The Wall Was My Best Friend

December. The rink smelled like cold air and bad hot chocolate and something faintly metallic, which I now know is just what ice smells like up close. I went alone, which is either brave or embarrassing depending on how you look at it, and I had never in twenty-three years put on a pair of ice skates. Not once. Not at a birthday party, not on a school trip, not at any point in my entire childhood where presumably there were opportunities. I just, hadn't.

The rental skates were white and slightly too wide and I laced them up on a wooden bench that smelled like the inside of a gym bag, which I mention only so you have the full picture. There was a man next to me who was maybe seven years old and he was done and on the ice before I had finished the first skate. I took my time. I did not rush. I had nothing to prove to a child.

lacing up, the point of no return

I held the wall for the entire first lap. Not slightly. Not with one hand trailing behind me in a casual 'I could let go anytime' way. Both hands. Full grip. But here is the thing about the wall, it works. You get the feel of the blades, the way your weight wants to shift, the particular wobble that means you've overcorrected. By the second lap I was down to one hand. By the fourth I let go for about eight seconds and I did not fall, and I want you to understand that those eight seconds felt genuinely significant in a way that is hard to explain without sounding like I am being overdramatic about ice skating, which I am not.

the exact second it clicked

I stayed for almost two hours. My ankles hurt in a very specific way that I'm still feeling this morning and I can't quite explain to you why I'm already thinking about going back. Something about the cold air and the Christmas music and the fact that I was bad at it in a completely fixable way, the kind of bad that just requires showing up again. I think that's probably my favorite kind of bad to be.