Day 25

January 25, 2021

Just pictures today

frozen

Ate my lunch at Highland Pond today.  The pond is frozen and had been cleared for ice skating.  It brought back lots of memories.  There was a time when I was a good ice skater and then I fell through the ice on the pond at Signal Hill by Billy's house.  Billy was my best friend then.  I haven't seen him since his family moved away the summer after 6th grade.  It was the winter of 6th grade that I fell through the ice.  

In 1987 I decided, 22 years later, to go back to skating.  I bought new skates and with my friend and colleague, Colleen, I went to the skating rink a few times.  It was really cold and painful and I was really scared of falling.  I could not get beyond my fear of falling.  My dream of getting good at it at 34 was a bust.  I have never attempted to skate since.  Even when EJ was little, I went out on the rink with them in shoes, but in reality I allowed a friend of theirs' father to take over.  No, falling through the ice at 12 killed my hopes of skating, and after falling on the ice in my driveway this month, I don't think I'll ever try again.  

But you have to agree, ice is beautiful.

And the later afternoon colors are gorgeous.  

And the crystal shapes that develop making patterns of light and shadow.

A close friend of mine called me this morning to tell me his Dad is in hospice as of today after a brain bleed.   I have already lost 2 people from brain bleeds this year.  Its sad, even though he is 87 or so, he's a sweet man and his family is sad.  I'm going into a stage of life where leaving a physical body seems to be a normal occurrence, birth and death are continuous.  Yet, that doesn't mean I don't miss people who are no longer here to laugh with.  I may do a poem or a piece on those lost in the last year.