It’s been strange these past days to be back in Westbourne Park: I spent my teenage years here, riding under the motorway at Playstation, and it’s been around seven years since last I set foot here. The only days I wouldn’t skate either the wind would be blowing rain onto the ramps, or I’d have one of my arms freshly in plaster. Even then I’d be sitting atop a ramp smoking roll-ups and impatiently dreaming of the lines I’d try when it all dried out or my fracture healed. Wandering these streets now I’m transported back, I recognise every crack in the pavement, how I’d unweight over each and float away and off down the street. Today I called a friend of mine who works over the road at Westbourne Studios, we went and drank a couple of cans at the Meanwhile bowls. In the last of the afternoon sun we discussed life and the pursuit of happiness as kids rode the same lines I remember from years ago.
It’s hard to describe how it felt, as the atmosphere washed over me and my frame of consciousness drifted years back. I felt once again as I had as a teenager. Back then, skating was all I needed. College, friends, girlfriends, they came and went. It was skating that kept me focused, creative, ambitious, and totally in tune with my surroundings. It was a constant source of pain and achievement. As a teenager this total validation was everything, I can remember the sense of pride as the days, hours and years of practice paid off, as the style you had nailed from day one earned you respect. Wet with sweat, blood soaked denim, bruised, exhausted, we’d skate till it was too dark to make out the ramps. Passers by would stop and watch, take photos. Kids would make their parents stop to see what these strange guys were doing, steam rising off their bodies as they rolled into the dusk of a winter’s evening.
If I could guarantee one thing about my life, if I should focus on one true ambition, it may be to feel the same sense of romance and passion when eventually I look back at my life’s work.
