Flashes of Panic

On my way over the Winnegance causeway last night, past 10 in the evening, I could’ve sworn I saw someone out on the ice. On my morning run, I saw that it was not a person, but someone’s Christmas tree, hauled out and “planted” in an ice-fishing hole.

The ice on the lake is so perfect you could almost fool yourself, from the house, into thinking it was still water. This afternoon I got out my skates and, with my camera in my pocket, went over to get a shot of the tree.

My skates are literally rusty and my skating skills somewhat more figuratively so, but most of the time I went sprawling on the ice it was because I caught a blade in a crack. In the sun, the ice flexes and burps, and the surface (which isn’t often visited by a zamboni) is seamed with the cracks of its flexing and with the tracks of the ATVs which cruised the lake while it had more snow on it. At night, the plates rub together at the cracks, and the ice pops and sings with an eerie howl. Once down on the surface, it shows a definite texture, both wind ripples and the slight hills and valleys that come from the cracking and crunching of its plates. I’m a little surprised that I managed to keep from smashing my camera on the ice.

Now Playing: Mothership by Drop Trio

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