For someone whose wallet contains a Medicare card, as mine does, ice skating probably isn't the most sensible sport. Still, skating at Rockefeller Plaza has long been on my figurative bucket list, and two years ago, I checked it off and went for it. For skaters, Rockefeller Plaza has the same power to awe and inspire as the great cathedrals of Europe do for people of faith. Skaters like me pilgrimage to that rink in the center of Manhattan, as if the site alone can metamorphose a tentative duffer into creature of captivating grace.
Of course, the night I skated under the gaze of the rink's golden Prometheus, no such transformation took place. Yet I like to think that I burnt up the ice with some pretty decent back crossovers and that among the bucket list set I was good enough to have earned a bronze. In short, I had a marvelous time.
My only regret is that I waited so long to make the journey. I'd been skating regularly for some 30 years thinking I should at least master a simple waltz jump before putting myself on display in front of all those sophisticated New Yorkers. But I failed to consider time's treachery. The same years I spent enhancing my skills were the very ones tightening my muscles and shortening my spine.
So, when Baltimore set up a rink in the Inner Harbor this season, I didn't let any foolish thinking about being "good enough" detour me. I knew I didn't want the winter to pass without skating there. And on the sunny afternoon the Saturday before Christmas under a pale winter sky, I did just that amid a happy throng going round and round while Dean Martin sang about a "Marshmallow World."
I skate regularly at the Mount Pleasant Ice Arena, and before that I skated at the now-closed Northwest Ice Rink. But I grew up skating outdoors on ponds in my native Connecticut, and to me outdoor skating simply feels more enjoyable. The fluorescent lighting of indoor rinks is always harsh and the cold always piercing, never bracing as it is outdoors. Indoor rinks are perfect for training the virtuoso stars we watch on television, and even for serious hobbyists. But they do not lend themselves to the playfulness I've noticed in skaters outdoors, where people seem to shed their reserve and simply enjoy the sensation of moving in a novel way, a way that flying would feel like if our feet had wings.
The staff at the Inner Harbor was very helpful and cheerful, and the man-made ice was better than that at Rockefeller Plaza. (Ice has degrees of hardness and figure skaters like myself generally prefer "soft" ice.) But, the whole facility projects an ad hoc atmosphere, as if not a great deal of forethought had been given to it. Its small surface forces skaters to move in a continuous circle without ever getting to enjoy the experience of skating straightaway. Plus, the toilet facilities and ice-making equipment should be better camouflaged.
The skating term "commit to the ice" means the point where a skater must execute a move no matter how badly because her momentum already is committed to it. But in a larger sense "commit to the ice" also describes what Baltimore must do if its Inner Harbor rink is to fulfill its potential and become an iconic a public space as Rockefeller Plaza is. That rink wasn't in the original plans for the plaza, which was expected to attract crowds with cafes and flower shows. But when those crowds failed to materialize and the center's management decided to try skating, it reconfigured the plaza's design to accommodate the rink. In other words, they knew that in order to be successful they had to commit to the ice.
I hope that by next winter Baltimore's leaders do the same. With downtown's population growing, and a steady stream of office workers and tourists, the Inner Harbor is the ideal spot for a seasonal rink whose opening every year will hold every bit of importance on the civic calendar as the lighting of the Washington Monument. I'm looking forward to being among the first on the ice, a Medicare card in my wallet, my blades beneath my feet, and — who knows? — maybe a waltz jump in my future.
Patricia Schultheis is a writer living in Dickeyville. She is the author of "Baltimore's Lexington Market" (Arcadia Publishing). Her email is bpschult@yahoo.com.