The Icicleman Cometh

January 5, 2011

Not even one year ago, a woman was walking harmlessly down the snow-ploughed streets of Saint Petersburg, when an icicle fell, killing her instantly. The article in the St. Petersburg times reports ten other icicle-related injuries that season. In the same season, Stockholm’s “icicle hotline” received 1,800 calls from concerned residents, according to one Swedish-English newspaper. One Stockholm woman, who presumably never called this hotline, was hit by falling ice and taken to the hospital where she received ten stitches for the crack on her head.

Whitworth’s campus currently contains thousands, possibly millions, of icicles. Approximately 1,000 of these deadly formations cling to the front face of Tiki alone. They latch to gutters; they suck on car-faces like leeches. They envelop whole branches of trees, restricting any movement from within. They loom, threatening like the fangs of an angry dog, above numerous doorways. Hopefully you won’t be the next they choose.

But yet, they’re beautiful and ever so delicate. As I walk along the road and look up, I see them gleam and dance. They are dainty crystals, aching to be picked, licked, flicked, nicked, kicked. I watch up close as they drip. They grow smaller, and I know that they will soon be gone completely. I continue walking and see a line of them against the stained glass windows of Whit Pres. At night they reflect the light from inside, sparkling blue, purple, red, and green. Right now they are clear, more diamond than emerald or ruby. Clear and clean.

I move past the church and on toward the Loop. There are not many more to see on the walk, but I know they are out there. They are worth looking for, worth seeing, and worth touching. But I have one bit of advice—appreciate them from anywhere but directly underneath.

Cold Color

January 3, 2011

It was eighteen degrees outside as I trudged through several inches of snow, eighteen degrees and no sun in sight. However as I walked, pieces of the sun peaked out, glimmering through the blinding white on stickers, portraits, hydrants, and people. The first that I saw was a fire hydrant, a happily hued monument protruding from the snow. The second was a car, a sweatshirt, a backpack, a flyer. I walked inside and saw an emptied box, awaiting the man who would flatten it and take it to the dumpster. Stickers on the dumpster which will soon hold said cardboard box. A candelabra in a junk art piece. A portrait with a German barmaid’s golden locks. A vibrant lemon slug bug. A level on a lady’s desk. I walked outside and saw the edges of the Whitworth emblem on a security truck. Siding on the new building. A tab on my notebook.

Those things were glimpses, glaring boldly, but some were still more warm and sunny. As I searched I saw those things which remind me most of summer fun. In a greenhouse dressed in icicles grew beautiful flowers with canary-colored pollen. In a room void of life sat a box of Lipton tea, just waiting to be made into a sugary iced beverage with lemon. On a building covered in snow hung several wasp and bee catchers, though neither creature was ‘round to be caught.

Alas, I came back to reality. Against a building leaned a snow shovel, whose handle shared the shade of a raincoat. Nearby, sticking several feet above a fire hydrant was a post to mark its spot. The snow remains, but nonetheless, I choose to see the sun.