The hardest part about discovering a passion, life goal, or purpose is not letting it control you. Life, ironically, steals vivacity. There is a rancid reality that accompanies the pursuit of academia. Most professors warned me. I am trying to heed their advice.
There are cures. Hemingway and Faulkner famously drank away their demons. Millions anonymously followed suit, or worse. Edward Abbey became cannibalistic and cantankerous. With words, he devoured academics while preparing syllabi. Dr. Hunter Thompson committed suicide. I aim to skid the surface somewhere between extremes.
I choose roller derby.
My wife joined the cult of derby a little more than a year ago. At first, there were moments of trepidation. Placing her strong but delicate body into boots with eight wheels on a track where other agitated creatures with inflamed quads and a strong desire for concussions, consciousness, and comradeship is, in a word, insane. Yet, the sanity derby provides is invigorating and contagious.
Scholarship is the taming of the wildness of one’s intellect. Personally, I find the process necessary and not. I keep a strong sense of intellectual rebelliousness. And I have to admit, it’s exhausting.
As a student, the pressure to perform, the constant criticism, the never-ending noise surrounding my life leaves me starved for stability. All I want–or need–is a life as consistent as David Lynch’s hair. Constancy, however, is a 1950’s television dream.
Three days a week I go to an aged skating rink. I see the gentle often smiling faces of the people I’ve come to know, love, and appreciate this past year. We pull our smelly gear from our bags and begin to put them on. Helmet always first, followed by elbow pads, wrist guards, knee pads, mouth guard, then skates. Always while joking about our less-important non-derby lives.
It takes a few minutes for my legs to adjust to the skates and the creaking boards below. My thighs quickly burn. I am a novice surrounded by acrobats. After a few warm up laps, I start going faster. If by some maniacal mechanism my mind is still focused on problems, the slight breeze from an increased pace pushes worries away. I incorporate skills into my stride. I go faster. Sometimes I wobble, lose my balance, do something wrong, and fall, often hard, but never embarrassingly. In derby, falling is not failure. Quitting is the only sin. Even that is forgiven.
For two to three hours I think only about my skating. Strong, beautiful, and talented people from all backgrounds and genders urge me. On the team, acceptance is cliché. Everybody is full aware, but it seems negligent not to mention. To say the atmosphere is inclusive is as needless as saying a kiss is special.
Work, no matter how personally perfect, can never duplicate such a feeling.
My wife hits girls. I want to referee. Still, skating is the antiseptic. It challenges me in every way my career pursuit cannot. It gives me something to look forward to that has nothing to do with critical analysis or politics. Only heart matters.
We all need something to make the harshness of life more palatable. Sometimes we need a fix of feigned happiness. Sometimes we need escape.
I am still very new to skates, but there is one accomplishment I must mention. I can throw my head back and open my arms. I smell the menagerie of microbes which fill the stale air of the rink. I start to fade out the clatter of the rolling wheels and conversations. I put my arms out, baring my chest. I feel the cool breeze flow over my brow and around my arms. The tension in my legs makes me feel powerful.
Never in shame, but only for a second, I close my eyes and whisper or shout, “I am King of the World!”
What escape. What happiness.
Anthony Sadler 