COLUMN: Walking on a bank of thin slippery ice
It takes guts to walk on ice. Not the ice that crusts on the sidewalks on the way to campus. That’s just sneaky, double-crossing ice that throws you on your butt in front of your friends before you even saw that it was there.
Nor am I talking about the ice that covers lakes. That stuff is so thick that you would trust it to take your girl out on a friendly date and not make a move.
I am talking about the kind of ice my buddies and I found up Dry Creek Canyon. When the conditions are right, this rambling stream will partially freeze, resulting in a thin layer of solid ice bridging the shores, while cold water continues to flow underneath. This is the kind of ice it takes guts to walk on.
The ice on a lake never double crosses you, the stuff on sidewalks attacks you without warning. But these ice bridges across the creek wait for you to come to them. They wait silently for you to reach down and summon the courage to step out onto them, to trust them implicitly.
This ice holds no guarantee to support your weight, no promise to deliver you dry on the other side. They only beckon, emitting an unmet challenge simply by their existence.
Again, it takes guts to walk on ice. Not the kind of guts that it takes to wrestle your roommate to the ground when he attempts to sneak attack you. Those kind of guts leave you with no time to consider, only to act. There is no debate or moment of oscillation in this case, just action.
Nor am I talking about the kind of guts it takes to send off applications for medical school. You have spent years preparing for that, chalking up countless hours studying and working. Those are “of course I am going to move forward and the decision is already made” sorts of guts.
No, we are talking about guts you need when you are faced with a decision, a challenge, a call to action, and then left to debate your action for a moment. These are the guts you need when that girl at the party is obviously about to leave and you need her digits in your phone.
These are the guts you need when you stand at the base of the climb and look up, wondering if you are in over your head. These are the guts you need to take that first step out onto thin ice.
I look at the ice bridge. The gurgle of the water flowing underneath echoes between my ears, beckoning, calling. The logical part of my brain is churning out reasons in double time for me not to step out onto the ice. I knock the snow off my snowshoes to buy some time to think, then look back at the ice, summing it all up in my mind. For a moment, the world calms, I clear my thoughts, and then there are just guts and ice.
My buddy says it’s probably not worth it. Cold, wet, frozen pants four miles from the trailhead, the six hundred dollar camera in hand and no way out but the snowshoes on your feet all say the same thing. But whatever it is inside me, maybe it’s guts, maybe it’s pride, says “step on the ice”. It says, “It’s not about if the ice holds you or not, its about you taking the step, whether or not the ice held you.”
Two steps in, I am at midstream. I snap the photo. The ice held.
– dustin.nash@aggiemail.usu.edu