Ice skating is meditative and difficult and terrifying and beautiful, like knitting on a roller coaster. You should try it sometime.
The rink where I learned to ice skate last year is the most Toronto thing ever. You exit the subway, walk through a wall of secondhand smoke, and down a set of crumbling cement stairs. On a nearby wall a swirly 1970s sign reads “Snack Bar.” A guy in hockey skates falls forward on ice and saves himself with a push-up.
As a kid I moved because my body insisted on it, like a dog begging to play. Roller coasters and bicycles and trampolines were my whole life. But as I got older, play turned into work, a weird simulacrum of physical wage labor where you earned something called “fitness” instead of money. It wasn’t supposed to be fun, especially if you weren’t thin.
When you’re fat, you’re also told that your body is an emergency, like a five-alarm fire. There’s no room for getting comfortable, getting to know yourself, or goofing off. There’s no time for pleasure or gentle exploration. Just: Get out. Get a new body.friend. By the way, this is advice I give to my clients : Have that friend.
It is no longer the 1980s, and roller discos are sadly uncommon . But there are more than a hundred ice rinks in Toronto. The public skating sessions are free. You just show up with skates, walk in, and go. Contrary to what I saw on TV growing up, when my mom and I huddled together in her bed to watch Tonya Harding at the Olympics, figure skaters come in a wide range of shapes and sizes. There are tons of adult figure skating competition videos on YouTube to prove it, and even more plus-size adult skaters on Instagram with amazing videos of their jumps and spins.
I still occasionally swim with a fat friend or two, and most days I get up early to go skating. It does not require any of the discipline I learned to associate with exercise, because it does not feel like work. It feels like play. It’s exploring and goofing off. I approach the rink, the ice like a sheet of frosted glass, and then I’m gliding, slaloming, sliding, the slice of my blades echoing under the arena dome.My weight has not changed.
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