Ice skates

The mall that housed the ice skating rink where I learned to skate is $110 million in debt.  Most likely it will undergo foreclosure.  I loved ice skating.  I wasn’t particularly great, but it was fun.  I loved my skating outfits and my skates.  Ice skating gave me the same sense of freedom that riding my bike or swimming gave me.  Movement, power.  I haven’t skated in years and I’m sure if I tried, I’d be sliding on my butt.  And probably break a bone or two in the process.  When I first heard about the mall’s financial problems, I was sad because it was like a story had come to an end.  As long as the skating rink was still open, there was a continued story.  I don’t know if the rink will stay open or if it will be destroyed.  Guess I’ll have to wait and see.  The end of something is always bittersweet.  Growing up, I lived about a block and a half from a local park.  In the park, there was a two story open structure that we called the lookout.  It was all open.  But I guess over time, crime crept into the park and the lookout was walled up and was never the same.  Another story that ended, the final page turned and the book put away on the memory shelf.  Everyone I grew up had memories different from my memories, yet still intertwined with the lookout or the ice skating rink, or the empty fields where houses now sit.