She can’t be more than six years old.
On this chilly wintry night, she was standing in a red top, black tights and pink ice skates, craning her neck as if looking for someone – a friend, a parent, a supervisor.
She was the only girl here inside the ice skating rink.
“Huum…where’s her mom?” I was asking myself while driving towards the sparsely filled arena with a couple of adult skaters. They were minding their own business, and her? Her pose was self-possessed, almost defiant.
Suddenly, she spun around so quick that she fell.
“Oh…ouch” I thought to myself. I hate falling especially in the cold. That’s why I had never tried ice skating or skiing. I fixed my eyes on her while waiting for a car to pass in front of me at my STOP sign.
In less than a minute, she rose.
She quickly brushed her bum and scanned around as if searching for disapproving eyes. Again, no one appeared. Next, she steadied herself as if standing before an audience of thousands, before flying her arms in one upward sweep for another spin. She did it! Wow.
I was amazed. A car was honking behind me to get moving, so I made a right turn while looking over my left shoulder and my rear mirror to try and catch another glimpse.
“That’s resilience.” I remember saying to myself. In a matter of minutes, she fell and rose as if nothing had happened.
Why did this moment stay with me? It’s been more than a month since that cold and dark night and I hadn’t seen her since.
I suppose that may be precisely the point. It was a cold and dark night. No one was responding to her look. No one was watching her. She was young but not weak. She fell but she rose right away. She might have been seeking attention, approval or admiration but she kept skating when it wasn’t obvious she received any.
That is a sign of strength, discipline, independence and total immersion in the present moment.
That is also a gesture of how she saw herself – not as a victim but as a get-upper.
That is also a perfect example of a Chinese (Cantonese
跌到地亦要找到一手沙 ) catchphrase which I’d learned in my childhood, which means even as you fall flat on the ground, you still manage to pick up a handful of sand. The essence of that maxim is about one’s effort to pick up (learn or gain) something, however small or insignificant, after we’ve failed.
Imagine the next time you fail or fall, what can you pick up? What will you learn?
I think this six year old has taught me to how to be a get-upper, quickly and decisively even when no one seems to care.