I remember as a kid when my father took me and my brother to Pontoosuc Lake, north of Pittsfield, to walk out on the ice and watch the ice fishers. A cool thing for a kid to walk into the middle of a large lake but the idea of hauling a chair or stool, some lunch, drilling a round hole and sitting there looking for frozen fish, no thanks. We go to the market for frozen fish. I never once, in all those years actually saw someone catch a fish. But the comradery of event the sticks with me now. Hey, letās all go freeze together out on that lake. This is before global warming when many of us can remember sub-zero temperatures and hoping there was no reason to go outside.
Well, Iām a lot older, but apparently not wiser. I need to keep testing myself by doing things most people would think insane ā or at least not terribly smart. So, right as the holiday season started and we hoped for a white Christmas, it was far from white. Santa was going to have to find a new route and we all would have to lie to our children and grandchildren about how Rudolf and the gang made their ascent. On one particular day, the temperature was 50 degrees. That is unheard of in the Berkshires but there it was.Ā And that is when I made my move.
I am a swimmer; that person with the pink cap one might see each morning in Prospect Lake during the summer. Somehow, I figured it was warm enough for me to try out my wetsuit (a piece of athletic wear I purchased for when the pool water in California was less than 80 degrees). I seriously become hydrophobic when water temperatures are challenging. Or, one could say, I am a California girl who has not adapted. But to prove myself wrong, I donned the suit, grabbed my photographer kid and launched to the lake, never thinking that there was ice on it? Thatās me holding the first chunk I chiseled. Not one to walk away from a good challenge, I āchunked awayā until I could actually get wet.
I have no idea what temperature my suit was rated for. Whatever it is, it was not this. Please know that my daughter thought nothing of this insanity, having grown up with me. She was there to bear witness and take the photo before I froze to death. Getting wet was it ā no swimming as it seriously was ice all across the lake.
Now it is cold, as in really cold. Even I would not venture onto that lake. I have not even been outside since we hit the 30ās. So call this a tribute to how this California girl got her winter feet wet and her water wings on in a salute to my favorite place to swim and my love for our Berkshire home, any season.
(Yes, I am a psychotherapist, but not totally psycho.)
Susan Winston is a television producer turned psychotherapist with a private practice in Great Barrington.
