Once Around

I did something last month I don't think I've done in more than twenty years.  I went ice skating, if you want to call it that.  

Across the street from where I work is a plaza that in the summer hosts festivals and concerts.  Shortly after the Oktoberfest, an ice skating rink is set up for the holidays.  For the last six years, I have looked at that rink and thought that I should give it a whirl, figuratively speaking.

I used to go ice skating fairly often, though I was never very good at it.  I could skate forward proficiently and even learned to skate backwards and switch from forwards to backwards without falling down.  No Peggy Fleming was I, but I enjoyed it.

So, one day after work, when the office had emptied out early for the weekend, I grabbed my four dollars for skate rental and wandered across the street.  Rental ice skates aren't what I remember them to be.  These were unisex, molded plastic, heavy, terribly fitting things.  The first pair was way too big, so I swapped them for the next size down.  Those were big, too, but I was to embarrassed to ask for yet another pair.  I tied them on and wobbled over to the ice.

It wasn't nearly as easy to do as I remembered it.  I clung to the wall along the side to keep from falling and slowly, ever so slowly, made my way around the rink.  Once.  I managed not to fall, but could barely glide either.  Thankfully, I was the only one there.  No witnesses to this.  

I blame it on the skates.  Not the twenty plus years between skating sessions, or being a bit older, or out of shape, or, or, or . . .

But I haven't had such silly fun and laughed at the absurdity of it all in a long while.  Once around was definitely worth it!

“Do not enjoy yourself. Enjoy dances and theaters and joy-rides and champagne and oysters; enjoy jazz and cocktails and night-clubs if you can enjoy nothing better; enjoy bigamy and burglary and any crime in the calendar, in preference to the other alternative; but never learn to enjoy yourself.” 

– “If I Only Had One Sermon to Preach,” In Defense of Sanity by GK Chesterton

AMDG