But all this—the mysterious, far-reaching hair-line trail, the absence of sun from the sky, the tremendous cold, and the strangeness and weirdness of it all—made no impression on the man. It was not because he was long used to it. He was a newcomer in the land, a chechaquo, and this was his first winter. The trouble with him was that he was without imagination. He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances. Fifty degrees below zero meant eighty-odd degrees of frost. Such fact impressed him as being cold and uncomfortable, and that was all. It did not lead him to meditate upon his frailty as a creature of temperature, and upon man's frailty in general, able only to live within certain narrow limits of heat and cold; and from there on it did not lead him to the conjectural field of immortality and man's place in the universe. Fifty degrees below zero stood for a bite of frost that hurt and that must be guarded against by the use of mittens, ear-flaps, warm moccasins, and thick socks. Fifty degrees below zero was to him just precisely fifty degrees below zero. That there should be anything more to it than that was a thought that never entered his head. —Jack London, "To Light a Fire," 1908.I have friends who really love spending time actively out in the cold and snow. A couple of them go snow-camping up north every year, snowshoeing into a remote camp and setting up. Another friend slept for some time in the unheated attic of her house: she routinely woke up in winter with frost on her bedclothes.
There's something about the inevitablility and aloofness with which the unnamed character in Jack London's story dies, that reminds me of the casual horror of Barry Lopez's "Light Action in the Caribbean." It reminds me that things dying, and creatures killing one another, are everyday occurrences, and that we are all of us creatures.
We went skating at the very tame frozen pond at Centennial Lakes in Edina tonight. I am a lousy skater, and my skates hurt, but aside from that it was a good time. That kind of super-domesticated outdoors—lighted, piped-in music, a crowd of teenagers goofing around, families with children—is utterly different from the man freezing to death in the Yukon. And yet, with all the thin ice we have this year, lots of people have fallen in lakes this winter, doing pretty comparable domesticated things: driving back to shore on a 4-wheeler to get more beer, or skating...
I did walk Anya today too, twice, but it didn't really feel like a walk. Once was dropping off Daniel at a friend's house, and taking Anya around to do what needed doing; the other was also perfunctory, walking with all of us for a couple of blocks after we came home. It's been a steady diet of normal winter weather, with highs in the low 30°s. Sunny, pleasant, gently wintry. Nothing like the bone-chilling weather the chechaquo foolishly went out alone into.
I know I'm a chechaquo, a softy. Even my wife, who runs all winter long, is a tougher soul than me. I'm happy to skate around a suburban rink, with a nice warming room inside. I'm a fan of not going beyond the smell of hot chocolate. Of walking the dog. I'm not a wilderness trekker. So if I identify at all with the dying prospector, it's in knowing that sense of "Wow, I could have just died then," and doing what I can not to get myself into situations where I think that. A part of my protection from the elements is a cautious sensibility that avoids dangerous weather. Maybe it's a bit of a drama queen, but it's kept me alive so far...
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