Lake Erie ice

[vaneramos]

Lake Erie, Wednesday at noon


When I was little, Lake Erie always froze quickly, providing miles of smooth ice early in the season. By late January it always became heaved and pockmarked. But before that we would have several weeks of good skating.

My brothers, cousins and neighbours played hockey. I would join in to feel a part of things, not that I enjoyed it. I would rather skate freely. Without much skill I could build up considerable speed, like a bird darting across expanses. The good ice roared under my blades, sinking into dark, blue-green depths.

In later winter, storms would pile mountains of fractured ice along the shore.

I returned home yesterday with my first cold of the winter: congestion barely muted by Advil. The girls and I are spending a couple quiet days. Hopefully rest will clear it up.

But last night was strangely uneasy. Oozing sinuses woke me at 5 a.m. and I lay a while in a fretful daze, finally rising for a shower. That brought some physical and mental relief. I drifted in and out of dreams: an iridescent triceratops looming on the horizon; wrestling naked with a friend; my dead grandmother reading a newspaper under a carnival tent.

(More images posted in texture: here and here.)




Tuesday at noon