Day In, Day Out Reprint Collection: ICE DANCING

The fact is that along with being an aspiring country and western singer, chain saw sculptor, and redhead, I have always wanted to be a cast member in the Ice Capades. Or at least skate like one. I may be a disaster at just about every team sport: a slow runner, a nervous cross country skier, and the kind of bicyclist who walks up even medium sized hills. But put me in a pair of size eight and a half figure skates, and you'll have a hard time getting me to take them off. I'm a skating fool.

Well, this winter, in New Hampshire we have had freakish weather: cold temperatures but no snow. Every pond, lake, river and marsh is frozen smooth as glass -- a skier's nightmare, and a skater's dream come true. And so I have done more skating in the last six weeks than I have in the last ten years, combined. I skate on the pond beside our house, and the bigger pond, down the road. I keep my skates in the car, when I drive unfamiliar roads, just in case I spot some good new piece of ice. (In fact, once or twice I have nearly veered off the highway, craning my neck to study ice conditions on some body of water I was passing). One night, with our children asleep (and our daughter old enough now to be in charge), my husband and I skated across a lake in our town, under a full moon, until almost midnight. "Remember this moment always," I told myself, as the wind pushed me across the ice in the moonlight. "There won't be many better than this."

Understand, please: I can skate forward and backward. I can execute a figure eight, and I have purchased a pair of skin tight black pants to heighten the effect. And that's about the extent of it. But in my dreams lately, I am often on skates, and when I am, I am Katarina Witt, queen of last winter's Olympics. And so, in the daylight hours, I go back and forth over the ice, trying to execute a waltzjump, a spin, a backwards crossover. I'm black and blue from falling. And still I keep trying to get it right.

A while back I revealed to my family that I was setting to music an ice dance I practice only when noone's around. "See that," one of my sons pointed out, when a friend was over the other day, and the two of them walked through the living room, where I was studying a tape I'd made of a special featuring the Olympic medalist, Brian Boitano. "My mom's going to do an act like that for us. "Well... " I said. Not exactly.

Meanwhile, last Saturday was a perfect day for skating: the ice particularly glassy, the sun high. So we decided to check out the skating on a river a few miles outside of our town, and Audrey invited three friends to come along. It's never a small production, arranging a trip like this, of course. First there were snow pants, hats and mittens to be rounded up. Snacks packed in the car, skates and skate guards assembled. We had to make a couple of trips back to the house, to pick up things we'd forgotten the first time round, but we eventually managed to drop Charlie off at a friend's house, to play, and to pick up Audrey's friends, and a needed extra pair of skates at another friend's house. Finally, a couple of hours later than originally intended, we reached the skating spot.

I couldn't wait to get out on the ice, but of course first we had to lay out all our gear, on the banks of the frozen river, and make sure everyone was laced up. At last we were set, and I stepped out on the ice -- which was perfect. Because this was a river, not a lake, you could skate along the meandering channel like Hans Brinker, weaving in and out among the rocks and beaver dams -- never sure what lay around the next corner. And so, since I knew my husband was staying close to the children and watching their every move, I thought I'd venture out, exploring. No sooner did I get to the first bend in the river, though (just building up speed) when I heard a small voice (Willy's) calling me back: Mom. Mom!

I skated back to my son. He wanted to show me his glide. I watched, applauded, took off again. Got to that same bend in the river, and heard the old familiar call. "MOM!" (My daughter this time.) For a second, I looked at the long, tempting expanse of ice ahead of me, and pictured myself stroking smooth as an Olympian, in and out among the bullrushes. "I could just keep going," I thought. "Steve's right there. I could pretend I never heard her." But of course, I turned back to see what Audrey wanted to show me. Which turned out to be a dead fish, frozen underneath the ice. Then, seeing me, Willy remembered that he was cold, and hungry. His sock was wrinkled up in the toe of his skate. He wanted one of those chocolate chip cookies I'd left in the car. Naturally, I put on my skate guards, hobbled up the embankment, got the cookies, and delivered them. At which point my son decided that, as a matter of fact, he'd had enough of skating for today. So I took him back to the car, unlaced his skates, as well as mine, and burst into tears.

That was the moment when -- in my frustration, and even rage, at never getting around that first bend in the river -- I realized what it is that makes me feel the way I do about skating. (I suspect it's the same thing that allows one woman I watch here in our town running her daily five miles, no matter what the weather's like, and another, pumping her bicycle up the steepest hills with her baby in a cart behind her.) And this is what I think:

So much of being a mother is about slowing down, staying put. In my life as a mother, I am always carrying things: children, groceries, car keys, school projects, snow pants, toys. In my life as a mother, I am always sitting on the shore (counting heads in the water) or looking out my kitchen window; waiting in the checkout line, or the doctor's office, or sitting on the edge of the tub, scrubbing someone's ears. But in my life as a skater, in my black stretch pants, I leave solid ground and everything on it behind, and I cut loose and fly. So, come the night of the next full moon, I'll be out there with my tape deck blasting into the darkness, dancing for my self alone.

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