Night skating on black ice.

When the Silver Goddess of winter is in the mood for giving gifts she will gaze at un-rippled winter water and command the lake to freeze, suddenly, into a perfect sheet of black ice from shore to shore. It was bedtime the last time, and we were putting the house to sleep. Stars caught my eye when I turned out the lights. Out here away from the city stars burn like sparklers tossed high in the air by exuberant children. The milky way streaks across the sky and reflects with perfect symmetry in the smooth perfect surface of the ice. Skates on! Straight off we launch heading for Polaris. I was never a strong skater, but good enough to have stroke after smooth stroke carry me miles into outer space. On the black ice on a black night you barely realize that gravity exists. Look up, there are stars, look down between your skates, there are stars. You’re suspended in the center of a great ball of stars. You can skate with abandon, you can go anywhere, make great sweeping circles; there are no cracks to trip you up, and your blades know only smooth ice. On you go breathing frosty air into your lungs, listening to your scraping skates, and feeling the wind whip your hair as you sprint on into the dark. There is only you in this moment, no yesterday, no tomorrow. Off somewhere the sharp bang of an expansion crack gives you a little start in the pit of your stomach. Where else has it cracked? Back behind? How big was that one? Eventually you must turn and follow your own track an astonishing distance back. Another crack sounds somewhere behind you. Skate on. Then a miraculous moon begins to rise and light the hills and valleys of the lake bottom below. You can see them clearly through the thin sheet of glass you are speeding upon. You are flying now, high above the canyons. Your skates scatter the stars. Almost too soon you see the amber kitchen light vectoring you in to shore. Back on earth you’re breathing hard, there’s a trickle of sweat between your shoulder blades, and you finally notice its cold. Quick, get inside and the skates off. And lift an offering of a cold one to the goddess and the gift that will be gone when the snow falls tomorrow. I don’t skate anymore, ankle fusions and knee surgeries put an end to that. But I can still turn the lights down, put on some music, pour another one, and poke about the dusty attic of my mind where boxes and drawers full of nights like this are waiting whenever I need them again. I hope everyone had a great winter. See you when the sun shines.