Posting images of myself is not my favorite thing. I kind of skate like a gorilla looking for a toilet. I will say that this image got into my head.

This spot was unique because there was a long, downhill street that fed directly into the pocket corner of the ditch. I could go faster than I typically could just dropping in. I distinctly remember the sound of my bearing spinning and my wheels digging across the rough asphalt suddenly replaced by almost silence as I hit the smooth wall of the ditch. I felt the hot air on my face and the pull of gravity as I went through the carve. In that moment, I was 14 again. In that moment, skateboarding took me back to a place where my knees didn’t hurt and the responsibilities of the world had not fully made a home in the pit of my stomach.

I was free in that moment. More free than I had been in years. And there, in a sewer, skateboarding gave me a gift.