There is a curb at the local grocery store. The best section of it is situated by a giant yellow “NO” painted on the ground. NO PARKING FIRE LANE. I call it the “NO CURB.” I often skate it very late at night, when things are different. The strip mall is closed, the streetlights hum, and only shadows remain of what dwelled there during the day. Deep into the night, the area is clean, and well-lighted. I have never seen the NO CURB in natural light. As I was now driving home, for an unknown reason, I decided to go skate the NO CURB. It would be the very first time I had ever seen it in the day. Next to a TJ Maxx, there was a similar curb I skated as kid, after school hours ended. We always had to dodge cars in the parking lot—part of the chaos of real street skating, evading adults in automobiles, not children on scooters. That curb had no illumination at night.
I drove over to the strip mall, where the curb was, and parked the car. Before skating, I needed more sustenance. A snack, and something to drink. Arising from the car, I noticed how stiff I felt. My body reminding me of its age. As I limped into the grocery store, the Sun began to break through thinning clouds. I passed the NO CURB, and sized it up as I went by. In daylight it looked starkly different. Almost ugly. I could see cracks, and erosion, that remained hidden at night. The curb was not as freshly painted, and new, as the cover of darkness had led me to believe. It was older, and weathered with time. Marred with black tire scuffs I had previously thought were night-shadows. In the sun, naked and exposed, its age showed. Natural light transformed the entire area. A night it was clean, and peaceful. In the day’s brightness, it was dark, dirty, and old. I could see all the marks I had left on the yellow enamel paint. I could see aluminum residue from my trucks on its edges. These curbs were new-born when I first found them. No one else had grinded here. All of those skate-scars and blemishes were mine, and mine alone. Walking into the store, I smiled. I had a secret relationship with this area, forged in the wee hours of the night, with blood, sweat, frustration, and joy. A crisp autumn day, a scarred-up curb, bustling shoppers, and a hidden secret of the universe that only I knew.
I walked through the store’s produce section, picked-up an apple, and then passed the deli counter. Beyond the fresh vegetables and bakery, was a door-less cooler with an assortment of beverages. I grabbed a drink, and headed to the checkout lanes. As I walked the florescent aisles, at the far end of the frozen food section, was an older woman. She opened a cooler door to get something from inside. Suddenly, someone stood next to her. He came out of nowhere. The person appeared to be a skateboarder. I was startled. He looked like a young kid, only one who was cloaked in adult clothes—clothes that were almost exactly like mine. Aside from the age difference, we resembled each other. After the initial shock of his inexplicable appearance wore off, a sense of solidarity came over me. A feeling that always comes when seeing a fellow skater in daily life. The older woman then closed the door, and put some frozen vegetables into her shopping carriage, and began to walk away. As quickly as he appeared, the young skater vanished. I was dumb-founded, and then shivered with cold realization. All I had seen was a distorted reflection of myself in the cooler’s glass door. I slowly walked to the exact location where the old woman had stood. I hesitated, and then cautiously peered into the closed door, as if expecting to again see the ghost. The door was now clouded over with condensation. He was gone. Only memory remained.
I paid the dues for my items, and went outside. As if emerging from a dark cave, my eyes dilated with transitory confusion. The Sun was bright compared to the artificial glow in the store. The outside world stood in momentary silhouette. A few yards from the curb I was about to skate, in the shade, was a bench. I dropped down onto it, and took a bite of the apple. My eyes adjusted as the van pulled up. Everything changed.
It wasn’t a van, actually, but more of a bus. Large. White. Several windows. It parked right in front of the NO CURB, blocking both the curb, and the emerging rays of sunlight. A man got out. He went around to the passenger side, and opened a strange door near the rear of the van. He then began operating the van’s internal elevator. This wasn’t a normal bus, or van. It was a transport vehicle for mostly disabled elderly people. A local retirement home was taking a “field trip” to the grocery store. With the elevator, the man helped several elderly travelers disembark directly onto the NO CURB. Some with motorized scooters. Some with canes, and crutches. Some were able enough to walk, and push a shopping carriage, on their own. Some had to wait their turn to exit the bus, as the man could only help one person off at a time. I could see frustration in the waiting faces. But something else was there, too. Shame, in their lack of independence? Dignity, in their long survival? Both, perhaps. I could only be sure of the nothingness. Riveted, I watched as everything unraveled in front of the NO CURB.
Brighter than a thousand suns. I was suddenly blinded. I had fled children on scooters. Then, feeling slow, tired, and old myself, I went to skate a curb. A curb that, tangentially, reminded me of my youth. Yet, slow, tired, old people, that could hardly stand on their own, some on scooters, prevented me from skating that curb. I had stopped eating by now. Irony is a choking hazard.
I thought of my own aging father, now confined to a wheelchair, and his struggles with daily life. Struggles that included trips to the grocery store. I thought of how effort-less skating was as a kid. I thought of the stiff, sore, and sluggish version of my present-day self. I thought of how lucky I am—despite my “old” age, I am still physically able to skateboard. I thought of the fact that I could still walk, and get around on my own. Without a cane, a walker, a scooter, or a transport van.
The NO CURB was long. It stretched forward of the bus. The end was not far off. In the other direction, the curb snaked to the far side of the plaza, and all the way back to another TJ Maxx outlet. It was all right there. The NO CURB. The metaphor. The irony. The foreshadowing. The reality-check. The summary of life. It was the NO CURB. The horizon of Time and Being unveils itself in many forms. Today it was at my feet, in the form of a small concrete ledge, about five inches high, encased in yellow enamel paint, and next to giant words that read “NO PARKING.” Its edges were marred with residue—residue of both aluminum, and the human condition.
I could now feel the tears coming. Not that I was sad, or full of sorrow, or anything like that. I was simply struck by how profound simple context can be. How staggering life is. How fleeting our time. How past, present, and future can all collapse into one moment and place. How time does not pass, but we do. A profound gratitude had overtaken me.
There was a time that I would have resented these senior citizens, their bus, and the entire situation. All of it was preventing me from skating a curb. On this crisp autumn day, I walked away from a session that never happened, without remorse. Seeing the curb in daylight revealed so much more than just its own existence. I would return. Much later. Deep into the night, when only fragments of the day’s shadows remained, and the area was again empty, desolate, and lifeless.
I looked to the sky. The sun, now bright, was upon my face.
