“It’s impossible said pride, it’s risky said experience, it’s pointless said reason , give it a try whispered the heart.” In my generation growing up most children wake up go to kindergarten, come home, color and play with their toys or go to the park. They got excited for new barbies, or toy cars. Their small bodies filled with joy when their parents told them that after school they are going to the park, or to the toy store. I wasn’t like most kids, my park was two hundred feet long and eighty-five feet wide. It was fifty degrees in December and it was fifty degrees in July. My toy store did not have isles of cars and games or dolls. Instead my store had pucks, and sticks and tape, blades, dresses, gloves and ice skates. My park was Port Washington Ice Skating Rink in Long Island.
My brother is four years older then me so when I was in kindergarten he was in third grade and he played hockey, so everyday I was going to the ice skating rink to watch his practices. As I sat in the cold rink watching him skate from blue line to red line I saw a group of girls walk in and over the sound of my brothers hockey team taking slap shots I heard a faint noise, and being a curious kindergartener I followed it. I found my self in a new world. There was music and make up and dresses everywhere in this room. I watched the girls put something on their feet and to me they looked weird because I was use to my brothers big, bulky, smelly, black hockey skates. When my dad noticed I was gone he came to look for me and found me in the upstairs ice rink watching these girls spin and jump on ice.
The Essay on Garfield Park
When I first heard that we had to go to Garfield Park on a tour, I didn't think it was gonna be all that great. I knew a little a bit about that general area, and from what I had heard from other people it wasn't that appealing to me. Well, needless to say, when I got to Garfield it was a totally different story. I didn't expect it to be as clean and as good looking as it was. If I would have gone ...
I was infatuated with how they moved across the ice as if they were dancing. I didn’t know what it was called, or any of the names of those girls on the ice all I knew was that I needed to go and do it to. I wanted to be the one who was on the ice not watching from the side lines. I looked at my dad and just pointed to them and said a five letter word that changed the rest of my life. It was the only word I managed to have come out of my mouth through my admiration it was please. The next day I woke up and went to school but after school my dad picked me up and told me that he had a surprise for me and in the back of the car was a box filled with my own pair of ice skates, and a dress and my dad said to me “ Bell, today is the day you learn to skate.”
From that point on I skated all the time everyday. You couldn’t pull me away from it. I had lessons before school and then again after school. I started off in local shows and then it escalated into traveling competitions. I could not get enough of the ice. The way the cold air filled my lungs. The sound my blades made on the ice, or the noise my toe pick made as I went into a jump. The joy and excitement from winning medals and trophies. It was that day that I found my passion, that day I discovered who I was. To this day when I lace up my skates and step on the ice I go into a different world. I go into my two hundred foot long and eighty-five foot wide fifty degree world and it’s a world I don’t ever want to give up. With that five letter word and eyes of admirations I became a figure skater or as my brothers hockey team called me… a twirl girl.
