still alive!

sometimes i have nothing to say. well...not really. I just don't have TIME to say it. But since my girlfriend is now working full time on her PhD dissertation...i have a bit more time at night to sit at my computer.

I left work quickly to go skate. The weather precluded me going "ice skating" at the Denver park, so I went to Xgames. DK nor Kev took the bait so I skated alone. For once Xgames had good ole 80's punk playing on and off, between new punk, which i call CRAP.

It's hard to explain skateboarding to the person who doesn't or has never gotten into it. When a kid, it was my life, my social group, what defined me in middle school and part of high school. I was good enough to get sponsored as a street skater back then (which isn't saying much compared to street skaters now!), but injuries took me out of skating street for the long term. In the early 80's there were no skateparks anymore in California...only cops telling us to get out of the local parking lot and to stop scraping off the paint on the curbs.

So tonight I had one of those sessions that made me feel very young again. But the weird thing is, that I never could do what i'm doing now back then. Of course i had no access to even ONE skatepark back then and now there are 7 within a half hour of eachother.

Tonight was Progression and FUN. A few new or completed tricks that just came together. I can't really explain the feeling you get lofting a backside air over the coping, or grinding the corner in the deep end of the bowl, or finding new lines that throw you perfectly into another line you haven't seen or tried before, or even just finding an endless line that allows you to carve around the bowl effortlessly...but hopefully you get the picture. I imagine surfing is like this.

It's like riding the same technical trail you've always ridden, and never could pull off a certain section. Then one day, for some reason you try a different line and what was so difficult is now so easy. All you had to do was NOT focus on the line you had been taking, but trying a new line. Or pointing it thru the trees on teles and not worrying if you'll have space to stop before hitting a tree...and you find out that you don't hit a tree. Somedays you just pull it off without much effort.

So there i stood on the deck, alone, listening to Stiff Little Fingers blasting thru the speakers, chills shooting down my spine...thinking that THIS is one of those things I've been waiting for after all these years. I dreamt about having a bowl, ramp, or anything with transition to skate for all my teenage years....and never got it. We got the occasional empty pool (2), and the bigtime bust of the Bolinas Reservoir ditch (imagine running thru the woods with your board away from the same ranger that later in life chased us on bikes for riding too fast), and Simborg's half-pipe that we created from construction site waste but got torn down after only 2 months of use..but that was basically it. We were forced to skate street, which is fun, but not the same, and not what I dreamt of skating. Vert was COOL...and still is. It's really good to get back to fulfilling my teenage goals, and do what I've always dreamt of doing.