An Icy Box of Memories

A Non-fictional Memoir

Some names might be changed due to respect of privacy

“Did you see that? Casey rejected Harvard just so she could be a figure skater!” I marveled, “What a stupid thing to do!”

“Well,” my mother sighed. She was doing the dishes. “When a person loves what they do so much, he or she can go great lengths to pursue it, and even sacrifice other values.”

“Wow, “ I breathed. I was glued to the screen, observing the events in slight hesitation. This movie—“Ice Princess”—disregarded everything I was taught from the time I went to preschool. It defied my “Get into an Ivy League school, no matter what!” moral. It was berserk! Just think of it! Being happy without being in the top university! How is it possible?

No, no! Surely, it is not possible! Could I prove it?

A while passed. The movie ended. But my bewilderment has not.

“Mum,” A strange, bizarre, wonderful thought ignited my mind and sent my soul flying, “Mum! Can I we go to the rink?”

My mom put down the saucer. She put down the spatula.

Then, she simply nodded, and said, “Sure.”

“When can we go?” My mother raised her eyebrows at the exhilaration in my eyes—I was sure it was as obvious as a fly in a soup.

“You just can’t wait, can you?” My mother’s laugh echoed in my heart as I nodded absentmindedly, “You’re becoming obsessed!”

I wasn’t. Of course I wasn’t. I simply wanted to try it out.

And when the 2006 winter Olympics were broadcasted on our small kitchen TV, I watched the figure skating part not because I was becoming obsessed.

Do I care that it is half an hour to midnight on a Sunday evening and instead of being fast asleep I am absorbed in the television set? Not really; I am being pulled like a magnet to the magical performances of figure skaters. To most people, this sport is all about ballerinas in fluffy costumes leaping across a sheet of ice, and twirling in the air. For instance, Jessie Lynn, my best friend from school, had a completely ignorant opinion on the matter.

“Did you watch skating yesterday?” I asked her.

“You mean speed skating? That was like a week ago! Korea totally dominated that one!” Jessie Lynn said surreptitiously.

I cleared my throat, “Actually, I meant figure skating.”

“Oh, that,” she snorted without any interest, “Ew! It’s so old fashioned; they wear dresses and glitter.”

I chuckled. It may be so, but to me, figure skating is a symphony of art, music, and passion. These men and women are devoted to their sport more than anything else I their life, and they feel the music more than the icy air that chills their skin. Their movements were so natural, their faces glistening with joy—like they belong.

Suddenly, I wasn’t satisfied with being the spectator anymore.

I wanted to be the skater.

Surely, it can’t be that hard. Skating, it’s like walking—on ice. Right?

Wrong.

I couldn’t even balance on these things! And through my panic, I watched the sheet of crisp, translucent ice lie out in front of me, although beckoning “Come on! Jump on me! Do a spin!” Um, yeah right.

However, the little girls that I saw near the sideboards weren’t scared at all; they, clad in velvet jackets and scalloped skirts, combined with neat over-the-boot tights, looked polished for some serious training. (I made a mental note; later this week my mom and I will check out those tights on eBay.) The miniature girls discussed something in their high-pitched voices; they seemed to be arguing about some kind of jump they’re working on.

I wasn’t jealous of them. No, not at all. Though the fact that I was extra tall for my age and couldn’t even move in figure skates on the ground didn’t really boost my ego. Okay, okay, maybe I was a little envious.

Then, as a breeze of frosted air melted against my cheeks, all my thoughts evaporated. Inside, I became as free as a butterfly that escaped from its cocoon. From that moment on, I knew that I wanted to keep doing this—I strived to see how far I could get.

I was eleven at the time, and without having yet discovered my true calling, this prospect of succeeding at such a beautiful, ethereal sport was as alluring and elusive as a mirage of haven on the desert horizon. And dangerous.

I kept coming back to the rink; each Saturday was looked forward to as a sacred day of celebration. And each Saturday, I got better and better, and my curiosity waxed into an ambition of success. I did not care that I had to wake up at six o’clock on a weekend to get ready for the seven a.m. session, in hopes of having the ice all to myself for at least half an hour. Then the rink would get crowded and I didn’t fancy that. When people flocked to the right and left of me, skaters better than me, I lost my focus. That’s right, I was frustrated at times. It was like small daggers pierced my heart when I saw little girls as young as seven do elements much more advanced than anything I could ever master. Oh, how I had silently wept, how I stalked off the ice with the feeling of diminished pride.

Yet I continued to pursue my delusion. When time came and my first figure skates did not own up to my level any longer, I had begged my parents to upgrade to new ones, this time even more expensive. In the town’s public library, I dedicated long hours to studying diagrams and formulas of the moves of figure skating, hoping that with the gained understanding, I could recreate them myself. I forced myself to stretch every single day until from being the most inflexible one in my circle of friends I became the most agile and lithe. I made friends with the people at the rink, but I also made friends online, I communicated with amateur skaters like me from all over the country. To make it easier to talk about our skating, we recorded videos of ourselves skating and uploaded in the web.

