I love the Kansas suburbs. I do. But once in a while I yearn for someplace far to the north.
A few weeks ago, my sixteen-year-old wanted to go ice skating with friends. They planned to meet at a popular shopping center with an outdoor rink.
“Who’s driving?” I asked. My daughter’s driver’s license is six weeks old.
She rolled her eyes. “Everyone’s meeting there.”
“Do you have money for admission?”
She sighed. “I babysat last night, remember?”
“What about the weather?” It was eighteen degrees and windy.
She pulled up her pant leg and pointed to her new wool socks. “Really, Mom. I’ll be fine.”
Half an hour later, I asked, “When are you leaving, honey?”
She shrugged. “We aren’t going. It’s too cold.”
Relief flooded my heart, but it was tinged with sadness.
When I was five, my dad laced up my double-runner skates and led me onto the ice at Fireman’s Park. He took turns with my sisters, pulling me around the rink until I could balance on my own. The next year I wore a hand-me-down pair with single runners, and my choppy steps evolved into a one-two-three-glide technique.
In middle school we lived near Tiedeman’s Pond, which froze solid every December. I walked there, my skates tied together and slung over my shoulder, and skated with my friends until my toes were numb.
Winter was for skating. I wasn’t a graceful girl, but when I glided across the ice on one runner, my other skate stuck out behind, I was Dorothy Hamill. When I skated backward, I was Sonja Heine, making figure eights. When I sped around the empty pond, I was Eric Hayden, winning Olympic gold.
Ice skates set me free.
My children associate skating with oval patches of bumpy ice crowded with wobbly school children. They cling to one another for support and slam into walls to stop. Skating is a once-yearly novelty inflicted on them by their mother.
For them, freedom is a swimming pool.
I love this post, Jane, and your closing line is so great. Hope you have a chance soon for an hour or so of skating.
Thanks, Rebecca. I’ll make it one of my Goals for the new year!
Jane, I am so glad that John posted this…..I loved it! I am signed up for your blog, but do not receive notifications when you have posted something. What can I do about that? This made me wish I could skate. The way you described your children’s skating ability sounds a lot like mine, but they would look like pros if we were skating together! I did not know there was any such thing as ice skates with 2 blades. I am sure that would have made all the difference for me!
Thanks, Carie! We’re always comfortable with the things we learned as children, don’t you think?
I will work on getting you linked up to my blog. I’ll let you know how it goes. I shared it on my Facebook page, but it didn’t get the same amount of exposure as when Jon shared it. Will I ever understand social networking?
Ice skating looks like the most graceful freedom in the world. I wonder what childhood memories will draw your children back in the future.
I think they’ll always love a good swimming pool, Kathy. We moved to a neighborhood with a community pool when they were in preschool, and it became their summer playground. I wonder what your children would say?