I refuse to complain about this weeks weather
So consider this a quick and angry google maps review
Last month was the warmest March ever recorded. It was also the month with the most bruises country wide, unofficialy measured. I can only speak for myself, but I think just about every Dutch skater considered March to be the start of summer, the end of a two year pandemic, and we all felt like cows running into a field full of fresh, healthy and juicy grass. The spots we have were left in a rotten state after a winter like all others: dark and wet, giving food for saddening thoughts of skate sessions that would probably wait until April or May, when would we ever see our friends again outside of the training facility?
March 2022 counted 210 sun hours. It’s hard to give that number a place, but knowing that February had 109 hours of sun and a lot of rain makes it a bit easier to compare. If March 2022 didn’t give you the first sunburn of the year on your pale cheeks, underneath eyes that had almost grown square or rectangular from all the instagram explore sessions, you must have been standing in the shade filming your friends. To make it a bit personal: I got sunburned both filming and skating, and the month also gave me a new boost in my skateboard career. I did tricks I was scared of before because I felt like I was never again going to feel so fresh. So juicy, and somehow I had pop in my legs too! I was the grass and my skateboard was the cow. Somehow I got convinced to start filming a part, and even though I did some scary things, it will have the general message that it is okay to know your boundaries in skateboarding. There is enough in this sentence alone for a complete new newsletter, so I will save it. But let’s say that it has a lot to do with me not being ready to lose my warehouse job because I broke my ankle trying to launch myself off a wall, into a bank that had zero percent chance of accepting my use of it anyway.
Now we’re at the third part of this text and the last hour of my train ride. The train is going back and forth because of the wind; the sun of March has made room for the whatever-the-fuck-is-happening climate of April. We’re back in the darkness and we’re back at the place of wanting to make a skate date with friends, but not knowing if the weather will allow for it. For all I know, Saturday I can watch Jason Railchomper kill himself on a handrail that 99% of Dutch skaters still see as a handrail to get our scared body up the stairs, or I could spend my Saturday with hooligan Tobias, picking up a fried fish and watching a football game. Either is fine with me; the image of skating in March is slowly leaving my mind, but my ankle still fucking hurts, somehow.