I-Skate (sorry)

An uncoordinated girl skates on a corporate skating rink a mere decade after a tragic accident.

‘Tis the season in Los Angeles, we may not have snow, and it may be 70 degrees, but we’ve mastered the fine art of gaslighting ourselves with peppermint hot chocolates, inflatable Santas, and fake snow at the mall to get us into the winter spirit. Even though we do the holidays a little differently around here– trading snowmen for sandcastles and hot cocoa for iced mocha – it’s still special, and we have one thing that’s more valuable than all the winter cheer in the world: the Santa Monica skating rink.

The concept of an ice rink is pretty straightforward: line up on the sidewalk, buy a ticket, get your skates (never forget socks), and take an hour to your heart’s content. That hour used to be unlimited, but I guess those days are over. There’s a couple of little food courts where you can create ill-advised combos, like hot chocolate with nachos, or corn dogs with churros, paired with a few too many laps around the ice. Since the rink’s debut in Santa Monica in 2006; the giant slab of ice has become synonymous with a LA winter. The rink’s undergone a lot of changes over the years; joining the baby rink with the big one, plastering every visible crevice with Netflix posters, and making the shift from cash to digital payment. But “Ice at Santa Monica” is still somewhat nostalgic; the pillar of our carefree childhood memories. It’s something that everyone looks forward to…except me.

In theory, gliding on the ice with your friends over winter break sounds super fun, but it’s not. There’s a couple reasons why: for starters, the ice is really cold–obviously–but you don’t really know how cold it is until you’ve fallen for the twenty-third time, with numb fingers and icy sludge water seeping into your jeans. Also, the ice is really hard and slippery, I know, another groundbreaking revelation, but again you don’t really grasp just how slippery and hard it is until you’re teetering on wobbly metal skates with fresh bruises on your arms. After a particularly nasty fall ending with an impromptu trip to the dentist, I stopped going to ISM, and made peace with a future sans skates. Until now. Recently, I decided that enough was enough, my tooth had grown back, and I was ready to return to the ice.

So on a Tuesday this past month, I went with a few of my friends and figured that, at the very least, I’d be able to get some early holiday cheer on. As expected, it was pretty packed, and it took about half an hour to get through the line. I was actually kind of excited, even when I had to pay twenty-two dollars – a small price to pay for nostalgia.

It took me about a decade to lace up my skates, while I watched people on the rink, and they made it look pretty easy. I was like I can totally do this, so I made my way onto the ice with as much confidence as one can have waddling on thin blades over the gravel pathway. As soon as I stepped onto the ice, all confidence melted, the speck of blood on the ice that caught my eye really didn’t help. Going from shoes to skates, especially after so many skateless years is a really drastic change, and you don’t really appreciate the beauty of balance until you’re face down on the ice or getting dirty looks from 3rd graders for hogging the wall. I wasn’t there for very long but here are the highlights: I fell a total of 5 times, a kindergartner lapped me twice, I was asked not so nicely by a kid and his mother to move aside, and then tapped out after 3 laps to drink hot chocolate (10/10 recommend) on the sidelines.

(Image reprinted from Google Image Search)

Ice at Santa Monica’s hot chocolate is highly recommended and rates a 10/10 

Admittedly, towards the end I started to get the hang of it and remembered why I looked forward to Opening Day every year. So was it fun? Yes. Would I go again? Probably not. But I’m still glad I went. Who knows, maybe next year I’ll make it through the full hour.