When the Coldest Night Conceals the Deepest Secrets: Inside Midwinter Distraction
I don’t know why I do most things these days. I want to set out jars of water. I used to do this during northern Wisconsin winters starting when I was young. I’d set out containers for architecture: cottage cheese bins my mom had emptied, Jif jars vacant from multiple sandwiches, and those solid white pints, creamy and stout like rectangled polar bears (I can’t remember what those once held). We’d put food dye in the water like Ranger Rick instructed, and once frozen, build rainbowed ice castles with candles inside on the picnic table cleared of snow. The same table where my sisters and I would set out five-gallon buckets midsummer and fill them with panfish: bluegill, crappie, perch, their palm-sized bodies flapping inside. Then we’d wait past midnight to watch as raccoons, our anticipated guests, climbed up the porch to tear and crunch the flapping, scaled bodies. It was a show and a mess. We’d get yelled at but softly. We loved feeding the raccoons, watching them devour their dinners. And our mother was OK with it, or at least she surrendered to her daughters’ actions, as long as we washed the table come morning.
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