Back at the farm, the small pond was so still that any animal who swam in it left a trail in the duck weed. The water I watch now is always moving, restless, often agitated. Driven by an east wind, waves pound the shore. With a west wind, the water ripples gently but persistently. Merganzers swim and dive, but they leave no mark. The hum of water against the shore is constant.

On cold days, slush balls roll in the waves. When the temperature drops, them are pushed together, congeling into sheets. The ice bounces against the shore, pulls back as the waves retreat.

Not even the rocks by the shore are still. Water splashes against them. Cold freezes droplets in place. Each day the covering of ice grows. Our neighbour's  breakwater wall is twice as high and thick as it was. Fingers of ice reach out from the shore, growing into solid shelves that stand above the moving water, hiding the edge of land.

Out a ways from the shore, there is a line in the water where the depth suddenly changes. Some days it is a clear thin mark where the colour shifts from pale green-blue to dark. Other days, it is just a subtle difference in the darkness of the waves.

Come summer, I will walk in the warmer shallows, finding a way to balance on the slippery surface. I will swim to that place where the temperature changes, where the cold depths of the bay reach up.  For now, I watch where the ducks choose to dive seeking what lives under the surface. And I watch the shifting structure of waves, from ripples to rolling surf.

Absorbed by this ceaseless motion, the ever-changing shape of the water's surface, I begin to crave stillness.

If I get up from the place where I sit to write, I can look across at the escapment and Balaclava. There rock stands above the water, dark and firm. But some days, the ice and moving water make it appear that the last point of land is a ledge that hangs above the water, a tongue that does not touch the bay.

There are moments of stillness. A fox curls beside the spruce tree. Not a twitch of its tail. Not a movement of its nose. Waiting. But it too gives up. The squirrels are not awake. It stands, stretches, yawns, looks toward the house, then trots away.

A brilliant red cardinal perches on the end of a green-black spruce branch, surveying  the movement at the birdfeeder. I look for it's paler partner, decide she is perched out of sight, sheltering in the tree. Looking back, the speck of red is gone.

I know that somewhere the black squirrels are still, hiding from the cold, sleeping out of sight. What I see is the racing red squirrels, jumping, tails twitching, clinging like acrobats to the swaying bird feeder.

When I turn away from the water, seek a window on the other side of the house, there is forest. Ash trees grow tall. Alders stand. A few spruce and cedars are sprinkled among them. On the other side of the road, old beech trees grow with thick trunks, often split. The holes made by a peliated wood-pecker speak of the trees' challenges.

The escarpment rises just a short way inland. Thanks to the generous welcome of Greystone Trails, I can ski into the trees, climb the slope. But even among the trees, the whisper of the waves is ever-present.

I begin to think movement cannot be denied by the bay. Then, the night before the full moon, cold engulfs this place. There is no wind. A thin sheet of ice forms on the water. Where there are gaps, tendrils of mist rise gently into the air. In the distance, a vague blue-grey haze masks the place where water and sky meet. Stillness holds the bay.

By later in the day, water ripples again. A thick white line marks the horizon where ice has collected. At the shore, balls of slush rise and fall as waves push them against the shore and pull them back. The stillness was temporary. I think there is something I need to learn about the rhythms of change and finding peace in it.

Cathy Hird lives on the shore of Georgian Bay.