I Wish I Had a River....

After what seems a lifetime of winters not cold enough to sustain a freeze for skating, our town opened one of the lakes for ice-skating.  There are 6 or 7 lakes here, and when I was young, all of them would be open for skating from the end of the year until March. We lived up the street from an oval-shaped beauty ringed with trees and rocks perfect for hunting turtles in summer and lacing up skates in winter.

I was not much of a daredevil as a kid.  It didn't come to me naturally and any inclination I had toward it was weighted with a ten-ton anvil of Italian Catholic guilt.  I could spend several days explaining this to you, but let me save you by just giving this example: when my maiden aunt was well into her 50's, my grandmother would still watch her from the window to see if she was backing the car safely out of the driveway, and then crane her neck to watch her go down their short street to see if she used her turn signal when making a left to go to the smaller supermarket down the road, not the large, cheaper, supermarket across town - because it would have meant that my aunt would have had to drive cross town.  What do you think my chances were of riding a bike past that same corner?

But water was a pure, physical pleasure in all its forms and gave my overweight, clumsy body grace and form, summer and winter. We always had a cardboard box of skates at the bottom of the steps in the basement. The box was filled with hand-me-downs from each other and from cousins, aunts, and uncles. Rarely was there a time when there wasn’t a size that fit someone’s foot, though in 9th grade, my feet had grown larger than everyone else’s and for my birthday I was given a beautiful pair of white, lace up boot skates lined in a red plaid with furry pom poms on the toes and a pair of blade covers.

There was a small lake close enough to our house that we could come and go as we pleased. If the lake froze overnight, the ice would be black and smooth and it would be like skating on open water. If we had a series of freezes and thaws, then the ice would be ridged and bumpy and we might bring a snow shovel to clear off a patch.  After the first wobbly steps and stumbles, I’d get my stride and by watching the experienced skaters, I taught myself to skate properly, one leg pumping in front of the other. The ice was crowded with little kids and parents but if I skated off to the end and stayed away from the thinly glazed sides, there was virgin ice to practice figure eights and skating backwards. 

When we got older, the little lake was abandoned for the highly social twin lakes in front of the high school where you might bump into – literally –boys you knew.  The lakes were longer and wider and friends skated arm in arm and soon long chains of kids would form whips and you either linked it or were sent flying like a pinball in the starting gate.  I could skate just well enough to not embarrass myself by frequent falls and I copied the look of skating in a sweater, coat abandoned on the banks, and wearing sunglasses for the glare.  Best of all, there were lights for skating at night, a huge novelty at a time when the only opportunity for being out at night with friends were limited to sleepovers at each other’s houses. There were no better times than skating at night in the muffle of falling snow with our cheeks pink from the cold and our breath forming white clouds and chasing each other into the dark corners and the breath-catching moment of brushing shoulders with that boy from homeroom.  It was easy to lose oneself between the ice and sky, quietly gliding through moonlight past the stands of pine trees and barren weeping willows swaying as though on a movie set for This American Life. When we could no longer feel our hands or feet, it was time to walk to Leo’s for hot chocolate, if you could get your clumsy fingers to untie the knots in the skate laces and somehow jam your wooden feet back into shoes.

My kids have never skated under a night sky. Not a one owns a pair of skates and they’ve never had the pleasure of forming a chain of kids and whipping one off into a snow bank. They’ve never skated without Muzak and breaks for the Zamboni machine and the smell of popcorn and the din of voices echoing under a stadium ceiling. They don’t know what it’s like to glide into the path of the moon and feel the ice crystals form in your nose and the tears squeeze from your eyes.

When we told the kids that the littlest lake in our town was open for skating last Sunday, Mystery Man took a carload of nieces and nephews and not even the lack of skates deterred them from tumbling on the ice for hours until he dragged them wet and shivering home where they begged to go back tomorrow.  I watched Mr. Pom out on the ice, doing a few pirouettes and shoe gliding when we drove past. I didn’t venture out on the ice. I had no skates. I had nothing to grab onto to get down the banks. I had middle-aged knees and my grandmother’s disposition. But perhaps, if winters return to freezing form, I may just pick up a pair of skates at a garage sale, sharpen the blades and sneak out one night when no one is there to snicker at my falls and find my footing once again twixt water and sky.