I turn off the car, unstrap my belt, open the door and step cautiously, gingerly out of the vehicle onto a sheet of thick, grey ice. The air is strongly cold but damper than usual. Twenty-seven degrees feels different ways. Twenty-seven degrees born of dry wind, no sun and a bitter edge, burns exposed skin, numbs fingers quickly and turns one’s gut inside out at a rapid pace. The same temperature when bathed in cold lake rain and the shadows from the storm which has swept from west to east over large expanses of the country, plays tricks of a different sort. For the past two nights, the entire region has been iced and glazed with a steady sleety rain; dangerous rain which leaves surfaces bathed in invisible black ice and all the trees laden and creaking with gorgeous sparkly diamond drops. The winter sun burns through their naked frames and sets the jewels on iced fire. This temperature does not burn the skin today, nor does it chill one’s innards. But what it has wrought is lethal; malevolent.
I look up at the sky; tipping my head way back to observe the vast stretch of ashen fog. In all directions, the heavy silvery lake air has lain down in a lumbering weighty collapse all over the city; draping over the sides of buildings and homes like a damp, smothering musty quilt too big to ever dry out.
The breeze is slate, the ground is leaden and dappled underneath with pearly chunks of ice, the schmutz on my black pants is stone white; sprinkled in powdered salt. I am alone in the parking lot.
The only line separating the celestial void that I stare up at, from the ground where I stand is a raggedy silhouette of naked, ice crisped tree branches which circle the parking lot, the highway, the large post office, the row of restaurants. I turn slowly, carefully around full circle noting the continuous line of burnt sugar tree branches dipped in diamond dust. Save for these base shades of browns, umbers, grey…the entire world here is devoid of color.
Across the way, stands the charming little diner where the waitress calls me ‘Honey’, where the men are thickly bearded and rubber booted, and the ancient hostess at the cash register wears a perfectly coiffed honey brown wig with a large gold plastic flower stuck in the hair behind her ear. This establishment is one small member; an essential vertebral link in the spine connecting all such havens and inhabitants; those holding up the sky and the nation under this ashen dome.
The portions of food are hot, substantial, inexpensive, served with gusto and a hint of reserved kindness. Here there is fragrance surpassing corruption; gold which shines up pewter; a tamping down of all that is false, glitz and glitter.
The icy expanse stretching from one end of the small strip plaza seems larger than I have ever seen.
As a child, I walked once a week from our home to a local college campus to receive piano lessons. I remember the smell of violin rosin, old ivory, waxed floors and thick winter coats.
On these days, I carried a slender zippered leather music case with me. I crossed over the bridge and climbed the steep hill past a large stone house; coming to the flat expanse of campus where I headed around the frozen perimeter of the campus quadrangle. On my way home I returned to the hill.
As soon as I stepped forward and as the ground began to slant steeply, I fell down. I stood up and promptly fell again. I stood up, went a few more steps and fell again. I cried and then I looked around. The snow along the length of the path, on both sides was crystal ice; sharp, difficult to dig one’s boots into; able to swiftly puncture and bleed soft skin if fallen on. I could not stand up. I could not go forward or backward.
I lay the lovely leather music case on the ice, sat down on it and rode it to the bottom of the hill. The side of that case was scratched, marred and permanently misshapen. I was safe, bruised and very cold.
My eyes turn away from the vast expanse of clouds and gunmetal air over head and back to the small diner sitting quietly at the corner of the ice sheet. I begin the slow, arduous trek across the lot, turning my body sideways, step by step; angling as if I’m on a slick mountain top. I have no leather case to ride on today, so I had better take care. I’m heading to the sanctuary where the waitress calls me ‘Honey’, where the men, those diggers of ditches and stringers of wire eat quietly, waiting for something and where the tired cashier with the gold plastic flower stuck into her ancient wig takes my money and waves me somberly out the door.
690 Saint Paul 