Perfect Ice

We lost six inches of ice in last week's thaw, leaving only a foot under Littlefish, and runoff spoiled the fishing for a few days. Then the ice reknit and the smelts were biting again. All that rain and melt glazed the river, and it's been perfect skating for a week. The conditions have been just right this year to sew up all the seams, so there's virtually no open water anywhere in the estuary. Even the tide breakers along the channel margins barely gape at high water, and the gelcoat glistens everywhere. Irresistible.

It took until Sunday for most folks to get up their courage to venture on the river, and I'm always surprised at the general timidity. The good ice is so rare, you'd think people would jump at the chance to skate. If you waited until it's perfect you could wait all winter. Of course I'm foolish enough to go when it's rough as a cob, or a bit frail, but there's been more than a foot of hard stuff since New Years. I attribute this hyper-caution to the mass fearfulness of our age. Television and radio blat all the horror stories, and the usual authorities warn everyone of dangerous conditions, as if life isn't dangerous, and you can't judge conditions for yourself. There's even a technofix for the fearful: a blaze-orange gizmo you wear around your neck that has two spikes set in handles, to help you crawl up on the ice after you fall in. I was given two sets for Christmas.

The first time I saw one of these placebos last winter, around the neck of a guy I met out in the middle of the bay. When I asked what it was, he showed me the spikes, and explained that a friend of his had just drowned in a lake. "Of course, he was wearing one... but I've promised my wife." Well, I've promised Peggy, so I sport this gaudy plastic jewelry, too.

Maybe it's a good thing that most people stay indoors in the winter, watching the weather channel, afraid of their shadows. If we hadn't been scared silly by all that expert information, it might be crowded on the Cathance. Next thing you know there'll be ordinances about approved skating, and required flotation jackets. Something else for the Coast Guard to enforce, and the well-behaved to be anxious about.

David actually wore a dayglow float-jacket the day he joined us on the river, and I was amused at how casually he scooted across unexamined territory. At least I dodged the dubious spots. And I had a job keeping up. David was in a mood to recount local history, and we got a panoramic exegesis of settlement on the Cathance since the 20s. How old man Wallentine settled on Brooklyn Neck after leaving Lithuania, and lived a wholly self-sufficient life here until after the war. How the big farm was divided. David bought the farmhouse from the Wallentine heirs, reconstructed it, sold it to Frank. He told how the Wallentine girls were champion tap dancers, and other tales about suicide and death by fire. The stories followed the riverbanks, from the Town Farm upstream, where local indigents lived and worked on relief, to the tidal marsh hayfields, now gone back to willow and alder, to the Coggin place, where the new owners finally knocked down that Russian fireplace that David built, and cleared the rest of the fire rubble, just this month.

Thursday we encountered Shorey out on the ice shooting a video to take back to Amsterdam. He was in town for a court date, looking very European in a long leather coat and widewale cords, rabbitskin headpiece. After two years, his trafficking case finally came to trial. You may remember he's been petitioning for legalization, and seeking a medical marijuana statute, arguing that Nina's chronic pain and debility justifies possession and use. His political activism made him an easy target, and when two teens raided his garden and got caught with the weed, the DA threw the book at him. Two years and $15,000 in fees later the judge refused to hear any medical arguments, so Shorey pled to the charge of possession to traffic (IE. holding an ounce), paid the $1000 fine, and is free to go back to Holland, his paranoia about the American legal system unassuaged. He says it's ironic: he's probably the only guy in his building in Amsterdam who doesn't deal in drugs, and he's the only confessed trafficker. At least Nina doesn't have to look over her shoulder, if she takes a toke.

Each day I've had different companions on ice. Josephine hailed me out most days, and let me play lead dog, upriver halfway to the Mill Falls, downstream to the middleground in the bay, up the Abby from Chubby's to the railroad trestle, and back. But others have called and joined the party. Each companion sees a different topography: out of their childhood, or with an environmentalist eye, or a sense of esthetics. Skating in stride to share thoughts, then spiraling off into solitary reverie, tripping on a crack for a dog snuffling, standing together to catch our breath. The eagles have been scarcer than other years, maybe because the margins are so well knit up, but there's a new winter hawk loping through the treetops, dogged by crows. Big enough to look like an immature eagle, and markedly similar, but once you see an eagle jump you realize it's a lesser raptor. Yesterday we spotted one of these birds being razzed and dived on by a quartet of corvids. Then he swooped into a pine top where a companion was perched. As they passed upcountry, a mature bald made his stately way toward us, caught a thermal over Wildes Point, and spiraled high into the sun.

The days have gotten colder as the week progressed, so it was fit to skate later in the day. Friday evening I went up the Abby and was ravished by the sunset radiance, then the rising moon. Saturday Jo and I bucked a bitter headwind over the same course at midday, then FLEW back down to Chubby's. EEEhaw. The wind had ruffled Mr. Mann enough that he spent the day making a sail-kite, and yesterday he put together a party to try it out. Jo, Mr. Mann, Dr. Bob, Ivy, Theo, and I laced up at Riverbend and went looking for wind. Not enough air to test the rig, just a light norther, but we gaggled down to the bay, and checked out the ice all the way to Center's Point. You could probably skate all the way to heaven out there. Wind astern.

Sink

Meanwhile Peggy has been tending the home fires, gaining strength, with her spirits rising. She's been doing her dances, swimming, and tanning at her club, spending more and more time on her feet. Today she went back to teaching full time, with mixed emotions. This has been a wonderful hiatus, for both of us. It's easy to get swept up in the hurry of life and forget what's at the heart of things. A brush with mortality and a loving convalescence mends a lot of wounds. We didn't even fight about the dishes.

The world shrinks in winter. Sometimes it's no wider than between the woodpile and the stove. There's times when the insularity of a smalltown winter hems you in, makes you wonder what ever possessed you to eddy up into a backwater, and freeze over. You should be out there doing GREAT WORKS. Then Trickster Fate pulls the rug out, and you remember that life is in the details, and to laugh.

Hearth

That's it. Couldn't resist. It was in the 30s today, and a new layer of melt coated the ice. By 8PM it had hardened off again, and the moon was high. I called Mr. Mann, and it took him all of 30 seconds to decide. Then, as I was going out the door, Peggy said "I bet Hank would be up for it," so I gave him a hail, too. Sure enough. The three of us laced up on Bernard's ramp. Dead still. Tide just starting to flood. Moonlight poured on ice.