Termination Dust

Termination dust admittedly sounds like what some sci-fi novel might call your remains after your vaporization by a weird alien. I have discovered that is not in fact what the term describes. Living in a new land with its own set of seasonal rhythm and characteristics is interesting.

A few weeks back I experienced my first earthquake. I was getting ready to drain an abscess when my patient said, "Either there is an earthquake coming or else you gave me some really good medicine. You might want to hold off for a second doc." I then noticed that feeling you get when you feel a train coming before you actually hear it or see it. This was followed by a feeling kind of like being out on a boat when the water is rough. About the time I began to wonder if it was going to stop or get worse, it chose the former option.

I quickly learned that the first thing you do after an earthquake is run to the internet to check how strong it was. That way you can know exactly how close you were to an untimely demise. Unfortunately the sudden rush of people to computers causes the website that report such things to crash. I guess it is a ritual I need to become accustomed to living in the most seismologically active part of North America. All in all it was a bizarre experience. The idea that the ground doesn't move is one of those things that I had in my brain alongside of rules such as the constant effect of gravity, the inability of humans to walk through solid matter, or the concept that time moves forward and cannot be reversed.

In addition to earthquakes, the other weird thing here is the experience of watching the colder seasons march inexorably towards you before you see them. Termination dust is the first dusting of snow that appears on the lowest level of the mountains where it is cold enough for snow not to be liquid. The mountains beside my house were initially snow free. Every day I look at them and see that the termination dust is moving ever steadily my way. It feels as though winter is stalking you and that you are fighting a losing battle as it marches steadily towards you.

I haven't ever experienced a winter that gave you so much warning it was coming. It adds a sense of anticipation to the season. It is nice to live in a place where the rhythm of nature does not follow the pattern I am used to. It adds an element of newness and wonder that is difficult to capture in one's adult life where there is less and less in the world of nature that seems new and unpredictable.