Julia

I didn’t realize I had been holding my breath. After the van stopped leaning on its driver side tires and decided on upright, I breathed. I was the wrong way off the snowy road—the direction from which I had traveled visible through the windshield instead of the rear-view mirror. My hands shook as I processed that the van had nearly flipped onto the driver side, and I tried to figure out how I could have sped off the road in a blur when I had only been going about 15 miles an hour.

And, I truly had been. I was a barely 16-year-old who had never wanted her license in the first place. Driving terrified me in every way, and this recent adventure, which had come despite my doing everything I was supposed to do, only confirmed for me that I had no business behind any wheel bigger than a bicycle’s.

With temperatures in the teens, ​my dad and two grandpas worked to ​replace ​the tires ​that a snowbank had stripped from the rims.​ ​Q​uietly and with uncharacteristic calm​, they​ ​identified​ the culprit—black ice. I watched them for a while, ​numbed and ​silently ​freaked out from the suddenness of the entire situation, and vowed many, many things. Namely, I was no longer driving in the winter, and I did not. It was spring before my parents let me back behind the wheel, and I was totally fine with that. Ecstatic, if truth be told. And, I vowed that the first chance I could, I would get the hell out of Ohio and never have anything to do with snow or cold again.

It would be a few years before I moved to Washington, DC—I would be out of college and grad school and married—but at that time, one of DC’s chief draws was the charming way it shut down with the slightest whisper of snow or ice. These were my people, I thought. They also hated winter and decided they just would not deal with it. I could support this attitude wholeheartedly. I saw no reason to soldier on as everyone must in the Midwest. Here, people had decided they were ill-equipped, and they had organized around that concept. After so much Midwestern can-do, I happily embraced this codified laziness.

Ah, but you can never hide from your nature. I was a snow baby—as my parents, bewildered at my vehement hatred of winter and snow and especially ice, above all ice and its invisible and sudden treachery, always pointed out. It snowed the November day they brought me home from the hospital. In response I pointed out that winter was really the only season that killed people routinely and without warning. Winter was dead to me.

I could give all the credit to my change of heart to hockey, but a critical first-step that opened me to hockey had been underway years before I saw my first game. A certain blue-eyed lady gently led me back to where I started without my even knowing it, her pure snow joy transformed her in every way: hound dog without snow, super husky with it. Her dance, her abandon, her wild run down snow-shut streets, her sing-song howl, with ears forward, nose up to read every creature who was dancing or shivering unseen. Had I a sled to connect her to me, she would take me anywhere. As it was, she took me home, in the snow, the question of who rescued whom never far from my mind or heart.

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“Tenacity is a gift.”

A wise man I know said this to me not long after I first met him. And this phrase kept popping in my head as the Olympic gold medal game between the American and Canadian teams drew ever closer and my anxiety about it all spiked. I was nervous, truly, because four years before I had not been.

At that time, I devoured every televised Olympic hockey game from Sochi, whether the United States was playing in it or not. What I couldn’t watch in real time, I dutifully taped. And the women amazed me.

I had seen one woman play before, the only woman in a twice-weekly game that was essentially a beer league with guys who had played their entire lives and often later on college scholarship. In other words, they were a very good beer league, and she more than held her own with them.

Seeing women on teams playing against each other was a revelation. Because the rules for body contact in women’s hockey are different—hitting technically is not allowed, although contact by accident is often unavoidable and sometimes deliberate—the women’s game seemed so much faster, the flow smoother, the women more focused and graceful. In other words, they were fierce—and I was hooked.

Everybody at the office knew about my hockey fixation, and my increasingly bleary-eyed arrivals courtesy of the never-ending Olympic hockey broadcasting underscored my commitment. So, I was not surprised when a co-worker asked me: “So, did you watch the women’s gold medal game yet?”

He seemed uncharacteristically solemn when he asked me this, something I only really noted after he changed his manner in response to my breathlessly excited response, “No! I taped it. I am going home now. I CANNOT WAIT!”

“Oh,” he said with a forced smile. “Then enjoy the game. Talk to you tomorrow.”

As I drove home, I wondered a bit what he knew that I did not. However, doubt dissipated as I settled in with the critters and watched the United States control the play and head toward a certain gold medal. They owned the ice. They had it.

