A Jack London Kind of Day

An old guy plays the odds in a sub-zero skate all alone.

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It’s 10 below zero. A warm spell in Jack London’s world. He wrote about 50, 70 below, when spit froze before it hit the ground.

But I have wind. Big wind. Gusts of 30 miles an hour. And I have the lake to myself. Surprise!

I love the winter. I love it when it’s bitter cold and you need to pay attention to your clothing and what you are doing and how long you keep your skin exposed. When I was a kid I used to read Jack London in the winter and would open a window and curl up under a thin blanket on my floor and imagine myself in his stories.

On this day I drag my daughter and wife out of the house, and we go to the lake. They walk out 20 yards and turn around. They’ll have none of it and head home. Not me. I walk out, set my milk crate down to sit and put on my skates — no socks, never any socks — as quick as I can. I stand and let the wind take me, pell mell, like stepping onto a conveyor.

I dodge in an out of the snow, crags and ruts and cracks, careful to miss the small, sticky mounds of snow, tiny mountains with windblown snow looking almost like a miniature world, me in a plane looking down at the Alps, as I yaw from left to right not taking any strides at all it seems but traveling fast over the sometime bumpy ice. I extend my hands to the side, using the jacket as a sail, and pick up speed. Nearly a mile across but I’m making it in no time. The ice booms beneath. Finally, near shore, I turn and look back and as I turn a blast of wind, so unexpected, so powerful, catches me, off balance, and slaps me down, spinning — but I don’t fall when I skate, I just don’t, I never fall — Bam! My hip smashes down on a sharp upcropping of ice and my other leg flops, awkwardly over, twisting me, landing toe hard against the ice.

I lie there. Assessing. Taking stock. Waiting for the pain to disappear. It doesn’t. Snow shoots down my neck. I’m too old for this shit, I thought. I have to stand. I have to get up. I try. My hip screams. I feel something pop in my thigh on the other leg. I am up, balancing unsteadily. I remove a glove, to feel my hip, my thigh. Have I broken something?Another gust. My glove blows out of my hand and I watch it skitter along in the wind, like a leaf, a feather, and I try to stride to catch it but it’s as if I am in slow motion and in just that instant I can feel the cold, the violent cold on my fingers, my hand, and I watch as the glove gets further away headed down the long lake. I push harder, my legs slowly unfolding, like glass, from the layers of pain, and I gain speed and get closer, closer, until finally I reach it. I dive my hand inside and realize, too late, it is filled with snow and instantly my hand is wet.

10 below. What would Jack London say?

My legs feel stiff and old and I am out of breath and I can feel a panic creep over my head into my chest and stomach. This is serious. This is crazy. I am all alone on this lake and it’s a mile into the wind to get back to the shore and my hand is wet and getting cold and I can barely move my legs. What would Jack London say?

I look at the wind, feel it envelop me, try to overcome me, and I gradually settle down, lower my head, stretch my hips and take a single stride forward, then another, each stride almost in slow motion as if my legs were in some sort of bad dream until finally I gain speed, find the glide, hit a rhythm. Head down, seeing only a few feet ahead, I feel my breathing slow down, my heart stop racing, the pain ebbing, I am gaining on the shore. I’m going to make it.

Later, off the ice and at home, the sun hides in an explosion of color. In the woods near my house, the trees rock and creak with the wind, I feel so alive. What would Jack London say? Pluck and pertinacity. That’s what he would have said.