Month: February 2014

People die all the time in my area but one recent story caught my attention: a 57 year-old woman was found on a recent Monday morning in -16 degF weather. An especially sad part was that she had planned to move to a warmer climate the next year. A relative was quoted as saying, "She’s wanted to move for a long time. She was going to do it."

If she had moved to a warmer climate she might have survived whatever caused her to be outside or whatever medical condition might have struck. Moving is certainly difficult but not a project of 57 years. Either many long winters had enervated her and weakened her vitality and resolve to travel south, or each glorious summer had blurred her memory of how grueling the previous winter was. It would look pre-eminently impotent and sad to see on her tombstone, "She wanted to leave."

I was reminded of when a loved one, who happened to be a depressed middle-aged woman, said she took personal comfort that "Time passes no matter what." This is a horrible thing for a teenager to hear: that adulthood is just something to endure, that there is no satisfaction and comfort to look forward to besides waiting out the clock. Especially since this person now has anything but spare time, and the time she does have is not quality time.

I was reminded also of a relative who keeps her three children locked indoors most of the time from November to March because, "It’s too cold to go outside." Meaning that half the year is to be devoted to watching Judge Judy and playing Xbox games.

Somehow these stories are connected in my mind. I am trying to teach myself a moral, a personal lesson about growing indifferent and languishing. It is about more than just moving to a warmer climate – it is a deadly warning! The cost of complacency may be to die alone in the snow!

Included: the winter kite festival on Lake Harriet in January. The wind died down too soon but it was fun.

Near the Minnehaha Falls a couple of weeks ago my companion and I saw a northern shrike, perched as expected in a high tree in an open area. This bird has a black stripe over its eyes to reduce glare for hunting in the wintertime. It has a hooked beak and hunts like a small hawk. It stores its dead prey in a “larder” by impaling the corpse on twigs. It has the fierce-sounding name Lanius excubitor.

I’ve only seen this bird two or three times, always in winter and always on special days. To me it’s a beautiful bird and its mask makes it look mischievous and cute, like a raccoon.

But to a small bird or mammal the shrike represents gray-and-black terror from the skies! The hooked bill severs its poor victim’s spine. Then the corpse is further brutalized when it’s impaled on a twig to be eaten later!

Included: A photo from the eastern Lake Superior ice caves, accessible due to the especially cold winter.