Today, Jen and I ventured with Tyler into the Nashoba Valley Ice Rink where we proceeded to put on Tyler's thrift-store chosen purchase of ice skates, rent a pair for me, as Jen watched and waved from the sidelines while trying to figure out how to comfortably watch and wave from the sidelines at 36 weeks of pregnancy.
Tyler stepped onto the ice with a ridiculous amount of glee.
Ice!
And we are wearing sharp blades designed to glide along that ice!
"Daddy, how is there ice inside of a big room like this?"
"Well, they flood it with water and then make the temperatures super duper cooooooold."
"Whoa!" And with that whoa, Tyler crossed the threshold for his first touch of the freezing stuff while wearing blades.
And then the warm, ridiculous glee he'd been feeling a moment ago turned cold. Turned to ice, actually.
"I don't want to do this. I don't like--whoa!--I don't like it!" We had taken five or six steps, and already he'd wibbled an wobbled and had felt himself slide backwards and forwards and side-wards and he couldn't seem to get himself to stand straight-wards, even while holding onto me and the wall.
So I did what any parent would do in a situation like this. I pretended not to hear what he said. Instead, I pointed down towards the end of the ice where the hockey nets would stand, and I began to talk about something totally unrelated to the deep fear and the intense desire to get of the ice that he was feeling.
"Hey T-Man, can you believe that people try to hit a puck into nets on this ice? Whoa, man!"
But Tyler wasn't having any of that Distraction Game. And I felt a sudden pang for the days when distraction was all it took--back when Tyler was two and he wanted, say, ice cream. All it took for Jen and I to get his mind off ice cream was to introduce some ludicrously unrelated item.
"Oh, really you want ice cream? Well did I ever tell you the story about the MASSIVE DIGGER THAT TURNED INTO A SUNFLOWER?!" And, bam, see you later ice cream desire!
But today, at five years old, Tyler's ability to fend off distraction had grown as prodigious as a mountain. A big mountain. Maybe even Everest.
"Lets' go, Daddy I don't want to do this."
This time, rather than pretending not to hear, I fell. And I laughed. And then Tyler's determination softened.
"Can I fall too?"
"Of course, let's fall!" So we both fell and we both laughed. From the sidelines, Jen shot us a thumbs up and I shot a thumbs up back and then we fell again. And again.
And again.
Finally, Tyler agreed that it would be good to try and stand. So we stood, and we eventually crept further around the rink. After maybe 32 minutes, we had made it successfully one time around the rink. "Want to stop, buddy?"
"No, let's do it again!" Tyler uttered.
So we did, and the subsequent trip around the rink took us a mere 15 minutes. Then the third trip took us a whopping, Guinness-book breaking four minutes. By the time we'd gone around twelve times, the rink was closing, and we were ready to get off. But I felt this itch to see how fast I could go around myself.
So with the rink entirely clear of people, I let loose. It felt great, and though I am absolutely no pretty sight on the ice, it felt good to just go fast--however clumsy I might have looked. The only problem is, I can't stop. I mean, I can technically stop by keeping my feet still on the ice and then going and going and going until I cease to go. That--or just hit the wall hard.
So maybe it was because my son and my wife were watching. Or maybe it was because I'd forgotten that I didn't know how to stop. Either reason, I came in towards the gate of the rink--where Jen and Tyler waited--really fast. And I turned my skates quickly like I remember the guy in the movie The Cutting Edge do.
But instead of stopping really fast, like he did, I toppled over, banging my knee and elbow and back as I did so.
Tyler laughed. Jen smiled. And I laughed.
Because falling can sometimes be fun, and because everybody falls.
Tonight, as I type these words I can feel my elbow reminding me that one day I am really going to need to learn how to stop. Yes. But I also think back to Tyler's transformation from glee to fear as he stepped onto the ice for the first time.
And I think both have something to say about chasing dreams, about pursuing anything outside of what's expected for us, or from us. Starting is never easy, but before we start, we at least have those grandiose and ridiculously gleeful notions of what it will be like. Writing can be like this--a vision for a novel, a picture book, or a research project even. We can become inundated with our own hope for the thing. But once we cross that threshold, the warmth of the hope sometimes fades and we're left standing on something frozen wondering, can I really do this?
The good news is that there is an incredible amount of inspiration and energy that comes from stepping out onto something slippery--some mystery where you haven't before walked (or skated). Lewis Hyde says it best in his beautiful book, The Gift: "The passage into mystery always refreshes. If, when we work, we can look once a day upon the face of mystery, then our labor satisfies." When we step into hopes and dreams and possibilities for our lives about which we don't have a huge amount of egoism and pride and so-called knowledge, then we put ourselves into the hands of mystery. And then we are ready to surprise both ourselves and the world around us.
In short: we grow.
This growth involves some glee at the start, yes. Maybe even ridiculous glee. But then it involves a whole lot of fear and trepidation and saying, I want to go back. Let me go back! And then it involves a whole lot of falling. Because everybody falls. But then you get going. I mean, you really get going, and you feel the speed and the joy and the fun.
And maybe--just maybe--once you really get going, you find that you just can't stop.
