I’ve been thinking a lot about transportation lately. Getting myself to and fro. How I do it. How I’m going to do it in the future. There is, of course, a whole lot of uncertainty that comes with acquiring a new permis de conduire, and you want to get yourself started on the right foot. I thought about this recently while navigating solo a pop-up skating rink. 

It’s true: to the bafflement of the spirits haunting the Tower of London, a temporary ice arena was place in the moat for the holiday season. Novelty withstanding, I felt a real compulsion to go. While I had managed to go home for Christmas, I never got the chance to do one of my favorite activities: attend a public skating session with my goalie brother. It’s an activity that I am not super good at, but it is one where I managed to build confidence in executing, thanks to the tutelage and reassurance of my sibling. 

So on the day that I struck out for central London, the weather was cold enough so that the ice wouldn’t be a slush fest. My skills are rusty, and I harbored rock-bottom expectations for how this evolution would go. Three years ago, my brother and I had tried London skating at the Somerset House; back then it was more a matter of moving about slowly while my brother instinctively shielded me from human projectiles more focus on selfies and jackassery. In my mind, The Tower of London promised to be about the same—but I still wanted to go and practice. 

I figured that going early would be best; in the early hours you must only contend with children drunk on an inherent lack of equilibrium. Ticket in hand, I headed for the central skate repository. The skates I got were more like ski boots with butter knives riveted to the bottom, but I sat down on the long bench crowded with families and proceeded to mash my feet inside. Before long the clock struck noon, and I was one of the first people to step onto the fresh coat of thin and bumpy ice. A curly haired girl of about four years old was being ushered onto the ice by her parents. She didn’t look so sure. 

As I made my first loop on the ice, I noticed for the first time that up on Beauchamp’s Tower on the inner defensive wall stood the form of an archer. It was in the exact position to suggest that it might pick off errant skaters, should we pause for too long with our smartphones in hand. As I came around to the entrance, I noticed that the curly haired girl was crying, frozen in place on the ice. She was not having a good time. I pushed on, trying my best to be more daring as I shook off the rust from my dormant skate practice.

I will admit, I’ve had a lot of stress in my brain now that January has rolled around. That’s because much will change for me in the coming months. And there are many things to attend to, many new things that I must learn as a consequence of this transition. Much like skating, some of them are tricky. Some things I find intimidating—and I find myself being cautious in a way that probably is not necessary.  My thinking is that if I can be smart about how I make my way through the year, I will encounter less bumps and bruises down the road. I wouldn’t say that I’m afraid of failing—but unlike the teenagers zipping around me on the ice—I’m less keen to experience the effects of falling now that I’m older.  

Having talked about my fear of falling (and by consequence potentially earning myself another concussion) I do love ice skating for its meditative properties. I might not have my brother here to look out for me, but I feel that he has sufficiently taught me so that I’ve got the moves to quickly dodge when others falter and reflexively grasp for the nearest thing in their orbit. This is the kind of foundation that makes me feel that I’ll manage to move myself forward into an uncertain future.

And parallels aside, the kid in me loved the experience of skating next to castle walls that are hundreds of years old. Walls that, through time, have housed and executed royals of varying loyalty. Time marches on, and like this rink I know that one day I will be doing things that I previously couldn’t have conceived of. Just like the tourists who had come to London on this day and were witnessing modern humans conducting reverse belly flops on an icy moat as Yeoman Warders looked on and recounted the history of the Tower. 

Another thing on my mind: decades ago I learned to drive in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts—a place that is hardly known for its model drivers. Navigating New England roads are surprisingly similar to the conditions at Tower Rink: small, bumpy, overcrowded, and populated by an international collective of distracted idiots (myself counted). In the near future I’ll be working to get my UK driver’s license—and much like everything else, I have some apprehension about being reevaluated anew. But again, I’m already out here interacting. I see how others manage to negotiate traffic, and I tell myself that I have just as much proficiency as they do. I may not be amazing, but I will eventually be deemed competent by UK driving authorities. 

I continued to skate in underwhelming circles for about an hour. As I moved, I thought about my preparations for transition and watched the people around me. There was the French couple with their son, carefully explaining to him how to push off on his skates as he listened to their instructions. Or that curly haired 4-year-old—she was now wailing nonstop while glued to a sideboard as her parents continued to look on. There was no doubt in my mind that she’d never want to skate again—while the French boy had a far better chance of wanting to come back again.  As for me, a learner in this discipline and others, I liked the approach that the French couple had taken. I want to transition slowly, and in an environment that helps to build my confidence. I think I already have that, given all of the propulsion from life and loved ones that has brought me this far.

As I finished my skate, I still thought and stressed a bit about the self-imposed changes ahead. Sure, things are going to be a challenge. And sure, for some reason or another I might not pass my driving test on the first try. I could also go out for another skate and take a mighty spill. And there are other what ifs that will pop up that I can’t even conceive of right now. But in the larger scheme of things, I’ll probably be okay. In the span of one hour, I had succeeded in skating amongst a swath of randomly-selected humanity, and we all made it through okay. The bonus was that I got to do it under the shadow of a really neat landmark. One that makes me feel fortunate to live in London. And one that helped to remind of why I enjoy living in Europe. And why I always dare myself to step out and try to see what else there is to discover…just as long as I have the backup of people I love like my brother. Novelty is good so long as you have your reliable hometown skate.