Never Wear A Push-Up Bra To The Ice Rink

[Parts of this post have been removed. Privacy, and all that jazz.]

There simply is no way to skate gracefully when your breasts are hoisted up and outwards.

My old and dear friend B took me to my first ice hockey game on Saturday. There are a couple of surprising things in that sentence there: a) that I've never been to an ice hockey game, since it's something that's happened in my dreams for years, and b) that B was the one to take me. I've known her since fifth grade, been good friends since seventh, and of all my friends back then I'd have put her right at the bottom of the list when it comes to enjoying things like sporting events. B has always been the traditional one, sweet and nice and not at all bloodthirsty, and I would never ever have imagined her for a hockey fan. I guess she picked it up from her current boyfriend, who plays.

The ice hockey was fucking awesome. It's not as big and bright and dramatic here as it is in the US, or Canada, but it's still totally cool. We watched Milton Keynes ("our" team) v Peterborough (which was fun, because that's where Curt is living during the week while he's at uni, although he comes back to London at weekends, and even though he doesn't watch ice hockey it's fun to rub the scores in his face - well, if I can't rub anything else in his face, LOL) and we won 4-0. The first third was hard for me; we were right in front of the goal, and Wall - the keeper for the other side (I'm assuming that's what they're called?) - let two goals in during the first third, and he was a strong projector, and I could really feel his sadness and frustration, and could have cried for him. I know, I know, I'm entirely too soft - I'm not supposed to feel sorry for the other team, dammit! For the second third, he was at the other end, and had a bit more spirit, but for the last third he was back at our end, and I could just feel him giving up. Very sad. Although not sad enough to keep me from cheering as we kicked their butts.

I learned quite a bit about our players, just from that one game. Grant McPherson is a vicious little bastard, and barges into everyone, but he's entertaining as fuck. Blaz Emersic is the new boy, poached from someone (Slough, maybe?) and is spectacularly good (and also pretty hot), although he fell over a couple of times - I don't think he's quite used to the ice here. Barry Hollyhead, our keeper, was man of the match, and nobody deserved it more - he made some spectacular saves. Andre Smulter is the guy whose number I want on my shirt, partly because he's good, but also because I loved his smile; he always looks like he's about to burst into laughter. And I have a crush on Dwayne Newman - who unfortunately does NOT play for our team.

Rereading that, it looks like I'm saying he's gay. I have no idea if he's gay or not. But he does play for Peterborough, and he used to play for MK, and I want him back on our team, dammit! I only have the vaguest idea of what he looks like, because they wear those helmets and all the padding and stuff. But he had the most beautiful form out there, skated like he was trained for ice dance, and I fell for his body as soon as I saw him skate. I've always adored skating, always been utterly in love with the way a great skater looks when he moves. When I was in my teens, I skated once or twice a week - sometimes alone, sometimes with friends - and while my girlfriends were perving on the cute boys in there, I was perving on their bodies from the neck down, and especially their feet. I couldn't have told you if a guy was good-looking or not, but I fell in like a hundred times with torsos and legs.

Newman was also the first player to come over and shake Wall's hand, and commiserate on their loss. I can tell he's a kind person, and that goes a huge way with me. I checked out the player profiles on the net the next day, and found out that he's from Winnipeg, and used to play over there, which helps to explain his incredible form - American and Canadian kids seem to be raised on skates, at least the ones who live in cold climates, and as such they seem to take to the ice naturally, in a way that even the best British skaters can't quite emulate.

After the match, B and I skated a little bit. Not for too long, because Milton Keynes is an hour's drive each way. The ice was all cut up from the hockey game - I don't know why they don't clean it before they let skaters on, the way they do during the games and on Sunday mornings - so it wasn't easy, and since my amnesia and subsequent loss of everything to do with coordination, I'm not a good skater. I was never spectacular, the way my mom was at my age, but I was fairly good. Nowadays the first ten minutes are spent just trying to stay up, and it takes an hour or so before I stop feeling wobbly - and even after I stop feeling wobbly I can fall at any time, particularly when my breasts are sticking out halfway to Cape Town - but always, just towards the end of a skating session, I start to feel like I can remember how to do this.

There are some sports that, no matter whether I totally suck or actually become quite proficient at, never feel natural to me. My body is just not made to do them. Running and aerobics are two of the things that I never enjoyed and never got good at, but there are a couple of things that I got quite good at, and still hated. Hurdles was one of these things. In high school, for some bizarre reason, I was really good at hurdles. I never had decent form, I looked like some alien creature who did not belong on an athletic field, but show me a bar and I could haul my overweight, stubby-legged body over it. Hurdles wasn't something that we were taught much of in PE lessons, and as such, hardly anyone at school but the hard-core athletes ever learned to do it. So I got "volunteered" for it on Sports Day, for several years running, and I competed. Occasionally I won. And I loathed every minute of it. It terrified me. I never hurt myself badly, and I was always convinced that I was going to any minute. It felt totally unnatural, and the only reason I continued to do it was that I wanted an A in PE in my end-of-year reports, and the gym teachers - alone of all the teachers in the school - based our report grades on achievement rather than effort. (A total con, IMO - other kids could get an A in any other subject just by trying hard, even if they were really bad at it, but in gym you could only get an A if you had natural talent, and on several report cards I had to face the humiliation of a B, even when I put everything I had into it. And yes, that last sentence is sarcastic.)

But skating was never like that for me. Skating always felt like it came naturally. Aside from the beach, which is where I do my meditation and my communion with god, there is nowhere where I feel more at home than on the ice. B, who is now a better skater than I am, says she doesn't feel this way. She got fairly good, but it isn't natural to her. But for me, it feels right. I push myself round and round, and my hair whips behind me and I know I have this stupid grin on my face, because I have these flashes of memory, or what I think is memory - and I think that I know how to dance, and to jump, and to twirl, if my body could just remember.

It never remembers, but getting on the ice still feels like coming home.