Lacking Skills

We just returned from a Washington Virtual Academy (of which we're a part) field trip. It was roller skating.

Here's knowledge I gained growing up in the shadows of the Ruby Mountains in rural Nevada.

1-How to cross a barbed wire fence.

2-How to saddle a horse.

3-How to cook and eat Rocky Mountain Oysters.

I could teach my children any one of those things.

Here's what I don't know how to teach them.

How to roller skate.

It's not a real common skill you learn when you live on the end of a dirt road.

I've been roller skating exactly two times in my life. Once my grandma took my sisters and me.

I was an unwilling and uncoordinated student.

The second time was at FFA state in Reno. They took the country bumpkins to a roller rink. Some of the kids were OK at it. I refused to try. I know my limits. Rick Moon (who was a senior boy) took my hands and insisted I give it a try. When you're a shy freshman girl and a senior boy takes your hands and drags you out on the rink, it becomes harder to refuse.

Again, I was an unwilling and uncoordinated student.

I do not know how to roller skate.

I felt anxiety from the minute I knew about the field trip. But my kids wanted to go. So we did.

They looked at me for instruction.

I had nothing.

Mark flailed around and finally gave up and went and watched older boys play video games. (I didn't get my $5 back even though he didn't even enter the rink.)

Emma clung straight legged to the side and made two friends with other side clingers. They enthusiastically exchanged phone numbers when it was time to leave.

Braeden thrashed around and struggled but actually managed to learn to skate tolerably well. He had some spectacular crashes but insisted he was having fun every time I asked him if it was time to go yet. (please?)

I felt like I was in one of Dante's circles of hell.

...new torments and new tormented souls I see around me wherever I move, and howsoever I turn, and wherever I gaze.