Ice Princess-eez.

We came. We saw. We had an Ice-Capades moment.

I’m always strapping alternative footwear onto myself with these crazy Neo-Futurist people. Remember when I went rollerskating in Coney Island with the New York Neo girls? I let the breeze off the Atlantic be my lunch and we disco danced on wheels. I was wearing orange and I matched the roller rink. This afternoon, the bunch of us took the Metro to the Smithsonian stop and walked over to the sculpture garden because there is an outdoor ice skating rink there and we all felt like we needed to do some gliding. I was wearing white and I matched the ice.

We rented those classic, consistently uncomfortable rental skates that all ice skating rinks rent and stuffed our belongings into tiny lockers. Our fingers were stiff from the start; it was below freezing in D.C. today but we weren’t afraid. Then, just as we were ready to take to the ice and do some fancy footwork (Jasper) or remember how to do what we hadn’t done for several years (Charley), the dude made the announcement that it was time for ice resurfacing. So we watched the Zamboni for awhile and I thought of this slam poem I used to cover. An ex-boyfriend wrote it and it was about his experience in New York City and I never should’ve covered that poem. I should’ve written more of my own poems instead of spending time covering someone else’s, but I was younger then and I wanted street cred that I hadn’t earned, so I borrowed his. Anyway, there’s a line in it about a Zamboni. It’s a really good poem.

Finally, the Zamboni was done and we were let out onto the ice. It was so great. These people are my friends. And as we went round and round and laughed good-naturedly at the little girl who seemed to be intentionally biffing so she could giggle and get her pants soaking wet, as we encouraged each other to try turns or skate backwards, as we fell into our own rhythms and found ourselves skating alone a few times, I thought that I was very lucky indeed to be where I was, when I was. I was also grateful for my rabbit fur-lined trapper hat.

The ice was smooth. The sky was clear. Smithsonian buildings were laid out before us and the sculptures peeked through the trees and the hedges. Everyone fell down at least once. Then there was cocoa and cake.

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