Last January I started writing this column again and one of the first things I wrote about was the songs of the starlings that weren’t much to look at but had become some pretty steady companions of mine. Even in this recent patch of extreme cold (oddly not as cold as even I remember from twenty or even 30 years ago) I heard snippets of their songs from the wires hanging over the alley behind my backyard.
Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) II
Unexpected verse of cacophonized Summer greets me at 36 below zero. The dog doesn’t stay out long and needs (or wants) to be carried up the stairs. The song’s notes hang off the edge of the garage roof like icicles this January.
I wait. The steps, the packed snow path, the smoke from neighboring chimneys, all seem on the verge of breaking. My thoughts creak and groan while I shift my feet back and forth to warm up my legs which are already near lobster red cold as if I had Wonderbread bags over my feet inside Moonboots and was ten again building a fort with my friends in the frozen playground of Nash School.
I sing along. We sing together. Winter writes another verse. ©Timothy James Stouffer #elystreetpoet 01262025 All rights reserved I think about some winters decades ago when we had a string of forty below nights. Back then it wasn’t just that the cars had trouble starting, it was that every piece of plastic you pulled on, pushed, or bumped into tended to crack or break including snow shovels and window scrapers. It does seem these days that electronics, cars, tools, etc., not to mention clothing -- especially boots supposedly rated to 30 below zero or more -- cannot have actually been tested in the same temperatures that Ely experiences.
The people who live here, however, have been tested. We’ve survived these things and more. Some of us have the winter of 1995/96 tee shirts from when Tower hit minus 55 to prove it. We’ve learned that when someone needs help, we step in to help, not least of the reasons why is that beyond it being the right thing to do, we might soon find ourselves in need. If one of us is cold, we all are cold. We’ve come to realize through experience that we don’t have to be as isolated as we sometimes feel.
There’s a certain beauty, though, in the silence and the solitude and the cold of January that slips into town after dark. Even the deer are bedded down for the night after eight or nine o’clock and most of the alleys are dark except for a few motion detector lights or backyard spotlights.
Walking from these dark spaces to other dark spaces isn’t the same as walking in the woods after dark, but it is peaceful and without the light pollution, it is a great place to view the stars from. I pulled my fingers up into my gloves and balling my fists to keep them warm like I did when I was a kid, though back then I usually had thick mittens with liners on.
The mittens were connected through my sleeves and over my back with thick yarn so they wouldn’t be lost. This is something I should do as an adult because I’m constantly misplacing my gloves and/or the dog takes them. Back then even our mittens were more connected.
Something I never considered for a moment as a kid was how it might feel when ice and snow builds up on your mustache and beard and forms first into little balls and next into a hard shell. Why would I have?
Now, though, it has been a long time since I’ve gone through a northern Minnesota winter clean shaven. I might never have. This weekend I dug out an old balaclava that I bought in Ely way back in the 80s before I ever lived here. It is made of thin but almost impenetrable fleece and it still isn’t pilly but remains soft and trustworthy. I was happy to discover it in my winter bin keeping other old friends company.
Winter is full of old friends and old familiar songs. For this reason, I love it.
