The Woman at the Rink

I saw the most beautiful woman today.

I took the girls ice skating this morning, since today was one of those random "teacher work days" that gave us a day off from school completely unrelated to any holiday...During Middle Lady's lesson, I started to watch a tall young man skate. He skated along, occasionally jumping and turning with amazing grace and ease. Then, as the lesson ended, he was joined by a woman likely in her 50's, so like him in look and manner that she had to be his mother. She, too, was tall, and frankly, by most standards, quite ordinary looking, with short gray hair and large eyeglasses. She wore a simple figure skating dress and skated alongside the young man, laughing and talking. Every once in a while, she would step out from their path, jumping and turning, or simply floating in a fluid arc.....It was beautiful to watch her obvious love and friendship with her son, punctuated with periodic expressions of her own confident grace. This is a woman comfortable in her own skin. And, as I simultaneously nursed the baby, unlaced a 3 year old's skate, and kept an eye on a skating 7 year old, I hoped that one day I too could move this smoothly and seamlessly between loving mother and inspiring individual woman.....

So, here's to you, Woman Skating at Ashburn Ice House. Rock On.