Until they didn’t. I wish I could have explained to my confused animals why so many people on the television and the lone human in the room were crying. I was stunned and numb for days. My co-worker offered heartfelt and awkward commiseration.

With that inexplicable game never far from my mind, I watched the Americans lose in their first 2018 Olympic meet-up with Canada. Others in the room were less concerned. As we planned the viewing party for the gold medal game, I was having flashbacks to 2014. My fellow hockey enthusiasts’ emotions ran the gamut from nervous breakdown to cool confidence. My mom stayed up to watch.

On a conference call early in the day, I told new co-workers: “Tonight the game starts at 11 p.m. But you should watch it anyway. It will be one for the ages.”

And, it was.

For what I didn’t fully realize about tenacity being a gift is that being able to persevere through failures, setbacks, and disappointments often does come from an otherworldly source outside the possessor, a sense of peace and confidence that hard work and fortitude support, but do not create. When tenacious, an individual is tapping into a determination that seems innate, a blessing, a gift so big that it springs forth naturally and without question.

But the gift is even bigger. For seeing the tenacious persevere, witnessing the bereft rise above pure devastation gives to the rest of us an idea that it can be done and sometimes, if we are really paying attention, even the way to do it.

 

“So, to be clear, if I am terrified, I am doing it right?”

He laughed, “Yes.”

We had a substitute teacher today, and he was showing us very nonchalantly the one skating move that has kept me awake at night, that I have done my best to forget, that I had prayed for some magical ability to accomplish whenever the time came.

But I was not ready. Not even close. Yet here we were: the dreaded crossover. And here he was in his hockey skates, breaking it all down as if it were possible, and we could do this without dying. He might as well have asked me to fly a plane.

For those unfamiliar with skating terminology, the “crossover” is exactly what it sounds like: as you move, you place one foot over the other and use that shift to propel yourself. You might see someone do one or several, forward or backward. We were just doing the forward ones. It was one of the few things I had seen skaters do that I could not even begin to fathom, despite my continued forward progress through Kettler’s adult skating program.

And, it threw me a bit that unlike our usual teacher, our substitute teacher was wearing hockey skates. I was becoming comfortable with the idea of sticking to figure skates for good. My love of hockey itself had not diminished—if anything, I was becoming a huge Caps fan, regularly attending games and watching everything I could about hockey on TV. But, truth be told, my confidence in my ability to ever play that game was not high.

However, skating itself made sense to me, felt good to me, and my improvement remained steady. My hockey skates now glowered at me accusingly from a basement corner, and I did my best to ignore them. Now here was hockey guy to shake me out of my figure skating stupor with his sassy skates and insouciant attitude toward my private terror.

As I have found with pretty much all hockey players I have ever met, I instantly liked this guy—and I wanted to impress him. I was old enough to be his mother, but I sure as hell was going to give it a shot, the potential painful spill be damned. Many in the group were murmuring out-loud trepidation that I also felt. So I asked the obvious question and accepted his unsurprising answer.

For you see, to do crossovers, you have to suspend many things—disbelief, gravity, safety, your other foot—because for a very brief moment you are not touching the ice, you are shifting your weight, you are finding your balance, you are becoming more than you ever thought possible and changing your mind about what your possible really is.

 

 

From the beginning, skating and ice have been as much about sound to me as anything else. Teachers will encourage this tendency. Some movements on the ice, if done properly, will create certain tell-tale noises. As you learn, you will hear them when you watch your teacher demonstrate, and you will listen for them when you work to replicate the technique. If your main experiences with ice involve television, you will miss out on this. Ice music demands a live audience.

From the first, to me, the way skaters skate, the way players play has always felt like a musical journey. I get lost in their rhythm, feel the beat as they move, recognize the melody even when slightly out of my range. So when “Like a Song” by U2 began popping into my head as I played my skate along a slalom shape, I was not surprised–and I listened.

Like a song I have to sing
I sing it for you.
Like the words I have to bring
I bring it for you.

And in leather, lace and chains we stake our claim.
Revolution once again
No I won’t, I won’t wear it on my sleeve.
I can see through this expression and you know I don’t believe.
Too old to be told, exactly who are you?
Tonight, tomorrow’s too late.

