Manchester City Library

Nowadays a lot of us dread it, that sign of the season–ice. We tiptoe on it trying not to break legs, curse it as the scraper skips over the encased windshield, pray because of it as the car skids into the busy intersection on a morning commute. But when I was a kid, ice was a blessing, in fact, the glassier and more treacherous looking the better. In those days winter meant that my father would engineer a large patch of our back yard into a skating rink. From December to February that is where my brothers and I would spend every spare minute we had. Sometimes we’d play hockey and other times I would spin around pretending to be a graceful Dorothy Hamill. But, apart from the frenzied exercise and imagined Olympic glory, the best times were when I was out there alone, in the cold, on the ice. Shins aching, the sharp sounds of blades cutting the surface, the blur of white snow banks whizzing by me—skating gave me a sense of speed, power and freedom.

So, when you watch the skaters at the Winter Olympics this year maybe you’ll feel like me, remembering that ice has its charm, just as long as you can skate on it.

Mary Orzechowski