Tangerine Sunrise

I thought if I worked hard enough, I could be extraordinary.

I leapt, twirled, and dazzled like fireworks on the Fourth of July— pop, pop, pop. A photographer captured me spinning and sparkling across the ice in a sequined royal blue skating dress. We were at the old Sky Rink on the 16th floor of a giant, beige office building on 33rd Street and 10th Avenue. It was early morning before school, and I was being profiled in Newsday as NYC’s “Kid of the Week.”

“I want to go as far as I can,” I told the journalist, catching my breath. “I’d like to get a triple salchow, and a double axel, and then I’ll want even more.”

I was twelve. I thought with enough practice and passion, I’d keep getting better and better and going higher and higher— beyond the clouds even. I thought if I worked hard enough, I could be extraordinary.

But reaching beyond the clouds came at a cost. I didn’t yet know how much each fall would end up taking from me.

My “Kid of the Week” profile in Newsday

A year later, I performed to Debussy’s Claire de Lune, a piece I also played on the piano and knew intimately. Its opening notes were quiet, delicate, intentional, and then with a building crescendo, it bloomed. Gliding through those otherworldly measures, I felt like an ice princess. I wore a white leotard that fanned into a short chiffon skirt, which at great speeds, fluttered like fairy wings. My mother had sewn gold beads across the bodice.

After sweeping through each bend and extension like a ballerina, I launched into a layback spin, my back arching and my head hovering just inches from the blade, while the world spun around upside down in a blur. As I flew past audience applause, I leaned into a spread eagle, my body forming an X, my legs opening wide, and my arms reaching far. My blades carved a half-moon at full speed.

Warming up for a solo performance at Rockefeller Center

Then came the double loop jump—my signature. If there was ever a jump I could count on, maybe even be cocky about, it was that one. I bent my knees and leapt, pulling my arms in tight. Turning, turning, and landed. Solid. Crisp. Clean. The audience erupted. I was ecstatic. They loved me. I loved them. They loved me. I loved them. I beamed, catching the eye of a man with a white mustache who looked like he’d just seen a tangerine sunrise. I felt invincible.

But then my toe pick snagged on the ice, and a tremendous burn shot through my right groin. I collapsed forwards, barely catching myself with the other leg. And I thought, oh no.

It hurt to put weight on the leg and to lift it, but it never occurred to me I could just stop the performance. Just stop. So I kept going. Wincing, I turned into backward crossovers and prepared for the double lutz, a jump I struggled with even on a good day. I prayed—as if by magic—that when I leapt, everything would be okay, like my broken body would come back together in the air, like it would step in and do something, like I could just will it. But as I reached with my toe pick and launched, my leg gave out. My limbs flailed about like I was falling out of the sky.

My hip slammed into the ice, and I slid backward, crashing into the wall with a boom.

It was just me, the ice, and the pain. The music cut. The audience fell silent, their applause now replaced by pity? Concern? Disappointment? I tried to push myself up, but the pain was too much, so I just lay there mouthing “ow ow ow.” I had to be carried off the ice like a baby.

That stuck with me, you know? Don’t think too highly of yourself or you’ll be punished.

The fall carved itself into my psyche. In that moment, I understood how quickly heaven could turn to hell. I began to fear the good almost as much as the bad, knowing that if I dared to shine too brightly, life would slam me back into my place. I’d had the audacity to believe I was a swan soaring across the ice, but the truth was, I was nothing more than a crippled, ugly duckling.

And yet, I refused to stop dreaming. My dreams were far bigger than the dangers of the world. But what was I truly reaching for?

***

This is an excerpt from my memoir in progress. And I guess what I want to say is: some falls live in the body. And the question becomes—how do we undo them? How do we trust again?

I’ve tried many things: somatic experiencing, therapy, inner child work. What I’ve found is that there might always be parts of me that are marked—scars on the canvas of my life. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe that’s just being human. But I can also remind myself of the many times I didn’t fall on my face—or my hip. I can catalog the soft, sweet moments too.

They say it takes five—or even ten—positive experiences to outweigh a single negative one. That saddens me because what happens to all those good memories? The safe and cozy ones. The preciously mundane, everyday love that comes and goes like the sun and moon. If only I could gather them up—I think they’d form mountains! But instead, it’s the trauma that leaves these craters.

Still, I’d like to believe that what’s etched into me can be re-etched by a better experience, or a different perspective, or a more conscious gesture. Each story is a line. There are so many crisscrossing lines, like an asterisk. Like a star. Something that says: psst. Over here. Don’t follow that old path of pain. Skate on this one. I have more knowledge now. More tools. More self-trust. And I just know some of these lines lead somewhere beautiful.

And maybe you don’t erase the scars. Maybe you love them, hold them. Maybe it’s love that untangles the knot of fear, pain, and regret. I think love is the most powerful force in the world. Nothing is a match for it. Nothing.

So here we are, skating our way through Earth school—leaps and falls and love and all.

What about you?
How do you love yourself enough to stop beating yourself up?
What helps you remember the other lines?
What reminds you of the truth?

— 💗 —

Find me on Instagram: https://instagram.com/jasminelobe

P.S. I’m keeping All That Jas free for now because I want these stories to be shared. But if you’d like to support my work—and help me keep creating—becoming a paid subscriber means the world.