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Archive for February, 2007

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Feb 19

skate skate

It never occurred to me when I got out on the ice that I would be taken completely off course. I would turn into a tiny ship, propelled by the wind. It happened quick and delighted me. Later on, it frightened me and I yelled at Steve, waving his camera in the air, heading rapidly for the snowy shore.
The wind does that people. As soon as I got out on the ice, it scurried me along. I didn’t skate, I just stood there and it surged me forward, pushing my legs and back and arms. I smoothly went forward and only turned when I wanted to. This kept up and could be difficult when you were turning or going against it. Only when I turned to the left, facing north that the south wind urged me forward. As if I was a horse and it was betting on me to do things right. Steve and I skated round and round, yelling at each other in speech, taking breaks for water and catching our breath. I hated turning left because sometimes I was shot forward and sometimes it was only a gentle breath and it didn‘t tell me before hand.
We skated over deep fissures of the ice and one, which met in a three way spider, took me out, grabbing at my toe pick. I lunged forward and fell on my right knee. It’s swollen now, resting under a pack of ice, ironically enough. I slid along, the ice turning into water as it touched my pants’ legs. I stood up and surveyed the country. I was okay. A mother pointed me out to her four year old son, “See, she fell and she’s okay. She didn’t cry.” Surely I was victor. I didn’t feel like crying but maybe it would have been nice to squeeze out a few drops and have a helpful hand pull me up. Whichever. I got up and skated slower, steering clear of the three pronged fissure and the playful south wind.
Turning left is always inevitable as Derek Zoolander taught us and I turned left gleefully as I took pictures of Steve goofing off on the slick ice. His camera was odd and I had a hard time knowing if the pictures were taking or not. He zoomed past me and I followed him like a sports photographer, busily clicking away, wondering if the camera was doing anything. I turned fatally to the north in my gleeful clicking and the wind surged forward. It grabbed me quick and I was soon out of control. To fall would have been grace but I couldn’t because I held his camera in my hand. I yelled to Steve, shrieking with laughter but alarmed. How fast could it take me? Playful forces of nature tend to go overboard as a general rule. I was going faster and faster. I shrieked. “Aim for the snow!” he shouted. Smart kid. I plowed right into it and fell down easily, holding the camera aloft.
I can’t deny that my interest in skating waned as the wind grew fiercer. The ice shimmered into wetness and it was growing only a little too tiring to skate. I was up for the call and crunched off along the bank as Steve did a few more loops, challenging the wind. I sat on the dock and untied my skates. I was done for the day and the red flag, that warned the skaters off the ice, was being raised up on the flagpole. Definitely time to go home.

Feb 19

Winter and Spring

This winter, I’ve been thinking about curling up in the snow. It’s been a terrific season for snow and I think now as I look out of doors, I can see a good heaping five to seven inches of it. The garden is in a lull under it. Snow is soporific for the plants. They stay quiet and idle and dream about the time when they open their flowers, continue on with their lives.
   I’ve been wondering what it must be like to crawl under the snow and be a woman under the snow. Would my eyelashes turn to black ice? And then the irises of my eyes turn to blue ice? What would someone think if I rose out of the snow, the cracking of frozen ice accompanying as I stood up? Would they think I was dead and now alive? Or would they think I was the Mistress to Jack Frost and they knew he had a woman all along.
   I think I would be a bit spooky if I laid under the snow and then came up, breathing foggy air. I think I would like to catch the glimmer of the sun now and again, see a warm human face. I would take a walk, fold my arms together, click my tongue. I would go down Lincoln Ave and then cross McKee and then Wilson. I would walk to my favorite street and head down under the crabapple trees, barren and still. There’s no destination on my favorite street. I just like the situation of a few of the houses and the three crabapple trees so close that their branches intertwine. In the summer, they’re all different colors, rose, mauve and white. I have truly fallen in love with those trees and dream about them all the time. Someday too, I might have three crabapples, so close, their fingers intersect. I would put them in a tight row and they would be three odd ducks together, all different colors in the springtime.
   Springtime…that word would wake me out of the cold and dust. I would rise up, and a woman would gasp and a car would drive off the road but I would rise up and head down the sidewalk, to the house that has a thousand bluebells in their yard in the springtime. I would head down to those crab trees and stand for awhile, first on one leg and then the other, looking up. The trees would look down at me and then I would be forced to climb the middle one, high as I could. I would sniff the wind and even in all the frost and cold, I would catch the merest thread of spring. Then I would kiss a budding branch and head back down. I’d cruise back down that sidewalk, taking care to keep my arms close to my chest. I’d breath easy and then fall back into the yard, rolling, burying into the snow. Like a mole. My breathing would grow slower and slower till it barely was.
The trees pop like magic in the spring. They could really, raise anyone out of the slumber of cold and death.