Skating Away On The Thin Ice Of The New Day

To be as blissful as this guy, skating peacefully across a frozen Northern Michigan lake, is my new goal.

I lived in Gaylord for a couple of years in the '80s, and you learn quickly to either take up a winter sport if you're going to live up north, or learn to drink heavily, because winters up there are known to be long and hard.

So I used to go cross country skiing, and I must admit, I miss it, because there was a serenity to being outside by yourself in the middle of a northern winter. A simple beauty that was not lost on me.

And so this video posted online by Elijah Allen of a lone skater making their way across a frozen Lake Leelanau spoke to me.

The wide open vista with the solitary figure effortlessly moving across the frozen landscape is at once mesmerizing and a symbol for the loneliness of our times.

In the words of Ian Anderson:

So as you push off from the shore
Won't you turn your head once more
And make your peace with everyone
For those who choose to stay
Will live just one more day
To do the things they should've done
And as you cross the wilderness
Spinning in your emptiness
If you have to, pray
Looking for a sign, that the universal minds
Has written you into the passion play

Skating away, skating away, skating away
On the thin ice of the new day