fanny
Ethan has been taking skating lesson for over a year. This year we decided to enrol him in a hockey league, and his relationship with this activity is complicated.
First of all, he’s never been athletic. Every morning, it’s torturing for him to take that one minute walk from the car to his school. He will moan about the never-ending walk. And if he had a choice, he would chosse to fall limp in the middle of the parking lot, because five steps in from where he gets off the car has already made him breathless. And he keeps wailing on every ache in his body. I feel like I am standing next to a car alarm that cannot be shut off.
And the part about putting the hockey gears on him? I gave in to his father because I thought he would be more physical than I was. Except he didn’t expect that the uncooperative of Ethan would be draping his over the bench in the changing room UNMOVED! He refuses to sit straight. Maybe it’s too exhausting for him. Or he thinks it will destruct his every organ, and he will die.
We aren’t sure if he really likes hockey. In fact we don’t know if he likes anything besides doing his activity books.
However, he enjoys being on the ice despite the fact that he is not the fastest skater. He’s never complained about getting up early to hit the rink. He always looks forward to his next lesson.
We will look at these pictures years later, and we will tell the stories about the damn gears, the freezing ice rink. And how he’d started to try this sport, enjoyed it and never begged to quit. “How good were I?” he might ask. And I will say, “Well, you always looked forward to your next lesson. And it’s all that matters – to know how it feels to look forward to something.”