I hadn't been on roller skates in, like, fifteen years, and there we were, among a group of our peers, taking our children to skate, among a group of their peers. And our children had never been rolling skating.
"Quads, speed skates or in-lines?" asked the man behind the skate counter. I glanced around me. I couldn't believe how skating rinks had stayed virtually the same since I'd skated. Snack bar, video games, loud music.
"What's the difference?" I asked.
"Uh...well..."
"I mean, I know what quads are, I think. But what are speed skates? And in-lines? Are those the same as roller blades? And which should I get if I haven't been on skates in fifteen years?"
The nice man gave me a quick lesson on skate differences while The Baby pulled on my hand, eager to get onto the rink. Did she have any idea what she was in for?
The evening out was a result of an invitation from our homeschool support group. The rink had been reserved entirely for our group, so it was good to see friendly faces there. As I laced up my skates, one of the fathers chatted with Bo about skating. "Our daughter broke her leg here a couple of years ago." Great, I thought. That's wonderful. What was I thinking?
"Well, I haven't skated in fifteen years...since junior high school," I said, suddenly realizing that it's been more like twenty-five years. What WAS I thinking?
But it really wasn't as bad as I'd thought it would be. I mean, I actually stayed upright the entire time. And none of the kids complained about skating. Monet, always eager to try new things, roller bladed and fell many times, but kept getting up and trying again. Bard was greeted immediately by one of her homeschool group friends and they stuck close by each other through the evening. She, too, fell a few times, but she got right back up and tried again.
Even Sweetheart and The Baby put wheels on their feet and tried. And Bo, who seems to do well at everything he tries, braved the Limbo and actually made it through the first round.
Even though they were playing Petra and Steven Curtis Chapman, it reminded me of my pre-Christian junior high days. An evening wasn't complete without a couples skate, and there were always the ever-popular standards playing as I wheeled expertly around the rink--Hold On Loosely, Strange Magic, Caught Up in You, Working for the Weekend, Hold the Line, Hot Child in the City, Kiss You All Over, and Xanadu. Ahhhh...the excitement of Saturday Night Skating.
But I do recall one not-so-pleasant memory from my early skating experiences. My dad had taken me to a skate rink when I was about eleven, and he sat on a bench as I skated. The older boys were racing around the rink while I fumbled along, jerking backward and forward awkwardly. Plus, I was eleven, for pete's sake! That horrid age when you so very much want to be cool but are very much NOT, especially with your boyish just-out-of-the-seventies haircut and Holly Hobbie shirt, where all of the older boys are so very cute, but they wouldn't notice you unless you...
...unless you happened to skate a bit too slowly right in their speed-skating path. Unless they happened to receive a very big push from one of them as they race past you. Unless you know for a fact that they notice you, because you see them pointing and laughing as you swirl into helplessness. Unless your dad happens to see the whole thing.
And then, as a young girl, you find yourself sprawled on the floor of the skating rink, nothing bruised except maybe your pride (and possibly your butt), but still feeling a secret thrill that he TOUCHED you. Sigh.
Yep, that was me. Right up until I saw my dad reach across the kneewall that separated the seats from the rink and grab that kid, yank him up by his shirt, his skates dangling above the wooden floor, and scream nasty things into the boy's, face which included watching out for little girls on the rink. And I, the little girl, wished that the whole world would just open up and swallow me whole.
I can still remember stealing a glimpse of that boy as he continued around the rink, and I think that was the first time I ever saw anyone give a person the finger. I knew that it was a bad thing, because that kid was mad, and my dad just ignored it.
But I saw it. I see it, still. And it still makes me feel small and humiliated.
I know my dad meant well, but I think I would have been happier to have had him on the floor with me, and my mom and a few siblings would have been nice, too. And if someone knocked me to the floor? Well, he would have been out there to pick me up.
That's why it was so good to see Bo skate around the rink with Sweetheart and encourage The Baby to get her balance, to encourage her to skate into his arms.
And to have him hold my hand as we glided--okay, eased warily--around the rink.
