COLD IS ICE
Golden are the memories, and said proof memories exist
11:30 AM 2/10/26
Men’s skating captured me. I knew the Olympics started but was slow to the gate and missed the first women’s competition. Now a 23-year-old from Coral Springs, Florida, US Silver medalist. Andrew Torgashev, is up. He is the son of Soviet skaters. He is looking forward to his last skate because he’ll then let himself have pizza for three days. In Italy, no less.
Write COLD IS ICE today. Tie together these few repetitive thoughts that keep coming up, won’t ya?
My love of skating, was just beginning to edge a bit forward with lessons. Was on the ice, probably after a class. All I remember is that my older brother was behind me saying, “I’ll race you?” I started going for it. I remember turning my head to see how far ahead of him I was. Next thing - I was flying. My skate had dipped into a nick in the ice. I landed on my face and skid. I’d never met a nick in the ice before but this memory does remind me of my older brother. His influence on me. That was the end of skating. Ice is hard, and cold. No more lessons for me, thank you very much. Too fearful of nicks, I do love to watch the grace, genius, and grandeur of those who do it justice, with or without nicks on the very firm playing field.
I also had been really into horses. Mrs. Mac’s Horse Ranch. I remember the counselors encouraging me to walk my assigned Chestnut named FIREBALL through an opening in a bush spread apart, yet up against the tall wall of a rocky hill a couple yards behind it. There wasn’t much room to turn the horse around. It called for intricate steering and having good control. I didn’t think much of it. There was a puddle in between the bushes that I’d walked through. Now that I was trying to turn Fireball around and get back out, I noticed there were wasps near the water. I hadn’t noticed them when challenged to go in and turn around. Coming back out FIREBALL stopped in the water and started splashing like a kid. My fear of the stingers below rising above to get me caused a fire inside that got me out. I don’t remember how. I do remember, the laughter of the counselors, as the group trotted away from the wall with the split bush and puddle. Laughing because they knew Fireball liked to paw away at the puddle. Did Fireball know that wasps had stingers? Was Fireball fascinated with his ability to lift water and wings? Do I remember the faces of these counselors? No. But I really didn’t spend much time on a horse after that. Was that before or after my dad found himself under a horse in Palm Springs? I don’t remember. We were all there on our own horses. I only remember he got the horse off him by grabbing his horse’s balls. Or at least, that’s what he said. How brave he had to be in that moment. He who had been asthmatic as a child. To have the weight of a horse laying across his body. Like the ice, putting skates on again or getting on a horse many years later, both experiences felt foreign, almost like the first time, I’d shuttered myself out of the longing for more of it so long ago.
High school boyfriend once told me I was, like the song said, COLD AS ICE. It’s kind of haunted me over the years. AI (search.brave.com) just said, “The "coldness" represents someone who prioritizes material gain and personal ambition—symbolized by "digging for gold"—over love and emotional connection, ultimately sacrificing a "fortune in feelings." I checked to see when the song came out, July 23, 1977 and went straight to my no-longer-blank book diaries on the shelf in the closet. I’ve never been materialistic. Writing in a diary is about the least effective way to become a famous, world renowned writer. Writing teachers go on ad nauseam about how good writing is not writing in one’s own diary.
not a specific 7/23/77 finding and anything too vulnerable I covered up On 7/7/77 I started a long engaged piece with: “Diary Time. It is 12 midnight. Lights are off - candles lit - diary out - sleeping bag down - t-shirt and stereo soft and low.” I ended the piece with: “8-8-88 Lisa Michelle 28 yrs. old will spend night in sleeping bag on floor - candles music - in own apartment with a smile on her face looking past on the last 11 years - if she worked hard enough.”
Hard enough for what? A gold medal? Hardly. Did I look back in August at the past 265 months and a day? I did not. I’d just had an interview with this author
caption... in her home in LA. I believe I published a piece about her in the LA/OC Resources, a kind of new age publication at the time but I’m not sure.
My diaries, though voluminous, carry a magic. Making sense of that magic is another story for another time.
I’ve rarely focused on gold and goods, tallies or competition, merely capturing my truth, to get a better understanding of it so I could live with all parts of me in peace. Trying to piece this together I got a headache. Into the bath I went and watched a 17 minute YouTube on Joan Didion. She was born less than a month after my mother and she was a Sagittarius like I am. Next was a shorter piece on Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes who met in February 1956, the month my parents married. The headache lessened and I wanted to come and check when the rain will arrive before I go to sleep to decide whether I needed earplugs or not tonight.
TMI? I’d thought I’d finish this later when I felt more certain of what I was trying to say. I’m not cold as ice but I believe cold is ICE. Sometimes it seems silly I’ve recorded my life. I certainly haven’t pursued becoming famous, or wealthy, maybe only a little bit wise, about certain subjects I care deeply about.
What do you care deeply about?
This older brother called me Yiddle Wisa when I was two years old. I was still performing a little as the Birthday Princess in 1988.
I liked helping children of all ages (even cardboard Presidents) celebrate the magic of growing another year older, wiser, more expressive. I finally gave it up when I realized every single day is a birthday.
My right hand can spell quiet much better than my left hand. But then again, learning to become quiet to really listen has been a lifelong challenge.
No pizza for me.
I think your diaries have created something for you that most of us do not, and never will, have. A world of on-the-spot memories recorded and available for you to look back into.
Most of us lose most of that as time passes. And we're unaware of the loss - because we cannot remember what we've forgotten.
You will, I think, end up knowing yourself far, far better than any of us ever will. Is there an epiphany along that path? I have no idea. It is interesting to read your thoughts.