Muscle Memory

I tentatively step from the solid floor onto the ice rink. Over a hundred tiny kids, a few teenagers, and one or two grown ups are buzzing around the rink in varying degrees of control. With everyone going counter-clockwise, it’s like a grand parade. Nondescript music blares over the speakers. There are little boys in their hockey uniforms with helmets, gloves and pads, wild teenagers brashly speeding past everyone, and a few young girls finding a quiet spot to practice their figure skating moves. It’s free skating time at Cabin John Ice Rink in Maryland.

I’m with my son Peter and my grandson Will. The last time I skated was about forty years ago. I imagined myself effortlessly powering off around the rink just like I did those many years ago. But the reality of time and age jolt me back to reality. One skate shoots off in one direction, one goes the other. Oh, oh, this is going to take some concentration. Step, glide, step glide. I’m off.

Gradually the muscle memory returns, and before long I’m gliding around the rink, wind in my hair, weaving in and out of six-year-old kids. The sound of blades cutting into the ice is delightfully familiar. Faster and faster I go, crossing my outside skate over the inside skate on the turns, getting my center of gravity low for more power. The sense of speed is exhilarating, with the cool air of the frozen rink in my face, my senses heightened to take in the skaters all around me to avoid a collision. Then I realize, oh my God, I’ve forgotten how to stop!

My son Peter, who I taught to skate 45 years ago, whizzes up next to me, a big grin on is face. He’s buff and in great shape after practicing power yoga for two years. We both head over to the boards, where my grandson Will is venturing out on skates for the first time. Tall and lanky for a ten-year-old, Will is grabbing onto the boards with both hands, his ankles bent inwards, pulling himself along. Whoops, his skates shoot out from underneath him. Peter reaches out and grabs him before he falls. I’d forgotten just how hard frozen ice is.

My life on skates began at three, dressed up in a warm fur coat and hat, my mittens joined together with a string, and little bells across my front. I grew up in Montreal, the home of the famous Montreal Canadiens hockey team. Hockey was in my blood. The winters began early and ended late, with snow banks piled high by the side of the road. Less than a block from my house there was a small frozen pond, where I began skating using “cookie cutters.” I still can remember the crisp, freezing air, the warmth and smell of the little changing room, heated by a propane stove. The cookie cutters felt very flimsy underfoot, but they got me going until I graduated to skates.

When I was nine I went to a boy’s private school, where during the winter, I would go out on the rink every recess and lunch hour. My friends and I played ball hockey or skated. One of our favorite games was to knock the other person’s feet out from under them so they would fall flat on the ice. I became very good at running on an icy surface. In my early teens I played for my school’s Bantam Hockey Team. I never scored a goal, but I was fast and graceful on the ice, for whatever that was worth. During one practice I fell forward as someone’s skate came flying up and cut across my nose. I was sent to the infirmary, got a bandage over the cut, then walked home alone. I still have the scar and still get kidded about my big nose.

On holidays my family would go to our country home in the Laurentians, North of Montreal. We would take a horse-drawn sleigh across the frozen lake to our house. My friends and I would go down and clear a patch of snow on the lake so we could play hockey. How sweet the air smelled. How vast the silence of the snow-covered landscape. In spring, the snow would melt and refreeze, often creating a glassy surface where we could skate for miles around the lake, hearing the spring ice cracking underneath us.

This was followed by a long period off the ice, where I went to Europe for five years, finished a Ph.D., met my wife, and came back to Toronto to be become an art history professor. Soon after, in 1967, our son Peter was born. In my thirties, my wife Fran and I moved with Peter to a remote home next to a waterfall in rural Ontario.

The nearest town was twelve miles away. Peter joined his school hockey team and I became assistant coach. Every week we would drive through raging blizzards to meet up with another school team for a game. Fran was a screamer and would run up and down the rink cheering on our team. I’m not sure if we ever won, but we had great fun.

That was the last time I skated. Now, at 76, I’m back. What a sweet moment to have three generations on the ice. By the end of the hour, Will is venturing out into center ice.

Peter and I start tussling with each other on one of our swings around the rink. I go down on the ice to avoid crashing in to Will. The ice is still as hard and as cold as I remember it. I have the bruise to show for our little encounter, but no broken bones. Next year I’ll be back again. Never grow old.