Hibernation

For those that cannot tell from my bronzed skin and raven locks and soundless tread in the wilderness, I am about 1/100,000 Cherokee. I know, stating the obvious, but never take anything for granted over the Internet.

In all seriousness, most of the real Cherokee these days, or Tsalagi, to give them their proper name, don't really look anything like the stereotypical Indian, and my father actually DOES look strikingly like his great grandmothers on both sides.  Anyway, I'm not very much Native American, though I do take great pleasure in calling Tim a "white usurper" due to his lily white Scandinavian ancestry. However, I digress, and I have barely begun.

The reason I mention my fraction of Native blood is because I recently re-read Charles Frazier's Thirteen Moons which is a novel about a young man coming of age in North Carolina's mountains, where he proceeds to acquire land and legal protection for the Cherokee Indians residing there, protecting some of them from the Trail of Tears and removal to Oklahoma. Phew. Thank God I typed that sentence instead of trying to say it, and I'm STILL out of breath. It's a great novel for many reasons, and you should read it. If you've never read Charles Frazier, you have still heard of him, even if indirectly, because he wrote Cold Mountain also.

Part of the story...and this is really completely inconsequential to the plot...is that Bear, his adoptive Native father, says that in "old days" his ancestors entered into their lodges for the winter and could enter a state of sleep that lasted for most of the winter. They dreamed fantastic dreams and did not feel the cold. Bear and his young protege pretty much do the same thing, if you substitute "drunken story telling" for "dreaming".

I'm sure you see where I'm going with this. The little speck of Cherokee that I have within me must be strong because that sounds amazing. Not so much telling the drunken part, oh heck, who am I kidding, I would love some red wine.

Drunkenness and/or hibernation strikes me as an eminently sensible solution to HIGHS that are in the negative temperatures. Let us not speak of the lows. It felt like -60 with the wind chill on Monday. Frostbite could set in within five minutes if you were so mad as to be out of doors. It was actually, literally, truly too cold for life.

So yes, the cold, coupled with the post holidays and birthdays exhaustion, to say nothing of advancing pregnancy, makes hibernation look like a marvelous idea right about now. Someone has forgotten to give my children this memo...all three of them...because they continue to go to bed late (Addie, the night owl, still going strong at 10 PM) and wake up early (Graydon, my morning glory, likes to get moving at 6 AM) and breakdance on my innards (Pending Ewald, during any moment which I sit down). Or else the White Usurper's (Tim's) genes have overwhelmed mine in a classic re-enactment of European meets and promptly destroys Aborigine.

Either way, I'm all like "Let's sit down and watch movies and sleep all day" and my kids are all like "let's destroy this place because we are going insane from no exercise". We left the house today, finally, after two days of being coldbound and they tore through Trader Joe's and Hobby Lobby like we were at the Magic Kingdom. Addie actually remarked at one point "Mom, look at all the people!"  in Trader Joe's. I felt horribly guilty, as if I somehow turned her into "Nell" (remember that Jodie Forster movie?) and kept her isolated during her formative years until she could barely speak English and was afraid of other humans.

Fortunately, the polar vortex is leaving us and life can resume again. In the meantime, I'm retroblogging all of December's festivities and making grandiose plans for our remaining time in Rochester, at least half of which will never materialize. But it's fun! And I have a greater appreciation for the virtual heat wave of temps in the 20s, since hibernation is no longer an option for those of us in touch with the rhythms of the land.