"The Ice is Going Out."

Which is Minnesotan phraselogy.

Not, 'the ice is thinning,' or 'the ice is disappearing.'

Which brings me to a small reflection on how we carry ourselves from the language point instilled by our childhoods and early life experiences. No doubt, DeFrancisco's stance on emotions, reactions, and interpretations. Too bad, I don't have the complete list, in the easy to read, coded format, banded to my wrist like a professional football quarterback. That would make understanding myself too easy.

There are four or five hundred Artic tern standing on what is left of the lake ice. They are not doing much but vocalizing. I would not say singing or calling. That was done from the opposite environment, the trees. The red-winged blackbirds seemed competitive. Standing in the middle of it, I returned to Placido Domingo singing in the third act of Verdi's Ortello.

Yesterday, Saturday afternoon opera almost made me pull over to the side of the road to listen to a note that hung endlessly in the air.

This morning, when the ice cracked, a bong sounded that ended the tern's noise. Above the silence hung their last group sound. It floated in its own energy, to the sky above. In an instant and in an eternity, I was immersed in silence and a lingering, passing reality.
Then, every bird returned to the sound they were making, and it was as it was, before the ice cracked.

It is these moments I wait for. But I don't know why. Perhaps it is wishing for that feeling of exquisite tension that makes me feel God. Perhaps it is only a nano-second God that is available to us. An unexpected and direct eye contact, a crocus pushing through the bare side dirt along my house, a long and boring discourse by a neighbor that ends in a quick smile, an enthused tail wag in response to an investigative look on my part, an unusual phone call from an old friend needing assurance that I still am at my phone number. Perhaps these are moments strong enough to stop me from my worries and anxieties, if just for a second. Perhaps it is wanting more than feeling life is hop stepping it to the next series of tasks. Papers, books, and spring yard work.

Maybe, I am just wanting to know that God is there, paying attention to my prayer to feel connected.

And connecting me, in a nano-second.