I guess my "bravery" in going to Spa World (see previous post) has set off something in me. Or maybe it's just having finished a book called My Year With Eleanor, by Noelle Hancock. In it, a 29 year old woman (the author) decides to confront her fears with the help of the writings of Eleanor Roosevelt who famously said, "You must do the thing you think you cannot do." And many other wise sayings about facing fear. Eleanor, it seems, was an expert in the art of staring fear in the face.
Well, I love Eleanor, and I'm afraid of everything. So I would have to say the book really inspired me. However I'm not yet ready to do one thing every single day that scares me (like the author did). And I'm not ready to go for the big stuff like she did. . . . like taking trapeze lessons on the top of a building in NYC, or jumping out of an airplane, or learning to dogfight in the sky, or climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro! But heck, I went to a spa where I had to walk around naked! So maybe I could scare myself again during the Thanksgiving holiday.
Back when I went to my first TEDx conference in Charlottesville a few weeks ago, I discovered the Main Street Arena at the end of the downtown mall. We had lunch there. But what I guess I didn't know is that it is an indoor ice arena.
When I was a kid I LOVED to ice skate. Most of our skating was done not in an ice rink, but on one of two bodies of water in Danville, Illinois. Either Horseshoe Lake by the Lake View Hospital (which, notwithstanding the name, was more of a pond) or Lake Vermilion, which was walkable from the house where I lived as a teenager. The thing about skating on lakes is that they are not smooth. No Zamboni goes out every hour or so creating a smooth, flawless expanse of ice. The lake was bumpy. And it was large enough that if you ventured out into the middle, there was always the abject terror of hearing the ice moving around beneath you. . . . a sound of low cracking that made us feel that we were goners for sure, and sent us hurling ourselves back toward shore. I've never been so freezing as I was when we would go down to the lake for the afternoon to skate. Walking home, I could never feel anything from the waist down.
I was no Olympian. . . but I could get around on the ice both backward and forward. I really loved to skate.
I haven't skated in probably 25 years. . . the last time being at a rink in Northern Virginia. I remember that it all came back to me pretty quickly, but that the skates hurt and I was sore for days.
But still the siren of skating called to me. And I've been wanting to try it again. But really. . . was I being stupid? I mean, one fall and I could break something significant which would put an unacceptable damper on my lifestyle. I work out hard three days a week, swim 2 miles at a time 3 days a week, and walk Rudy every day. I depend on my activity to help me keep my weight at a manageable place. Was I willing to risk that? This is the reason that I don't take up skiing, even though many of my friends, my age and older still ski.
But like I said. . . . the siren was calling. I really wanted to skate.
So yesterday I got in the car and went to the rink. It was kind of like going to the spa in my last story because I didn't have any idea what to expect. It wasn't Mount Kilimanjaro, but frightening just the same. But I bravely parked my car and marched into the rink about 10 minutes before the first "public skate" time slot was about to start. I paid my money and was directed to the place where you get your skates. I was handed a pair of blue plastic skates. . . they looked similar to ski boots. What happened to the white figure skates of my childhood???
I found the lockers where I could stash my purse, and I had an experience similar to the dreaded hair conditioner episode from the spa. I have used these lockers before. You put your stuff in, deposit your quarters and the key comes out. When you need your stuff back, you can open the locker, but not use it again without paying. No sweat. I put my purse into the locker, checking several times to make sure there was nothing I wanted before depositing my money. Then I put in the 50 cents and locked the locker. Then I sat down to put on my skates. . . . . realizing too late that I still had my shoes on and that they needed to go in the locker as well. SHIT!!!! The good news is that I will never make that mistake again. I put on the skates, opened the locker, got out 50 cents more and closed it once my shoes were in. What an idiot!!!!
