I take Lucy skating. She wants to be Kim Yuna. We go to the Daegu City Ice Rink. It's a small rink with pullout bleachers pushed back into the wall.
We rent skates, and go into the arena to put them on. The center of the rink is pyloned off for figure skaters, skinny girls with long pony-tails gracefully gliding around doing amazing spins. Then there are speed skaters, with their massive thighs, gracefully zooming around the outside of the figure skating oval. Finally, around the outside of the rink, there are casual skaters ankling about on their sad rental skates.
As Lucy and I walk to the ice, I expect that we too, like in the Bambi winter scene, will be sliding about, arms swinging, trying for balance on our toothless rental skates.
Surprisingly though, the skates have an edge. A bit sharp, maybe like a figure skate should be, but I can skate pretty well on them. And Lucy is not so bad either. Using the roller-blades for the last couple months has done wonders for her.
We skate for an hour and a half.
When we get home, she tells her Mom all about the skating- about the friends she met, about how she is getting better, that I barely have to hold her up, and about the adorable seniors doing their slow motion speed-skate training. They circle the ice slowly holding their speed skater poses.
And then without warning Lucy lies to her Mommy about how, "Daddy kept bragging to the speed skating coaches about how fast he can skate."
I couldn't have been more proud.
03 July 2015
1 min read