A Winter That Bites Ears

It’s 5:30pm on a Friday.  I’m standing on Vineland Place, facing north towards the Spoonbridge and Cherry.  It feels cold but not too cold.

Making my way towards the bridge, I’m happy to see that there’s no one else about.  No one.  At all.  This is wonderful.  Despite all the sounds of traffic just to my right, no one else is in the Sculpture Garden.  It seems miraculous, yet it occurs to me that I don’t think most people would choose to venture here at 5:30pm on a Friday in mid-February.

This will be perfect.  I’ll take a picture of the Spoonbridge, and no strangers will be in the shot.  Wonderful.  Exquisite.  I’ve always wanted to take a picture of it with no strangers in shot.

However, as it would have it (not luck,naturally), two people, who, at first glance, look like two women, as it is difficult to tell because they, unlike me, have hats on to keep warm (apparently that’s what you do) venture into (actually, it occurs to me a bit later that one might be a man) my eyesight.

“Oh damn,” I think. “Why are they coming here?  Why would anyone come here right now?”  (Here’s where it occurs to me that one of these women is a man.)  The one that looks like a man (but maybe he is a woman after all), walks towards the frozen pond beneath the bridge.  I walk onwards to the left and then turn right to walk farther north towards the Molecule, annoyed that I can’t take my picture of the bridge without strangers in the shot.

Continuing north, the Molecule reveals itself.  It’s red.  For some reason this surprises me.  I can’t remember the last time I made this walk.  I pass by this garden at least once a week (in a car, sadly), but I clearly haven’t taken the time to actually go into the garden in years.  It’s free.  And I don’t go in.

As I take this picture, there is another couple, a woman and a man (I could tell because they were sensible and weren’t wearing hats), but a man and a woman with a dog, who are about twenty feet from me.  (I believe dogs aren’t allowed in the garden, but what person would bother enforcing this rule at 5:30pm on a Friday in mid-February?)  These people don’t bother me because they’re not getting in the way and doing anything ridiculous like walking underneath the Molecule.

Satisfied with the shot, I continue north, then turn right (I’m now facing east for those keeping track) towards the city centre (in other words, downtown).  As I seem to have forgotten about the red molecule, I, too, forgot about the Alene Grossman Memorial Arbor and Flower Garden.  Or did I?  I’m looking at it wondering what could possibly be wrong with it.  It reminds me of an outline of the tunnel an Underground train might travel through.  This conjures up images of Yeti with web guns and soldiers with normal guns that don’t work and a doctor telling a young highlander to, “DON’T TOUCH THE RAILS!”

Fortunately the electricity is off.

But, there’s a shortage of this frenetic activity as I walk down the Alene Grossman Memorial Arbor and Flower Garden.  And, this time, rather than be annoyed that there are people about to liven things up, I get annoyed that there aren’t plants and flowers growing about and over and on top of the memorial to liven things up.  This winter really has put a damper on things in more ways than one.

At this point, it occurs to me that my hands are actually quite cold, so I put them in my pockets.  I make fists to hopefully help warm them up more quickly.  But, seriously, though.  “How long were my hands that cold for?” I wonder.

I make my way to the far east end of the memorial and then head back south.  “I do hope those women are gone from the spoonbridge, now,” I hope.  “Were they both women?”  “I just don’t know.”  “I don’t think one of them was.” “Yes, I don’t think so either.”  “But I think they both were.”  “Hmm…”

The spoonbridge returns, and as I walk by it, I see that I have the spoonbridge all to myself.  Grateful that there isn’t activity about it (like a possibly mannish woman and a woman who both might both be women looking at it, probably), I quickly rush (well, walk quickly at a moderately slow pace) to the west side of the bridge.  (Actually, I didn’t rush nor did I walk quickly at a moderately slow pace; I just rather walked.  Normally.)

And there it is.  The shot I’ve dreamt of taking for years.  Now I did it.  I have it.  It is done.  The Spoonbridge and Cherry with downtown (that’s city centre) in the background.  I saw a similar shot in some sort of flyer or something of the bridge, and for some reason I’ve always wanted to replicate the shot.

That’s it, then.

But not quite done, though.  I decide to take a stroll in Loring Park, heading up and over the Irene Hixon Whitney Bridge to get there.  Traffic continues to breeze and burr and squeal away.  Cars and trucks and various other things zooming slowly in and out of the Lowry Tunnel.  The westbound tunnel reminds me of a continuous stream, vomiting ridiculously inept inventions that we think are necessary.

My walk through the park is a moderately fast stroll with a kind of slowish touch.  Not too slow, that is.  It’s more of a slow meandering but with a quiet purpose.  To be sure, it’s a far more satisfying stroll than the vehicles coming out of the Lowry Tunnel, seemingly stuck in an infinite string of grey.

Not aware of it at first as I make my way through the park, there are lots of crows squawking away.  I mean, they’re really squawking.  I’m using the word squawk here.  They are so loud.  I do believe they are louder than the generic traffic sounds of the freeway.  In fact, I forget about the sounds of traffic all together and fixate instead on the squawking.

Seriously, though.  My ears hurt.  They literally hurt.  I’m literally using the word literally literally here.  It occurs to me that I think squawking couldn’t do that.  Well, I imagine if someone were to put me in an isolated chamber with 100 crows in it that the sound would hurt after a time if not immediately.  But out in the open air of Loring Park?  Surely not.

“Actually, what’s the temperature?” I wonder.  I take out my phone and see that the Weather Underground says it’s -11 (so, whatever that is in Fahrenheit).  I suppose that it is quite cold.

“Oh yes!  Of course.  I’m sensible and don’t wear hats in the winter, so naturally my ears hurt.”

What a winter.  Winters don’t usually get to me, but for the first time in years, it is so cold (and -11 isn’t really cold) that my ears hurt on the inside, not the outside.

But, wait a moment.  -11 really isn’t that cold at all.  How could it be that the inside of my ears hurt?  I’ve been out and about without a hat on in far colder weather.

I make my way back to where I started, heading over the Whitney bridge, the eastbound traffic reminding me of an unhealthy metal consuming unnecessary amounts of grey in a kind of infinite stream of loud, back south along Hennepin towards the Walker ,then a fast right down Vineland.  I pass by a shopping cart with bits of bric-a-brac, ephemera, and blankets, my ears hurting too much too find the strength to wonder where the cart’s owner is.

Back where I started, I get in my car, and practically instantaneously my ears begin to stop hurting.

“Of course,” I realize.  “My ears are hurting because all winter long I’ve probably not spent more than five minutes at a go staying outside willingly.”  We are all inside that much.

And then the cart returns to me.  Whose was it?  How did it get there?  Why was it there?  How long was whoever had the cart outside in the cold?  Did their ears hurt?  Were they able to save their ears from the pain of such cold?

The cart is a beautiful cart, though, a sad cart, a cart that reminds, a cart that exists, a cart that bites ears.

Thank goodness I can just get in my car then, ears no longer ringing without color.  I have my pictures.

I didn’t take a picture of the cart, though, but I have a picture of it more vivid than any of the other pictures I took.  It’s still biting my ears, but I’m inside.

It’s after 5:30pm on a Friday in mid-February, probably.  I imagine no one would choose to be out and about.