As I hobbled across the rubber floor towards the entrance to the rink, the Zamboni was clearing off the ice after a practice session by figure skaters. The first thing I noticed is that the plastic skates KILLED my legs and feet! I did have the wherewithal to transfer my orthotics into the skates. Oh yea . . . . I was a SENIOR CITIZEN skater!!! Even with those, these were by far the most painful footwear I had ever had on. I figured at this rate I would last about 1 minute on the ice. By now the Zamboni was done, and little children, all dressed in skating garb were flinging themselves out on the ice, soaring to the middle of the rink where they were twirling and lutzing and leaping. But there were others, like me, who were not so eager. As a matter of fact, I hung back for a bit to decide if I wanted to do this at all! What if I fell on my ass as I entered the ice??? Was I crazy?
Eventually, the ghost of Eleanor must have been in my ear, because the longer I watched everyone else, this was becoming a definite "thing I cannot do!" And she was telling me, of course, that I MUST do it. So, I gingerly stepped over the edge, off of the painful, yet stable rubber floor, and on to the freshly Zamboni-ed ice. To say that I felt shaky would be the understatement of the century. I immediately wondered why they didn't provide walkers for the seniors to push around. Then I looked around and realized there were no seniors there. As a matter of fact, I was older than every other person on the ice by at least 20 years! Somehow that made me proud, and gave me courage.
Now truth be told. . there wasn't that much to hang on to on the sides. Just a little lip of a rim. You couldn't grab on to it. . . . only run your hand along the small edge. My first turn around the rink was gut wrenching. I couldn't believe how shaky I was. About a quarter of the way through lap one, I was just praying to get back around to the entrance so I could get the hell out of there. And I had no choice but to keep going in order to get back to that opening. On the plus side, the skates felt a lot better on the ice than they had on the rubber floor.
I was sweating bullets all the way around. I was clinging to that little lip on the wall, and wondering when the old instincts were going to kick in. As I reached the three quarters of a lap mark, I knew I had a decision to make. I could quit now and forever close off ice skating from the rest of my life. I could admit I was too old, and that this ship had sailed. As I approached the opening I decided "What the hell?" and decided to go for another lap. I pictured myself waking up in a hospital bed, casts on every visible limb and my body in traction, and saying to myself, "OHHHH . . . you came so close to not having this happen!!!"
But, in the words of Lewis and Clark, "I ventured on!" About half way through lap two, I started realizing that there were other rail clingers out there. . . of all ages. I was not alone in the "beginners' department. Most of them were little kids. And I enjoyed shouting encouragements to them as I came up behind them. Two adorable little boys were flailing around in front of me. They found an empty box to go into and I stopped to chat with them. The littlest kid said, "Did you see me???? I haven't forgotten what I learned last time!!!" He was so excited. The other kid, a chubby little fellow, about 9 years old with a red face had really struggled, and I could tell he was relieved to be able to stop and rest. I told him I thought he was doing a great job. He looked at me and said, "Yea, but HOW do you skate?" I thought that was so cute. I told him he WAS skating, and that he just needed to give his brain a chance to figure out how it was suppose to feel. . . like riding a bike. He smiled and decided to go out and try again.
As I started my 3rd lap, I eventually came up behind them again, and the chubby guy was still by the rail, but not touching it. I gave him a thumbs up as I went by. As an aside, I will say that I really miss these kind of interactions with kids. That was always the best part about my job as a teacher.
All in all, I skated for a half hour. I did not fall, although I came close a couple of times. I did manage to get my hands off the wall for brief periods. And several times I even skated around other wall clingers. I'm sure I would have been much braver if I had not been so keenly aware of the consequences of falling at my age.
After a half hour I decided to stop. I didn't want to let getting fatigued put me in more jeopardy of falling. And I wanted to see how my body responded to that amount of time. I left the rink feeling a huge sense of triumph, and exhilaration for having done what I set out to do.
The upshot is that today I don't feel any discomfort at all from my skating! I plan to go back next week and shoot for 45 minutes. And I've looked online for "comfortable ice skates" and they actually make them!
So now I'm up to swimming 2 miles at a time, when last year at this time, I wasn't swimming at all. Why can't I do that with skating as well?
You know. . . . it's kind of a kick being the oldest person at the rink!!!
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