And we love to wear a badge, a uniform
And we love to fly a flag
But I won’t let others live in hell
As we divide against each other
And we fight amongst ourselves
Too set in our ways to try to rearrange
Too right to be wrong, in this rebel song
Let the bells ring out
Let the bells ring out
Is there nothing left?
Is there, is there nothing?
Is there nothing left?
Is honesty what you want?

A generation without name, ripped and torn
Nothing to lose, nothing to gain
Nothing at all
And if you can’t help yourself
Well take a look around you
When others need your time
You say it’s time to go… it’s your time.
Angry words won’t stop the fight
Two wrongs won’t make it right.
A new heart is what I need.
Oh, God make it bleed.
Is there nothing left?”

The rhythm of song and skate mixed muscle and memory, expanding an enduring love for a song and its time and place to a present love, a new time, a new mindset, an evolving understanding of the life imagined by a 20-year-old that had melted away and into the reality of a 40-year-old who was finding a new way round to it, as she slowly mastered the slalom, first two feet, then one each.

Let the bells ring out.

Unless you are five years old or younger, there is no graceful way to get your bearings on the ice. These suggestions can help it be a little less terrifying and awful:

1. Take a class. Misery loves company, and you can find much comfort in group ineptitude. As you learn more, you might want to take private lessons to focus more directly on your own needs and idiosyncracies. But, at first, the cost and camaraderie of a skating class can keep you motivated. Taking private lessons or going 100 percent solo might intimidate you off the ice for good.
2. Buy your own skates. If you have a sense that you will stick with skating despite your early struggles, then you should know that buying your own skates can be beneficial for several reasons:

• You manage how sharp they are. When so many things are going wrong at once for you as a beginning skater, you may wonder why the blade sharpness even matters. I mean, you can’t even stop, turn, or get through a class without falling. However, a dull or oddly sharpened blade will make learning more difficult. And, if you have your own skates, you can experiment with various sharpening options. Do you want a deep edge? Do you like it shallow? You will get a better sense of these things if you have one pair of skates you always use instead of a rotating rental situation.
• They fit you. Finding the right style and fit is no easy task, but friendly experts can be found at any rink pro shop or hockey store. They know the questions to ask, even if you do not, and you would be hard-pressed to stump them. I mean, I tried, and I still got good advice and a pair of skates that fit my needs perfectly. So, don’t be shy. Ask the dumb questions. They have heard it all, and they have been in your skates as a beginner before, too.
• You avoid other people’s feet. I am not a germaphobe, but I think that speaks for itself.
• You may decide to skate barefoot. The above reason gets particularly crucial if you decide to be one of those types who do not wear socks or anything in their skates. These people exist. You could be one of them. If so, you will need your own pair of skates for obvious reasons. (But, seriously, you can buy super thin socks or liners instead of going for full blister. Ask around for what works.)
• In theory, you can choose a color you like. But, this last one may surprise you—I was certainly surprised at the extremely limited colors available for figure skates.
• If you need another reason, see the third reason again. You should always remember that reason.

3. Know you will fall and don’t fight it. Learn to go with it. One of the first things you will learn in class is how to fall properly. Pay attention.
4. Find comfortable, layered attire that allows you to move. Don’t wear jeans. There are other, better options for men and women that are not sweat pants and that move efficiently with you. You also may or may not get cold. I was surprised at how few layers I really needed once I got going. If you need ideas, just watch other skaters and ask around.
5. Consider wearing a helmet. If wearing one will make you less inhibited and more willing to take the risks necessary to learn, then please consider it. Most adult classes do not require it, and most people won’t be wearing one, but don’t let the crowd decide this one for you.
6. Wear gloves. You will be taught to not use your hands to break any falls, but instinct can be hard to override. Your hands will fare better if you have them covered.
7. Get lost in the fun of it all. Chet Baker has the song, but every new skater should have this attitude. Do your best to be in the moment and to enjoy the process. A sense of fun and wonder about the ice will carry you further than stubbornness or innate ability ever will. Any good skater will give you this advice first. I am not yet a good skater, so I save it for last. Every pro hockey player I have ever had the courage to ask for skating advice has paused, smiled to his eyes, and said: “Have fun.” I think those guys know a thing or two about skating.

