'Earth stood hard as iron'

The beauty-and-the-beast nature of the Ice Storm of Twenty-Four

NOTE: Heart, Humor & Hope, which began Jan. 4, normally posts on Thursdays. But I sensed this one needed to drop sooner, given the Willamette Valley’s ice storm. Better to serve the chicken soup while it’s hot, right?

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone … .

—In the Bleak Midwinter, Christina Rossetti, 1872

OUR 25-FOOT ARBORVITAES sag with each passing hour, bowing toward the roof like the slow drop of a closing draw bridge. On the other side of the house, limbs from our two giant maples bend toward the street.

Trekking poles in gloved hands, I walk/slide/gingerly step to a neighbor’s duplex and ring the doorbell of someone I’ve never met. He is less than half my age; I’m 69. Nostril ring. Michigan t-shirt.

I introduce myself and congratulate him on the Wolverines’ national football title in order to, uh, break the ice. Then I politely warn him that the creeping limbs of my trees are threatening to crunch his car.

“Yeah, saw that,” he said. “But what can I do?”

Like my pickup, his car is an ice cube with four tires. It would not be impossible to get into and move but, he figures, not worth the effort. Meanwhile, in an ironic twist, perhaps the vehicle’s icy encasement will become its shield of protection against the encroaching limbs.

His resignation is like a lot of people’s resignation during this storm. What can we do, other than await the thaw, which is forecast to come Wednesday? However, not before popping us in the jaw with freezing rain Tuesday night on its way out the door, forecasters say.

Like much of the U.S., we mild-winter Oregonians today awoke to Day Three of being encased in the bleak midwinter. On Dec. 22, only 13.2 percent of the U.S. was covered with snow, the lowest on record for that date. But today, reports the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, that has nearly quadrupled to 49.6 percent—and we’re part of that.

Technically, that midwinter mark doesn’t come until Feb. 1, but you get the idea. Deep in winter, the Eugene-Springfield area is coated in an icy veneer that isn’t snow-based but could easily pass the eye test.

It began early Saturday morning as something of a Slurpy—sleet and freezing rain—but, as temperatures dropped, froze “water into stone.” Three days later, glazed in a few inches of ice, we remain ensconced in a world of wonder and wickedness.

Therein lies the dilemma, the two sides of the long weekend: while some without power shiver in front of gas fireplaces or resort to staying with family, friends or neighbors—while those without homes huddle in warming centers—others marvel at a whitened world that enchants.

It’s beauty and the beast.

For some, it means cocoa and coffee and dream-gazing at the winter wonderland. For others, it means economic hardship. Lost opportunities. Cancelled concerts. It means the work of utility linemen reminding us that they, not football’s version, are the real heroes.

Yes, there’s the aesthetic pleasure, easy on the eye:

The rounding of the world’s sharp edges.

The once-overlooked trees and shrubs that suddenly shimmer in ice-covered beauty, the natural world’s answer to the teenage kid who puts on a tux for the first time and everyone goes, “Wow!”