Musings

Sometime this summer will be 30 years from when I first stepped on a skateboard. I was 13, I had a cardboard-like piece of shit Nash board from Walmart or maybe Kmart with plastic trucks and I liked a girl named Kelci. I fell a lot. I got hurt a lot. These are the snippets of memory I still carry. I was starting to find the anger that had been simmering inside and was coming to boil. Someone gave me a mix tape with a couple Rancid songs on it and I was off. Skateboarding and punk rock gave me an avenue of expression, a creative outlet, a sense of belonging and a community. A channel for the pain and anger. For the next ten plus years I vacillated between worlds, the good Christian kid in tension with the angry wounded kid who wanted to burn down the whole system that he felt held him captive. Somewhere in my 20’s I abandoned the church (or maybe it abandoned me?) and I disappeared fully into an alcohol and stress induced haze as I attempted to do “what I thought I was supposed to do”. I still skated occasionally through my late 20’s and into my 30’s but mostly it become a piece of history. The music never left my side, an ever faithful companion and soundtrack to my life. I found climbing and reattached to the natural world. This combined with my dear dogs Lexi and Basil probably saved my life.

I thought I was done with skateboarding. Too dangerous. I never could find a way to balance the love of speed with the self destructive love of pain and at the same time swing a hammer, run a business, pay a mortgage, climb ice and show up as an adult in the world.

43 next month. Midlife crisis? Reliving the glory days? I’m sure of it. The kids showed an interest in learning to skate and I dug a couple old boards out of the garage. I took mine to the park. A part of me lit up that has been dead for a long time. The muscle memory is still there. The body is stiffer, heavier and much less flexible. But. For some reason. It feels right.