The child within

Who, I ask, looking at the unbridled joy on the face of this child, could fail to smile? She is, you know, still inside each one of us, just waiting to be let out to play.

This birthday card was given to me on my un-birthday, as a vote of confidence that I, too, could reclaim the little girl who climbed on Ajax Rock, who skated with abandon on roller skates with a key on string around my neck. And although I don't actually remember wearing a cape, there was certainly some kind of magic that propelled me along those cracked sidewalks on Morris Avenue.

A few years later, Loie and I discovered indoor skating at the Rollerama, and we collected old pop bottles in tall weeds, carting them in a rusty red wagon to Andy's Confectionary for the return deposits, finally counting up our pennies to the magic number: 150. Enough for admission and skate rental for two,

When I lived in the ghetto in Panama City nearly 40 years ago, the unforgettable sound of roller skates hummed its way into my brink-of-adulthood life. There, Christmas day was a sort of city-wide rollerskating day. Children poured out of their crowded homes to skate along Fourth of July Avenue, the downhill street that separated those of us in the slums from the affluent Canal Zone on the other side -- a place where people pretended that roaches didn't crawl across their dinner tables (though they did, as I learned while dining at an officer's home, much to my fiendish delight) and all the palm trees were manicured so that they swayed in perfect synchronicity over the wide avenues and grassy lawns. Where I lived, there was no grass, and the palm trees hung limply in the humid air. Oh, and in my world, there in the slums, the children skated on one skate, thank you, having to share the skates, and also the fun, with their siblings or cousins.

Fast-forward another decade and one-half, and rollerskating beckoned me with a new promise: to feel like the grown-up mommy of three "gnarly" kids could still cut the mustard. Armed with Woolco skates in all sizes for the kids and those skateless kids on George Mason Avenue in Falls Church, as well as a perfect pair of honest-to-goodness shoe skates exactly like those of Linda Rondstat on her current album cover, I handed myself over to the glory of skating, even in short-shorts, up and down the hills of our neighborhood. At one point, we had 16 people on one block out skating in unison. Not only was it good for the soul, but it did wonders to tighten the sagging butt and trim those thighs. I was once approached in the post office by an older gentleman who inquired whether I might be the young woman who skated past his house; whereupon, dressed in career clothes, I confessed my sin of joy and exhibitionism. He confided that his wife skated in the basement and wanted to join us, so of course I said, "C'mon down." I don't think that she ever did, and she might still be skating in her basement in demented and delirious circles as I write.

Having been asked recently if I knew how to ski, the query coming from a friend who knew I lived once in Colorado, I replied that no, I didn't, that I was too old for that now, with, you know, the dire warnings about osteoporosis and falls sounding the certain death knell. "But," I said, "I used to be a mean rollerskater," alluding to the roller derby era. Well, both sports use the knees and require similar skill sets, don't they?

Pronouncing to this friend that, "No, I do not ski. Cannot ski. Will not ski," did nothing to dissuade. So, he, appealing to the inner child in all of us, sent this card from a ski resort in Utah., and I think it was meant not only to challenge me but also to reassure me that it's never to late to give up control, to feel the glory and the fun of a sunny day with a pair of roller skates on your winged feet. Just don't forget the key.