When I was a very little girl, when we lived in Germany, I tried and tried to learn to skate. I never got the hang of it. I couldn't figure out how to keep my ankles from flopping around, and I ended up hobbling around the rink with the blades cocked out at forty-five degree angles. After an hour or two of that, even as a flexible little seven year old, I would limp around like an old woman, regretting the day's activity. We moved back to the US in January of 1976, and I can remember being glued to the television at my uncle's house to see the Innsbruck Olympics, watching Dorothy Hamill do that thing I already knew I never would: skate like an angel. I was awestruck by her, and of course I adopted that famous haircut like most little girls did back then. For the next Olympics, I was more interested in watching Eric Heiden speed skate, but that might be because I had discovered I had a little more talent on roller skates, and liked to go fast. He was doing something I could relate to. That was the last time my attention was so distracted. From then on, I never missed another Olympic figure skating event. I loved watching Scottie Hamilton do backflips. I was heartbroken that Katerina Witt beat Debi Thomas. I laughed at the drama between Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan. I thought Oksana Bayul's swan costume was stupid. I would watch the shows with a telephone in my hand the whole time, my friends and I criticizing the moves and the clothes, as if we could do it at all, forget do it better. I've been an armchair triple-flipper for years.
For a brief moment in time, we thought we were going to be connected to that world. Twenty years ago, my friends and I had a costume design company. We made dress up clothes for all ages, and dance clothes for all genres, from ballet to exotic. Through one of the adults in the dress-up demographic (what they now call LARPers), we were introduced to a woman who told quite a story. She said she was a former competitive skater, but she had to quit for health reasons. She was sometimes seen in a wheelchair, had a shaved head that she said was from chemo, and appeared to have a seizure in front of us on at least one occasion. I don't remember exactly what it was she said she had, and it doesn't matter. She was a con artist of the highest order. She swore she could introduce us to the top skating names, so that we could make and sell skating costumes. Even back then, we heard those glittery bodysuits went for well over a thousand dollars a pop. We wanted to create, and see our art on the world stage, so we wanted to believe the story this woman was telling us. We had many "missed appointments" that were delayed and canceled for one reason or another. The stories just got bigger. We finally had to accept that it was all just an elaborate tissue of lies when she claimed to be too despondent to meet us because her "best friend in skating" Brian Orser died. Considering he is still alive and well, and coaching skaters in Canada, she pushed the big lie too far. We never did get to make a single skating costume.
I've spent the last couple days glued to my television again, watching skating as always. My old friend who used to be on the phone with me, watching every skater with me, is now on a trip of a lifetime to Southeast Asia. I miss the days when we picked apart the skating and the costumes together. I have found myself unable to look away, and it's only partly the fluid, fantastic moves that hold my attention. The costumes for the team competition were marvelous. I kept thinking how much I wished I had made them, and how much fun it would be to imitate them for formal wear. I still have a ton of the Swarovski rhinestones we bought back in the company days. I could do it. I think I would start with the Canadian's Scheherazade costume. I look good in aubergine.
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