Skating Lessons

It's been a long time away from the ice, but I remember everything

Photo by wr heustis

Along Michigan Avenue in Chicago, the lions of the Art Institute are adorned with seasonal wreaths around their necks, hordes of shoppers and tourists stand at the pedestrian crossing lights, huddled and waiting, couples holding hands, mothers grasping the arms of their daughters, a man wears a Santa cap, a woman is wrapped in a green knit scarf with the images of reindeer big and bold, and a bit farther north and to the right, I see dozens of heads covered by watchman caps and tasseled beanies, gliding in the air, floating without resistance. These are the skaters at the ice rink at Millennium Park east of the Loop, the lakefront heart of a Chicago holiday. From the window of my car, I see their bodies but not their skates. They skim the frozen surface, some with clumsy joy, others with the grace of ballerinas, all propelled by a visceral freedom that comes only on the ice.

It had been many years since I had been out on an ice rink. Still, I believed I could handle this ultimate balancing act, do it with reasonable energy and agility. For many years in my teens, the ice rink near my boyhood home had been my winter hang out. Most Friday nights, my friends and I would head for the South Park Rink and glide in circles for hours—laughing, attempting to impress girls, singing to the rock-n-roll music played loud through the rink’s outdoor speakers. I was far from an expert skater, learning on figure skates at a young age but inept on hockey blades. Still, I could get around with some level of grace, even stop quickly along the railings with a bit of snowy spray. Still, those days were a long time ago, and I had only been on the ice maybe three or four times since then. But I figured it was like riding a bike. And so, years ago on one winter afternoon I invited a new friend to join me at the city rink, a woman I had known for a brief time before I met my wife.

“Are you up for some ice skating?” I asked.

“Oh, sure. I love it,” she said.

We met at the rink’s gated entrance. She arrived with her own pair of skates; the laces tied together so she could carry them around her neck. They were white with minor scuffs on the heel and toes, a clear sign they had been on her feet many times before. I felt a bit unprepared when I asked for size tens at the skate rental.

I should have known what was to come as I watched her lace up—the skill, the aptitude—expertly snaking the laces through the small holes and around the metal hooks, her fingers moving like tiny acrobats while I tried to untie the tangles in tattered laces and remember what kind of knot was appropriate.

We moved to the ice. I needed a moment to steady my already aching ankles; she, on the other hand, pushed off and immediately began to skate backwards, moving with pure poise, smiling at me as I struggled in the snow dust of her self-confidence. I stretched my arms out to my side like a man trying to avoid falling to his death from a high wire, hoping to find some sort of rhythm. After a moment, a bit of muscle memory returned and, although tenuously, I was able to let the blades and the ice find a cadence. One turn and a straight stretch and then another turn. I was making my way, a bit hobbled, but upright. Then at the next turn all those years of not skating quickly made me aware that I was not up to the task. I could feel it coming, this hard fall, and although I flailed my arms in a desperate move to steady myself, it was pointless. My skates slid out from under me, and I landed on my behind, skimming along the ice on my ass and colliding with the railing. My skating partner was nowhere to be found. She was off spinning and twirling somewhere. But I am sure she saw this foolish fall. Whether she was concerned or found it funny, which I would completely understand, I would never know. She didn’t bring it up when we met again at one of the turns after I had righted myself and attempted to rediscover my dignity. But when I fell the second time, and the third, she clearly felt sorry for me, taking me by the arm, skating me to the rink’s exit, sitting me down on a bench, and buying me a hot chocolate.

This was the last time we saw each other. It was never meant to be for a lot of reasons, far more complicated than the scars of humiliation and my damaged self-esteem. And although picking oneself up when one falls is a lesson learned through many experiences, this one, for reasons that are deeper than I can fully calculate, came at a very good time in my life. I needed to fall. I needed to find a different kind of balance. In less than a year, I would meet my now wife, and I’m certain that at the time of that Chicago afternoon on the rink, I was not ready for her. I had to fall first.

It’s easy to think back to those long-ago Friday nights on the rink when I was far younger, stronger, more certain of the possibilities, and more physically and emotionally resilient to handle falls on the ice or anywhere else. In youth, our falls might seem more traumatic, but one begins to build the callouses that will serve one well through life’s trip-ups and tumbles. In those teenager years, I slipped and collapsed on the ice more times than I can recount. Sometimes, a friend or a stranger would help me back up. Other times, as the rink attendants worked to clear the ice to allow the Zamboni to do its job during a break in the skating, I was all alone at the far turn in the rink, awkwardly attempting to get upright, knowing that there may have been dozens of eyes watching as I flailed about.

I never got adept at ice skating. I was like so many others—good enough to carry on and persevere, but never finding enough body control to take it much beyond staying erect. What I was able to achieve, however, was something more sublime, those occasional moments when the ice becomes a flowing river, carrying you along with natural and gentle guidance, effortless wonder powered by the combination of self-awareness, steadiness, and freedom. There are few places one experiences that feeling than on ice.

My return drive near the Millennium Park Rink doesn’t permit me to see the skaters again. But I know they are there under the silver winter sky—the backward skaters, the twirlers, the tippy-toed experts, each of them alongside all the many others who flounder and pray for the mercy of balance, hoping for that elusive flash in time when everything comes together and you skate like never before, when all your movements are transcendent, and you float like an angel, and vow to someday return to the ice, fully aware that you have learned so very much.

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David W. Berner is the author of several books of award-winning fiction and memoir. His latest, Daylight Saving Time: The power of growing older is available now. His novella, American Moon will be published by Regal House Publishing in 2026.