The year begins with a deep freeze in Seattle. Cars skid off the road, wires drop, snow melts and freezes back into tectonic plates. It’s beautiful and a finger-wagging reminder of how vulnerable we are.
I don’t have to be reminded. The floes of possibilities and disappointments in Laos can’t be predicted. Sometimes it’s just a wet foot, punching into a thin patch of ice, but at other times it’s like looking out onto a sudden expanse of open desolate water. There is nowhere to go and I get a deep chill thinking about the whole sheet under my feet cracking and melting away. That would be a cold plunge.
