Dead Letter Department #77

weather report

Winter is here: frost on the car in the morning, steaming off the roofs when the sun hits in cloudy white tendrils, clinging to the gazing ball next to the mountain laurel. I put slippers under my desk to keep my feet warm when I’m working, & pulled the massive quilt I made years ago, the one with a flannel sheet on the back, out of the linen trunk. The scent of the lavender sachets I tuck in there will linger faintly for some time. My gloves and hats always seem to disappear, and then I find them in the same place I cleverly hid them from myself last year, just in time to wear them when I go for a walk in the graveyard with my friend or find my hands getting red and chapped when I’m scraping the ice off the windshield.

I want hot food now, steak & stout pies, pork chops cooked with the shallots C. gave me to plant in the spring, leftovers fried in chili oil and put over arugula salads, honey ginger tea in the evening, for that pleasant, back of the throat burn.

When I went up to Semiahmoo yesterday, there was thick fog hanging over everything in the lowlands, so I’d crest the hill into bright blue sky and then dive back down again into cottony mist so thick that we all had our lights on. Hundreds of birds bobbed on the grey waves, and we saw a eagle hauling ass with a mouthful of fish before the crows could bully it away from them.

I’m glad Thanksgiving is done with—the major winter holidays stick out of the calendar for me like lumps I have to painstakingly mountaineer over, so I cleaned my whole house the day afterwards, setting everything in order, spritzing the soft furnishings with the forest scented room spray my sibling gave me, hoping to dispel the weight of it. It worked, a least a little.

I’ve been going for more walks, since the little dog I was watching for a few days came to stay, just wandering around the block looking at the various tiny free libraries on my lunch break, or going over to Elizabeth Park to look at the big, beautiful houses. Many of the trees are stripped of leaves now, making their evergreen neighbors stand out in bright relief, and the birds are steadily making away with the last of the berries.

The little apartment complex down the street finally sold, after years on the market, & seems to be going through a major remodel, big white vans parked in front and tools scattered across the lawn. The academy at the end of the road is going through the permitting process to add on more classrooms, so sometime before too terribly long there will be even more children running in circles and screaming their heads off during recess—the last time I passed the school during their lunch break, a little kid in a pink coat ran up to the wire fence, made direct eye contact with me and hissed as loudly as she could. It was so clearly part of whatever imaginary game she was playing—possibly she was currently embodying some kind of enormous cat—that I all I could do was laugh.

reading room

I can’t say enough about Martha Wells’ Witch King—the world is colossal, absorbing, completely realized to the point where I felt I could walk into it, and the character, a demon who, through a series of treaties with the world above, comes up to take on a mortal body, is so finely drawn that he felt entirely real to me. It’s about history and war, how to survive both, and what’s worth surviving for. I think too many stories neglect friendship, focusing instead on romance, and because of the double-pronged story telling approach Wells used here, you get to see Kai’s friendships building out of the ashes of his destroyed world, and the full-blown beauty of those relationships once they’ve matured into lifetime (or immortal, in some cases) connections. If you’re wanting something immersive and out of this world, I strongly recommend it.

one good thing

I hadn’t been to the Seattle Art Museum since before the pandemic, but the prospect of missing the Hokusai exhibit was too much to bear, so I hauled myself down there a couple of weekends ago & spent several hours darting from one one woodblock print to another, all out of order, to avoid the knots of other admirers. I so rarely actually stop in Seattle, usually just glimpsing it from the express lanes as I head towards Portland, & I found myself completely charmed. People were dressed up to go the art museum, or perhaps just dressed up, since not every city abides by Bellingham’s polar fleece and active wear code of dullness (myself very much included here).

The most thrilling things to me were the great books of Hokusai’s instruction, hundreds of patterns and tiny inked figures meant to teach his students how to draw. I could have looked at them for ages, but the press of people kept me moving through the galleries, & I bought the exhibit catalog instead so I’d be able to spend some more time with them. I also wished I’d had more time with the section about monsters & his school’s influence on manga.

On the way back down to the parking garage, I skittered through the permanent collection to perch myself in front of a couple of old friends, the ones I always try to see when I go. So many of my museum experiences have been as a tourist, rarely to be repeated, making the idea of visiting the same painting over and over again through the years even more significant. It lets me see something different every time.

Afterwards, I walked down to Pike Place Market and squeezed myself into the throngs of tourist to stand in line at the dim sum counter, scooping up several boxes of dumplings to eat on the way out of town. There was a drummer playing on the corner, a questionably in tune busker, and so many people we were smashed together on the sidewalk. I’m so rarely in crowds these days, and outside, with a couple hundred people who all seemed delighted to be there among the flower and fish vendors, was unquestionably the day to do it.

Days later I found the chili oil packets I’d forgotten to use on the dumplings in my coat pocket, and used them on a pan of steamed shu mai.

Thank you for reading. If you like the newsletter, please share it with a friend or write to me at departmentofdeadletters@gmail.com. If you want to read the Secret Dead Letters, largely about transition, you can subscribe to the paid version here. I hope to see you here at the Dead Letter Department again soon, & in the meantime, may you find something to absorb your attention completely, at least for a little while.