The Lake Was Frozen and I Drove There Anyway

Tuesday. I got in the car at eight-fifteen with a full tank of gas and no actual plan, which is either freedom or a character flaw, and I drove an hour and twenty minutes to a lake I'd seen on a paper map I found in the glove compartment. I don't know when I put that map there. It might have been there when I bought the car.

The lake was frozen. Not completely, not in the middle where it gets dark and deep-looking, but frozen along the edges where the reeds come up through the ice and the whole thing goes this flat matte gray. I crouched down and pressed on it with one of my borrowed gloves, I grabbed two unmatched ones from the basket by the door on my way out, which is something my mother would have found deeply irritating, and it held. I didn't go further than that. I'm brave, not stupid.

testing the ice (did not fall in)

I walked maybe a mile on the trail that runs along the bank. There was nobody else there, which I expected, because it was a Tuesday in January and the temperature was doing something unfriendly. I had my beanie pulled down past my ears and I was still cold, but the kind of cold that feels intentional rather than unpleasant, if that makes sense. Like I'd chosen it. The plant on my windowsill is probably thriving in my absence. Or not. Either way.

mile one of approximately one mile total

I've been sitting with a lot of things lately, the post that went up a couple weeks ago, the reply I got that I keep opening and closing without answering, and I think the drive helped in the way that moving through space sometimes helps when sitting still isn't working. I didn't figure anything out at the frozen lake. I just stood there until I was cold enough to go back to the car. Drove home. Made soup from a can. It was a good day.