One evening, I heard a knock on my bedroom door while I was editing one of these videos. I jolted in my seat, unnerved, and annoyed at the distraction. Because of the way my hand jerked at the sound, I had clicked on the exit button and left the program, leaving the video I was working on unsaved and unpublished.

“Oh God,” I scowled, cursing under my breath, as the door opened to reveal my mother loitering in the doorway.

“What?!” I snapped at her, and immediately I knew I shouldn’t have. A pained look crossed her face, yet she continued calmly:

“Did you finish your homework?”

I stole a glance at the monitor, “Yes. I mean—no.”

“Why not?” she pried, and at my attempt to shrug it off, she queried, “What are you doing now?”

When silence followed, she advanced closer to me; her expression dimmed as she recognized the windows minimized on my monitor screen. At that, her eyes cloud with pain, anger, and what is that—regret?

“I’ll do it, don’t worry,” I said, and went right back to procrastinating.

My mind was a blank slate in my attempt to comprehend the quiz questions. The pencil is shook in my hand, and I was unable to control my thoughts. When all was futile, I tried to remember the material from the textbook and work that I’ve done, but it only made matters worse. Instead of quadratic equations, what swam in my conscience were usernames and profiles of online individuals. At last, I managed to clear my head of the visualizations and scribble down some answers.

Against all my better judgment, I allow my gaze skid over to Jessie Lynn’s seat, just to find her calmly resting at her desk, proof-reading her answers. Her pencil was down. What? Oh no!—to my horror, she stood up to place her paper on Mrs. Alizieri’s desk. She was done! Thoughts start to race again. I grasped a tighter grip on the pencil and continued writing. I knew the bell was due to ring any crucial second, and BEEP! – it did. I still had two questions left unsolved. No, no, no! This couldn’t be happening to me! The class started buzzing once again as students handed in their quizzes one by one. I walked to the desk in agony, and pleadingly stared into Mrs. Alizieri’s face as I gave her my sheet.

“Are you ready?” Jessie Lynn gestured to the door.

A second was all I had left to skim the entire first page of my answers as the paper was obscured into the pile with everyone else’s. A second was all the time it took for me to lose all my hope.

“Sasha, what is this? What? Since when do you get bad grades in math? Did we come here all the way from Russia just so you could get a… C on your test?! Is this the kind of gratitude you show us for everything we’ve given you?”

“Papa, it was a quiz—“

But dad was on a roll today.

“Quiz, test, homework assignment, no matter! YOU should be at the highest level in everything! And what is this?” Dad was holding up a science test, with a fat ugly B sprawled on the front. “An 82 percent in seventh grade science! Unforgivable! Because of this, no skating for the next week, or the week after that!”

With that, he stalked off to his study. I guess the science and math tests combined were a double blow. My heart felt as heavy as the brimming tears in my eyes, which had yet to fall.

“What your dad means is,” my mother comforted, “is that skating is becoming too much of a distraction to your studies. If you had taken the initiative to study and learn, you would ace those tests—“

“Quiz and test,” I corrected.

“—that quiz and test,” my mom didn’t seem even a bit irritated, “Because you are one very intelligent girl. You are talented. But with talent alone you cannot succeed; you need to work at it as well.”

This angered me.

“That is, what YOU want me to succeed at!” I sputtered.

“Don’t we want the same thing?”

Huh?

I refused to say anything. I wanted to SKATE. Why couldn’t she understand?

“I just want you to be happy, Sasha,” she said softly, “Isn’t that what you want, too?”

“I want to skate, okay? Why can’t I have more time to skate? Why do I skate only on Saturdays?” I pressed. I knew why though. My parents physically couldn’t drive me there more often than that, and it was filthy expensive.

“Do you think you’ll be figure skating all your life?”

“Not really, but—“

“Will figure skating give you a job and provide you a future?”

“It won’t, but—“

“Then you’ve got to understand what role it plays in your life. It is a hobby, not a priority! You’ve got to stop wasting all your time on making those videos and socializing online! For whom are you doing it? Is it really that important? Important for your future?”

She left me speechless in pensive agony, with her own anguish in her eyes.

I don’t know for how long I have sat on my bed, motionless, letting the serenity take hold of my thoughts. Then, just as calmly, I approached my computer and turned it off. Without any further ado, I gathered all my books in my school bag, which I placed neatly beside my bed so I could grab it on my way out of the house the next morning. I turned off the lights and let the darkness engulf my room, but not letting it touch my soul or my conscience.

Then I drifted off to sleep, not worried about the break of dawn.

Tomorrow was going to be different.