Each of my last two Sundays, I’ve made it a mission to make it a mission. Skate the streets. I realize that the longer my body lives through life, the less weekends I have left to do so. Days are limited in any sense, and my time surely won’t start expanding now. While I’m “young,” I’d like to keep progressing and pushing my personal limits, in more ways than one but skateboarding included.
So this past Sunday, location nonspecific, I was hopping over a fence to find what that particular schoolyard had to offer. It’s not so easy, climbing fences, as it used to be, but it’s still very doable. As I set foot on the other side, I thought to myself how I used to fantasize about hopping that fence (hypothetically) in the other direction when I was stuck behind those classroom windows a decade ago. The irony hit me like a great joke’s punchline that I wasn’t a student any longer. But I was trespassing to get back on school grounds. On a Sunday. It wasn’t even the same school I’d once attended each day - it was a monolith of an institution; the public schools in Los Angeles are even more prison-like than the ones in Wilmington, NC.
So this past Sunday, location nonspecific, I was hopping over a fence to find what that particular schoolyard had to offer. It’s not so easy, climbing fences, as it used to be, but it’s still very doable. As I set foot on the other side, I thought to myself how I used to fantasize about hopping that fence (hypothetically) in the other direction when I was stuck behind those classroom windows a decade ago. The irony hit me like a great joke’s punchline that I wasn’t a student any longer. But I was trespassing to get back on school grounds. On a Sunday. It wasn’t even the same school I’d once attended each day - it was a monolith of an institution; the public schools in Los Angeles are even more prison-like than the ones in Wilmington, NC.
It’s a sort of complicated irony that’s hard to nail down in one sentence though. Here I am, in LA because I’d pursued this path of encouraging education for skateboarders across the country (plug Collegiate Skate Tour). It was a very complex set of circumstances that got me to thinking, "maybe I’m actually a bit loony." All else aside, my counterparts and I choose to jump those fences and explore those patches of terrain because of skateboarding. It is to redefine that space that we even show up. It’s not to punch in. It’s to give it another go, this time with an entirely new angle. I was never a student of architecture, but I can intricately describe to you off the top of my head the structure of any school in my zip code (and many others in nearby areas). A lot of my writing repeats themes of perspectives forever changing, and this is a prime example of such.
The way in which I decide to see those places is the only reason I pursue it. And the only reason I ever pursue it is to find new ways to see them. It’s comical to realize but fascinating to think about. A childhood pastime turned into a simple obsession which intricately built a way of life, even into my mid-twenties. Although it may be captured with a SnapChat filter from time to time, it’s a very real view. Whether or not I were ever a student of a school in that context, it’s most important to be a student of life, constantly looking for new ways to observe your surroundings and act upon them.
Going skating, “trespassing,” embracing the adventure and meeting all sorts of characters along the way.
- 7Ply Epic
The way in which I decide to see those places is the only reason I pursue it. And the only reason I ever pursue it is to find new ways to see them. It’s comical to realize but fascinating to think about. A childhood pastime turned into a simple obsession which intricately built a way of life, even into my mid-twenties. Although it may be captured with a SnapChat filter from time to time, it’s a very real view. Whether or not I were ever a student of a school in that context, it’s most important to be a student of life, constantly looking for new ways to observe your surroundings and act upon them.
Going skating, “trespassing,” embracing the adventure and meeting all sorts of characters along the way.
- 7Ply Epic