2002-10-13 - 11:32 a.m.
FOG
People in a house nestled between the Milwaukee River and Lake Michigan see a lot of fog. Sometimes it settles in softly in wisps like the cotton candy of the atmosphere. It softens the edges and fuzzes the middles, creating a fairyland. It hops and skips through broken gates and over geraniums. Fog changes.
My very first visit to Milwaukee was marked by fog. Mr. Philately was a summer intern then at the agency I now work for. The weekend was my birthday weekend and, as usual, fireworks were scheduled for me. (Yes, I know the 4th of July might have had something to do with it but a girl can dream.) On the third, we headed to Summerfest for music and fireworks. The sky was clear and the air a bit crisp as July evenings in Milwaukee occasionally are. As the fireworks were set to begin, the blanket crept over the bluff. It swirled. It rolled. It covered. There we were, two young lovers, not seeing the fireworks. We didn�t care. Fog envelops.
The next night we tried again. Again we went to the lakefront. Again the night was clear. Again we listened to the music. As the 1812 Overture boomed out from the bandshell, the bandshell disappeared. Then, row by row, the audience disappeared. We heard the boom. The sky flashed various pastels in spots and nothing more. It was different. It was magic. Fog enchants.
The night that we drove to the hospital for Day-Hay to be born was a foggy night. No cotton candy that night, the fog was everywhere, thick and surrounding. It blotted out the moon, it blotted out the stars, and it blotted out the street lights. We separated it as we went to drop Kat off inland but then we had to head back toward the coast and it wouldn�t part. I thought to ask Mr. Philately how he was seeing the road but, despite the labor pains, I thought better of it. Years later, I did ask and the answer was as expected. He was hoping for the best. If he thought it was an option, he would have pulled off the road but he felt he couldn�t and he didn�t. He simply hoped that it was late enough at night that we were all alone. Fog isolates.
Work occasionally takes me on a highway from here to Green Bay. I-43 is rarely far from the lake. You can�t see Lake Michigan but it makes its presence known. It comes closer near Sheboygan, at Cedar Grove. A clear highway on a clear, crisp morning, can suddenly cloud over. All of a sudden, you cannot see. Your headlights become almost useless. It scares me, that stretch of highway at such times. If I slow down, will I get hit from behind? If I don�t slow down, will I hit someone from behind? I�ve gotten scared enough to pull off. Fog frightens.
And Friday, on that very stretch of road, a 45 car pileup, explosion and fire. A pile-up so jumbled, so snarled, so intertwined that police initially believed that only 38 cars were involved because they did not realize how many cars were pulverized and how many flew inside other vehicles. A pile-up so engulfing that ten people are dead and 38 are injured. A pile-up that scorched the roadway, flooded the hospitals, and made anxious relatives wait for news for hours and hours. Don�t underestimate fog. Fog kills.
LAST YEAR: Emotional Two-Step
LAST FIVE ENTRIES:
The Waterworks Factory
Receiving
Welcome to Waterloo (by Kat)
Dancing Queen
Being Adult
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Copyright 2006 by Ellen |
