Winter Sounds

Earlier this winter, floundering in the seemingly perpetual lack of snow around Bangor, Daniel and I went ice skating on Pushaw Lake in Orono. It was past dark and, mostly due to the dearth of white stuff, the ice was fantastic. Wavy in some places, but mostly smooth. The night was marvelous - crisp, cold, and clear with stars from horizon to horizon.

We skated and skated. We slid on our bellies and flipped over to our backs like turtles stuck on their shells. We admired the stars. It was a night where I couldn't stop with the superlatives. Everything was too beautiful and too perfect for words. So instead I tried to shut up and just take it in.

At one point we skated to a little island, one that we had actually canoed to last summer. We quietly sat on the rocks along the shore, listening to the dark and the cracking ice. It doesn't seem to matter how old I get and how much I know the ice is safe, those cracks still kind of freak me out. I jumped at some of the bigger ones. Daniel pointed out that the sound of creaking, cracking ice is comforting, sort of the winter equivalent of peepers. I'm not sure about that. I think the ice is more like calling loons. Eerie but beautiful. Coyote pups playing and trees bending in the wind are in that category, too.

Whether eerie or comforting, there's nothing like the sound of cracking ice to remind you of where you are and how lucky you are to be there.