wild ice

From: "Katherine Hunter"
Date: Sun, Jan 13, 2002, 12:42 PM
To: daveworld@3sheep.com
Subject: wild ice

did i tell you about skating on the lake this year ?

after a longish lateish and warmish Indian Summer the temps went
fiercely cold in early December / down to ten degrees and less / to zero
even / with no precipitation at all / no rain / no snow / no nuffin /
and not a cloud in the sky day or night / and no wind / no breeze / no
even a zephyr of delight

perfect conditions for perfect ice / wild ice

i drove out to see the lake / this is Ken's Lake / a man-made basin
scooped out between towering red rock walls / filled with icy waters
rushing down from the mountains above / in summer it is a swimming and
fishing hole and in the winter if we are lucky it is an ice rink / a
wild ice rink

the lake was like glass / a mirror perfectly reflecting the bright blue
sky above

i saw hovering over the lake a faint shadow of my former self / the
former self who yapped and yammered about skating so much that when i
went out last year to skate / all decked out in my nifty mature lady
cashmere skating skirt handknitted sweater / cutsy wootsy / there fore
stepping on the ice led to instant paralysis brought on by the chill
fear of falling down and breaking a hip

at a certain "age" one thinks a bit about smashing a hip

i was so intimidated by the vast expanse of ice that i barely cd kick or
glide much less smile

i dont know how big the lake is / no one seems to know / but it is so
big that if you skate to the other side you become a tiny figure / and
it is so big that hockey can go on over there and figure skating over
here and kids on sleds and dogs and all can go everywhere and sometimes
there is an ice fisherman or two

it is never crowded and such a big sky above

this year at xmas time i hear the ice is skatable / i run a tape through
my head of all the possible falls i will no doubt experience but i know
the fear is my bete noir and must be faced up to

i tried on my skates / the boots felt good / last year i had crashed my
bike and had a twisted foot / the blades are perfect from sharpening
last spring in the east / all i had to fear was fear itself

and then i erased all past skating history / forget about the rink in
maryland where i learned to skate exactly five years ago / where i
discovered it was possible for someone like me to have an ambition after
all (to be a skate guard/smile) and how embarrassing it was to not be
able to skate the lake last year and blah blah / i wd just go with my
skates like i did the first time when i was eight years old and if i can
skate okay and if not / well shoot / so what

the whole time i have been in Moab i nurtured an underlying current of
pondering why am i living in a town with no ice rink just because my
daughter is here and my mother too and it apears to be my life script /
and since the paralytic debacle on Ken's Lake last year i even doubted
my (need want desire) to skate

Doni and Kaki went with me / we took chairs / you have to go on the ice
with a chair to sit on to put on your skates / kaki sez you better wear
your helmet / er / no / but i did bring my mother's / dont laugh /
*walker* for those first unsteady steps and i did use my wrist guards

but !!!!!!!

as soon as i had my skates on i was up and out there / o mi gosh / it
was just like flying

this was absolutely the best ice i have ever skated bar none / not even
the ice specially zammed for Dorothy Hamil that time in Maryland

this ice had not a blip bump bubble ripple or wavelet / just clean clear
through / smoooooooth / s lick / slidey / and at the same time it was
almost "soft" and forgiving

some wild ice is just soooooo hard !!

no rocks either / KZMU our radio station had been admonishing folks not
to throw rocks on the ice to see if is frozen / so there was only one
rock and as soon as an ice fisherman went out with an augur to drill a
hole we knew it was safe at ten inches thick

there was still open water at the east side and the southern end and
here is another cool thing about the ice / when the sun drops down
behind the rim the temperatures lower causing the ice to heave and crack
much like Frost Heaves on the roads in Vermont / so the ice had cracked
majorly and the cracks filled in with fresh clear water and then froze
over again in the night to almost perfect seamlessness / you cd just
skim right over the cracks which varied from an inch wide to three or
four inches wide / of clear sparkling ice in contrast to the solid slab

it was abstract art

and another day you can see through the uppermost layers to a layer
below that had fragmented and then refrozen / you cd see the patterns
rather like tortoise shell / magical

the ice is live / it keeps on changing / it groans and growels when it
heaves and in the still of morning you can sit by the edge and hear the
water underneath gurgling and sloshing and moving about

one night it gently snowed / the lake is out in Spanish Valley and is at
a higher elevation than the town of Moab / there was a light dusting of
snow on the lake / skating on it felt like skating on champagne bubbles

giddiness came right up through my blades / through my boots / into my
feet

these skating days were / are some of the very best days of my life

skating with kaki and doni and dought running with us on the ice / she
loves the ice

a rambunctious gamboling puppy eating all the zucchini cake i brought

the old timer Moabi who came out to what was going on / wdnt put on
their skates until they got out their own augur and drilled a hole /
then put their beer in the ice / i skated with one cuze he sed he didnt
know if he cd stand up / and shoot he is older'n me / he was born in
1924 and was in ww2 / we had a good chat skating / he told me stories of
growing up in Moab and skating in the sluices (sloooz) which is the
wetlands between the town and the Colorado River

then they got their skates and brought back some wood for a fire

and a good time was had by all

Skaterina (starts all over again)

oh did i mention i never fell down / not even once