The warp and weft of winter warmth

In which our Hero sits in the cold sipping amber flame

I could do my traditional post-outage analysis of how the transition looked from here and how it could have been better managed. I’ve done it in my head, because I am a consultant and the technical equivalent of a post troubled mortem has always been an educational experience and one that’s worth doing for any technician worth their salt. If there were new lessons, I might go through with the exercise, but it’s the same old thing and nobody cares.

So let’s just take that as done and move on.

The outage came at a pretty bad time. The blows have been falling fast and hard and where I’d normally process things with entries, instead I just kind of surfed the chaos and washed up here.

But things are a little calmer now, for the moment, and most of my worries are about the trees. We’ve had an ice storm in Toronto, followed by a cold snap, so basically, the trees have been coated in ice since Saturday, and under the weight of ice and the killing cold, fallen branches have dismantled the city’s power grid.

Driving around on Monday was surreal, with dead traffic lights, and closed businesses and gas stations because there was no power. Luckily we’ve been spared, but church today was a little surreal with priests sitting behind the altar in their respective toques, watch-caps or hats.

It’s beautiful carnage though, staggeringly beautiful. The city is made of glass, right now, sparkling in the sun and glowing in the isolated islands of streetlights between the great dark. I struggle with a measure of grief for the trees that are part of my home. The cold came before the ice, so hopefully they were already winterized, but even so, they usually have snow for a day or two at most before it blows or falls or melts. I worry how much we’re going to lose.

The flip-side is the stillness. Take away the power, take away the electricity, take away the computers and what’s left is quiet and darkness. Solitude like I haven’t seen within the bounds of my city. I have to drive for hours to reach beyond the street lamps, and even then, there are still the traffic lights and beyond those the houses glowing.

Now it is all erased and the familiar is changed as people literally huddle for warmth in the true night. Ice locks doors and closes roads and constricts and surrounds us, and what’s left is crisp, clean silence. Just the crunch of the snow underfoot, the rustle of breath steaming in the cold.

And the unnamed idiot marking the solemnity of the occasion by hopping down the path to church on his right foot on the off chance that someone will notice the missing lefts.

From the unexpectedly assertive Great White North, I wish you, Gentle Reader, and your loved ones a very merry Christmas.