trust in the ice

I went ice skating with Shey yesterday, and it was loads of loud, silly fun. I hadn’t been on the ice in over a decade, but I felt confident that I could at least not fall on my ass right away. I asked Shey to go skating a couple of weeks back because I knew she’d always wanted to, and yesterday was when our schedules finally lined up after Holy Week.

We spent our first lap around the rink mostly glued to the support railing. It was faintly embarrassing, but we both soldiered on and refused to give up. Shey had never been on the ice before, and she was alternately exhilarated and mortified. We complained constantly at our initial discomfort and lack of skill, muttering curses every other minute, hoping that the children sailing gracefully past us wouldn’t pick up our, ah, colorful vocabulary.

After one circuit, though, I decided to try pushing our comfort zone out a bit more. Hell, we’re adults! It’s unbecoming to scoot about in constant fear while kids a third of our age were gallivanting around us without a care. I let go of the railing altogether, and kept insisting to Shey that she should also try to maneuver without it. I told her that the ice away from the edges was smoother and easier to handle, which was true. I told her that she could trust in the ice to not give her a hard time if she just relaxes. At first she didn’t want to because she was still having trouble getting her balance and forward movement right, but eventually she agreed to leave the railing.

I held on to her as we took a few more circuits around the rink, each time getting progressively braver and moving further away from the edges. We were by no means moving with grace or panache, but we were definitely moving! Every step (slide? skate?) of the way, we were ranting and talking about how still-difficult-yet-satisfying it was becoming. I think the increasing leg pain we had added to our frustration, haha. We still muttered curses under our breath, but as we made more progress, we cursed less and rejoiced more. Eventually we even cut across the rink in the middle areas, which was very satisfying (given how we started out totally afraid and unbalanced).

We took a couple of breaks to rest our feet during our session, and I got my camera at one point so that we’d have photographic proof that she did manage to get on the ice. We really wanted to keep going, but the pain was beginning to overwhelm the joy, so we decided to just skate some more another day. And hey, we didn’t fall! Not once!

Shey’s post, and the rest of the photos, are here.

~ by quinnzap on April 24, 2009.