I am not terrific at balance.

Last night a whole slew of assorted roommates and cast-members went ice-skating down on Penn’s Campus just past midnight. I don’t know what made this sound like such a good idea to me, considering that my only first and only experience on rollerblades was one of terror and a bruised bottom, but for whatever reason i gleefully laced up and hit the ice without giving too much though to how i intended to get anywhere.


Skating didn’t wind up being much of a problem, really … neither was locomotion. Ice is so different from gravelly road, and it was easy to just glide along on momentum or dig in to stop my locomotion. Mainly i was having issues with balance — with keeping my feet planted firmly on the ground. And, although falling really isn’t so bad, the whole time i found myself just striving for balance. And not finding very much of it.


By the end of the night i was admittedly pretty miserable, but as i glided off the ice and onto the blue rubbery comfort of the floor beyond i realized that i had done so without so much of a nervous thought about crossing traffic or moving smoothly; somewhere in there i had found a way to balance it all out, even if it was just for a few seconds at a time.


Falling is always easy. Falling is not so bad. But standing on my own two feet… it was something different.