A young girl with two afro puffs skates past you. She reminds you of yourself, almost twenty years earlier. Your feet were glued to your skateboard almost every day from the age of four.
Though decades have passed, the passion has not. And you hope, neither have the skills. You walk up to the very edge of the skate park. The girl skates directly towards you.
“Do you want to have a go?” She asks tipping her skateboard upright.
She has somehow sensed the presence of a kindred spirit.
“Yes please,” you reply.
She twirls the skateboard over to you and then rests on the bar.
You push off and you are gliding. You glide the length of the skatepark, just to find your feet. Then you try some ramps and bumps, some rails and walls. With every revolution of the wheels, the abilities tucked into your memories unwind. It all comes tumbling back.
You stopped skating because you felt like it was time to be a grown-up. What adult takes time out of their day to do an ollie. This one apparently.
Your confidence grows and you move to the higher sections of the skatepark. You spend more on more time in the air. All the flips and aerial moves are consecutively revealed by your muscle memory. Your body remembers. It flows out of you and you flow, up and down the ramps and through the air.
You swerve to a stop and then you turn and head back towards to the young girl. You stumble slightly as you get close to her. Perhaps it is the weight of memory, or a pebble on the floor.
“Are you OK?” she asks.
You smile, and say, “Never better.”
