Skated Out

I went to the Bease yesterday and skated around without any socks on. The reduction in weight made board manipulation easier, and I did a nice no-comply out of the bowl. It was mighty hot out, let me tell you. By the time I got home, my t-shirt had a higher salt content than the Dead Sea.

Repeated ankle sprains have pulled a muscle in my foot and it's not healing. I think I need to take some time off, despite the big Skate Jam this week-end. Being an unsponsored pro has it's plus sides: nobody calling me up for photo shoots at all hours, no demos to do with screaming kids, no pressure to learn handrails--I don't even have to skate if I don't want to.

I've been reading a book from the seventies about primal scream therapy. The main idea is that we carry around in our bodies all of the pain and trauma we experienced in childhood but were unable to deal with at that time. Until we face the experiences that caused the hurt in the first place we act it all out symbolically in the form of neurosis and physical ailment.

This idea puts a new light on the thousand and one aches and pains that plague me. I wonder if skateboarding itself is just a habit I latched on to to manage psychological trauma--in the same way that other people turn to drinking, drugs, overwork, or what have you. According to scream therapy, the path to liberation begins when one turns from the coping mechanims we have adopted and own up to the original hurts in our lives. In other words: feel the pain, baby.