Frozen

January, so far, has been the stuff of childhood, offering a long stretch of sub-freezing days with little precipitation.

Consequently, everything is iced over.

"I wish I had a river I could skate away on / I wish I had a river so long / I would teach my feet to fly / I wish I had a river I could skate away on."

Those words from the winter song "River" bring back a flood of memories:

Throwing our skates over our shoulders, we walk to our special place in the woods, nature's own skating rink.

Shivering, my red-cheeked younger self sits on a boulder, pulls off my boots and slides warm feet into cold skates, laces them tightly and wobbling, I skate away...

Back in the present, Tiverton is frozen.

The Sakonnet River shimmers with slivers of ice. Seagulls walk and nest on Nanaquaket Pond, instead of swim. 

And all these years later, I am still lured to special spaces of the Creator's design.

Quintessentially, New England, Nanaquaket Pond reflects the sun..

Birds on ice. No skates needed -- sea gulls slide.

Coated with ice, the Nonquit Fish Ladder sparkles.

The inlet that leads to the estuary is packed with ice.

Sea grasses cling tightly to the sand bank as winter winds blow.

Ducks congregate in cold waters, avoiding the ice..

Reflections on a beach in winter

 

Time marches on.

Another year is a gift, a second chance. We start over and begin anew.

“Still round the corner there may wait, a new road, or a secret gate,” said J.R.R. Tolkien.

I start the day at the beach, which is just as lovely as in midsummer, only much colder.

It is deserted except for a few seagulls circling overhead, turning their wings against the wind and casting shadows on the shore.

Sunlight streams into the truck cabin keeping me toasty warm as I gaze in awe at the panorama before me.

In the morning sun, the snow coruscates, as bright light reflects on ocean waves.

Dusted with snow, granite boulders by the water’s edge seem like the stuff of snowmen, huge snowballs waiting to be placed atop each other.

William Blake said, “In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.”

As I adjust to the tranquility around me, I feel the strain of the past week lessen its hold.

In Genesis, God called his creation the sea and filled it with all kinds of swimming creatures with which the water teems, and God saw how good it was.

A walk along the beach in January is very good indeed and a constant reminder of change. Every year, every day, every second – the sea is changing. Countless populations of marine life shift. No stone is left unturned. It is a world in flux.

Today the beach is a world of white, wearing its winter wardrobe of snow and ice, a blank slate lying fallow.

I walk slowly leaving behind footprints in the snow-encrusted sand.

This quiet, open space in this in-between time or interstice reminds me of a musical composition. As a lifelong musician, I think of the Grand Pause.

The concert band rises to a crescendo, and then there is a sudden silence. The musicians have come to a G.P. or Grand Pause, which is a notation over a rest indicating that they are expected to extend the silence until the conductor signals the beginning of the next note. The function of this pause is to create a period of silence at the direction of the director.

January is a grand pause, time to reflect at the Creator’s direction.

“You can’t get too much winter in the winter,” said Robert Frost, who lived deep in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

The cold, biting wind ushers me along. A world of possibilities lies ahead.

 

 

Skating on thin ice

This pond on Neck Road in Tiverton reminds me of the one I skated on as a teen.

This morning I drove along a road in my childhood neighborhood, and I wondered if it was still there, hidden behind all those trees.

When I was a teen, I spent a lot of time in those woods.

If you knew where to look, you came to a clearing where there was a shallow pond; and in January, it became a sheet of ice.

I still remember the excitement of slinging my skates over my shoulder and hiking with my friends to the natural ice rink.

Sitting on a very cold rock, I would lace them up quickly, take those first few strides and glide.

“Even now I can’t describe why I love skating so much,” said New England native Nancy Kerrigan, the 1994 Olympic Silver Medalist.

There is nothing quite like the feeling of being airborne, the sharpened blades skimming the ice, the frosty wind at your back – propelled down the runway and almost taking flight.

Created by runoff from a nearby water tower, the pond was about a foot deep in most places so we never had to worry about falling through the cracks, although I suppose getting wet was a worse fate.  

Yet sometimes, the ice was downright dangerous. Rocks, vegetation and tree limbs froze near the surface; and we all took some nasty falls. Later we would limp our way home.

“In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson.

As a youngster, I had some professional training. I was a member of a Junior Girl Scout troop, and we took roller skating lessons at a rink in Warren, R.I.

I cannot remember much about the instruction, but I do recall one incident.

I was outside the rink practicing skating backwards when I collided with an object – a basket. Unfortunately, my ten-year-old self fell into it, where I was stuck with my wheels spinning overhead. Hearing the laughter around me, I longed to stay put.

Despite my clumsiness, I did learn to skate backwards on ice and on hardwood; and I clocked miles in my parka and in the short, blue-and-white plaid skating skirt my mother made me.

Indoors, I felt that same excitement lacing up my skates and taking that first rotation around the rink – the feeling of being free.

Then one day when I was 16, I went roller skating to Lincoln Amusement Park in Dartmouth, Mass., and a boy asked me to skate with him. I held him up as he stumbled and fell.

I like to think it was my mad skating skills that attracted my husband, but it was probably the skirt.