In a land far away and in a time not so long ago, I was a child in a fairy-tale neighborhood of movie stars and surfers. Many things happened and subsequently many things changed.
One day my mother came home with a pair of white skates, the kind you found only at the skating rinks. It was the height of the skating craze, sometime in the late’70’s when studio 54, the Bee Gees and cocaine were the zenith of fashion. These were very special skates, real skates, leather boots, laced up with precision bearings and awesome trucks that made the ride velvet smooth.
It took many years for me to fit into the skates. I had coved them and had wished them mine for years. And one day my mom gave them to me. I was delighted and thrilled!!! I skated through the streets of Bayshores, smooth, fresh asphalt, warmed by the summer sun, now cooled below the quietly hissing wheels, the smooth encased German ball bearings rolled silkily. Skating at night, speeding down the street as fast as I could, hoping to miss branches,rocks and cars was as close to flying I ever knew. I felt free.
Many years later after Bayshores was part of my past and the future included new horizons, I kept those skates with me. The moved to a home in Costa Mesa, then to Huntington beach, Long Beach, Rossmoor, Los Alamitos and finally San Pedro. Every once in a while I would pull out those skates and take a spin. As it would go, the feeling was exhilarating but as each ride began, I became more and more afraid. I didn’t want to fall.
There are very few things I regret in life. In fact, if hard pressed I may only identify one or two minor things, inconsequential by most standards. When we moved last summer we were moving fast and furiously….we wanted out. Things were off loaded and shifted out of our lives in order to lighten the load. Two things that were let go of were Justin’s roller blades and my skates. They were boxed up and sent off to new owners. I am sure someone was delighted to find them and they will be used, but I am still sad that I let them go. They represent to me the last little bit of connection to my past as a child and as a young daughter playing in the balmy summer night with her mother, unwittingly gliding into a life others only dream of.
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