The Daily: 7 August 2024

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About a month ago, in fact, the weekend before the second flooding, it was hot. Of course it was hot. And very humid. Of course that too. That’s what we get these days. Hot and humid. For days and days and days and no relief even in the middle of the night. In weather like that, no amount of sweat can cool a body. Yet the body will keep attempting to cool itself by poring saltwater out of each pore. This has the effect of increasing body temperature through dehydration— which, of course, are both bad things.

But I have all this garden work to do and not too much time during the week to do it. So even though it was hot, I was out there that Sunday afternoon, working hard. In my defense, I was mostly in the shady jungle. Moreover it was raining off and on and my clothes were soaked. So I thought I was playing it cool…

Apparently not cool enough.

My first indication that all was not well came when I was hit with a wave of dizziness and nausea. I didn’t think much of it. Things like this have been happening since the last round of COVID. So I sat down for a bit and waited to feel better, which did happen after a few minutes of rest in the shade. So I went back to work. The dizziness soon came back, but much lessened. I thought I could work through it, and in any case I didn’t have much more to do. Or I told myself that anyway.

After clearing another swath of blackthorn and other brushy annoyances, I started to notice that my chest was hurting. Also I was getting a mild headache. Well, of course, I told myself. I’m hot and sweaty and really tired. There’s going to be discomfort.

Again, in my defense, my chest and head hurt frequently. I have arrhythmia. Sometimes it just hurts. Most of the time the discomfort has nothing to do with what my body is doing. In fact, it is most frequent when I am in bed. So I didn’t take that as a sign of stress.

But anyway, soon I finished up the work and went inside.

Now, I should mention that I had finished my water bottle hours before all this discomfort. I didn’t want to go inside, taking off all my muddy and dripping clothes, to get more fresh water. Usually this is not a problem. I can go whole afternoons without drinking. Or at least a few hours.

When I got inside I drank some water, but nobody likes drinking water when they are still hot and feeling rather sick. For me, that can sometimes tip the nausea right over into vomiting, which I hate. So I drank a glass and went upstairs to shower — in cool water.

When I came down, I drank more water and ate a little bit of something. But I was still feeling sick. So I read for a bit, at least until it was thoroughly dark outside and I could call it night, and then went to bed early.

The next day was Monday. I woke up still not feeling great. But, I reasoned, it was a lot of work. I was bound to feel crappy. And I always feel at least a little crappy on Monday morning when my body is forced to get going on someone else’s schedule. By crappy, I mean tired, light-headed, and yes, often with chest pain and a headache. So I still didn’t feel all that concerned.

But then, in the middle of the morning, while I was sitting at my desk in a glacially air-conditioned office with a stomach full of oatmeal and plenty of clear liquids, I had another wave of dizziness and nausea, and the chest pains got much worse. This lasted about ten minutes, then it lessened but didn’t totally go away. However, I got up from my desk and called my doctor’s office to get the first available appointment — which was not until the next day, late in the afternoon (because American medical system…). The nurse I spoke with berated me for not going to the emergency room right away and then told me to go immediately if anything got worse again.

It didn’t. But it did not go away either. The headache was constant. The chest was achy and I could feel the erratic fluttering and POP of pre-ventricular contractions now and then. So I thought this was all just my heart going sideways as it has several times in my life. Not fun. Definitely go to the ER if it gets worse. But also, crucially, something I have survived many times. Not really a novel threat to my brain.

The next day my doctor berated me even more. There is nothing she can do to determine if there was a heart episode so many hours after the episode. While our ER is terrible (they let my son sit with blood dripping off his head and a severe concussion for over six hours — I cleaned off the blood…), it does at least have good equipment for detecting cardiac issues. So I agreed to go. But then she says, “I think I’m sending you now”.

So… OK… off to the ER… where I spent almost eight hours going through a whole battery of tests (for which I have not yet been billed… now, that will be cause for cardiac arrest, I’m sure!) only to be told that the heart and head and thyroid were all more or less normal. Though I did have a low fever (what???) and there were signs that I’d had a mild heart episode. Well… I knew that… So again, I went home and went to bed. (It was already dark.)

Two days later, my doctor called with more results. Turns out I was dehydrated. Still. On Tuesday. Many gallons of ingested water since I was outside sweating away my life. She told me that what I had experienced was probably heat stroke. The first round while I was actually outside, but the second round about 18 hours later — while I was sitting in the air conditioning!

I thought I knew what heat stroke felt like. I was a lifeguard as a teenager. I was trained to recognize heat stroke. But apparently the intervening decades and the complete lack of bodily experience with heat stroke had wiped those memories. I also never knew the effects could last so long. I have since learned that once your body tips over, it takes days to recover — even if you are feeling mostly normal. We bandy that term about like it’s a joke, but the reality is that heat stroke is deadly. I had no idea that I was in so much danger when I was outside.

