Things feel different when you’re 47. It comes on slowly but surely, making itself know in little mundane ways:you’re at the top of a set of stairs and have to stop to catch your breath; you find yourself tending to a pulled tendon that you don’t remember pulling; you stand up on a skateboard and feel like it’s going to fly out from underneath you because apparently 12-year-olds and middle age people have a radically different sense of balance.
Since I entered my early 40s I’ve had this nagging urge to once and for all learn to skate. I had a couple of boards during the first huge mainstream skating boom in the 80s, and I was definitely “into skating”, but truth be told I could never really skate. Blame it on our gravel driveway! So when I turned 44 I got a nice new Alien Workshop board and went out a couple of times with my son, trying it out in parking lots and a couple of local skate parks (don’t be impressed yet, I was still in the “trying to stay standing still on the board phase”). I took a moderate fall, landed on my hip and realized that middle aged bruises heal very slowly and I was going to have to be super careful if this was going to work.
We had some family health issues and a big move to a new house in Vermont, so I took a couple years pause. This brings us to Day One.
This year I got back on the board and I found that my balance was worse than ever. I realized that I was going to have to go way back to baby steps. Like practicing standing still on the board baby steps. And this is OK. It’s an ego check and also a reminder that I have to take it very, very slow.
I have made a goal for myself to skate a halfpipe by the age of 50. That leaves me two and a half years. That should be enough, right? And I don’t mean some tiny halfpipe. I’m talking a real vert ramp. Maybe not Raging Waters massive, but definitely the type of ramp I used to watch Lance Mountain skate in the Bones Brigade videos.
So where to start? I decided to go back to the classic skate-incubator location: the garage. It’s not pretty, but at least it’s away from the prying eyes of the neighbors.
I started this blog to keep track of my skating adventures with my son, Eammon, and to chronicle my progress. from merely staying upright on the board to getting on that halfpipe and dropping in, if I am lucky and stick with it.
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