EPHEMERAL ETCHING - The Joyous Geometry of Ice

Sunday morning I found this lovely sheet of etched ice on the driveway just outside our back door. That unseasonably warm winter day, water already flowed under it, and by ten it was gone.

Both the impermanence and the impact of this art stun me…make me wonder. Why do the major vertices radiate from an imaginary point on the adjacent asphalt, while others are scored as fields of parallels?

Why are some lines fringed with still-finer, feathery details? Why is just that one gap clear of all but the ghostliest whisper of texture?

And the geometry…I suppose it’s no wonder that the four main axes fan at 15 degrees, while those hatched parallels stem from them at 30—both exact divisors of the 60-degrees between branches of a snowflake.

THE EDGE OF ICE

The jutting edge of ice, undercut by last week’s melt water, is once more frozen brittle-hard. And ah, the silly joy of wrecking it.

I step, as on a tightrope, along the frozen filigree, and the sonorous, crackling notes, distilled in cold, dense air, belie its delicacy.

Is it just the challenge of finding winter’s upside, or are these fancies of foot not more satisfying than other seasons’ softer sounds of puddle splash or rustling leaves?

I thank Creation for the objects of such pure, simple play…and for such innocence of soul to be moved by them.

FROZEN IN TIME – Death By Degrees

My hearty fellow winter wonderers: I know you must marvel, as do I, at the hard truth of a frozen lake—this once lively, liquid pool, now captive, groaning, its huddled molecules tired of such close quarters. Where, just four months past or hence, you're in it, one with it, now you're shut out, settling for but a skin-deep appreciation with boot or blade.

Unless you're an ice fisher, chances are that's where your attention ends, your curious juices freezing the instant they hit the surface. But, as with all surfaces, there's more to see if you can look deeper.

Occasionally, a surreal image will catch your eye: a fish frozen into the ice. Sometimes they've died before freezing, floating horizontal to the bottom of the top, there but for ice's shield against beak and talon.

Sometimes they've died before freezing, floating horizontal to the bottom of the top

But, once in a great while, you find one caught alive, vertical, flash-frozen in mid tail stroke. You stop and ponder how it could possibly have not been able to swim away as the water, passing from 33 to 32 degrees, started to set around it.

What went through its little mind as heart kept beating, blood kept flowing awhile, till that too eventually thickened and set.

And I wonder, is there memory in death by degrees?

ON STEEL AND WATER – The Marvels of Ice Skating

LIKE BUTTER
Back when I played college ice hockey, I used to love being the first player out on the rink before a game or at the start of a new period. That was when the ice was pristine, freshly planed and recoated by the Zamboni. I always thought to myself it was like skating on butter, a metaphor not as much for the physical qualities of fresh ice as for its deliciousness.

For one exquisite lap, mine were the only marks on that translucent, milky surface. I could take one powerful stride and coast the length of the rink. Even more fun, though, was
taking that first lap fast, with long, powerful strides. I'd look behind me at the graceful, outward sweeping lines my blades were etching into the ice. Each one threw a dusting of bright white snow, chiseled by the angled steel edge. The pleasure of that pattern reminded me of the trail of swirls one leaves canoeing across a glassy lake.

In those moments, skating was a sort of meditation.

In those moments, skating was a sort of meditation, a deep awareness not just of the esthetics, but of that sublime progression of muscles, motions and balance that comprise a skating stride. It starts with a subtle lowering of the center of gravity as hip and knee contract and weight begins transferring to that leg.

The extension comes, almost imperceptibly, from the buttocks; then the thigh thrusts outward while the knee straightens; and finally, like the exclamation point at the end of a command, the ankle straightens sharply, the toes and ball of the foot driving the blade's curved toe into the ice and impelling the transfer of weight back to the other leg. That last little snap of force makes a distinct munching sound as the blade bites deeper into the ice. Instead of snow, little chips of ice fly.

CLEAR BLACKNESS

Skating outdoors on natural ice is very different. Ideal conditions are rare. In fact, in my lifetime, I've only experienced them a handful of times. Instead of the silky, milky white of man-made ice, the perfect natural ice is black. In fact, it has that paradoxical quality of clear blackness, like the water of a pond rich in dissolved organic material. Black ice occurs only when it's below freezing for some time before the first snowfall. And there can't be lots of wind while that bare ice is forming, or it will have humps and waves.

Cracks wind through black ice like white ribbons on edge.

Once in a great while, a fleeting, surreal image 
will catch your eye: a fish frozen into the ice.

Skating on perfect black ice is a rare and wonderful experience. Because it nearly always occurs early in winter, you're always wondering if the ice is thick enough to support your weight. Supposedly only three inches will do it for someone walking, but will that hold true when all that weight's concentrated on a 3/16-inch blade? It only seems to sweeten the experience knowing there's twenty feet of ice water below. As if to remind you, dull thumps and snaps reverberate through the ice as it contracts and shifts.

Outdoor skating's normally confined to a rink—that is, whatever portion of the ice you've managed to clear of snow. But with black ice you have the whole lake. If you're lucky—with extraordinarily smooth ice and some wind at your back—you can coast all the way across the lake.

FROZEN IN TIME
Another wonder of black ice is that you can see what's going inside of it. Here and there cracks wind through the ice like white ribbons on edge, showing its thickness. Bubbles are frozen in time. Once in a great while, a fleeting, surreal image will catch your eye: a fish frozen into the ice. You stop and look, wondering how it could possibly have not been able to swim away as the water, passing from 33 to 32 degrees, started to set around it.   

I know there are other skaters out there. What are your observations?