Cracking Ice

Sometimes you lose a friend and feel the tremors coming from across the horizon. It's like elephants sensing weather patterns or counting seconds between the thunder and lightning from an approaching storm. You are in the middle of a frozen lake, center ice and wandering. You can hear and feel the ice crack beneath your feet. You run to the bank to seek refuge but somewhere inside you know its solidarity temporary and you won't last. That you already made the wrong move by wandering out in warming weather and there is no correcting it now. The Icy waters will surround you and all you are doing at this point is delaying the inevitable. But you sprint across the thawing tundra all the same, trying to stay warm for as long as possible. When the ice cracks, will someone jump in to save you? The odds are small, you've been wondering down this path for quite some, your surroundings quite desolate. You'll have to save yourself. It's possible but the dangers of the plunge and its icy waters are real and painful. The thought of its inevitability is almost worse, if not for the glimmer of hope you carry bobbing and weaving across the cracking ice. But when you fall, if you save yourself, brilliance awaits. When you thaw, and your jaw ceases to quiver, when you feel the warmth of fire or your heated home, you will appreciate this comfort like never before. You'll wonder how you could have ever taken a bed and blanket for granted. What a glorious world we live in where beds and blankets exist. The whole process is like a VHS tape, several months long and incapable of being fast-forwarded. It seems like a lot to take on, I'll start tomorrow, you'll find yourself thinking. But no, it's fantastic, everyone says, confidants tell you the end is incredible and well worth the depressing and scary and often boring, middle. "You grit your teeth straight through till the end to get through the misery but so so worth it," says Lucy17 from Rotten Tomatoes. It's one of those arthouse films, that typically goes straight over your head, but this one, I'm telling, is made for you. This one you will love, this one is perfect. Although, I will say: you may need to watch it a few times to truly understand the brilliance of the symbolism, the lighting, the cinematography, and the top notch dialogue but its meaning, once understood, will move you in ways you never thought possible, or at least that's what everyone says.