On Saturday, I fell and skidded on my side about ten feet down a wooden pyramid before hitting the floor like the lower ninety percent of an Aztec sacrifice. I got up and my board was gone. It took a second before I finally spotted it about a third of the way across the skate park wedged between a quarter pipe and a second wooden pyramid. Some kid knee-boarding on a Sector9 had stopped and was staring at it, like it had fallen from the sky, a sign from the skateboard gods.
I'm not sure if the structures like the one I just fell from have a proper skateboarding name. Imagine an Egyptian Pyramid with the upper section sliced off and flattened into a platform for UFO's to land on in preparation for their crew's all-important probing missions. I plucked my board out like a lesser sword-in-the-stone and made my way back to the top of the platform. The fall didn't tick me off as much as the fact that I'd been skating for only half an hour and I was winded. Made me feel old. That and the fact that I suck at this now.
The whole thing started when I decided to try skateparks again. There's one by my office and I thought it would be a cool alternative to just doing a gym workout in the same building I'm cooped up in for most of the day. That park (Carmel Valley) is smooth concrete and uncrowded when I drop by because the kids have to go to school and learn about things they probably don't care about. Suckers. After two sessions at the place, I realized I had the bug again.
I started skateboarding when I was about 14 through about 23 when the appeal just kind of faded away to me. Then, something like two years ago I went snowboarding and it kind of came back. I bought a longboard and rode that around for a while before my inability to maintain focus on anything at all caused my interest in that to wane as well. It's an ongoing problem with me.But now the desire was back for skating (for now anyway). I decided to try another skate park, this one only about five minutes from my house (if I flew there, avoiding shitty drivers and traffic lights). It's larger than my lunch break skate park, but about a third of it is made out of wood, which means it's not in the greatest condition after it's rained.
Another kid, probably about half my age eats shit trying to kickflip a set of stairs on the other end of the park. It looks far worse than my fall, but the little bastard gets up and shakes it off like nothing. The place is getting crowded now. No lines to be had. I try to find some anyway and almost run over the kid on the Sector9 before deciding call it a day and head to my car.
When I was tossing my helmet into my car I noticed the part that covers the left side of my head was pretty scratched up from the fall earlier. Nice. I don't know why I keep coming back to skateboarding. Maybe because it's one of those things that doesn't lie to you. Truth is, I think most people spend an average of fifty percent of their interactions with other people lying or hiding something or trying to "tell it like it is" while actually telling it like they want it to be.
Sometimes I need a break from that shit. I've realized that when I'm on a board, if I don't land a trick, it's because I need to practice more. If I'm are winded after less than half an hour, it's because I'm out of shape. If I crash, I did something wrong. It's simple and uncomplicated. Yet I'm able to write a long, rambling blog about it.
