Curiosity ~ Lucidity ~ Humanity
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire
Robert Frost -
Fire and Ice
Ever since my skating coach Cecilia said I wasn’t worth teaching and I wet my pants in my lesson, I’ve been lighting fires. Small fires, at first, double-ringed with stones from the Adirondack woods where I escaped the rink between summer practice sessions. But as we approached our breaking point, still five years away, they got larger and uncontained. They warmed me, as I rehashed the mistakes of that morning’s practice. Not like I needed more heat in the humid summer. Not like Cecilia, who, even in our gifted angora sweater-coat, was always cold, Cecilia, who could never warm up.
Bio-Fragment: Lorraine Hanlon Comanor met Robert Frost at age eight when he came to the Adirondacks to read during a summer when she failed to please her skating coach and started building fires in the woods. A former U.S. champion and retired anesthesiologist, she no longer sets fires. Her memoir is in press.