Writers’ piece
Four writers revisit a childhood hobby (and suffer some scrapes and frustrations along the way).
Hard to believe, but in the early ’90s the absolute coolest thing a person could do was strap a pair of neoncoloured rollerblades to their feet and scoot around town shouting inscrutable phrases like “eat my shorts!” and “booyah!” I know this because I was 10 in 1995, and despite the fact I could barely ride a bike, let alone get anywhere in one piece with eight wheels bound to the bottom of my gangly, fawn-like legs, I wanted nothing more than a pair of blades to call my own. Such was the power of the rollerblading craze – even people who never left their bedrooms wanted to do it.
Of course, wanting to rollerblade and being able to rollerblade are two different things – a fact I learnt within moments of receiving a pair for my birthday. For months I’d dreamed of gliding around with the cool kids. But after just 30 knee-grazing minutes of practice in my driveway, I discovered I was too uneasy on my feet to do so immediately – and too lazy to learn how to do so eventually. So away went the blades, along with my ambitions of being cool. It nagged at me, this impulse to stop doing something the moment it became difficult. But before I could work up the resolve to try again, I was granted a reprieve: the skating craze died down suddenly, and I could pretend I’d simply moved on to Tamagotchis and Furbies like the rest of the world.
Flash forward 25 years, though, and blading is back, spurred on by a global pandemic and a legion of cooped-up Instagrammers eager for socially distant exercise. At first, I ignored the renaissance. I had no desire to confront my inadequacies – especially ones that combined physical ineptitude with weakness of character. But when a friend gifted me a pair of blades out of the blue, I felt I was being given a second chance. “Maybe I can actually do it this time,” I thought to myself. “Set a goal and, you know, achieve it.” And if I could conquer blading, who knew which other basic and trivial skills I could go on to master?
Jacked up on self-improvement clichés, I began watching Youtube tutorials – the 2020 equivalent of taking lessons. The presenters made it look easy, weaving and pivoting with the grace of ballerinas. I studied the placement of their feet with the all-consuming focus of a Juilliard student. After a few days, assuming I might have what it takes to skate in a straight line and come to a stop,
I headed to my local high-school basketball court to give it a try.
This, it turns out, was a mistake. Dexterity, balance, strength: I possessed none of these qualities as a 10-year-old, and it was unsurprising (though no less disappointing) to find I hadn’t emerged from my Youtube marathon in full command of my body. I could lurch forwards easily enough, but the goal was to come to a stop, not circumnavigate the globe. According to my notes, I needed to put my left foot at a 90-degree angle and just sort of drag it across the asphalt? Gracefully? With the precision of a neurosurgeon, I began to contort my ankle – and immediately toppled over. The physical pain was manageable; what hurt was the embarrassment. A group of boys playing basketball turned and laughed, and suddenly there I was, back in 1995, despondent and ready to quit. Which I immediately did.
Later that night, tending to my freshly skinless knees, I felt deflated. But as I grimaced through the antiseptic, another emotion surfaced: solace. Yes, I’d injured myself within moments of leaving the house. And yes, that had been enough to make me quit the task at hand. But maybe real growth doesn’t come from overcoming your limitations, but accepting them. I did this quickly, before packing away my skates in anticipation of the looming Tamagotchi renaissance.