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Feb. 19th, 2019 10:34 am
Someone numb
If, like I did, you grew up around ponds, you might expect the Lake to behave like a large pond. Once a pond freezes, it tends to stay frozen. Maybe on a warmer day you'll see some puddling on the surface or even a gap in the ice, but the changes are always gradual.
The Lake isn't a large pond, though, it's an inland sea. And, like the sea, it can change entirely from day to day. Last week, the ice broke up and moved away from shore. There were even a couple of curious "icebergs" floating off of the South Boulevard Beach pier. Then we got a modest snowfall--not more than a span--and literally overnight the surface of the water became an unbroken plain of white extending seemingly all the way to the horizon.
It's still below freezing today, but already the surface is cracking. Passing by this morning, I saw a network of green veins between the floes corresponding to an overall mosaic effect. Tomorrow we'll be up to 3°C and I wonder if there'll even be any cover left.
The sun is finally waiting until after I leave work to set which means I'm back to seeing the Lake twice a day during the week instead of only in the morning. Last night the full moon shone dramatically above it and I felt a twinge of regret at not watching it rise or bringing anything to work for 元宵節/대보름.
I've been thinking about my aloneness lately. A friend shared a video about chronic loneliness which naturally prompts the question Is that me?. And it's hard to say. I definitely get a rush from socialising but I also cherish my alone time. I guess it really comes down to asking how much of my time is made up of moments where there's a mismatch between my desire for company and the absence of companions and how stressful those times are.
Last night was one of those times but it wasn't bad. I had dinner alone at Nori and didn't think much of it until Tove Lo's "Habits" came on and I self-consciously and sotto voce sang along. That made the stroll home retrospective and, after I dealt with responsibilities like feeding the cat and loading the washer, I idly scrolled through my contacts thinking of who I might want to connect with. But it came back to the question of how much effort I should make to connect with people who aren't making an effort to connect with me, and I left it there.
Then, as if summoned, an acquaintance I haven't seen in months sent me a chatty message about how he saw my doppelgänger on a cruise and was thinking about me and why don't we get together? We tentatively have plans for Thursday, which is a deliberate violation of my weekly routine. He isn't who I expected I might get together with this week, but he asked. I wish more people realised that, more often than not, it's as simple as that.
The Lake isn't a large pond, though, it's an inland sea. And, like the sea, it can change entirely from day to day. Last week, the ice broke up and moved away from shore. There were even a couple of curious "icebergs" floating off of the South Boulevard Beach pier. Then we got a modest snowfall--not more than a span--and literally overnight the surface of the water became an unbroken plain of white extending seemingly all the way to the horizon.
It's still below freezing today, but already the surface is cracking. Passing by this morning, I saw a network of green veins between the floes corresponding to an overall mosaic effect. Tomorrow we'll be up to 3°C and I wonder if there'll even be any cover left.
The sun is finally waiting until after I leave work to set which means I'm back to seeing the Lake twice a day during the week instead of only in the morning. Last night the full moon shone dramatically above it and I felt a twinge of regret at not watching it rise or bringing anything to work for 元宵節/대보름.
I've been thinking about my aloneness lately. A friend shared a video about chronic loneliness which naturally prompts the question Is that me?. And it's hard to say. I definitely get a rush from socialising but I also cherish my alone time. I guess it really comes down to asking how much of my time is made up of moments where there's a mismatch between my desire for company and the absence of companions and how stressful those times are.
Last night was one of those times but it wasn't bad. I had dinner alone at Nori and didn't think much of it until Tove Lo's "Habits" came on and I self-consciously and sotto voce sang along. That made the stroll home retrospective and, after I dealt with responsibilities like feeding the cat and loading the washer, I idly scrolled through my contacts thinking of who I might want to connect with. But it came back to the question of how much effort I should make to connect with people who aren't making an effort to connect with me, and I left it there.
Then, as if summoned, an acquaintance I haven't seen in months sent me a chatty message about how he saw my doppelgänger on a cruise and was thinking about me and why don't we get together? We tentatively have plans for Thursday, which is a deliberate violation of my weekly routine. He isn't who I expected I might get together with this week, but he asked. I wish more people realised that, more often than not, it's as simple as that.
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