Of Ice and Moving Water

I’ve always had a passing fascination with the idea that water in motion, like a river or a creek, can ice over, but I hadn’t thought much about it until one of my daily lunch walks at work recently.

The 18^th century poet William Blake wrote: “Expect poison from the standing water.” I first came across Blake when I was in Montana, where flowing water is everywhere, and that line stuck with me ever since. A lake can be beautiful, but there’s something special about the moving water that feeds into and out of those bodies of standing water. Moving water is cleansing. In a river — and to a smaller extent, creeks and streams — you see the cycle of the life and death of water moving past you. (“The Life and Death of Water” … that’s a great title for something…writing it down)

But winter throws a different wrench into the works.

I’m fortunate that my office is near a path alongside a creek. Although it’s not a powerful Montana river, I still get a little of that “cleanse and refresh” during my lunch walks, and during a recent cold spell — but before it got cold enough for the creek to fully freeze —  I realized something: Water finds a way.

As the slower moving areas of water along the creek edges, behind rocks, and in the shallows begin to succumb to frazil ice, the faster moving water continues to move around the frozen parts – more rapidly even, it seems.  Almost like it’s fighting the process.

Upon doing a little research (where I learned the term “frazil ice” by the way), I discovered something else interesting. Unless we’re talking about a small, slow-moving stream, larger bodies of moving water very rarely freeze through. Even larger bodies of standing water rarely freeze through. And why? Because ice also acts as an insulator. When things get really cold, and the blood – I mean, water – is flowing slowly, the ice will actually prevent it from stopping entirely.

[p.s. too much research on this topic goes down a rabbit hole of physics, including arguments from people as to whether glaciers fit into this category, but I hope you’ve realized by now that I’m trying to create an analogy here. In case not, I’ll rewrite that last sentence. When things get really cold, and the creative juices – I mean, water – is flowing slowly, the ice will actually prevent them from stopping entirely.]

These realizations about the nature of ice and moving water gave me some hope. I’ve been feeling cold for a little while now. The ice has been creeping around the edges – the slower moving and shallow parts – but mine is not a small, slow-moving stream. The current is strong, even in the coldest of conditions.

I hope the current is going strong in you as well.

If you’ve made it this far and care to know, I’ll get a little personal. Otherwise, I hope this provided some inspiration and you’ll stop by again soon.

Waiting…

Still here? Great. Well, not so great if you thought I was going to get really personal. I just meant I will tell you a little of what I have been doing professionally/creatively for the past…ahem…several years since I last published a post here. And I’ll talk about my intentions with this blog moving forward.

Don’t worry, I’ll be brief. I recognize stayed because you may care to know, but your time is valuable.

In a nutshell, I was diagnosed with kidney cancer not long after my decision to leave teaching in 2014, at which point things got a little quiet on my blog. I survived the diagnosis, my life was changed (I talk more about it here), and in a somewhat surprising turn, this fiction writer spent the past decade writing and editing mostly nonfiction, including working for a regional news outlet, two motorcycle magazines, and some freelance ghostwriting work. Currently I’m the marketing and communications manager for the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah.

During all that time, my writing endeavors have shifted and swayed with the tides, but they always listed toward creative. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by some successes in the creative nonfiction genre, but fiction has never left the horizon.

However, much like Ernest Shackleton (yeah, I’m keeping up the sailing metaphor), I felt the ice closing in around me. This post is my attempt to chip away a little toward that horizon.

Although I’m nearing 700 words with this post, my plan moving forward is to be more brief with these posts — and broader in scope. Besides observing the ice during my lunchtime walks, I’ve been listening to a variety of podcasts on the creative process in general, and with some of my own changes in the past years, I have shifted the focus of my website. I am still a horror writer at heart, but I hope some of the things I talk about in these occasional posts will appeal to artists in general.

Until next time, keep the waters flowing.

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