Hockey Day in Brook Village

We finally got to skate today. And under a sunny sky, a rarity it seems near the sea. A family in Brook Village floods a quarry to use as a rink. It's a small rink but enough to go around and around in circles or take shots on a makeshift goal.

I bought shiny new skates just for this and they didn't disappoint. I guess I have to still work them in but let this be a lesson: don't buy the same sized skates as your shoe size. They must always be smaller sized. I didn't know this before this year and suffered greatly in recent years.

The ice was a little rough but it was nice to shuffle around (with Dan dancing around me like a figure skater). Skating with my stick and passing the puck was actually nice because I stopped thinking about what my legs were doing and just received and passed the puck. The stick also helped me to balance like a high wire acrobat. I fell of course but no damage done, though my shoulder is hurting me now.

The thing with skating and with living the way you want to live is that the longer you keep at it the better you get and the faster it goes. There's a little voice inside me that sometimes says, "What are you doing? You don't actually think that you'll be able to provide for yourself? You dope. Go home and get a job". It's a small voice I assure you. But it's there. It's the voice of our culture, wanting to make me into a slave, reliant on a system to provide for all my needs and wants. It's not going to work culture, your days are numbered.

So I was flying, for me anyway, before we left the ice. I can't wait to go back. Is this an authentic Canadian moment or what? And it only took 30 years.