Out the living room windows, my eight-year-old eye spies a magical sight. Half-inch flakes float lazily, meandering slightly right and left, occasionally twirling upward again before settling atop the layer of white on the landscape.
We’ve lived in upstate New York long enough for this to become my normal, the tropical sun of my Philippine home a distant but unforgotten reality. We’ve traded beachcombing and clambakes for snow shoveling and hot chocolate. It’s late in the season, but fresh snow keeps adding to graying piles along the curb. Each new layer is like a soapy bath, making my world pristine clean once more.
I’ve learned to ice skate and graduated from adjustable double blades to sleek singles. A little retention pond at the end of our yard separates us from the back of a gravel parking lot behind a package store. It’s been frozen for months, and I often have it all to myself to practice clumsy figure eights. All the good cartoons are over this Saturday, so I climb into my puffy red snow suit, don hat, scarf, mittens, and boots and head back there.
An inch of fresh powder covers the shallow basin. It’s not enough to require shoveling so I put on my classy white figure skates and lace up, leaving my slip-in boots bankside. Then I glide. I glide so freely, effortlessly shifting my center of balance right and left, feeling the air catch my waist-long hair and lift it off my neck and shoulders as I curve a circle around my private rink. Now confident, I brave the center to start my figure eights. I make my first loop and straighten into the other half, excited to see the number I’m carving with my foot, until a sudden snap. Cracks spread under my weight-bearing foot in every direction.
The second my foot gets swallowed by the arctic hole, before I wonder how deep the water is, I fear the trouble I’ll be in at home. Instantly, the hole is big enough, I’m up to my knees in freezing water that chills me through and through. Ice chunks drift in waves I cause as I wade to the nearest bank. Luckily, the retention pond is little more than a puddle. But the elegance of my imagination is shattered as my rink is all crackles and shards and I am shivering with cold. There’s nothing to do but trudge through the snow to the backdoor and explain my predicament.
I peel off my wet layers, feeling guilty that I’m going to mess up another set of clean clothes today, and my mom will have even more laundry. It takes a while of standing near the furnace vent to feel my toes again. I’m waiting for my scolding, but miraculously I remain unpunished. Soon there’s a grilled cheese sandwich and hot tomato soup for me on the kitchen table. No one asks, “What were you thinking?” or “Are your ice skates ruined?” or fusses about having to get my snowsuit dry before school on Monday. So, I don’t bring it up. Did they even notice I fell in?
My father smokes his pipe by the fire in the living room, listening to classical music on his reel-to-reel tape player. My baby sister scoots around the kitchen in her walker while my kindergarten brother lines up toy cars. Mom gives me a Congo square and sips her coffee, turning once again to read David Copperfield. It’s just another snowy day in Delmar, New York.
Your Turn: Did you ever believe you were going to get into trouble, then escape punishment?
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