Skating

Carpe Diem #628, ice skating

I remember my mother’s white ice skates, with there sharp silver blades as a thing of fascination.  My feet still not big enough to fill her shoes.  My memory only recalls seeing my mother skate one time.  We were in Virginia at the time.  My mother took all six of us to a frozen lake.  I still remember how she tested the ice and her warnings about the darkened ice.  She wore a white wool coat with a black furry trim around the hood.  She gracefully skated over the ice, pulling us two at a time on a round silver sleigh.  I ran after her in my red rubber boots, the snow on the ice crunching.  There was no polished ice surface, bright lights or shimmery costumes.  But to me this bundled figure was the most glamorous I had ever seen.  The bumpy ice beneath my feet and the slight spray from the sled on my face and my determination to catch her and become beautiful and graceful fond memories of a cold afternoon.

boot tapping pond edge

large stone hefted on the surface

testing ice thickness

Silver Creek - Richmond, Kentucky
 (do not have a picture of the skating event except in my mind.  This is a photo taken years later on an icy creek.)

graceful ice-skater

glides over the frozen lake

pulling child in sled