214. Skate Night

Producer Claire McInerny impulse bought some roller skates last summer. She hadn’t skated since she was a child, so she headed to the local skate rink to practice- and it became a night for her to remember.

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

I’m Claire McInerny and It’s Going to be Okay. 

Last summer, I was walking down the street in a suburban Dallas neighborhood, where there were a bunch of local shops, and I popped into a small boutique.

I wasn’t looking for anything. At the time, I was living with my in-laws for a few months, in between a cross country move, and I was just trying to get out of the house on a hot July day. 

Inside the store I half heartedly flipped through some dresses I would never wear. I barely glanced at the jewelry, most of it had crosses as a feature. But on my way out I saw them. 

[Magical music]

A pair of yellow iridescent roller skates. The wheels were bright orange and there were silver stars on the side of the boot. They were so extra. So…unnecessary for someone who doesn’t skate…but still, I asked the woman behind the counter: 

“How much are these?” 

“$75” she replied.

I shrugged my shoulders. I didn’t need to be spending money on skates….no matter how cute they were. 

As I headed to the door the woman asked what size I wore. Turns out, these skates were the only ones she had left, and they were a size 10. My size. 

If you’re not a woman just know a size 10 shoe is much larger than average so I assumed she was struggling to sell them. So…I pounced.

“Would you take $50 for them?”

She was clearly not used to haggling, but apparently these skates were taking up space and she had new merchandise coming in so… she agreed. 

I spent the summer skating around a church parking lot in the evenings, when the brutal Texas sun had set, getting my balance right and learning how to stop.

When we moved, the skates were packed away deep in the trunk of my car and stayed there for months. Until…January, when one my goals for the new year was to try new things in my new town. 

That’s how I found myself on google one night in January, looking up skating rinks where I could practice again and also get the hell out of my house in the dead of winter.

The skating rink in my town reserves one Saturday night a month for adults- when they kick out the teenagers on awkward first dates and gaggles of tweens mortified that they have a body and that it’s being forced to stay upright while skating. 

The two friends I showed up with were also not seasoned skaters, and as we sat on a bench, lacing up our skates, we looked around at the crowd of adults already in the rink.

There were hot Gen Z girls in their crop tops and cargo pants, practicing tricks and dance moves on their skates. There was a group of middle aged men wearing matching t-shirts, were they a skate gang? That all looked like they worked construction or at the very least could tell me the aisle at home depot where the wrenches are located. 

As I sat there watching these regulars to skate night, I was surprised that most of the people there were GOOD. Not just good, they were EXCEPTIONAL! Two girls spent a lot of the night in the middle so they could spin like ice skaters. A guy in a basketball jersey smoothly flipped backward and forward and backward again while also dodging slower skaters.  

As I hit the floor, I was a little wobbly at first. But after a few laps I started to feel comfortable. I can’t do any tricks, the extent of my skills is slowing down and speeding up, but I was having a blast. I’m a person who sits hunched over a laptop or a phone all day, and the sensation of skating on a smooth wooden floor allowed my body to be loose. I loved the feeling of my hair flying behind me as I sang along to the snoop dogg songs the DJ played.

Every lap, I passed a man, wearing a tie dyed t-shirt, who spent most of the night standing in the middle, dancing to the music and calling out to skaters doing tricks he found impressive. 

An hour in, the DJ announced the next song would be for advanced skaters. My friends and I quickly scurried off the rink and sat on a bench to watch the advanced skaters spread out. With more room they could do more tricks. 

Three guys in their 20s skated in a horizontal line, their arms crossed in front of their chest, holding the hand of the guy on their side. They looked like the Rockettes, in basketball jerseys, and their little line spun in circles as they made their way around the rink. 

My friends and I sat on our bench and clapped and shouted and giggled as we watched these people move their bodies in ways that made my lower back ache, but impressed me nonetheless. 

Being in that roller rink for two hours felt like stepping into another world. Even though so many people there were very good at skating, it was still a place for all of us. When I tripped over my feet turning a corner, a passing skater lobbed a “you got it” as they whizzed past me. 

When I passed the two girls doing spins in the middle, I shouted “you guys are so cool!”

For two hours, I lived in this joyous bubble. A bubble with disco balls, ICEEs, loud music and so much laughing. 

The next day, my one friend got really bad news. I once again had to face some financial stress I’d been carrying. Real life was still there. But as I sat at my computer with my budget on the screen in front of me, I opened the photo app on my phone. I watched videos I took of the other skaters, got lost in the rhythm of their movements, and a smile spread across my face.

Life will always have challenges- but life will also always have Skate Nights.