“The earth is resting, and I am in need of rest, too. In winter, I feel at home in the silences of the world.”
— Margaret Renkl
There is peace in the brilliant, blank slate of a winter landscape, and no two people will see it in quite the same way.
I recall the magical days of a snowy childhood. This weather would have found us searching for ice skates from the collection Mom had built for us from the cast-offs of other families, throwing together a skating party.
Most of our time on the first of such days was spent shoveling heavy snow off of the farm pond after Dad had given us the “safe to skate“ approval. The rule to never step foot on the ice without Dad’s consent was a firm one.
We were dressed in so many layers we could hardly bend in the middle, but we knew that was the only hope we had of surviving the bitter cold.
Mom was always there with us, and she had never lost her pizzazz for skating. Simply because she wanted us to enjoy it as much as she had as a young girl, her enthusiasm had set the stage. It was Mom who was always scouting for used ice skates to add to our collection, and it was our mother who had encouraged the digging of a large farm pond.
She had envisioned fun summers, yes, but it was skating parties she most fondly remembered. Summers had been busy for everyone, but in the 1940s in the dead of winter, an entire community of neighbor kids searching for something to do gathered on community ponds to skate.
So, Mom brought the spark for skating fun. If we were lucky enough to have a snow day off of school, she would gather up extra gloves and heavy socks while instructing us on what to do. “If last year’s skates no longer fit, find the closest fitting pair and pad up with socks to make them work!”
My big desire was to glide across the ice as well as Mom, who could even skate backwards at a pretty good clip. We pushed ourselves to improve with each lap. We could reach decent speeds if we stayed out of each others’ way, adding in some sway, learning to lean with our turns.
By sprinkling in just a ton or two of vivid imagination, we each became lovely skaters dressed in flowing costumes, able to charm the masses with our graceful movement. Each crash was proof that we were one bruising slide closer to perfection.
In reality, we were sporting well-worn coveralls that smelled strongly of cow manure, and our not-so-white ice skates might have been laced up with brown boot laces. It didn’t matter one bit, as we practiced perfecting our turns and spins, laughter and joyful shouts the music score to which we skated.
With enough kids on the ice, Mom would start us on a happy version of Crack The Whip, starting slow, building in tempo and enthusiasm until we all went crashing down in gales of laughter. Fingers, toes and noses all frozen, we knew we needed to call it a day. As we walked to the house, our tired legs still feeling as though we were skating, we found ourselves already planning our next trip to the pond.
Hot chocolate with handfuls of tiny marshmallows never tasted better than it did at the close of a snowy day spent skating together.
