Waiting for the first ice
Every year I tell myself I will catch the exact morning the lake closes over. Every year the lake has other plans.
The first morning the water was perfectly still and almost black. A thin rim of ice clung to the reeds near the shore, but the middle stayed open, breathing small clouds of mist into the air.
On the second morning the wind came from the north and the rim was gone. I drank the coffee anyway and watched a pair of swans that also seemed to be waiting for something.
Third time
The third morning was the one. Not solid ice, but a glassy skin across the whole bay that cracked like thin sugar when a branch fell on it. Twenty minutes later the sun was on it and it was water again.
The lake does not freeze for you. You just happen to be there.