Are you ready to switch off your screens and ponder or discuss another writing/conversation prompt from my friend Tyrean Martinson’s book? Here’s my take on it.
One of my first memories is standing on a frozen pond as a toddler. The next moment, a tall boy on skates ran me over, never turning back. It hurt. The ice was thick and hard; what hurt more was the carelessness with which I was treated. One area of the pond was roped off – the ice was very thin there, and you could see water bubbles beneath the frozen skin.
Which brings me to the memory of an Advent calendar record that I knew by heart only a year or so later. There was a poem, very nature related, that describes the freezing process, somebody tossing a pebble and the fish below thinking it was something to eat. The narrator just enjoys the sound of the pebble on the ice and dreams of the day when the ice will be thick enough to carry his weight to retrieve the pebble. I loved these wintry images. There was another poem about a lake freezing over and a boy breaking through the thin ice. A stranger rescues the boy, and the kid gets beaten by his father when he gets back home. Yeah, wholesome poetry, I know!
There is a Gertman adage, “when the donkey feels too happy, it steps on ice.” “Pride goes before the fall” doesn’t catch the cockiness and carelessness. Neither does an “it will all end in tears.” But you get the picture. The moment of too much self-confidence blinds out mindfulness and caution, which often enough ends us up in a heap.
Thin ice – that figurative expression – only entered my world when I was a bit world-savvier. Thin ice and thin skin are pretty much the same thing. If I dare treat either too boldly, I have to be ready to bear the consequences. It doesn’t have to be an actual deed that is done. Words are most often the occasion when somebody gets themselves on thin ice. Disproving facts can cause the downfall of somebody too self-assured. Or it can be the recipient’s “thin skin”. In either way, treading on thin ice is connected with provocation, in most cases without paying any thought. Not even necessarily with bad intent.
Of course, we can diffuse such situations. We can grow a thicker skin on the one hand, but we also have to demand more mindfulness. Yes, we can be willing to accept that each and every person’s background is different, that their terminology is underlaid by different signifying nuances, that their action comes from a different normal. But we can also make it clear that the freedom of one person ends where that of another one begins. That we don’t have to accept being deliberately hurt just because the other person saw only their self-centered dance on the ice. And we can do this in mindful ways, as we can never assume that what we hear with all the underlying meaning it has for us, has been uttered with the same underlying understanding.
Thin ice and thick skins. If we all try to avoid the former and grow the latter a bit more, we could glide through a much happier world together. Never a perfect one. But one where, instead of one crashing and pulling the other one down with them, we can stabilize each other with a helping hand.
