For Your Eyes Only

 

I was only 19.  I had worked for a year for my second Ice Capades audition.  The two solos that I skated for it was “Fame” which was very jazzy, and “For Your Eyes Only” which was graceful and artistic.

My journey had started just four years earlier.   Looking back I realize how quickly I progressed.   My first audition was scary.  I did the kick line just fine and I didn’t have a solo prepared.  I was given notes and told to come back the next year.

During that year I worked so hard.  Physical conditioning was over the top.  I’m talking jogging up and down stadium stairs - in my skates with rubber blade guards.  It meant 4:30am figure private ice.  It meant being able to do a long program and appear to not be winded.  It meant that I tested and passed in Ice Dance, Free Style and Figures.  My Mom was there for my first audition and told me that I had her complete support but that I should spend the next year singularly focused.  So that’s what I did.

First I had to have a pair of professional custom made skates.  They cost $1800.  One of my Grandfather’s bought them for me.  It meant going professional by coaching and teaching.  That meant no more competitions.  The pay was minuscule, but it was what was required.  It also meant that I would become a National Figure Skating Association Trial Judge. My coaches pushed me very hard.  At one point I was able to stand flat footed, jump straight up and make a full revolution before landing solidly where I started.

The day that I was able to do a Russian Split jump I was overjoyed.  My figures improved - I was a perfectionist.  See you are required to make ‘figures’ on virgin ice and restate them exactly in the same tracing.  This created a discipline that paid off on the ice when doing high level programs.  

I also had challenges outside the physical.  The church that I attended sent a few older ladies to the rink to harass me every chance they could.  They felt I was wasting my time and that the costumes (like the one in the photo above) were too revealing.  The rink got them legally ejected from the rink.  It was this that made me use “For Your Eyes Only”.  I had come to a moment when I realized that God had given me this meteoric rise in a skill I never would have imagined and all I had to do is look for his eyes - not others.

The week of my second audition came.  Me, and a few other skaters, hung out with the show skaters playing broom ball and just loving the ice.  The audition began at 1am that night.  Mom and I went to the coliseum in Charlotte.  This year I had prepared as well as I could.  Show ice is very rough, I had learned to keep my teeth apart as I did my routine. 

My first routine was Fame.  It should athleticism, strength and control.  Then I did “For Your Eyes Only”.  This would show my grace borrowing heavily from my dance classes.  I wore glasses, but never on the ice.  I could see well enough and still can in a pinch.  Two things happened.  First they turned on the mirror ball to see how I would handle it.  Tricky, tricky, tricky.  What they didn’t know is that I had already done this routine dozens of times on dark ice with just a mirror ball.

But then laughter erupted from the stands.  This is where the troop, coaches, ice skating headliners, managers and my Mom were sitting.  i didn’t let it bother me and I stayed in my character.  I finished the program flawlessly and when the lights came up I skated off the ice to a standing ovation by folks that were very much better than me.  I kept my smile on, put on my skate guards and was asked to wait with my Mom for a bit.

When I sat down she was so proud.  I kept smiling, but I was actually about to cry.  I didn’t understand what I had done that was so funny.  She said “You didn’t see the cat did you?”. NO.

She said that a cat had gotten onto the ice and followed me around the entire “For Your Eyes Only” routine.  It had scampered away when the house lights came on.  Since I had kept my head up I never saw it.

The Director calls me over and asks if I can join the European Troop in three months.  I was elated. I was given a packet of information and the show hired a local choreographer.  We kept Fame and added “Double Dutch Bus”.  I got my trunk and went about preparing.  One of the requirements for women is you had to have a pregnancy test (I was a virgin) and a clean bill of health from both a primary physician and an OB GYN.

I was handling my Type 1 Diabetes fine so Dr. Green signed off.  My OB GYN went way differently.

I bled 3 out of every 4 weeks since I was 13.  I just ignored it and kept going.  My previous OB GYN told me it was normal.  There was also intense pain.  Again I was told to ignore it, so I did.  Dr. Fisher, the new OB GYN,  told me that he couldn’t sign off for the show.  He gave me two choices.  I could have a complete hysterectomy and join the show in 6 months, or I could quit skating and go through two years of treatment for the severe case of endometriosis I had and MAYBE one day have a child.

I chose my daughter.  It was so hard.  I was put on a type of chemo-therapy that made me very sick. The show was supportive and for many, many years I had the letter they sent me helping to ease the decision.  The day I cleaned out my coaches office and locker was hard.  It was hard returning my trunk.  I had my giant show suitcase until our house flooded three years ago.  In my young mind a dream had been realized, but then I was given the opportunity to choose life for another.  I didn’t skate for two years.  i still had it but I wasn’t allowed to condition to a professional level again.  If I had I would have lost the chance to have my daughter.

I buried myself in college.  I earned a BA in Psychology from UNCC and later my PhD from AIU.  I have no regrets.  I made the right decision.  My Mom was with me every step of the way.  I have so many cherished memories from that time.  All the ‘stars’ I met and skated with (Peggy Fleming, Randy Gardner, Tia Babylonia, Dorothy Hamill, to name a few).  The show skaters kept in contact for years.  I did visit with them every year when they came through Charlotte.

My time as a skater was one of the many highlights of my life.  I often feel my body soaring through the air and can sometimes be caught going through the moves.  Those days visit me often in my dreams.  I learned that I could do whatever I put my mind to - just like my Mom taught me.  

My daughter was born 9 years after the diagnosis.  Dr. Fisher delivered her.  She came 16 weeks early due to a heredity defect that we weren’t aware of until that night.  He cried when he saw me afterwards.  She is almost 31 now and the story of her birth is for another time.

Follow your dreams.  do what is required.  Achieve your goals.  Don’t let ANYONE tell you that you can’t, that you aren’t good enough or you don’t have the talent.