mar 21 2021 - a roundabout confrontational

ice skating, slush ruts, circular + cyclical motion, & 🥰🥰

Mar 22, 2021

i can’t believe ‘first quarter moon slush’ (ur fave monthly missive) and ‘soft bodies in hard places’ (my petit curatorial platform) have existed since 2018 and it took til mar 2021 for me to go ice skating

get ready for the most m*ta slushee u’ve ever read 🥰

spiderman pointing meme: 3 spiderman’s read “soft bods” “hard places” & “slushees”

it was such a special day in the sun. under the bright reflecting back in my face, it was impossible to discern where the slush was pooling throughout the scuffed up ice. slush on ice does not care for my momentum; it’ll sink me impassively and still hurt 🥰 i just had to remember to keep my knees and ankles soft as a dear one and i glided around the very hard place. (LOL i told you!)

i could probably count the times i’ve ever ice skated on one hand, the last time being at least 10+ yrs ago and, like with running, returning to this xtreme sport as my dancer self was wild. but somehow it took me less time to get my legs under me than it did on a bike. in case you haven’t heard me say it before, that adage is a lie, i wouldn’t die on this hill but i have fought ppl about it #ariesszn 🥰

what i love about ice skating physics (as my layperson brain understands it, someone correct me), one can only guide momentum from a circle, not a straight line. to accelerate or decelerate, one must channel the ~centripetal force~ and redirect it to where one wants to go

GIF: Michelle Kwan making so many small circles as she turns a big circle around the rink

it is a round sport, it is a roundabout motion, and it’s #ariesszn, where supposedly, we act in the straightest line possible. and yet, pushing my skate to the side and behind me to sort of go forward feels pretty confrontational (in a gemini first quarter moon kinda way) to me, idk!!! nobody @ me, that’s my take! #ariesszn 🥰

s/o to all the round human motion crammed into linear frameworks — from cardinal directions of “left, right, forward, backward” moving across space to more localized body language like “lift” “bend” “push” “up” “down.” the round arcs of force that move a torso or a limb loop around many a curve, no?skating just brushes these forces across the slip so their evershifting velocities are made more apparent on the body! in case u couldn’t already tell, i barely passed the state exam for high school physics 🥰

this slushee might consider the biomechanics of ice skating alongside the ever newsy cycles of outrage and grief. the momentum took me here, oop! this slushee could point out where cherished moments like this ice skating date and its exaltation in sunny release fit in the weather pattern, and it surely does and yet, where it fits also feels like a less interesting point to make.

another point might be that some things appearing to move forward or linearly may actually/also be moving in a circle, or even, in a cycle. if so, in what direction(s)? the last year has invited from me a heightened awareness of how my body is predisposed to respond to what have become familiar ~strata~ in the ~spheres~

———(dw, the unsubscribe button is somewhere down below)———

idk who needs to hear this (it’s me. i need to hear it) but i’m thinking about ~resisting~ the modes 2020 helped (forced?) me to remember as well… Not It: reactiveness, doomscrolling, intentionlessness, astroturfy bs, etc.

or even, as ~skating taught me~, circles can loop and they can also skid off course. i can (briefly?) exit the hamster wheel. i can react to XYZ differently than WXY from last wk. i can fall softly and consider new forces to re-surmount inertia—another way of moving, a sweetie to help me on my feet, a stranger to encourage me from afar. (someone beamed “WOW” at me trying to skate backwards and honestly)

anywho, i only took one hard fall when the slush rut was too much. all other times, i let select muscles turn to goo & just melted onto the ice 🥰

video by a sweetie: me turning centripetal force into centrifugal force on ice skates & sliding & ~spiraling~ into a graham 4th, iykyk ugh. if you can, geolocate the slush rut, based on my motion 🥰

as predicted, i quite miss walking on snow 😭 it was everywhere so quickly and gone before i could watch it melt; i was prlly stuck on z00m 😭 i really can’t imagine how i’ll have anything left to say about ~walking on water~ next month, unless someone wants to (~safely~ 💀) take me water skiing 🥰

happy #ariesszn! i look forward to: interrupting ppl more this month 🥰 calling people out! it’s nbd, ur probably not canceled! 🥰 calling ppl when i just feel like it! tho some of y’all have been doing this to me at the same time; know when it’s the right moment! 🥰 growing my #ariesszn2021 soundtrack; it’s extremely loud! what’s on urs?