Committed Enough to Fall
My 17-year-old nephew Greg skateboards everyday, rain or shine. He builds his own ramps and jumps with my father, a skilled carpenter. Greg does AMAZING and daring stunts off-camera, but unlike his uncle (who adores an audience), he can never quite get the stunt right when he is being filmed. I think he did a fine job.
Here we have Greg's Kickflip
Here's his Ollie
In this one he attempts a Varial Flip. He does not succeed, but his attitude is great, so I asked if we could include it. (The voice in the back ground is my funky father yucking it up)
From watching Greg I discovered that there is no way that you can learn these stunts unless you are committed enough to fall flat on your face (and your butt and your side and sometimes even your head).
How true for so many of us-- comic artists, cartoon artists,
performance artists, and ministers who preach in drag,
men who attempt to build healthy gay relationships, trans women and men,
queer and a tad bit odd podcasters,
and blogging/vlogging mothers, passionate panda-loving bisexuals,
gentle gay techno-geeks, singing and acting survivors and thrivers,
thoughtful straight allies, ex-gay survivors, Quaker pyschologists,
Gay Christians, and Emerging gay Christians, and gay fathers and more gay Christians,
and artistic wise souls who know that there is wholeness and healing in spite of the mess they had to trudge through.
We leap, hoping the net will appear, but sometimes we hit hard ground. We pick ourselves up, sometimes alone, but often with friends nearby and we press on, we press on.
posted by Peterson Toscano @ 5:41 PM
7 Comments:
Peterson, perchance did a word get dropped when you said "My 17-year-old Greg"?
Just curious...
Thanks Steve! Greg is my nephew, but we are an Italian family, so everyone's kids belong to each other. Little distinction between nephew and son and cousin and sister.
Cool...
Yeah, good old pain as a necessary component of growth. Sometimes I just hope I don't die in the process (hmm, I guess skateboarding is a pretty good analogy)...
Love the first picture. Looks like a kung-fu move. Crane-style skateboard-fu. Sweet!
I LOVE me some Ann! Thanks Bob for sharing this with us and thanks Ann for being so amazing.
Thanks Peterson! It is interesting to me this phenom that seems to be taking over of getting something for nothing. Like sitting on our butts will have great rewards. I wrote a while back about Paris' and his skateboarding attempts and the fat lip that resulted. You know, he's still skating and he's getting better and better. He continues to get bloodied and scraped. But the smile on his face when he lands a trick...priceless! He still gets a little upset when he sees kids like your nephew, older kids, who can do more. I just remind him that eventually he'll be their age, and if he keeps working at it, he'll be as good as, if not better, than them.
j.
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