Calaveras Station 2004 - Sk8'ing Through Life in A.A.

Sk8'ing Through Life in A.A.

Anonymous

It's a perfect summer Saturday afternoon in Midtown Sacramento. Without a cloud in sight, nor a trace of humidity in the air and the temperature peaking out at a very livable 80 degrees, I'm reminded of why I have returned here. Here, I have returned--after the long dark night of the soul--to grow. Here - California - is skate Mecca, the land of dreams, a place where I can grow into the person I always dreamed of becoming. The yearning to commune with my skate and to get back to what used to be everything to me is pulling me to the converted warehouse that is the closest skate sanctuary from my room at the half-way house on 23rd to the end of B Street on the other side of the railroad tracks down by the American River. Heeding the call and absent-mindedly readjusting the chinstrap on my helmet, I skate along thinking about the tricks I'm going to try that day on the street course.

The early afternoon light flickers in high through the broad leaves overhead and the wind cools the beading sweat on the back of my neck as I near the railroad tracks. The hairs on my arm stand on end as I realize IÍm already putting expectations on my session just by imagining what I want to see happen. I really hate that word, expectations. Alcoholics Anonymous - of which I'm a six month and still counting member - suggests living without them because expectations screw everything up: relationships, sessions, lives, and even perfect summer afternoons in Sac town. As I pop over a crack in the sidewalk created by the slow upheaval of the roots of a giant California oak, pop goes A.A.'s spiritual axiom about expectations right into my head. It states that our expectations are inversely proportional to our level of serenity. In other words, the higher our expectations are, the lower our serenity level will be. Hmm... I don't want to ruin my session before I even get there, so I have to let those expectations go. Have to turn 'em over to the Big Kahuna in the sky. Just need to let it flow, have fun, kick back and watch because more will always be revealed.

When I arrive at the end of the roughshod road and step into the cavernous yawn of the old warehouse that is the skate cathedral, I am in awe. A ramp has miraculously appeared since my last visit. I feel like Tommy Guerrero from the Bones Brigade in the Powell-Peralta classic, "The Search for Animal Chin" when he spots the mythic Chin Ramp from a hilltop outside the tiny pueblito of Guadalupe. She isn't exactly the Chin Ramp, but boy she is a beaut for a transition-starved skater such as myself. Six feet tall, 24 feet wide, seven-foot extensions and steel coping make her a tantalizing temptation. She is worthy of frenzied idolatry and worship. I check my helmet strap and jump on her smooth, brown, masonite skin pumping away at her deliciously elliptical transitions with genuine voracity. The motion generates a sound something akin to a giant vacuum cleaner on slow-mo. Vhroomm! Vhrooom! with each pass it goes. I just know that this is going to be the beginning of a beautiful relationship. After a few quick hard pumps of the old back ïn forth, I jump on top of her and really plunge in. She's rock steady and just as smooth as she looks. Expectations linger as I slide the axles of my board across her steel lips fast and easy as if she had just applied lip-gloss for our unexpected rendezvous.

I smile, pleased.

She sits silent, as in wait. . .

Coming off a 50/50, I lose my footing. Catching me unsteady, she slams my head so hard against her masonite skin that the force of the blow causes my tongue to lurch outwards to its full extension. When my head snaps back from the whiplash, it feels as if I have almost bitten my tongue in two. If it hadn't been so forcibly ejected, I would have bitten off the tip because that's all that would have been thrust out of my mouth for my teeth to bite down on. The helmet - that I never wear so tightened - has saved my noggin. My elbows and wrists absorb the rest of the blow. They swell to grotesque proportions. Splinters of bone float in the rushing blood just below the skin's surface where arm meets forearm. The fear of not getting what I want invades my being to the core.

