INSIGHTS

Imagine a winter walk along a remote West Texas ranch road, a road that after a mile or so begins to rise. When you reach the top of the rise, you see below a water tank-frozen, shining like a mirror, its glare obscuring any detail. Then, as you descend, the glare becomes less intense, and you notice for the first time a figure ice skating -a woman making long, graceful figure eights.



SHE WOULD WAIT all year-even years, sometimes-for the right conditions. Even during those August days, when the heat sucked all the color from the sky and the concept of cold was unimaginable, she would remember the exactness of her feelings and the signs that the days she waited for were coming.

Her West Texas parents had named her Zoe in the tradition of those who believe in the power of a name to signal a way of’ escape, to suggest destinies that without an exotic name might not otherwise be realized. Didn’t that great ranching family, the Waggoners, name their daughter Electra?

It wasn’t the fact that her dreams were influenced by the Saturday afternoon movies that made her exceptional. What girl’s dreams weren’t? The movies had the power to mysteriously shatter a young girl’s satisfaction with Main Street and boyfriends who even at the age of 17 or 18 were settling in. Those movies had titles such as Sun Valley Serenade and Thin Ice and starred Sonja Henie, whose blondeness and skating grace captured Zoe completely. How did it feel to spin so fast and leap so high? How did it feel to be so happy? What power did the ice possess?

During her first year in high school, Zoe received figure skates for Christmas and a pink costume inspired by Sonja Henie. No ice in town that year was strong enough to skate on. But during a trip to Dallas with her parents late that winter, Zoe went to an indoor rink and for most of an afternoon moved clumsily around the rink, holding onto the sides. It was not what she expected, this absence of grace. But she was back at the rink the next day, and she began slowly to learn.

Just after Christmas during her sophomore year, there was a cold spell. After three days, Zoe checked the little pond behind the house. The ice was strong enough to support her. This was the best ice-black with the ability to bestow unexpected speed. This was her best day-the best day she could ever remember.

Zoe graduated from high school and went to Texas Tech, became the homecoming queen and married a football hero. He was a good man, and she loved him. He became a successful rancher, and they had four sons. Zoe didn’t skate for a long time; neither her husband nor her boys knew about that long-ago December day.

In mid-January of the 16th year of their marriage, Zoe heard the weather forecast and saw the signs appear again. For almost a week, the temperature at night fell as though there were no bottom. During the windless days, a weak winter sun made an appearance, but it had no effect on the deep, dead and settled cold.

On the fifth day, Zoe knew that the ice on the ranch’s water tank would be strong enough to hold her. The next morning she rose early, before her husband and the boys, and quietly dressed in a long blue denim skirt, white turtleneck sweater and jean jacket. Her skates were in the trunk, where she had put them the night before. She quietly left the house and drove without headlights in the dawn light to the nearest of the ranch’s four tanks. She put her skates on in the truck.

The ice was as she remembered-black and hard. It made a twanging sound as she skated over it. She skated slowly, hesitantly at first, and then, hearing the forgotten music again, skated out of herself onto the screen of her long-ago childhood.

Just as she heard the truck, its headlights caught her. She skated toward it and saw her husband and sons walk toward the edge of the tank. They said, almost in unison, “That was beautiful. We didn’t know you could skate.” Zoe replied, “Well, it’s been a long time.” Then, her husband said, “But we’ve gotta break this ice. The cattle aren’t getting enough to drink. I’m sorry.”

Zoe understood, of course, and she told them that she’d skate from tank to tank across the ranch until they came to break the ice. She put the guards on her blades and set off in the truck for the second tank.

She skated all three remaining tanks. She skated as hard and fast as she could, as though she needed to store the sensations for a long, long time. At the last tank she didn’t hear the truck. After a while, she heard faint -but real-applause. She followed the sound back to the shore and saw her husband and sons bunched tightly, clapping.