![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Just Keep Skating
Feb. 2nd, 2015 04:17 amI went ice skating today.
This is not momentous. It is something I occasionally do, though occasionally is the imperative word, and frankly it is overstating the fact. I go ice skating, it seems, every few years. I haven't been on blades on ice since some time before I moved in 2011, so you see my point.
But I skated for a while today and I didn't fall down, so I win. I consciously decided not to do crossovers or skate backwards, because I'm not getting any younger and I'm either wiser or more chickenshit in my old age, and because I didn't push myself to do things I once could do fairly well on skates on land and ice because I was wearing figure skates, and The Cutting Edge isn't kidding about that damn toepick.
Why was I wearing figure skates when I've always been more of the hockey type?
Well, see, I own a pair of figure skates. I do not own a pair of ice hockey skates*. I did for many years own a very lovely pair of inline hockey skates, but since I didn't have access to ice when I played what hockey I've played through the years (that's a great story I once told on Wil Wheaton's blog, but I have no time to type it up tonight - suffice to say, good times - scroll down a bit to the long comment by a certain "jackwabbit"), I never bought the original variety of hockey skates.
So, when I go ice skating, I wear my figure skates. I mean, I have them, so why not? Technically, though, they're not mine. They are my mother's, and they are at least forty years old. They're truly old school. So much so that today someone told me it was "impressive" that I could skate on them. But the design, while made of older materials and such, is still sound. They haven't changed that much, folks. So I rode on my vintage skates and didn't fall down. It was a good thing.
On my way home from the rink, I was thinking about my mom's old skates, and I was reminded about how my mom was an athlete for her day and age. She ice skated, for example, and she played half-court basketball in high school. Yes, half-court basketball. That's what women played then, you know. And as I thought about this simple fact, I was struck yet again at how quickly some things have changed in this world, and how we truly are getting better all the time. My mom played half-court basketball, and merely a generation later, we have the WNBA, and my sister and I have played just about every sport one can through the years. Oh, and we also ended segretion in this country and we're working on gay rights, too. In five years, us women will have had the right to vote in this country for a century, even.
We're getting better, people, one day at a time.
Keep fighting. And skate hard, metaphorically and/or literally, in whichever way you choose to do so.
*Actually, I do now, due to my ability to talk to anyone. I bought a pair from a total stranger today for next to nothing. Long story, but suffice to say, I'm not concerned that it was a bum deal, and I have an invite for drop-in adult hockey on Saturday nights now. I can live with that. *grin*
This is not momentous. It is something I occasionally do, though occasionally is the imperative word, and frankly it is overstating the fact. I go ice skating, it seems, every few years. I haven't been on blades on ice since some time before I moved in 2011, so you see my point.
But I skated for a while today and I didn't fall down, so I win. I consciously decided not to do crossovers or skate backwards, because I'm not getting any younger and I'm either wiser or more chickenshit in my old age, and because I didn't push myself to do things I once could do fairly well on skates on land and ice because I was wearing figure skates, and The Cutting Edge isn't kidding about that damn toepick.
Why was I wearing figure skates when I've always been more of the hockey type?
Well, see, I own a pair of figure skates. I do not own a pair of ice hockey skates*. I did for many years own a very lovely pair of inline hockey skates, but since I didn't have access to ice when I played what hockey I've played through the years (that's a great story I once told on Wil Wheaton's blog, but I have no time to type it up tonight - suffice to say, good times - scroll down a bit to the long comment by a certain "jackwabbit"), I never bought the original variety of hockey skates.
So, when I go ice skating, I wear my figure skates. I mean, I have them, so why not? Technically, though, they're not mine. They are my mother's, and they are at least forty years old. They're truly old school. So much so that today someone told me it was "impressive" that I could skate on them. But the design, while made of older materials and such, is still sound. They haven't changed that much, folks. So I rode on my vintage skates and didn't fall down. It was a good thing.
On my way home from the rink, I was thinking about my mom's old skates, and I was reminded about how my mom was an athlete for her day and age. She ice skated, for example, and she played half-court basketball in high school. Yes, half-court basketball. That's what women played then, you know. And as I thought about this simple fact, I was struck yet again at how quickly some things have changed in this world, and how we truly are getting better all the time. My mom played half-court basketball, and merely a generation later, we have the WNBA, and my sister and I have played just about every sport one can through the years. Oh, and we also ended segretion in this country and we're working on gay rights, too. In five years, us women will have had the right to vote in this country for a century, even.
We're getting better, people, one day at a time.
Keep fighting. And skate hard, metaphorically and/or literally, in whichever way you choose to do so.
*Actually, I do now, due to my ability to talk to anyone. I bought a pair from a total stranger today for next to nothing. Long story, but suffice to say, I'm not concerned that it was a bum deal, and I have an invite for drop-in adult hockey on Saturday nights now. I can live with that. *grin*
