As a kid, I always wanted to be a skateboarder.
I had a skateboard, but I was never a “skateboarder.” See, there’s a difference there. Having a chunk of shaped plywood with four worn-down wheels doesn’t make you something. It only makes you the OWNER of something.
I wanted to glide and feel one with the board. To effortlessly fly about the streets, weaving in and out of cars, just missing their speeding fenders. I wanted to jump over drooling, carnivorous, child-eating dogs. I wanted to sail through the air, feeling as if I was carried by the winds — not four little spinning chunks of rubber.
I didn’t want to be klutzy — the type of kid who looked so panicked and erratic on the board that people wondered, “Do you think he’s medicated?” I wanted them to think, “Wow! His board must be fitted with an angel’s wings! I have seen perfection, and now I can die at peace!”
This is how I wanted to skate.
But it wasn’t to be. I flopped about like a fish. I went forward while my board doubled-back and raced for safety. I defied gravity many times, but not in ways that inspire awe. More like ways that inspire trips to hospitals.
I have no doubt that when I wasn’t looking, neighbors politely mentioned to my mother, “You know he’s going to die on that thing, right?” She probably nodded in agreement and wondered about our supply of hydrogen peroxide. Were we stocked? Did we have enough gauze?
No matter how much I practiced — how much I rode — I never was any good at it. I never conquered the asphalt — “surfed” the concrete waves. I was never a skateboarder.
And I thought about all of this the other day. I was out walking my dog. With me was my 6-year-old daughter. She rode her scooter. A little pink one she calls “Flower.” There are flowers on the deck, and colorful clip-on letters that spell her name down the neck of the handlebar. It looks cute and dainty. But she rides it like a pro. With grace and ease. With confidence and conviction.
No, it isn’t a skateboard, but as I walked, I marveled at how she had already grasped what always escaped me.
She weaved through a snake-like slither of zigs and zags. Like she was on that angel’s wings. She raced up driveways, and back down before cutting this way or that. She sailed on it — sailed! — and I wanted to hand her the dog and take off myself.
In a parking lot near our house she practices what we call scooter ballet. One day it will be a sport, this scooter dancing. Maybe even in the Olympics. As she runs through figure eights or other complicated maneuvers that she gives exotic names, she pliés or extends her leg back, twisting it around behind her. She looks like an ice skater being carried aloft. Carefree and effortless. It’s pretty cool.
Now she’s taken to jumping curbs — racing down a sidewalk and off the edge. She waves before she leaps, and has taken to speeding up, not slowing down, right before the plunge. That’s the sign of a skateboarder. No fear.
“Dang!” I say, and I wonder why I’m not terrified. Why I’m actually encouraging this. Maybe it’s because the “board” never flies out the other way. That she doesn’t flop about like a fish. That she has already mastered what I never even came close to grasping. Oh, there’s something painful, and also wonderful, about being a parent. Seeing your kid “get it.”
Maybe she could teach me a thing or two. Just a couple moves. Even at my advanced age, I might get there, too. How to glide and feel one with the board. Like winds are carrying me. That feeling I always wanted. Instead of the feeling that I would be headed to the hospital at any minute, all while my neighbors muttered, “Saw that one coming a mile away!”