Winter Wonderland

When I was a child, my dad owned some land that had a pond. In the summer, we'd catch frogs in the shallow, green water and fish for sunfish (of course throwing them back as soon as we caught them.) But in the winter this pond was transformed into a frozen other world -- sortof like stepping out of the back of the wardrobe into Narnia. Every winter, as soon as the temperature dropped below freezing for several days, my dad announced that we were going ice skating up at the pond. So we'd dig our our skates, long lost somewhere in the basement since last winter, make sure they still fit (if not, we may get hand-me-down skates from an older sibling, who at that point may be too teenager-y and cool to go skating up at the pond), bundle up in our puffy coats and mittens, and pile in the car for the short drive up the road to the pond. Sometimes we'd take the neighbor kids. We'd drive up into the overgrown driveway, my dad would hop out of the car to unlatch the rusty, creaky gate, get back into the car, and we'd drive through tall weeds that had over taken the dirt road.

Before us kids could even get out of the car, my dad had to make sure the pond was frozen enough to hold us. My dad worries -- a lot, and he needed to ease any worries he may have about us falling through the ice. So he'd walk onto the ice, way out to the middle of the pond, and bounce up and down a couple of times. Then he'd walk to a different spot and do the same thing. This made me nervous. Sure, he didn't want us falling through the ice -- but what about him? What would we do if the ice wasn't thick enough and he fell through? But after bouncing in 4 or 5 spots, he'd walk back to the car and say, "Yep -- that ice is frozen solid -- probably a foot thick!" and we'd all get out of the car and find a spot in the weeds to lace up our skates.

Often, we'd skate at night, when the air would be clear and cold and we could see stars and the moon reflecting in the ice. My dad would build a campfire and we'd skate, practicing our spinning and backwards skating, trying to avoid the bumpy parts of the ice where twigs had frozen. We'd hear the ice boom and creak. My dad said not to worry -- it's just the ice cracking but there was no way we'd fall through. I trusted my dad, so I'd keep on skating. When we'd get cold and tired, we'd sit by the fire and look at the stars. After a few hours, we'd douse the fire, take our leather skates off our sore feet, and pile back into the car. At home, my mom would make hot chocolate and we'd sit by the heating registers and get warm. Very Norman Rockwell-ish, I know.

After I left home, I forgot about skating. In fact, I learned to dislike winter. The problem is, I HATE being cold. And in Chicago, when it snows, the snow gets messy and dirty and it's hard to parallel park on the street when there are mounds of dirty snow. Plus, it's really hard to look stylish wearing clunky snow-worthy boots. And if you wear the great, sassy Nine West boots you just bought, the snow and the salt poured everywhere on sidewalks and roads to help it melt leave ugly white splotches all over the heels and toes. So during Chicago winters I learned to hunker down inside, read lots of books, and wait for Spring. That is, until I met David. Little did I know I married Wayne Gretzky.

Last winter David announced that he was taking up ice hockey. Yes, at 51, my husband decided to learn a sport where teeth are lost on a regular basis, bodies are checked, blood is shed, and bones are broken. He's been skating a lot the past couple of years -- he started going to the ice rink at the park near our condo. Or, he skates down in the Loop at Millenium Park. He even got his picture in the Chicago Tribune last winter, for a story about regular skaters at the ice rink. Until he was 16, he lived in Michigan, so he was no stranger to skating -- in fact he's pretty darned good. But then last winter he decided he was bored skating around in a circle over and over. He needed more action. So he tried a pick-up hockey game at the park rink. This just depressed him -- he was playing with 20- and 30-something guys who'd been honing their hockey skills their whole lives. I told him he needed to find and "old geezers" league. This depressed him even more. But this fall, he found a class where he could learn hockey skills....and the class consisted of guys his own age. So now he's happy. And I told him he looks really sexy in his hockey gear, which made him even happier.

Last winter I told him I wanted ice skates for Christmas. So we bought a pair and I started skating with him. At first I was nervous and wobbly. I hadn't skated in 20 years. But then it all came back, and I found myself gliding over the ice a little more gracefully each time, while David flew by me calling out pointers. "Bend your knees more!" or "Cross-over when going around a turn!"

A snowstorm blew through here a few days ago. We were supposed to get 14 inches, but Tom Skilling, our typically infallible local weather reporter (and brother to Jeffrey Skilling of Enron fame), was wrong this time. We only got about 5 inches here in the city, and it turned the city into a Winter Wonderland. The evergreen trees in the park have snow weighing down every branch, the other trees have a coating of ice, so they sparkle in the sun. The snow hasn't turned brown around the edges of the street yet, so the city looks all sparkly and white and fresh. Last night, after spending a day inside working, David and I dug out our skates and piled in the car and drove down the road to the ice rink. It was the first day the rink was open. The sky had cleared and the moon shone bright. We were bundled up in our gloves and puffy coats, and we skated around the rink in the moonlight, trying to avoid little 10-year-old girls who were practicing their spins and backwards skating. David gave me pointers, once again, on doing the cross-over turn and backwards skating. Sometimes he'd skate up to me and take my hand and we'd skate along like teenagers at the local rollerskating rink during "couples skate". I thought of those night skating at the pond with my dad, and breathed in the fresh, cold air, and was thankful, again for winter. And for a dad who taught me to skate, and for a husband who taught me to love it again.