National Museum of Roller-Skating

I want you to close your eyes and picture a skating rink, with women and men skating in the oblong oval shape that appears within this arena , with no cutting rules and a ‘speed’ regulation. The women in this image are wearing shorter skirts and the latest fashion in roller-skating, (as there were dress regulations at this time). Now pan back, and watch the crowd. What is shocking to you is that there are no children at this skating rink, just men and women being social. Stop your imagination right there, and shift your mind to skating today. Yelling kids, who speed around the rink as fast as they can and unfortunately crash into one another, leaving angry, bawling kids and consoling mothers. This picture seems more natural for most of us but back when, things were way different.
I am going to be completely honest when I say that I expected the worse from the skating museum. I thought to myself, as I walked in, ‘this will probably be the worst museum yet’, don’t get me wrong I like museums, but a skating museum!? Come on, how much fun could that be! As much as this hurts me, I have a confession to make. Much to my surprise, I actually enjoyed walking through the shockingly smaller museum and the climate had a homey feeling about it.
As I walked through the museum, I was astonished by all the advances in roller-skating. I think people today, including myself, don’t take enough time out of their day to appreciate all the small things in life, like how roller-skates came to be and the history behind it. And by how, skating is a part of our history and helps us, to an extent, understand the past. A skating rink used to be for adults only and was a social hour, a rink was considered a dangerous place for a child at that time. As time continued, it became more of a leisure recreation and eventually a sport with national championships. Then technology let skate-rollers start entertainment shows. Roller Vanities and Rollerettes, were women who dressed up in big show girl outfits and performed dance routines on television in skates.
In the museum was everything from odd skates, with balls for wheels, from jewelry from champion skaters, movies to outfits and pictures to clubs/sports. They even had stuff on roller hockey and roller basketball! I never realized how much skating was a part of our history. In classes, we are always so focused on the major events in the past that we don’t take time to appreciate the culture behind it, as my old history teacher used to say, watch things change over time.

Post 1: Discourse Surrounding the Essay

“You wait for it to grow in your mind and suddenly you understand you can write about it. You quit longing for form and write what’s there. That sequence- that combination of patience with sudden impatience, that eventual yielding to the simple desire to tell- identifies the essay.”

- Ian Frazier in “ The Essay as Action.”

If you ask around, almost everyone knows the saying, “patience is a virtue,” and when it comes to writing, it is an essential key. To write a great masterpiece takes time, commitment, thought and a lot of patience. Thoughts may dwell many years in the mind of an author before it is ever put to paper. To write something without thought or feeling is like disrespecting elders, or in this case, the readers, it’s ignominy. A first draft of a piece that has no mistakes, is a tragedy. A writer needs to toil to find his way through the piece and stumble on the meaning of both his writing and the journey taken.
The process of creating a work that will open the minds of many is long, but the outcome, great. The feeling of knowing what story you want to tell and what powerful statement it will withhold is overbearing. At this point, all form will be thrown out the window, but when complete of all agony, sweat and memories, the piece will show itself worthy of the reader; but only then will the reader connect and feel the strength of the piece. The power of a patient writer, the one who waits for prominence to come to mind and who waits for all emotion and meaning to step into the light and fall into place, can change lives. Without effort, patience and understanding, an essay would have no journey, no voice, no feeling, no meaning, and in that case, then what would be the point of one at all?
Remember that writing is a gift and the human mind is full of ideas, that have to flock and reflect to come alive. What makes every essay inimitable is the journey that it takes and the people it meets along the way. Everything makes an influence, either big or small to the essay and can ultimately determine the mood, the setting and the adventure that it takes. A great writing may take months, years or even a lifetime, but when it all comes together, if it was written with patience and an open mind, it will overpower anything written in haste or without feeling; some of the writer himself should be left in the piece so that every time it is read, the reader can see the struggle and see the adventure.