Day 45: Skate Gods
I wasn't sure what I was to do in Colorado. There were several options before me.
Firstly, there was the dinosaur museum. Don't get me wrong, they are cool, but I just wasn't feeling dinosaurs. Then there were the Gardens of the Gods of which I've heard good things about, but they required me to detour too far south to Colorado Springs, along with Pikes Peak. I couldn't justify the drive. Then there was the NIST-F1 cesium atomic fountain clock, the clock that sets the official time of the United States and will deviate by less than a second in the next 100 million years. It was even on my way toward Cheyenne at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder. One look at the complex visiting times and guidelines put me off though, at least this trip.
Then there was the Stanley Hotel. You know what that this. It's the famous haunted hotel that inspired Stephan King to write The Shining. I really wanted to do the night tour, but I figured I'd already visited too many haunted locations. Don't want to give my readers the impression that I'm overly interested in the ghoulish. Which I am. But I try to curtail my enthusiasm and keep it at a healthy-obsessive level. I've already, since beginning this trip been slightly reprimanded by my fascination with the ethereal plane. I will address that later.
But then, like a joyous light from the skate gods, it occurred to me that the famous, Denver skatepark was less than twenty minutes away from where I was.
So, naturally, I went skating. I had been there a few years before and it was just as cool then as it was this time. Although, spending the majority of my days sitting as of late I was a little rusty. Observing all these young guns killing it while I struggled to do a basic line was both reassuring for the development of the sport and disheartening on a personal level.
I feel as though I get better every time I step on the board, control and finesse slowly increase, yet, energy, and motivation fade. This promotes flat ground skating, which is really fun, but the younger crowd, filled with passion for their sport have the energy and capacity to throw those same flat ground tricks down gaps, over obstacles, into rails and ledges, and this is just, plainly put, a lot cooler!
I do however, have one last video part in me. I plan to begin filming as soon as I get home. I don't do it to try to get sponsored. That is a young skater's game. I do it for the love of the sport. I do it to promote creation in the medium. It may not seem like it, but skating is an art. Instead of a brush, we use a board. There really is an endless array of possible combinations to attempt on a skateboard. The art is carefully balanced between physical ability, chosen medium, such as street, vert, flatground and others, and the always unique style and flow of your whole self while on the board.
The creation process, as is often the case with any art is mentally demanding. Perhaps a difference might be the combined physical abuse willingly engaged in to create a trick that will inspire waves of new skaters after you. The struggle is real. It is a beautiful thing.
You might have taken pause with how I have casually alluded to the fact that I am no longer young. After all I am only 28. I do so for a couple reasons of which I will explain. The first is that in any physically demanding sport, of which we are talking about skateboarding, there is the prime age to work your magic, after which it becomes apparent that age has diminished ones capability. People continue to skate their whole lives, but it seems that usually just before thirty an observing fan begins to notice a distinct difference in his hero's abilities on the board.
Secondly, and I hesitantly bring this up, but, should you ever see me with a beard, you'll notice that I am already going grey. I first noticed it when I was twenty five. From what I understand, white males usually start going grey in their mid thirties. Why should I be going grey so early? I won't begin to attempt an explanation. All I will say is, who knows.
I will admit that I don't know how it's possible to feel as if I were a hundred years old and ten years old at the same time. But I do. I feel blessed.
Goodnight.