Fog

Our fog season has begun. This valley is visited by dense fog each winter. Flights cannot leave and the airport is sometimes forced to seed the fog. When the temperature dips to the low twenties the fog freezes on the road, creating treacherous driving conditions. Headlights pointing into the fog serve only to reflect and navigation is a matter of watching the fog lines painted on the road, hopefully renewed this past summer by diligent road crews.

But if you don’t need to fly or drive you can enjoy the isolated little world that a heavy fog creates. When wrapped in enough layers to insulate against the bone chilling cold, walking in the fog can be a sensory deprivation experience. Standing at the end of the road that leads to the work orchard, I cannot see a single tree and am astonished at how dependent I am on visual cues. And aural cues are no better. Fog muffles sound much as snow does and is often more disorienting. So I am without visual cues and sounds are directionless. The walk takes on a dreamlike quality.

Driving to work I often leave home under clear skies. But the fog bank is visible as I drive down the hill, a gray blanket insulating the valley floor. I once drove down from a small coast range mountain into a fog bank and was treated to a most bizarre sight. A horse pasture along the road was at the leading edge of the approaching fog bank. The pasture was dotted with horse heads, the bodies invisible in the fog.

This kind of selective detail shows in the garden as well. A sunflower head, seed long since depleted by birds, is etched against a gauzy backdrop. A few grapes, still hanging, show dark purple against a muted yellow haze of remaining leaves. Fog watching becomes a game. Details pop in and out through the day until dusk turns the fog a dark gray and all details blur.

Little wonder that fog plays a leading role in spooky stories reserved for long winter nights. It is otherworldly. This simple weather phenomenon reminds us that we share a common need for the sensory familiar, the touchstones we instinctively use to steer through our daily lives. Without orientation the imagination must fill in, sometimes with unpredictable results.

Gray Fog

A fog drifts in, the heavy laden
Cold white ghost of the sea —
One by one the hills go out,
The road and the pepper-tree.

I watch the fog float in at the window
With the whole world gone blind,
Everything, even my longing, drowses,
Even the thoughts in my mind.

I put my head on my hands before me,
There is nothing left to be done or said,
There is nothing to hope for, I am tired,
And heavy as the dead.

Sara Teasdale
From Flame and Shadow | Macmillian, 1920


I am glad our foggy winters don't have such a depressing effect on me. The fog will frequently burn off later in the day to reveal what has been beyond the veil all along - brittle blue winter sky. And bulbs are waiting to be planted.