She's smiling now, punishing me for my impetuous zeal, for my lack of decorum. Lying on the flat bottom, my head rings as little sparks of light flicker in my peripheral vision like an acid flashback. The shock sets in as fast as it happened. My legs are cooked spaghetti. My heart races and the fear pounces on me in anticipation of the coup de grace that my body anticipates will come momentarily. I try to walk it off and regain my composure. The fear of not getting what I want - of not busting out the ollie front side air I had learned the week before, and the instinct of self-preservation are screaming at me to stay the hell of that bitch of a ramp who has just served me up a bitter serving of humble pie. I get back on, angrily determined to impose my will on her. My will be done, damn it all!

I run back up the steep eight-foot transition, drop in, and begin to pump her gently, feeling her out, trying to warm her up a bit as I shake off the shock of the first slam. I slowly build up speed and begin teasing her lip with little pecks of my axle until I feel confident enough to try and pop a small ollie up, out, and over her lip. The instinct for self-preservation and the fear of more humble pie makes me bail out of it before I even reach my peak in the air. Frustration and anger grow exponentially.

Our relationship has gone sour on the first date. It's true what they say in A.A. about relationships. If you aren't sure what your character defects are just get into a relationship early in recovery. It's like putting miracle-grow on them, they say. Stepping off my board in self-contempt, I walk over to the waiver of liability desk and buy a Gatorade from the skate jockey who has taken no notice of my slams or inner struggle of man versus himself. Sipping on my aide and thinking about all the other skaters who have enjoyed her before me, I grow envious and jealous of their abilities and the good times she has shown them. Envy, jealousy and fear are my companions. They take special interest in my inner struggle. They tell me to bombard my problem (this capricious ramp in this case, itÍs never me, you know) with my seemingly indomitable but very finite will power. I get back on her and pump her transitions until I have enough speed to pop off her lip in a front side air. I run out of it. It just didn't feel right. The urge to kill is rising, steadily rising. Then, arming myself with all the self-will I can muster I drop in, pop off the lip, grab the outside edge of my board, and hold on for dear life. For too long, I hold on. I hold on even though it doesn't feel right. Paying for my willfulness and ignorance of my intuition, I slam hard again. My head is ringing. Stars are flying. My elbows are screaming again in bruised and swollen pain. The fear is at the point of ebullition. It seeps out the corners of my eyes in righteous anger.

"This is insane," I think while painfully righting myself from the prone position of the slam. I need to step back and reevaluate my approach because my way just isnÍt working. My will got me into A.A. so why should I try and impose it here? The other skaters mill about on the parkÍs street course oblivious to the gravity of my metacognitive dilemma. If my thinking got me into this, how can I use the same thinking to get out of it? Is this not insane? Wallowing in self-pity and watching the other skaters enjoy their session, the definition of insanity that is thrown around the rooms of A.A. comes to mind. They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. If that is the real definition of insanity, then my whole tribe of skateboarders is insane because one has to try a trick over and over again to finally land it. I figure that I need to do something different because at this point a normie (someone who drinks normally, whatever that is) or even a Double A daddy (an Alcoholic in recovery) would consider me insane for the beating that I was taking on Miss uncooperative half pipe. She is my master, and fear is her means of control, just as alcohol was before. She is using fear to keep me from becoming the best skater I can be just as alcohol used fear to keep me from being the best person I could be.

The late afternoon light and the Delta breeze waft serenely over us and through the park. I'm looking down at the mammoth U structure before me. A prayer just might release me from the bondage of fear and of self. This notion, as if by providence, pops in to visit the bad part of town known as my head. This might give me some perspective on the situation. Remembering all those foxhole prayers made during my drunken years of debauchery and self-indulgence causes doubts. This prayer has to be different. Asking God to help me land this trick would be just like all those selfish 911 prayers I had made when I was out there. A shaggy-haired grommet, all kneepads and baggy shorts, drops in on the other side of the ramp and almost pulls my trick on his first try. Slapping the tail of my board against the steel coping kudoing him for his effort, I sit for a minute enjoying the Delta breeze while thinking about thinking.

