Buried love.

I have accumulated sore ankles, mysterious cuts, and bruises scattered along my legs.
To me, ice skating is worth every single one.
Ice skating always awakens in me this deep longing to learn how to figure skate. It's this old love that I keep forgetting that I'd want to answer when people ask those ice breaker questions like, "If you could learn anything in the world, what would it be?" or, "If you could go back in time, what would you do?"

On the ice today, I was thinking about how much ice skating always makes me feel like I can simultaneously do anything and absolutely nothing. It's paradoxically liberating and limiting at the same time.
I really wanted to dance. Not like the, "let's-go-to-the-club" kind of dance, but a kind of longing to spin and sway, sweep my arms around and bend my whole body. The only things that were holding me back were my lack of knowledge of how to do so, and the fear of falling and hurting myself - not so much the fear of looking stupid or silly. It was weird because I always tell people how I have no desire to move my hips (especially in Zumba...yuck), but when I'm ice skating you could probably tell me to move my hips and if you put on some good music, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

At the same time, it feels limiting because I don't know how to do anything real figure skaters can do except skate around the rink over and over again. I totally wish I could do more.

Maybe I'll read more about ice skating this winter break. Maybe reading about it enough will placate my hunger to jump and spin on ice. Maybe I'll read about ice skating and watch all of these YouTube videos of figure skaters and the how-tos of figure skating.



There's just something so beautiful about watching figure skaters and something so exhilarating about ice skating that it always stokes a fire in me I forgot I always had.