52 Project #20: The Lake

Based on the Kate Bush song "Under Ice" and a poem of mine, "entropy reversed".

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It's so fresh and clear, out here on the ice. I feel so free. There's no one around, for as far as I can see.

The cold is crisp, bracing, and the ice on the lake is unbelievably clear. Not  the sort of transparent clarity that makes it untrustworthy – a thick, wavy, distorted sort of clarity that tells me the ice is strong. Under it the lake is dark, winter black and sluggish, so cold looking. But I am free and clear above the ice, skating.

As I skate past trees and bushes, the wind bites at my face – good, clean cold! It's so sharp and refreshing. I can feel my face turning red, but it's not uncomfortable. After the stuffy heat inside, the cold air is like water, running through the clogged channels of my mind. So fresh and bright... The cool wind whips through my hair, teases at my earmuffs, as I skate faster.

The world is so open before me   I feel as if I could do anything. This is like new territory, unexplored. My skates make little white lines on the dark ice   I am here! I have gone here! the lines say. There is not another living soul around. I could skate to the other side of the lake, the far side I cannot see in the morning fog, and never see another person. It's such a wonderful feeling! I am a pioneer, going where no one has before. I can do whatever I want, and no one will see me, or stop me. My skates place my mark on virgin ice, frontier territory untraversed by humanity. So exhilarating!

And as I skate, I think about entropy.

Entropy is often thought of as chaos, but what it actually is, is a measure of the energy within a system that’s unavailable for doing work. The molecules become more disordered as the energy is expended. Because energy can’t be created or destroyed, the energy is still there, but in a useless form, because the molecules are too disordered to get anything done. Heat is the last step energy takes before it becomes entropic. Decay releases heat, and then the heat dissipates, transferring from the place where there’s a lot of heat – the point of decay, the thing undergoing entropic breakdown – to the place where there is not. It merges with the universe, and is lost.

The sun shining up above does not make me think of decay. It makes me think of positive energy and negative entropy – endless transfer of heat and light energy to our planet, allowing everything that is alive to re-order their molecules in a way that does work. It’s not actually endless, of course, but humanity will probably be gone long before that light runs out.

In reality, I know, the sunshine should warm the ice and weaken it, turn it into liquid like the cold dark water underneath.  But the sun is life and energy. The water is cold death.

The sun is strengthening the ice. Protecting me. Shining down on me, making the chill exhilarating, the experience of skating fun. I expect it to burn away the fog at the far side of the lake and let me see the other shore. Any minute now.

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