Skateboarding In My Life

There have been many people asking me why skateboarding is so important to the sub-culture.

To most of the population it is just a toy of sorts. It is a board with wheels stuck to the bottom of it. I would like to suggest a different outlook on the skateboard.

If you have anything that provides some sort of creative outlet, you can compare it to that. It is therapeutic. It is similar to how many people approach a paint brush or an old, beat-up blues guitar. Not just an art form but a way to find yourself, find peace or find some people with similar interest and create community.

I was challenged by my professor to put my personal relationship with skateboarding into my thesis so others might understand better what it is to me and perhaps relate it to a creative outlet of their own. My professor said it may help others to understand the meaning beyond the physical object. If you have anything that can take you to a place where stressful events cannot reach you then you will probably relate to how many skaters feel about skateboarding.

So, here is what skateboarding means to me and how it has been therapeutic in my life.

Growing up I always had a skateboard to enjoy and get into a bit of trouble with. I didn’t always skate as much as I do these days. I began to skate a lot more after my dad died. It was a warm day at the end of July, the nurse come in and said “it’s time.”  I remember thinking I wish I didn’t know exactly what she meant. I walked back into the dark room. Everything was white, all the windows were open, so how the hell is it so dark in here?  I reached out and grabbed Dad’s right hand. I squeezed it, and thought I felt him squeeze back. He didn’t. Suddenly everything seemed chaotic.

I was panicking and water was flooding out of my eyes to the point that I couldn’t see. I wiped my eyes and looked at Dad’s face. The man on the bed didn’t look like my Dad. His face was purple and green. He began to cough and make a sound that you could only know if you have ever listened to a man die. I wished I didn’t wipe the water out of my eyes. Then I heard the horrible sound of a heart flat lining, a constant buzz from the monitors that seemed to go on forever. The nurse came over and took the tubes out of his mouth. His jaw relaxed open and his face had unnatural blue, green and purple colors. I grabbed a sheet and pulled it over his body. That was the last time I saw my dad.

I went back home. I was alone at my house. I was afraid and I felt like I had no one. I couldn’t sleep because I couldn’t turn the lights off. I heard voices at night that kept me up. I was a child with no guidance and no father. In those days, I had fear and pain that couldn’t be expressed with words. I was in need an art that was therapeutic and pushed my own ideas of what I thought was physically possible. I was looking for a way to be creative and adapt to the environment around me. I re-discovered my skateboard.

I had my old skateboard so I took off in the middle of the night. Pushing the skateboard as hard and fast as I could, suddenly I wasn’t afraid of anything. Nothing mattered but the pavement in front of me and my board. I crashed and bled. I got up and kept pushing. I could feel the blood run down my leg, I just pushed harder. I looked for big hills to carve down, back and forth. I felt like I was flying, I felt like I existed in a world where I could come up with creative ways to confront obstacles. I began to feel free. I would crash and lose a bit of skin off of my shoulders.

But it didn’t matter.

I had found therapy. I had found an art form to express my fear, anxieties, anger and even love.

Even then, nightmares couldn’t touch me.

It took me to places where I could feel whole again. I was in a world where God, the board and myself were the only ones present.  It is a phenomenon that can only be experienced, not explained. I could breathe again.  Every night, I would find a hill and carve all the way down.

I hated those days.

I loved those days.