water
To puddle glitter. And their shouts bobbed up
Coming fine and thin, washed and happy

While the humped world sank foundering
And the valleys blued unthinkable
Under the depth of Atlantic depression –

But the wingers leapt, they bicycled in air
And the goalie flew horizontal

And once again a golden holocaust
Lifted the cloud’s edge, to watch them.

-from Remains of Elmet, 1979

And finally–wasn’t I writing about Cedar?– I’ve been marveling at the bounce in her step lately. I tried to catch that lightness of a happy trot, a cadence above a run but below a walking pace, but I missed it again and again. So here she is just plodding along, maybe sensing the pressure drop, maybe not. But likely happy and heedless of my blather.

Cedar’s been upstaged. Most of the last few days have been about moving snow. Cedar is an enthusiastic supporter of anyone with a shovel—she will clamp her jaws down on the business end and try to pull it in the direction it’s going—but her irrepressible social urges send her ranging to whoever comes into view or whiff. So she’s been either outside in trouble or inside captive for a good chunk of the past couple of days. 

Thoreau said his wood warms him twice. (I guess there’s some controversy that he ripped that off from a guy named Kinloch from earlier in the century, but who has time for that with all this snow to move?) I’ll concede that my snow soaks me twice—at least.

Tim and his buddy Arne were a great help moving snow, but they were so caught up with building a huge pile to jump into that they neglected to see that the pile would block the entrance to the house. 

We got another 8-10 inches last night, and it’s supposed to snow all day. Neighbor Matt tells me tonight’s forecast is for “ice showers” — another bit of weather poetry to add to last year’s atmospheric river? 

I could do without the poetry; Cedar’s game for most anything.

Stay tuned for nostalgia for these cold wintery days. And with luck, Cedar back to center, soggy, stage.

We’re into the negative numbers. Minus 6 earlier this morning.

Cedar seems to have arrived at a bit of a truce on the morning walk. She was lying next to the heater a little extra patiently today, but we made it out, eventually. Honestly, she seems unaffected–and maybe a bit energized–once she’s outside.

I first fell in love with her amber eyes on a Labradors in Alaska Facebook page, where there are daily pics of Labs frolicking in far colder places than Juneau. (Yes, I met my wife and my dog online.) But if I were to go by the popular Lab sites, I should be bringing Cedar in when it’s 20 degrees above—that seems like about 90% of our winter so far.

As you can sort of tell from the photos, Cedar seems far more concerned by the scent of frozen nuggets (hey, here’s an occasion to use the word subnivean!) below the snow than any abstractions about thermometers.

We have the sink water trickling, all heat systems blasting, and with a weather forecast of snow then sharply warming temps and rain later on this week, I’m starting to join the chorus of Juneautians wondering when they might need to shovel their roofs.

I’m considering stealing a trick from the ravens, hiding some dog biscuits up there, and setting Cedar loose.

‘Tis the season for resolutions, I guess. The cold light of January is for real around here. It’s barely double figures, the wind is blowing, it’s a work day, and there’s just no hiding. I did not want to take Cedar for a walk today, but we headed to the big trees at first light, avoiding the waist high snow in the path of the not-so-great-circle route. (If the snow trend continues, I may stash a pair of snowshoes in Neighbor Tom’s back yard, and alternate our direction daily.)

As usual, a few steps in to the big trees, and my attitude improved with Cedar’s joyful trots and jumps and her celebratory sniffs. I let my mind do its own version of freedog. 

I realized somewhere in the brisk walk that I hadn’t even contemplated any resolutions this year. So I made a few promises to Cedar on the way home. (I won’t ask the same from her, since she hasn’t even been here half a year.)

***

Dear Cedar, 

This year, I resolve to… 

• Take you on walks even–especially–when I don’t want to. On those days, I may need the walks more than you. 
• Take care of my body so I can do that and more. 
• Let your growth plates fuse before too much of that “more”.
• Stop with you to look and listen on our walks. 
• Teach you to heel well enough for our inevitable porky and bear meetings. 
• Continue to re-evaluate this training-without-treats business. (Other humans think I’m a bit of a freak for that, and Cedar, they may be right. And treats may not be the cure.)
• Watch less tee vee. (I know, Cedar, we don’t have tee vee, but watching a couple of movies while Katrina was here made me realize that you could be a real movie-junky. How ‘bout we go back to hockey games on the laptop and you on my lap?)
• Never make you wear a vest. 
• Teach you to swim (or lead you to teach yourself). 
• Leave a few socks and shoes around to indulge your guilty pleasures. (Can’t help you with the bras; sorry.)
• Learn from your honesty. (I love how you confess your crimes of sock stealing so readily.)
• Be more monk than misogynist. 
• Not write about you in a way that will embarrass either of us. (Too late? Maybe.) 
• Be half the person you seem to believe I am. 

Love,

Tom

A recently republished New York Times piece on changing habits suggests one of the keys to success is “reducing friction”.

In the scientific study of habit formation, the thing that makes it harder for you to achieve your goal is called friction. Reducing friction means removing an obstacle or coming up with a strategy that makes a task easier to do. And if you figure out how to make a goal easier, you’re more likely to succeed.

“To Start a New Habit, Make It Easy,” Tara Parker-Pope, NYT, Jan. 09, 2021

I’m sorry, dear Cedar, but I’m not going to sleep in my winter clothes. I might, though, take one tip from the article, and use the tee vee to watch some jellyfish. Whaddya say?

Meanwhile, a few photos for those who are watching you grow up. Sorry; no jellyfish music. (Use the arrows for the slide show, Mom. )