Dublin on Ice

I hear the sounds of children and teenagers laughing and screaming. It is an exciting time of the year for Dubliners, in a place where the lakes and ponds rarely freeze, a winter festival with an indoor ice skating rink sets up shop, as if appearing out of no where, on a side street in the Smithfield area. We were waiting in line and I was excited and anxious; I hadn’t been ice skating in years. I used to love it, but I was nervous that my adult body would betray me on the. The surrounding teenagers pushed and shoved around me as I approached the Skate Hire window to exchange my boots for skates. I joined my friends on the benches as we all tried to get our skates on; they were not the most comfortable thing to wear.
The air was cold and still, different from outdoors because there was no wind to burn our faces. I could see the rink ahead and my nervousness rose. One by one, we entered the rink, arms out and prepared to fall. The ice was more slippery than I remembered, or maybe my skates weren’t sharp enough. I refused to think that it was my own inability to balance and guide my own body weight. We couldn’t help but giggle over our own silliness. The enthusiasm of everybody around us was hard to ignore. This was something that we take advantage of back home, but here, it was a event that only took place for a short time once a year.
We looked absolutely ridiculous, gripping the walls and inching along. Kids that barely cleared my knee were zooming by me like they were born with skates on their feet. However, I was determined to get the hang of it before we left.
My legs felt wobbly and unstable, as if I were learning to walk all over again. We eventually found ourselves needing the wall less and less, and although there were a few spills we began to make our way around the rink with more ease. Every time someone fell nearby, the thud seemed to shake you from the inside out. Skating was not nearly as fun or easy as I had remembered but we were doing the best we could. I felt myself getting aggravated that I couldn’t zoom around the rink with the ease I imagined in my head. As the pain started to set into the arches of my feet, I decided to accept defeat. Unlike most of the people on the rink, we were all anxious to get off the ice, and get back onto stable ground. Given the choice, I’m not sure if I’d go ice skating again but it was interesting to take part in such a coveted event in Dublin.