“Out on the ice, there are no big people and little people, just people who can skate and people who can’t.” That was today’s paternal sermon to Gamma, who went skating for the first time this afternoon. I don’t think she believed me, but she was polite about it.

You know what? Her skating lesson wasn’t horrible. We’d feared it would be. We’d feared a crying, cold little kid, sick of falling to the ice every other step. But she enjoyed it and hardly ever fell because she had a mother and a big sister (who can skate fairly well) watching out for her. And, later on, after I got used to being on the ice again, a father watching out for her too.

But most of the time, I was watching out for myself. I learned to skate when Beta started skating, about 8 years ago, so we could do that as a family. Then when Gamma was born none of us had the energy to skate. So this was my first time back on the ice in about 5 years.

There are big people and little people on the ice – but they are big people who can skate, and those who can’t; same for the little ones.

Any skill divides people into new groups – those who have mastered it to various degrees and those who haven’t. I was reminded why I always enjoyed skating at this particular rink – the wonder of seeing people who looked boring or dorky waiting for the train or ringing up your purchases at a shop gliding across the ice backwards, dancing on the ice, skating arm-in-arm with their sweetheart.

The enjoyable thing about skating, for me, is the joy of doing something poorly but doing it anyway. As a child I received so much praise for the things I could do well – get good grades at school – that I became crippled by the Fear of Fucking Up, afraid to try anything I wasn’t so good at.

I finally got over that when I learned to skate. The Fear of Fucking Up is the enemy of the Joy of Doing Something Poorly. Just enjoying an activity for the playful childish pleasure of it, free of any need to achieve.