Northern Lights in a Time of COVID

After 26 years, 9 months and 13 days in the Washington, DC, metro area, the Phantom announced he was moving to New Hampshire, leaving his friends and neighbors bewildered and aghast. "Why would you move to New Hampshire? It has a primary every four years, but what happens up there in between?"

Portsmouth, NH

Which says something of the mindset of those suffering from Potomac fever, where important jobs, impressive offices and titles are the raison d'etre. 

And it was true, the Phantom had not ever lived in Northern New England. The closest he came was six years in Rhode Island and two in Connecticut, but that was enough to convince him that New England is where the real people live. Not the enclaves in university towns, but the townies themselves, who he remembered as irreverent, grounded and fundamentally decent.

And there were the mountains, the lakes and, in the case of Hampton, the seacoast.

Exploration of Portsmouth was edifying: dodging into the Portsmouth Brewery on a snowy evening, already dark at 4 PM, the first thing the Phantom saw, mounted on a brick wall across from the bar was that iconic Shepard Fairey poster of Obama, unexpected, boldly displayed, and this was January, 2008, before anyone thought Obama could win New Hampshire. 

"Oh, that?" the waitress said, "I think someone from the Leftist Marching Band gave it to the owner and he liked it, so there it is on the wall. Wasn't easy mounting that thing on brick."

Yes, Portsmouth, New Hampshire does have a Leftist Marching Band. 

And, it turned out, the Phantom's inklings about the people he might live among were underestimates. 

North Hampton, NH 

Consider his underground soul mate, with whom he canvases Hampton neighborhoods, searching out voters to cajole, trying to convince them to vote Blue.

Recently, she and her daughter got fever, chills, headache, cough, headache and their strep and  influenza swabs were negative, so the smart money is on COVID, although the tests are still incubating. Awaiting the results, she has been thrown into solitary confinement in one bedroom, her daughter in another and her husband slides food trays in front of the doors and collect the remains in classic prison style.

Exeter Road, Hampton, NH

The Phantom, consolingly, suggested she consider writing a Solzhenitsyn inspired novel, not "Cancer Ward," but "COVID Ward" to occupy herself during the long week of her discombobulation. 

Her response:

A novel, what a great idea....."COVID Ward"--"the harrowing tale of one woman's descent into madness after being locked away in her room with nothing but paper and scissors and a growing need to cut out chains of paper dolls... and name them.." ...So what do you think darling, are we talking a best seller?

Now, I ask you, drooling reader, where else but New Hampshire are you going to find a woman like that? 

Fearful Symmetry: Failing to Ask the Question

 Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 

In the forests of the night; 

What immortal hand or eye, 

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies. 

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain, 

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp, 

Dare its deadly terrors clasp! 

When the stars threw down their spears 

And water'd heaven with their tears: 

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright, 

In the forests of the night: 

What immortal hand or eye,

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

55 years ago--seems like last year--the Phantom found himself dissecting a frog in his freshman biology class at university, staring down at the heart he had just flayed open, at the spiral valve of the amphibian heart, which allowed oxygenated blood to be separated from unoxygenated blood, which sent oxygen rich blood to the aorta and on to the brain and kidneys and muscles, while the unoxygenated blood shunted off to the lungs where it could get oxygen. What dazzling engineering! O what immortal hand or eye could frame that symmetry?

Beholding that tiny, breath-taking valve, perfect in form and symmetry, the words of Blake's poem rang in the Phantom's ears. He had just read that poem that very morning, and later in the day would attend a symposium on that poem and it seems like Kismet.

As a fledgling student of science, the Phantom was being steeped in evolutionary theory, the explanation for the immense variations in anatomy and physiology throughout the plant and animal kingdoms.  Environmental demands impinging on genetic variation, selecting out those organisms who happened to carry forth advantages wrought by that Santa's bag of genes, from which a vast array of possibilities were plucked and released to find a niche in the world.

But looking at that spiral valve, it was difficult for the Phantom to imagine that shape, that delicate, perfect, swirling thing occurred by chance: Its perfection looked like mute testimony to design, and by implication a creator and not some blind watchmaker, someone who knew exactly what he was doing.

And so the Phantom became a secret apostate, a doubter, a heretic.  He did not bring that heart to his professor and ask how such a perfectly wrought thing could have occurred by chance, and while he learned evolutionary theory, he, at some level, never really believed it. Had his professor been Professor Condit, the Phantom could have approached him, because Dr. Condit is approachable and would likely have not been offended, but intrigued, and then noted spirals are common in nature. But in those days, at the first of the Ivy League institutions through which the Phantom slogged, such questions were an invitation to disaster, or so the Phantom thought at the time.

He did, occasionally, challenge an evolutionary explanation, as when an instructor insisted white skin was an adaptation to low sunlight but for the most part, the Phantom just let it slide. Like some figure in Boris Pasternak's "Doctor Zhivago" he went along with the party line, and recited the gospel when required, but he always clung to his doubts and his poetry.

But then, listening to an episode of "This Week in Virology" that lovely podcast which now claims 3 hours of the Phantom's week every week, one of his favorite cast members, Rich Condit, remarked, off handedly as Dr. Condit so often does, casting out pearls non chalantly , as he does, "The spiral: it's amazing how often that occurs in nature."

And a 5 decade wall off abscess surfaced:  The Phantom Googled and found Dr. Condit's remark had wide and deep support. And the Phantom realized, swirling winds, swirling fluids often form spirals and it was just possible, over eons, that spiral valve was just another beautiful splash of paint in the evolutionary story and in some way, that set the Phantom's mind at ease and he could think of evolution again as something he could believe in.