How to do hard things - a visual essay
this is how a lake unfreezes in spring
There is something very special about being nearby, in a relationship with a lake when it unfreezes, as it’s doing now, this Spring in lake country where I’m living in Ontario.
Frozen over completely for months in the winter, there is a stillness on the lake unlike any other I know. The lake in winter is so still: it’s not just an absence of activity but a substance.
Then one morning, there’s an opening in the ice. It’s a reminder that things are never just what we see on the surface. Impossibly, a small current of water, propelled by a spring being directed by nature in a far off place, is exhaling - carving the opening a few inches, then feet, each day.
Along the edges of the lake, curious things happen. As the ice melts, it reveals.
Unexpected shapes and textures emerge like forgotten blessings.
And then… the ice is gone. Watery once again, the transition from solid to liquid is complete.
When it comes to being human, we all know (and may we be forgiven for rolling our eyes at the fact) that change is constant.
Yet, I often find myself impatient with the “ing” part of change. ChangING from state A to state B. Being in state A - frozen - that’s fine. Arriving in state B - melted - awesome, even. But the bridge between those states - between ice and water, the meltING - I have not duly appreciated. This week, the lake showed me how much beauty, creativity, connection and learning there is in the ING-ing.
”The Sixth Symphony followed the Fifth, but without the Sixth we could not have had the Seventh. One cannot know what one is leading into. Transitions are as important as achievements.” - Louis Horst
Just as Beethoven was on the way to his Seventh symphony when he wrote his Sixth, whatever you are ING-ing right now, you are on the way to something.
If you’ve been feeling frozen, may you notice where there is movement - aka ‘life’ in your life, and allow that to carve out your own melting.
You have done hard things before, so many of them likely for others, therefore it stands to reason: you have what it takes to do the hard things in front of you for your next self.
I believe (rather ferociously) in you. You can do this melt-ing. As you do it, know that I think this is a terribly wonderful dissolution. Painful, with a small mountain of regret, and grief. And… there is so much life to live yet, this season, in the new open water. There is much joy to claim. Much good to create. Much contribution to sow.
Keep going.
Let’s keep going.
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Until next time,
Andrea
Photo credit: Andrea’s iPhone
Lakes credit: Kawartha Lakes, ON
Proximity and view credit: thank you X 100 Sandy and Wayne