Taking the Polar Bear Plunge

Three weeks before the turn of the year I turned forty-one. Turning forty was easy, was just a number, a notch on the invisible calendar under my skin. But this birthday brought a few new gray hairs, the tiny crinkle of crow's feet around eyes that looked just a little bit... old. Old. I stood before the bathroom mirror, tried to remember my face at thirty, at twenty, but a tired woman of four-plus decades returned my gaze.

The first morning of 2007 I rolled out of bed determined to even the score. Exercise! Diet! I made a mental note to check out the latest facial creams in the Avon brochure - the ones that promised to fill my fine lines, to plump my lips. I pulled on my bathing suit and donned my embroidered Japanese robe, a pair of fuzzy pink boots.

I might be old, I thought. But I'm still young enough to do crazy things.

I barked at my two boys to hurry, jumped into the car, and turned the key. The engine grouched at the cold, at the frozen snow beneath our wheels. We slid from our street onto Seventh, the tail of our car imitating the glide of an aquarium fish. My youngest son, 9, held my bath towel on his lap.

"Mom, tell me again why you're going to jump in a frozen lake?"

I smiled as I drove. I didn't offer an explanation. Nature reveals herself through our mouths, minds, eyes, ears, fingers, tells us her deep secrets when we face her with open arms. The roads were slow. Cars sputtered over hunks of ice cemented to the road. A steady stream of vehicles pointed toward Wal-Mart, toward the after-holiday sales. We passed them by, let the shoppers face cold depths of their own.

Storrie Lake loomed before us. A yellow backhoe rested near the shore, its operator satisfied with the job he did hacking up ice three-inches thick. He joked with the ambulance man. They looked at me, at the crowd of a hundred Las Vegans giddy for a chance to welcome the New Year with a burst of hypothermic pain.

I stood with the others, the ones in swim suits, in shorts and t-shirts. We gathered near the dock as a man in a bright orange wetsuit guarded the sharp ridge of ice. My boys waited behind, with the audience in winter jackets and knit caps, most carrying cameras to document our strange journey.

Someone started a countdown - ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one - then a rise of happy screams filled the air as one by two by three we flailed from the dock to the depths. The water shocked me, knocked the air from my lungs. I wanted to yell Happy New Year, but my voice wouldn't cooperate. I dunked my head under the frigid water and realized how alive I felt, how simply alive. I didn't feel forty-one, didn't feel any age. The water whispered it didn't matter.

On the ride home I stopped at Sonic to treat my boys, treat myself for a job well done. We ordered burgers and fries and a selection of drinks. I ordered a cherry lime-ade, then paused. My bathing suit still held the memory of Storrie Lake under my robe.

"But please - hold the ice!"