Certain purchases seem easy on the surface. I am learning to skate, so I need to buy skates. But much like trying to find contact lenses that are not tinted such a dark blue that they change my eye color (which are very pale and I like them as they are, thank you very much) or marshmallows without gelatin (I have been vegetarian for almost 25 years), my figure skate-shopping odyssey went from reasonable to beyond ridiculous because of one small thing: I do not, for many good reasons, ever own or wear white footwear.

That does not mean in my off-ice life that I limit myself to multiple versions of the same black pump. Au contraire, mon frère. I long ago discovered the savage beauty of a certain Canadian shoe designer, and because of his crazy genius and eye for colors not generally shoe-worthy, I walk in every color of the rainbow.

Unfortunately, he does not make figure skates (or hockey skates, for that matter.). And because of reasons that make no sense to me as a 21^st century woman, I was limited in my figure skate choices to white. The last time I wore white shoes, I got married in them. We all know how well that worked out for me.

Despite amazing Google-fu, my searches for non-white figure skates became progressively more frustrated and desperate. I started plugging in any color just to see if it would come up related to figure skates. The only options I found were custom ones, generally $600-plus. Given that these skates were a stop-gap on my way to better hockey skates, I didn’t want to spend that much for a non-white color.

But I was damned if I would cave to buy the white ones. Skate covers, suggested helpfully by many a skater or pro shop worker, looked ridiculous to me. Plus, now my ire was up. I was a thwarted consumer. Things were bordering on becoming un-American.

So, I did what I have done for most of my life when I could not stomach the options available to me as a female person. I went with the boys. Thankfully in the figure skating world my non-dainty feet were easily accommodated across the aisle, so to speak. No further need to offend my punk rock soul every time I got on the ice.

Of course, this choice inevitably caused some confusion. But, only the good kind. The guy sharpening my skates wondered about their ownership:

“Are these your skates?” He was holding a pair of men’s figure skates, looking at me and looking perplexed. I pointed at the black skates he held and said:

“Yes. I don’t want white ones.”

“Well, you’re the only one I’ve ever met. Good for you.”

“They remind me of Doc Martens. I love them.”

“Even better.”

And, I can’t even begin to count the number of female skaters who came up to me asking where I got my skates. Clearly, there is a market here for women who have zero interest in being ice princesses and would prefer instead to be the punk rock goddesses that they truly are.

I have heard stories about people who break their backs in cold climates and are then restored, their spines protected and supported by being frozen, which stanches hemorrhage and enables slow healing, their recovery thoroughly miraculous and ruthlessly scientific.

At the end of 2013, I wondered if a frozen body might similarly protect and heal a shattered heart.

Back then, I would have denied this inclination and dodged the question. My love of hockey had nothing to do with the guy who had taken me to my first game. He had broken my heart like an old-school scoundrel, new-school sociopath. He had ripped his mask away, in a phone call I will never forget. After I hung up, I threw up.

I wore my bewilderment openly with those I loved. The stages of grief and revelation were relentless. The many furrowed brows and much sincere sympathy from those equally taken in by him did not stop the internal swirl: “What had I done? What had I said? Will he come back? Why did he go?” Endless ruminations, constant questions.

Does it protect the heart more when extremities go cold because the blood must warm critical functions? The body knows that the heart matters more than a finger or two, more than a random toe. When the heart stops, life stops.

Could the same ice that may enable a paralyzed person to walk again make my heart open to love again? Or was it merely that water in its frozen state simply does not move.

Or maybe, ice is a state of pure transformation. Water, altered to frozen from flow, from movement to stasis, expands; its previous constraints, if they existed at all, likely to burst. Ten cups of water become 11 cups of ice.

Cold suspends and protects. Whatever frozen water holds cannot be easily reached.

If it is an emotion, does ice smother it, like a mammoth entombed in tundra, long hidden until a sudden exhumation? To free it, you must chip away, with force, with metal, with sharpness, with determination, with heat.

In December 2013, awaiting the new year, I burned various items, hoping that the elemental could outfox the primal, that fire could melt memory, that ice could dull loss as it does every sharp thing that goes against it. And I pondered some maxims meant for broken hearts.

What does not kill me makes me stronger.

The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

It’s the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter.

If you take a skate to ice, if you float on top of it, does it set you free?