Thursday, January 27, 2005

"Well, what if there is no to-morrow? There wasn't one today!"

Last weekend, the Peach and I went across the street to check out the ice sculpture exhibit in Gazebo Park. It was very low-key, but I've always been interested in ice sculptures and the people who make them. The pieces are usually very impressive, but there's also a bit of sadness walking through the exhibits, watching the artists at work, knowing that their hard effort will some day melt away. My favourite exhibit was a very intricate scene that included three tipis, a cookfire, an ox pulling a cart - with such intricate wood detail - and a few men, unfinished, standing around their camp.

The first three days of this week, the temperature rose above the freezing mark for the first time in quite a few weeks. I knew this spelled bad news for the ice sculptures, but didn't really want to think about it. This morning on my way to school, I looked over at the park. There were icicles hanging from the noses of people and horses; a beautiful spiral flame had melted so much that the top point had completely disappeared. But the worst part was seeing the tipis, piles of ice shards in the snow. Even with all that ruined work, though, there were sculptors out there, at eight thirty in the morning, chipping away at their blocks of ice. That takes a kind of committment that seemed beyond me as I stumbled over my shoelaces, late for the bus.

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