Skate Of Grace

All my life I have been a klutz. I am decidedly unathletic, dreadfully uncoordinated, and haven't much in the way of rhythm. Even in my (much) younger years, I could never get the hang of any kind of dancing; I looked utterly ridiculous in the attempt. I'm completely comical when running. I don't even walk very well! I am prone to stumbling and falling and have the scars on my legs to prove it. When I was a kid, my poor mother had to patch me up about once a week.

Giant speakers hugged the corners high in the shadowy, cobwebby ceiling of the gymnasium-sized rink. The sound they emitted was rich and echo-ey, turning the familiar '50s and '60s pop songs into reverberating mini-life experiences.

There was the time I hit the gravel while flying down the road on my bike. Mama was obliged to excavate dirt and rocks out of my shredded knees while I screamed. The time I tripped going up some concrete steps and bifurcated my chin. The time I got my bony foot caught in the spokes of a friend's bicycle as I bummed a ride. The mangling mishaps have continued into adulthood: I fell once in the mid '90s while stepping up onto our patio and skinned my shins so badly, I had to wear bandages for ten days. I fell clumsily down a few stairs only week before last!

I could go on and on but I'm pretty sure you get the unattractive picture.

But there was one thing that, inexplicably, for a brief shining moment I did rather well ... or at least semi-competently: roller skate. Besides reading, riding trying to stay upright on my bike, going to the beach, and attending the drive-in movies with my folks, this was my primary leisure activity between the years 1969 and 1971. A small window, I know ... but believe me, I packed lots of skating into those two years.

Our family lived in Oakland Park, a bedroom community of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I was about 11 years old when I discovered roller skating although I have no memory of the first time I skated. I think my sister and I had received our skates for Christmas ... the white boots gleaming pristinely, stiff laces begging to tighten the leather around my birdlegs, the stubby rubber "brake" that looked like a giant pencil eraser at the toe. My sister and I would tie our clunky skates together by the strings, sling them over our shoulders, and set out after supper bound for the roller rink on Dixie Highway in Oakland Park, down by the new K-Mart, about a half-mile from our house.

We favored going on "Ladies Night" (Tuesday, if memory serves) because due to the fact that we were ladies, we'd get in free. This was convenient on account of we rarely if ever had extra money. I can still smell the roller rink: upon opening the heavy door your olfactory senses were flooded with a wonderfully inviting (and exciting) olio of old wood and linoleum, floor wax, popcorn, hotdogs, cotton candy, peanuts, leather, rubber, sweat, and pure glee. It was like a carnival, only better.

And then there was the music (for me, the magic). Giant speakers hugged the corners high in the shadowy, cobwebby ceiling of the gymnasium-sized rink. The sound they emitted was rich and echo-ey, turning the familiar '50s and '60s pop songs into reverberating mini-life experiences. You'd lace on your wheeled footwear, hastily stow your boring old tennis shoes in your rented locker, and clamber to an opening in the railing where you could enter the stream of skaters forming a multicolored gliding oval of humanity on the smooth polished floor.

Your legs began thinking for you, getting used to the weight of the skates as you gently pushed out right, left, right, left, and immediately whatever song was playing vibrated directly into your solar plexus and you were one with the masses of swirling kids, the muted pastel lighting, the strident voice of the deejay between songs, the low whir of rubber wheels. By the time you reached the short part of the oval and, timidly at first, then with more confidence, crossed one leg over and leaned in to gently make the turn, you felt the exhilaration so keenly that it was just like flying. It was so free, so perfect, so effortless, so young!

I always listened for one song that will forever mean "Jenny at the tail end of childhood on Ladies Night at the skating rink in Oakland Park" to me: My Special Angel by The Vogues. I was never disappointed.

You are my special angel/Sent from up above/The Lord smiled down on me/And sent an angel to love/You are my special angel/Right from paradise/I know that you're an angel/Heaven is in your eyes/A smile from your lips/Brings the summer sunshine/The tears from your eyes/Bring the rain/I feel your touch/Your warm embrace/And I'm in Heaven again/You are my special angel/Through eternity/I'll have my special angel/Here to watch over me.

For some reason that garishly over-produced, saxophone-drenched song embodied all the romance I had ever imagined to exist in the world, and when it played, I sang along and it was me and I was it, and I was no longer a clumsy, gangly pre-teen girl with a family situation that was tragic at worst and strange at best. I was a swan gliding on a placid lake at sunset, a ballerina executing a flawless quatriPme for an awed audience, a chanteuse phrasing a lyric with tender pathos. Best of all, for those few delirious hours before the clock on the wall made me exit the looping rolling throng, reclaim my shabby tennis shoes and get home on time or get in trouble, something became possible that never happened outside that rink: I enjoyed a skate of grace.

Comments

[Diane]

What an evocative post! I used to love roller skating - but only ever did it in the street where the potential for cut knees and grazed shins was HUGE! I could almost imagine I was there skating with you.... :)

[Jennifer]

We would have had lots of fun! Thanks for reading, Diane. I enjoy your blog very much.

[Keli]

I do understand clumsiness. I'm afraid I've even fallen while walking UP the stairs! But how wonderful you make your skating days seem! I love that free feeling!
Isn't it amazing that certain scents serve as time machines for the mind? Taking you right back to a different place and time.