This is all to say that you probably don’t either. And in a world of increasing humid heat — or just inferno dry heat — this is going to be a regular thing for those who work outside. Or even spend a little time outside. Before this happened to me, I had just heard my co-worker talking about how his 70-year-old father had collapsed while mowing the lawn — on a riding lawn mower. I have since heard from several other people that they’ve felt things like what I went through — some with high fevers, some with vomiting, but all had headache, dizziness and varying degrees of chest pain. This is apparently a new normal for being outside in the summer. Even in Vermont!

Well, of course it is…

So… I don’t do that anymore. I do not work outside in this heat. I hardly go out at all.

And I drink plenty of water!

I suspect that’s generally good advice for all of us from now until… forever…

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And now for something completely different…

It’s getting close to nutting season. So I’ve been turning over the story of the nine hazels, the sacred salmon, and the holy well. This story comes in many flavors. My favorite is the story of Fionn mac Cumhaill, the hero of Irish myth. Fionn shares many characteristics with Lugh, sometimes he’s even Lugh’s son. So this story of Fionn and nuts and wisdom is particularly resonant this time of year.

In our not so distant past, much of the Eurasian continent was a vast parkland of managed hazel forest. Our ancestors tended to the trees and the trees provided them with all their needs. Plentiful nuts in the autumn, but also wood for tools, shelter and fuel. And root, bark and leaf are all cleansing and medicinal. Many animals fed on the carpet of nut mast, so there was also game of all kinds all year long. And of course humans and trees constantly exchanged breath. It was as close to Eden as I can imagine.

We have this memory of that time, I think. There are many variants of the tale of the wisdom that comes from the hazel, which is the wisdom of living in deep relationship with the land, the wisdom of full bellies and contented lives and sustained pleasure. From time to time, someone seems to remember that wisdom and tries to tell others about this good life. I think that’s the root of Fionn’s story.

Here is my version in an impressionistic prose poem…

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the hazel trees

once upon a time, there were hazel trees as far as the eye could see. the people loved the trees and the trees loved the people. they lived side by side feeding each other, storing wisdom against uncertain futures.

but people are ephemeral. as the generations come and go, they struggle to hold onto wisdom. though the hazels held the memories in branch and nut, over time, the people, drawn to new paths, stopped tending the trees, stopped gathering the bountiful nuts, stopped remembering the wisdom. the people forgot.

where once grew forests of nut and game, now fields and roads and cities leveled the land, providing shelter for none. the trees were sad. retreating deep into their memories, they drifted into hidden and twisted groves. they turned away from the people as the people had turned from them.

but they kept the wisdom. 

in this time of forgetting, there grew nine trees around a sacred pool. in the leafy moons, salmon would find their way from ocean to the spring-fed waters lapping the roots of the wise hazels. the trees dropped their nuts into the pool, feeding the salmon their wisdom as they once did the people. and the salmon grew wise. they returned to the hazel waters year after year. and the trees were happy to circle the years with these wise salmon people.

but one day a man of that land chanced upon the grove and the pool and the salmon. he had been walking for a long time and he was hungry. so he caught a fish to fill his belly. as he was cooking the salmon, a bit of fat spat out of the coals and burned the man’s finger. he stuck the burn in his mouth to soothe the skin. and his eyes were opened.

the wisdom of the hazels entered into the man with the flesh of the hazel-wise salmon. suddenly, he knew the ways of the fish, the ways of the waters, the ways of wind and cloud and fertile soil. suddenly, he remembered the wisdom once held by the people. suddenly, he saw the hazels and remembered. he saw the hazels bending their branches around him, beckoning, and he listened to their summons. suddenly, he remembered and he remained.

he made his home in that grove. like the salmon, he would often journey away, but always he returned. he circled the years with the trees and the waters and the fish, and he became wise indeed. people who had never known the hazels listened to his voice and heeded his words. he became a teacher to the people, an emissary from the wise hazels, bringing the wisdom back.

but, as all people do, the man soon grew old. one day he returned to the grove, bowed one last time to the waters and the salmon and the trees, and laid down at their roots and died.

the trees waited. would the people come to tend the trees and spread the wisdom over the land again? the trees waited. but nobody followed the man.

the trees waited. and still they wait. they hold the wisdom still. it is ours to imbibe if we but remember. or chance upon their hidden groves…

because once upon a time, there were hazel trees as far as the eyes could see.

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Wednesday Word

for 7 August 2024

hazel

If you want, you can respond in the comments below or go visit the All Poetry contest for August. Your response can be anything made from words. I love poetry, but anything can be poetic and you needn’t even be limited to poetics. An observation, a story, a thought. Might even be an image — however, I am not a visual person, so it has to work harder to convey meaning. In the spirit of word prompts, it’s best if you use the word; but I’m not even a stickler about that. Especially if you can convey the meaning without ever touching the word.

Even if you don’t choose to scribble, at least I’ve made you think about… hazel.

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©Elizabeth Anker 2024