THE HEART OF THE ARCTIC CRYSTAL

Taking advice from an old seadog at the darkest time of year

I’ve often noticed that when I think things are unbearable, the only way out is for things to get harder. This feels the right time to think on it, near the solstice, when the dark is almost its deepest.

That’s why I like seasons: they provide a sort of sine wave of contrast, wherein you can never become numb to your surroundings or how you regard yourself in the world. In a seasonal place, you are always provided with the opportunity to see your modes and patterns against a new backdrop; you’re always invited to change your daily actions at least in small ways to fit the changing circumstances, and thought the shifts may be minor, they can destabilize or burst the log-jams of mood and cognition that inevitably gather over time in our brainscapes.

[When I go to San Diego, I always think— suddenly in the character of some weathered old one-legged seadog with a pet ferret in my shirt— “this isn’t living. These people don’t know austerity, bleakness— they can’t possibly appreciate this wanton sun they loll beneath, awash in the narcotic of their perpetual ease.” OK, maybe I just think, “these jerks have no idea,” and look sadly at the still-wet winter hat and gloves resting next to my carry-on, spreading a pool of snow-memory onto the sunny hotel room carpet.]

*

Last week our family was in the throes of a weary stoicism as the children worked out whatever brain developments were making them behave like trolls with roid rage and personal vendettas against all that breathed. My husband and I were muttering to each other around corners half- wistfully, half- resentfully about breaks and how one cannot catch them.

Then: my daughter spiked a 105F fever. She was seeing things in the air that weren’t there, trembling, eyes half-closed and puffy. She wouldn’t eat, only took sips of water now and then, couldn’t sleep for more than fifteen minutes at a time. When the pediatrician’s office finally called us back, at 10pm—and by this time I was trembling, too, underneath my broiling, limp, sweating, incoherent child— they said she’d better get checked out in the ER. Since my son was sleeping in his room, my husband had to stay at the house, it was just me and one feverish sprite on our way to the hospital through the dark— just me between my daughter and the abyss. I could hardly buckle her in.

As far as ER visits go, this one was quite merciful— only about 75 minutes in total; the doctor was especially kind and asked her about her owl thoroughly before beginning the exam; she got a stuffed kitty for her bravery. And she was very, very brave. She told the receptionist she was “all done, all better, no medicine thank you, I’m not coughing,” through her hacking and trembling. She even suggested that they instead attend to her brother, who was sick (a brilliant lie). And in the end, they sent us home with the diagnosis of Upper Respiratory Infection (common (!!) cold).

It was weird to see life through these two very different lenses, simultaneously, upon our discharge into the night:

Through the first, my child was terrifyingly ill, and I was prepared to slash open my arm and give her my blood if it would help save her from whatever unknown beast ravaged her tiny, perfect body; I was so unspeakably shaken I didn’t quite have a plan for how to get through the waiting room without adult diapers.

Through the second lens, my kid had a cold. Her excellent little immune system engine was revving, doing its job exactly, and no one was in danger. We’d have a few sweaty nights and it’d be over. Water, Motrin, hugs, repeat.

So I guess that was as lesson in how viewing the facts from an ER doc’s point of view can skew the whole scene from horror film to sit-com. I wonder how many more scenes in my life will benefit from this kind of experimentation, from imagining alternative perspectives.

In any case, after almost a week of round-the-clock toddler-wearing, sleeping sitting up with a broiling and/or coughing and/or wailing child, watching endless children’s programming on TV, sleeping in no more than 45-minute chunks day or night, with sore hips from the stillness and a deep hatred for being indoors, we were suddenly released from the prison of illness.

She got up, asked for some olives, and kicked her brother in the head. Like any newly released inmates, we blinked in the light, disoriented.

The relief was visceral. The return to whatever “normal” is with twins, like the change in season, brought with it a new perspective. Tantrums were now exhibitions of robust, healthy bodies; three hours of straight sleep was miraculous instead of an epic inconvenience; a night with six hours of rest pieced together somehow made me feel like a rockstar. A little walk outside to get the many days of abandoned mail from the mailbox was a joy. What had felt like our stupid little frustrating daily life was now not only quite doable by contrast, but also invigorating, interesting, and full of surprising sweetness.

*

Melville writes,

“To enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast.”

That’s the solstice; that’s my daughter’s fever; that’s the star we can only see because it’s set against the black and endless sky.

Not only is everything perceivable and knowable only by contrast, but the very sharpness of those edges can carve space for a more brilliant existence:

Melville goes on to say it is desirable “to have nothing but the blanket between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air” — in short, to be always close to the vast, the unknowable, the threatening, the strange or painful. Why?

Because:

“Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal.”