Roller Girl

“Mama, you’re way too old,” Henry said as I laced up my skates.  But he didn’t know I held my own with Melanie Whitehead, 1985 Euless Skate-N-Play Roller Skating queen in her Crayola #108, sky blue roller girl costume and her personally owned white lace-up skates. 

She could twist and twirl or skate backwards around the whole rink twice to Stayin’ Alive replete with disco moves, but I was fast. 

Which is why 20 plus years later, I ignored him.  I zoomed past the little children all along the edges of the rink including my own.  Their pudgy fingers sealed in a death grip to the rail, staring at me as I passed. 

“If you put one foot in front of the other when yer’ turnin’ you’ll have more balance,” a balding, elderly man in sweatpants called to me as he glided by backwards.

I was the last person in attendance who needed his skating tips but I thought I should be nice.  Who knew, one day I might decide hair pulling and fist fights were my leisure activity of choice, sign up for roller derby and suddenly find myself in great need of his sage advice.

So I smiled and ignored him too.

“Mama, how’re you doing that?”  Henry yelled at me over Donna Summer, entirely impressed with my mad skating skills.

“Because I rock.”

And I did.  At least for a few minutes, whirling around the rink waving at the poor children still barely scooting along between falls, and their not brave enough to venture out parents.  These same parents who watched like vultures wanting to feed on my broken carcass from the sidelines and prayed for one of their children to fall in my path.

“This is great, we should do this every weekend,” I shouted to Hannah who could now let go of the wall for 2 second increments.  She looked to be having slightly less fun than I was but smiled in agreement anyway. 

Only 11 dollars for five hours of reverting back to childhood complete with MC Hammer blaring over the speakers and only missing Melanie Whitehead in her sequined
glory, how had I ever passed this up?

At least until they played the Macarena.  They had skipped the limbo and the hokey pokey but some genius thought surely children could Macarena one handed. 

And they could, with some coaxing.  My own coaxing because didn’t I know everything after one hour of skating in 23 years.

So I suppose it was inevitable.  The last wiggle of my hips enough to throw off my moment of grace.  My arms pin-wheeling, the floor looming entirely too close to my ancient and fragile bones.  The final nail in my, for God sakes stupid woman no one should try to be cute over the age of 18, coffin as I slammed my knee into the only a little more forgiving than myself floor.

The rink held its collective breath, perhaps waiting for my defeated scream of agony.  I did not wail.  A girl can flounder around on the floor with a bit of pride.

I really wanted to though.  Big fat, lusty cries of ‘I broke my knee’ like I hadn’t sung since I was at least 12.  Far too long if you ask me.

But I only thought it.  Beads of sweat dripping over my carefully held together smile as I pictured myself rolling around on the floor wailing.

I wasn’t going to let them win.  Not my kids, who had somehow decided 37 was old or the other parents who had forgotten what it feels like to fly.

I unlaced the skates and pulled them off.  Gritting my teeth to haul myself from the floor without groaning. I prayed to the gods of self humiliation that I would not fall as I limped off.  Surely once was enough for the day.

“That was some kind of fall, Mama.  I’d be crying,” Henry said, helping me to a bench.

“Nah,” I grunted, plopping myself down and glaring across the room at the other parents, who quickly turned away.

“Think you could teach me,” he asked.  “But you should probably get some knee pads…and maybe a helmet.”

Not Just my Nanny

“Up until high school, I thought girls got pregnant by sitting on a boy’s lap,” she said.

 My grandmother, a spry and proper 81, who has more of a social life than I do and never speaks so frank.  I wish she would more.

 I’ll admit, I don’t want to hear about Edna’s gall bladder surgery or Martha’s 42nd knee replacement. My mind wanders off when she’s telling me a story involving 52 people I don’t know and attempting to explain how I might know each and every one of them in a 7 degrees of Kevin Bacon sort of way.

 “Well, she’s the sister of Becky’s mom’s stepsister’s husband’s cousin. Becky who was in your 6th grade Sunday school class.  Don’t you remember Becky?”

 Becky, who I do in fact vaguely remember as a sullen, dark haired girl who didn’t like me much. Perhaps if the story was about Becky running off to join some hippie commune out west and having 16 babies with the long haired prophet leader instead of being about her 515th cousin twice removed, I’d be mildly interested.

 But I do want to hear about my grandmother.  Where she came from and what makes her tick and why she saves a teaspoon full of corn when we’re cleaning up after dinner.

