OYM Day 57: Wind Beneath My Blades
Alright. I’ll just come out and say it: I rollerblade. A lot. Whenever I can, where ever I can. Often when I’m walking through a Vegas hotel lobby or big convention center…or a parking garage or an airport breezeway…or a basketball court or an empty barn…or a winery, subway platform, or empty pool… I think to myself,
“Damn, wish I had my blades.”
I’m not exactly sure what it is, because I don’t necessarily have a need for speed. I think it’s more something to do with how smooth of a surface I can blade on, to feel the least resistance between the wheels and the ground. It’s satisfying.
When I was a kid, I rollerbladed until the wheels fell off. I didn’t want to race or jump over things or see how fast I could stop. I wanted to be an ice skater. A figure blader. A delicate dancer on wheels. I was so convinced that I would grow up to be a professional ice blader, as if it were a real thing.
My neighborhood friends and I would drag the CD/cassette player into my dusty 2-car garage, close the door (a private show, of course), and we would each select a song and perform. We were limited on CDs, so we usually bounced back and forth between Elton John, Janet Jackson, and Mariah Carey. THE HITS, guys. So many hits.
I would kneel down in the center of the garage, on one knee, my head hanging…and then the music would start. All I can say is that I put on a damn show. I would spin, jump, skate backwards, slide onto the floor and recover into a standing, skating position. I was like a dove with plastic ankle braces.
The music would end and I would be out of breath, but glancing at my friends faces. They were good, but, no way they could beat that. Sometimes we appointed the kid down the block as judge. Sometimes he was at his dad’s for the weekend and we had no judge and just let each other bask in their own glory of presuming they were the best.
I stopped rollerblading sometime in high school. Literally, a wheel fell off one of my blades and I had more important things to spend my money on, like hemp necklaces and gas. But a few birthdays ago, my husband surprised me with a nice (NOICE, as we say in the blade community) pair of new rollerblades. I didn’t see it coming and I can still remember the way my face felt when I ripped off the paper. I started jumping up and down when he pulled out a pair of blades for himself. This is why I know we’re soulmates. A couple that blades together, (g̵e̵t̵s̵ ̵m̵a̵d̵e̵ ̵f̵u̵n̵ ̵o̵f̵ ̵b̵y̵ ̵b̵a̵s̵i̵c̵a̵l̵l̵y̵ ̵e̵v̵e̵r̵y̵o̵n̵e̵ ) stays together.
Alas, while my husband will entertain my ideas of fun, he is not a true blader at heart. So now, it’s usually just me going for night blades. I’ll put on some music or a podcast and zoom around the neighborhood.
I often get funny remarks like “she’s ready for the roller derby!” or, even more clever, “are those rollerblades?!”
Yes. Yes they are.
My blades are pretty quiet and most people don’t hear me coming up behind them. I’ve made people scream, jump, and have been chased by dogs. Blading, right?!
Recently, a friend has encouraged me to get out and rollerblade more regularly (SHOUT OUT, LAUREN). When I told my husband I was going to bed early so I could wake up at 5:30am to go rollerblading, I think he thought I was joking. But honestly…do I ever joke about blading? Of course not. Blade life! Getting up early and spending some time dipping through the warm breeze, talking to a friend, feeling the smooth cement of the library parking lot underneath my wheels…it may be better than my antidepressants, honestly.
So the next time you walk into a CVS (have bladed inside many), or an unfinished basement (my preferred flooring to blade on), or a lobby at a Marriott (got yelled at for blading there), think of me, going really fast, with my hair crazy, and a big dumb smile on my face.
