Once in the ravine, it was like a different world.  I could have been a hundred miles from home.  No one, except us, could hear the muted sounds of the creaking trees above and the cracking ice below.  The wind would wisp the powdery snow over the drifts that formed an eave at the crest of the cliff above.  It shimmered in the sunlight until it settled on my cleared, dark rink.

            I laced up my skates as quickly as possible trying to preserve every calorie of heat I had generated thus far.  I would practice starting, stopping, turning forward and backward.  With my stick in hand I would imagine gliding down the wing for the Buffalo Sabres.  It was always easier to skate with that stick.  I likened it to a tightrope walker who used a pole for maximum equilibrium.  Patches would curiously stroll by using his walking-in-place routine to keep upright on the slippery surface.

            It was perfect therapy for me at that age in my life.  I was alone but Patches was with me so I wasn’t.  He didn’t expect anything from me.  He didn’t offer any unwanted advice.  He was just there, for me.  I had the serenity to ponder my unsettled future.  Why was everything so complicated?  I didn’t know what was in store the next day, let alone next year.  Down there, it was all so simple.  It was as if, for a few hours, I aborted my unwanted journey to adulthood.  All this was happening while I was unwittingly improving my skating abilities, little by little, each winter season. 

            Patches always let me know when it was time to go.  He would discover an unfrozen anomaly along the creek, take a drink and look at me with those eyes that said, “I’m cold, let’s go home”.  After swapping my skates for boots at lightning speed, we began our long climb.  Again, Patches would vanish and then reappear at the top always before me.  I recall looking up and seeing his long ears surround his face like blinders as he peered over the edge.  He was cheering me on, “You can make it”.  It was incentive for me to leave my haven and follow him home.  Now he was leading and guiding me back through the drifts utilizing our old tracks as the sounds of reality came back.

            Soon the pleasant warmth of home turned to pain as the numbness in my feet slowly became an awful sting.  My compadre was already napping in his favorite corner while I would sit and grimace.  Why do I do this?  Is it worth it?  I wondered.  Somehow, it was.  After completely thawing, I couldn’t wait to do it all again the next day, and neither could Patches.