Ice

I. The Baltic freezes differently than a lake. No single skin of ice across the surface — instead, the sea argues with the cold and loses in patches. Coastal first. Then the channels. Then, in a hard winter, the open water between the islands, and you can walk to Sandhamn if you dare and some people dare and some of those people are my father. II. He walked the ice every January with a stick and an opinion. The stick was for testing. The opinion was that anyone who didn't walk the ice was missing the point of winter, which, in his view, was to be slightly uncomfortable in a beautiful place. III. The ice makes sounds at night. Groaning. Cracking. Not breaking — adjusting. The temperature drops a degree and a mile of ice shifts and the sound carries across the frozen bay like something large turning in its sleep. IV. Stockholm in winter is a city that has accepted the dark. Not conquered it. Not overcome it. Accepted, the way you accept a difficult relative who comes every year and stays too long and will not change. The candles go in the windows. The glögg goes on the stove. We light our way through and don't pretend it isn't hard. V. I swam in the Baltic in July and the water was fourteen degrees. My father called this warm. My father was wrong about many things and this was one of them. VI. The thaw comes in March. Slowly. The ice on the bay turns dark and soft and one morning it's gone and the water is back, black and open and moving again. I always forget how the sea sounds. Five months of silence under ice and then: waves. Small ones. Almost polite. The Baltic returning to say what it always says, which is nothing, which is enough.