winter skating
we had a heavy snowfall the other day, the kind where the snow sticks to tree branches and piles onto pine boughs so that any lights you have on the tree glow through the snow ethereally. i saw a photo someone took of a creek winding through wooded banks, tree laden with piles of snow.
on the acreage that i grew up on, a small creek ran through the pasture, its banks steep in places, and it flooded the pasture every so often. but there was an area where it pooled into a wider, open spot, with oak trees guarding nearby. this tiny pool of creekwater is where we tried to ice skate every winter.
my dream was to own a pair of white figure skates, like the olympians wore as they skated over the smooth ice every four years. when we went to the ice rink, i was able to rent a pair, but i didn’t have a pair for the pool in the pasture. one year, after reading “the silver skates”, my aunt colette decided to get me a pair of “skates” in the traditional sense. it was a blade on a piece of wood that you strapped to your shoe. definitely not a white pair of figure skates, but it was something*.
so down to the pool my siblings and i went, one saturday afternoon. the ice was frozen and the snow minimal, so it would be good ice, but getting there was the real trick. you had to walk through a good portion of the pasture to get there, and the summertime brought out the best in growing season, so the grasses had grown tall, though they were dead and flattened slightly by the little snow we’d gotten. luckily, we didn’t have animals in the pasture in the wintertime.
through the grasses we traipsed, trying to stick to the semblance of tire ruts that may have been there at one point during the summer. once past the second gate in, tall oaks were there to greet us, and we maneuvered around the old junkpit where oodles of old, turn-of-the-century bottles still peeked up through the dirt.
i don’t remember if anyone else had skates (or whatever it was i had), but it was easy enough to take a sled out there and slide down the short hill onto the frozen creekbed, and if anything else, sliding around the ice on foam-soled winter boots wasn’t a bad option. i don’t know how long we would normally spend out there – it was cold, but we were having fun running around like maniacs.
the trip back from pasture snowtime was the worst. it was a long hike back to the house, especially with the excitement of skating past. up the short hill, past the junkpit, and through the tall grasses again, keeping to the side of the fence that ran alongside a field of small pine trees. when we got up to the main fence, it was just a hop, skip, and jump past the pumphouse and tall pines to get inside to the warmth. and sometimes there was hot chocolate.
*turns out, traditional scandinavian skates aren’t that great. in the next couple years, i got a pair of used white skates, and when we went down to the creek for a go around the frozen pool, i was so proud of myself for being able to turn around while skating. i wasn’t going to be an olympian any time soon, but it was something.