A session like today is something we admire, but don’t wish to have. Yesterday we planned on meeting up at 2 pm. My sleepy brain (still recovering from an early work shift the day before) decided to keep dreaming up until 3 pm. The first thing I could read on my phone screen once I opened my eyes was a text message: “Dude, where are you?”

I promptly jumped out of my bed and got ready. Gobbled breakfast, got in my car, and went off. Once I arrived, I greeted everyone with a somewhat sarcastic “good morning.” It felt like a chill out session right away since the other guys were at a party the night before, and I was still trying to realize that I am not in my bed anymore.

I switched to my old trucks again, which I noticed right away. A familiar feeling that I missed the last time. Pretty early into the session, I stepped on the board of someone else because they said it felt weird. Well, every board that small feels strange to me. I ride boats. What’s the first thing everyone attempts on a different board after the ollie? Right! The Kickflip! Couldn’t get the hang of it on this (what feels like a toothpick) deck. Once I stepped on my board again, I landed one. It was my first kickflip since I got back to skating last week. I backed it up by a 50-50 grind, and at that point, I felt warmed up and thought that today was a good day to get my tricks back. Oh, if only I knew what was about to happen.

There was this patch on the street, and we spontaneously decided we wanted to ollie it. On the way back to the run-up, we would do some mellow tricks. Once on my way back, I tried to ollie to manual on the sidewalk. I approached it at a slight angle (which turned out to be a big mistake) ollied onto it and somehow lost my balance entirely, which resulted in me smashing my face onto the sidewalk. Immediately my chin started to bleed. My head hurt a bit as well. The only upside to this was that my nose (which also touched the ground) got away without any scratches.

I proceeded to take care of my bleeding chin and decided to get my noseslides back. In the end, I worked it out, but after I landed my goal (Noseslide Shove-it out), it started to rain.

As I got home to edit the video of today’s session, I realized that my second camera didn’t save the files correctly and that I couldn’t restore them. It’s like the cherry on top, which reflects this session accurately.

Something like today’s session is great to have sometimes because it makes you appreciate it when things work without effort. Also, I consider blood stains on your face from slamming to be the ‘cool kids’ version of a face tattoo.

I am thankful for the fun I had today, grateful for the kickflips, slides and grinds, the video footage, and my new face tattoo.