What is my part in this whole affair of self-will run riot? How had fear come to run my thoughts? What was at stake? Gromm drops in and pulls my trick. "Yeah!" I yell in recognition. He's smiling big time. I'm peeved at me, but happy for him. Being peeved and angry is a manifestation of fear, says the big book of A.A. So, I'm angry because I am scared. I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to bust out the trick so my pride, ego and personal status is at stake. Rather than trying to do the Big Kahuna's will, I'm trying to impose my own. It has to be his will, not mine. If I can't pray for what I want, I have to pray for the Big K in the sky to remove my fear. Accepting that it is there is the first step to liberation. "Of course! The serenity prayer! How could I be so oblivious?!" Closing my eyes, I mouth it out loud.

"Oh, Big Kahuna in the sky, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

Opening my eyes, I see that the little ripper on the opposite deck of the ramp is smiling at me. I smile back. The others skaters mill about kick flipping here and there on the street course below in their own little worlds as I am in mine. If the Big Kahuna would take away my fear and replace it with courage, this could be one of the things that I could change. "Breathe, relax, trust the process," I say to myself envisioning the set up for the air before even dropping into the transitions. I have to place the front foot, just behind the front truck bolts, position the back foot to pop the tail off the lip, have a good amount of speed, ready the left hand to grasp the outside edge of my board while in the air for a split second and then let go. It's the last step, releasing the board in mid air that takes faith. If I do the proper footwork, the aforementioned steps - just as I do in Alcoholics Anonymous with the twelve steps of recovery - and have enough velocity, all it would take to pull myself back into the ramp would be the belief, the faith, that it was possible. I have to let go of it completely and trust the process just as I do in A.A. Someone 360 flips on the street course below. Gromm knee slides to the flat to get some water.

Instinct and logic tell me to bail out of it when I hit my peak in the air. They scream at me, "You can't just fly through the air like that! What about gravity, huh?" It's counterintuitive and goes against all logic, that's how I know that it is spiritually the right thing to do. If all I have is a dollar in my pocket and I'm at a meeting, logic tells me to save it for myself for later. If I give it to AA, and have faith in the process, it will come back to me in ways I can't even imagine.

Gromm returns, water dribbling down his chin. He pumps back in forth building momentum, as do my thoughts. Spirituality is not based on logic, it is faith driven. Faith makes the impossible, possible. Faith has allowed me to be clean and sober for six months. Flying through the air on my skateboard is a test of faith that releases me from the bondage of self, helps me confront my fear and takes me away from my overly analytical, logical mind. Gromm is topside now waiting for me to drop in so he doesn't have to. He needs a breather. I'm spun out of head right now on many levels. However, when I'm in the air on my skate, logic, reason and gravity's pull are transcended all at once and I feel true freedom. All this is running through my head as I look down at her perfect transitions. Gromm, on the opposite deck, is intently watching me, hoping to get a breather between runs.

One more deep breath before I drop in. Vhroomm! I set up with a fakie rock on her first wall. Vhroomm! Rolling backwards into a tail stall on the opposing wall, I position my feet. Dropping back in, I build speed by crouching low. Vhroom! I'm popping the tail off the lip now, up and over the coping I fly. Frictionlessly my wheels whir in the air. Grabbing the outside edge of my board I hit my air's peak. Now is the moment of truth. I've done all I can at this point, I have to let go and trust in the process: courage instead of fear. Momentarily, I float. Then, the most beautiful sound in the world: all four wheels of my skate touching down on the ramp's smooth surface at the same time. It's a sound of self-assuredness: like the crack of hard rock maple on asphalt that comes from a light footed ollie, so satisfying, clean, and true. I'm rolling up the other wall of the ramp now, smiling.

Afterwards, Gromm asks me, "Were you praying before you dropped in?"

"Yep. I was. It makes me remember why I started skating."

"Cool."

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