I was in Ottawa last Friday, and finally got a chance to skate on the Rideau Canal, the world's longest skating rink. Unfortunately, timing issues and lack of skate rentals downtown conspired against us, meaning we didn't get on the ice until it was dark. And it just wasn't as good. The lighting was pretty bad, making it difficult to see - pretty necessary when skating on a bumpy, naturally frozen surface. I'm still glad I got the chance to skate on it though. And I'd like to think that if I lived in Ottawa I'd skate on it as often as possible. Apparently some students, depending on where they live in Ottawa, are able to skate to their university during the winter. How cool is that! As much as I love walking places, I think I'd be happy to skate places instead for 3 months of every year. The only problem would be where to put your skates once you reached your destination. Although I did see a fair share of people walking the streets of Ottawa (particularly those close to the Canal) with their skates slung over their shoulders. You could tell they were seasoned skaters...
Skating is definitely one of my favourite parts of winter; and while it probably is extra nice to do it outside, I like indoor rinks too. They all share this particular smell of artificial ice, excitement, and cheerfulness. Though most skating rinks (indoor and outdoor) share the same shape I don't get tired of it. I can go round and round and round, never feeling bored or dizzy. It is especially easy to not notice the same old pattern when skating with someone else. (My favourites being S. and L. and J. who did a phenomenal job when we skated with him at Rockfeller Center!)
So while I generally do prefer skating with others, I wish I felt better about skating alone. I have no problem swimming alone (in oceans or swimming pools) or walking alone when other people are in the pool or on the street. But I don't like skating alone in Toronto. I went to the local outdoor rink near my house one time last winter and I just felt awkward. Everyone else was there with their kids or their friends or someone, and even though I'm sure no one was staring at me or gave a second (or even a first) thought to the fact that I was there alone, I didn't like it. With swimming your face is in the water at least half the time, and with walking, you're going somewhere, but skating alone on a rink with other people is really unappealing to me. It's annoying too because neither S. nor L. nor J. live in Toronto. So I really have not been very good about going skating this winter, despite it being something I love.
I would be totally happy, however, to skate alone on a totally secluded rink with no one else around. I would love that actually. It's the other people and the zamboni guys and the ice monitors and all the other people that have every right to be on a public rink that get in the way of my dreams! A long standing fantasy of mine, which I hope to one day fulfill, is to spend a week at some secluded cabin somewhere in the French (or Swiss, or maybe even Italian or Austrian - I am not picky) Alps, a short walk away from a gorgeous and perpetually empty Alpine lake frozen into a skating rink. (Something like the picture below, except I'd be the only person on it.) Someone else (or multiple people) could be with me at the cabin but the lake/skating rink would be all mine. Every morning (and maybe again around twilight) I'd sling my skates over my shoulder and walk to the skating lake where I'd skate round and round, in perfect solitude with no one else around, to my heart's content.
In the meantime, I think I will try to get in some more skating before winter ends!
Thanks for the very timely entry, especially given that I'm reading from the Bay Area and am currently suffering a severe craving for true winter weather and outdoor excitement.
ReplyDeleteWatching the Winter Olympics doesn't make it any easier.
But what I really wanted to share was that this brought back some thrilling memories of when my brother, father and I would spend vacations in Maine with our stepmother, whose family had a fairly secluded cabin on Back Pond, one of the Five Kezar Ponds (little lakes, actually), just inside the border from New Hampshire.
We usually visited Back Pond in the summer. My brother and I (we were ~8-13 years old during those years) would especially love to take turns paddling the canoe out into the lake in the middle of the night. There were no lights but the moon and stars to show the way. We would see who could dare to stay out the longest, lying on his back in the bottom of the canoe, gently rocking as if floating on a cloud, and drifting who knows where, while watching the countless shooting stars and listening to the sounds of the occasional loon or owl in the distance. It was captivating, enchanting, and utterly frightening. The tension between gazing out into space and, at the same time, wondering if some sort of murky lake monster was just about to jump out of the water and devour us was eventually too much to bear. The temptation to surrender oneself completely, in either wonderment or terror, was nearly ecstatic, and something I'll never forget.
One year, we also spent a few weeks of winter on Back Pond. We were one of the only families to be at any of the Five Kezars at that particular time of the season. It felt very lonely, stark, and remote. The daily temperatures were often well below zero, and the wind chill sometimes made it unbearable to be outside. But the lake was too magical to resist.
During the day my brother and I would cautiously skate around the entire surface, while reminiscing about the summer and nervously wondering if the ice would give way beneath our blades. Watching the snow drifts dragging across the face of the lake, feeling our lungs burning, and being nearly blinded by the whiteness, trying to keep our balance, it seemed like being on another planet.
One night, we couldn't help but dare ourselves to brave the elements and the darkness and again venture out onto the lake. On ice skates! Neither of us were very good skaters, I should add. And we were already intimidating by skating on the frozen lake. Doing it in the middle of night was the ultimate dare. (I get goose bumps thinking about it.) Pushing off, then gliding and turning and stopping, then pushing off again... all of our senses became more and more tuned in to the contact of skate blades against frozen lake water. We may as well have been wearing blindfolds. Every motion seemed to invite a disorienting accident, or a swooping rush of elation or, again, the possibility of being swallowed by a deep, dark, monstrous abyss. The wind would howl. The ice would stretch, and boom, and creak, and whisper. It's hard to describe the sensations and the emotions. Far and away, it was the best time I ever had on ice skates.
Anyway, thanks again for sharing this. It made for some exciting nostalgia. I hope one day you find that solitary winter skate on a lake in the Alps. I'm sure you'll love it.