 We’d been discussing some parents in Keller having a fit over their child reading Skeleton Creek in the classroom.

 I was ranting about parents intent on shielding their precious babies.  The same precious babies who have already learned everything there is to know about the world from a classmate who learned it from his brother’s best friend, who learned it from his 13-year-old cousin, who learned it from South Park.

 “I’d read this book,” she interrupted. “A book about a man and a woman.  I remember everything about it.”

 I could perfectly imagine my 15-year-old Nanny in 1945 with her knees tucked up underneath her, nose buried in a book.

 “The woman in this book, well, she kept sitting on this man’s lap.”

 I saw a flash of her indignant 15-year-old, still reading face, the uncomfortable adjustment of her legs as her 81-year-old self chuckles.

 “I swear, every 10 pages she was sitting on his lap and then she was pregnant.”

 I laughed, thinking of my own 14-year-old girl who knows and shares more than I’d ever care to know in my whole life with a matter-of-fact directness all the while wrinkling her nose at the mere idea of it.

 “I was sure it was from all that lap sitting,” she said.  “I wouldn’t sit on a man’s lap til college.”

 I didn’t really blame her.

 “A whole big group of us would go out on Fridays and I’d sit on the floor of the car rather than sit on a boy’s lap.”

 It was one of those moments, nothing really, a small memory in a long life.  Yet, a moment I wished I could capture between cupped palms and cork sparkling in a glass jar.

 A moment for later when I know I’ll wish I’d taken the time to talk more or even listened to details of Myrna’s bowel issues.

 A moment when I saw my grandmother as a woman, as a girl, just like me with hopes and dreams and a whole life ahead of her.  Not just my Nanny.

Random Crapola

• Oh how I love Owen Higgins and Xanga and Xanga people and writing pointless drivel about dogs. Y’all make me want to write again.
• I’ve been here 7 ½ years. How is that possible?
• In the past three days, I’ve written 3 research papers for school and three blog entries (one I have yet to post). Life looks better.
• Swan Song!!  Get it, read it, feel better about your life because the world is not Post Apocalypse. I cried the last 35 pages. Amazing stuff.
• Come out Xanga people, I want to play.

Good Boy

Let the drivel begin

     He’s forlorn in the corner, his hair billowing through the air even though he’s only been home for a few days and I personally swept the last full coat off the carpet. He doesn’t look up, disturbed by the loud pounding of the workers outside or his own mini vacation. I convince myself it is the hammering, the prying, the coarse laughter or maybe even the vague concern the roof will collapse in on us. I am pondering this myself as the roof creaks and groans underneath their weight. I picture the look on the face of the crabby lady downstairs, who complains about footsteps. I imagine her thrill when the ceiling, the dog, myself and two roofers land in the middle of her fake flowered living room.

     But back to the dog, the blissfully clueless subject of this discourse. He doesn’t respond when I call. His downcast eyes do not raise. I call him again and crouch to look at him across and underneath the table. “Dog” “Dumb Dog” He only looks up when I serenade him with Annie, and then only because I’m certain he feels like jumping off the balcony to escape this horror.

     I wonder if his week with the dog sitter was somehow traumatic. Did they ignore him, beat him with a newspaper, not walk him enough? Was I, the constant yet not quite family category fixture, lumped in with those Cruella DeVil like sitters? And was the dumb dog, or not quite so dumb I was thinking at that point, plotting ripping my face off like that monkey did to that poor woman?

     The dog, obviously oblivious to my musings, stretched, rolling over to look at me. I took this as a dire sign, brain wandering to mull his personal history as a rescue dog. Only I would spend long minutes analyzing a dog’s back-story. But in my defense, it was vital to my conclusion that something was wrong. This based on the fact I was not yet covered in his hair from his insistence on me petting him or the lack of a bounding, happy greeting upon his encountering me after a week absence. He, not being the overly exuberant type to begin with, did not deter my delusions.

     My overactive imagination would not let him be tired or generally uninterested. He had to be having flashbacks to his first abusive owner brought on by the evil dog sitter. He had to be mere seconds from baring his teeth and howling. Even though the only howl he was ever inclined to involved the tornado sirens at the first of the month. For all I knew, he was borderline Cujo and my only hope was the workers on the roof collapsing in on top of him thereby rescuing me.

     Hefting his weight from the floor, he ambled over to me, tongue lolling, head inches from my hand. He waited patiently for me to rub him.

     “Good boy, good dog,” I said, really hoping he was.

Maybe

I should write.  I miss it.