I got cocky, fell and hurt myself in three places. But the pain was a reminder that I was alive and living in the moment
- In a series of short essays, writers consider what happiness means to them now, after the reckoning of the past few years
The best thing about a job that doesn’t keep traditional office hours is that I can sneak off with Bobby on a Tuesday morning to the skatepark. It’s usually quiet and empty: a perfect place for two dads who took up skateboarding in their 40s to feel alive (and also, to try to stay alive).
I began skating a few years ago when my friends, fellow Bristol-based writers Bobby Etherington and Emylia Hall, insisted I try Emylia’s surf skate, a skateboard with a concave deck built to emulate surfing waves. It was tricky and I was wobbly but the second I got the groove of it, and I cruised along the path, I felt alive. To skate is to not be in your head, but be in your body instead, giving yourself over to your instincts.
Nikesh Shukla is an author. His most recent book is Brown Baby: A Memoir of Race, Family and Home
