Bitter Cold

It is winter on the South Plains.  We are experiencing a polar blast, and yesterday, by late afternoon, the air temperature turned bitter cold.  It continued today, not getting above freezing.  We are anticipating the continuation of bitter cold for a couple of more days, warming to above freezing during the day, but still being bitter cold at night.

What has made this cold even more frigid is the very strong north wind. It is driving and biting. There are many people in this part of the world who are experiencing frozen pipes.  If your plumbing is susceptible to freezing, do what you can to protect those pipes:  use heat tapes; keep cabinets open, open the faucets and allow a trickle of water to run.  

Water/ice is an unusual compound: ice is lighter than water, and floats.  It also expands so when pipes freeze, then thaw, they sometimes break. Hopefully, if your pipes have frozen, they thawed safely.

Ice Skaters Fall Down

A co-worker told me that watching ice skating, especially at the Olympic level was torturous, because one fall can break a career. I never that about that. But this I know. Ice skaters fall down. You do not learn to ice skate without falling down... You do not learn to ice skate without taking risks, and expanding your zone of comfort. And, you get back up and try it again, and again, and again. I think ice skating teaches things like perseverance, continuing on with pain.


I took ice skating lessons for a semester in college. The instructor, Mrs. Barr, said she put something new and harder in each lesson, then allowed us to go back to what we had learned the lesson before, because it was already easier and more comfortable... An interesting philosophy of teaching. And, effective...


We all fall down in life. On the rink, the ice skater has no choice but to get up and keep going, especially if the skater is in a competition. How many of us do that in our personal lives?

Ice Skating

I enjoyed ice skating... When I was ice skating regularly, my thoughts about it were reflected in the poem, "High Flight" by Gillespie Macgee:  "Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;"

I don't know why I don't watch the skating events between the Olympics, but I seem never to catch them... But I love watching them during the Olympics...

I am haunted by the movie "Ice Castles" about the girl who works out for the Olympics, has a skating injury that leaves her blind, but tries a comeback that is disrupted by the flowers thrown in congratulations on the ice rink...

Some say figure skating is boring... I say it is beautiful, bliss on ice, grace embodied.