The birth of Graceless Kelly

That's me on the left, obsessing about a skate even before I ever put any on.

First: A birthday party at Upskate New York, where I fell after skating too fast over a warped part of the floor. Almost bit through my lip. Stood up and some strange lady who'd seen it asked if I was okay. I nodded excessively, but my friend's older brother was standing behind her. He went pale (because I was bleeding) and when he asked the same question, I started bawling. I spent the rest of the party sitting on the elevated light-up dance floor, legs dangling between the railings, watching other people skate while I iced my face.

Later: Third grade. I have pink Hug-a-Bunch roller skates that I got for Christmas. I am a pretty odd and solitary kid. I mostly stay inside watching TV or reading (or both at the same time). But I go out to the back porch, draw a hopscotch board with chalk from one of Mom's broken ceramics molds, and put on my skates. Because I also love jumping rope, I grab the jump rope. I slow-motion jump rope WHILE completing the hopscotch board ON roller skates.*

Eighth grade: The National Junior Honor Society takes a trip to go rollerskating one evening. A girl named Norma tries to teach me to cross-over. I fall down and trip another kid from the honor society with my sprawling.

Most of the things that stand out are the falls and injuries, the gracelessness. But not all of the things. What stands out most is how much I loved to skate. I didn't do it all that often, but I always enjoyed it and kept coming back, even after I repeatedly hurt myself doing it. For a kid who didn't get out and do much, who always felt afraid of things and people, that's a pretty big deal.

It should have been no surprise that when I was in my mid-20s and saw a clip about a reality TV show following a roller derby league in Texas that I would be completely enraptured with the very idea of roller derby. I knew it was something I needed to do the same way I knew before I could even write sentences that writing is a part of me.

At the time, the closest league was in Boston, a couple hours away. I would've been willing to do that kind of crazy commute (even though I am very much anti-commuting after spending 10 hours a week in the car going to school and work my first two years of college). I would've been willing to do just about anything. And then I heard that some women in Southern Maine wanted to form a roller derby league of their own.

Another memory: I want to go to the meeting about forming a roller derby league in my own backyard, but I am terrified to go alone (I still get freaked out by strangers) and know that I will just not go if I don't have a buddy. I ask two co-workers who have no interest in roller derby themselves to accompany me. They do.

At our first meeting, we are split into "teams" based on when we are available to "practice." My team decides to go to the next Tuesday night open skate at the local rink. In my excitement, I have already bought some skates, but they aren't right. They are like the rentals, high boot and way too heavy. I try to remember what Norma taught me all those years ago about cross-overs. I fall down again. Fracture my right distal fibula. But I don't know it. I don't want to look like a baby, so I keep skating on and off for the next hour and a half. When I get home, I have a limp. "Must've sprained it," I think until the next morning when I can't put any weight on it without screaming in pain. I call my boss, who brings me to get an X-ray. They confirm the fracture. We stop at the pharmacy to fill the pain prescription, but I have him bring me directly back to the office, because we have a major grant report due at the end of the week, and I am going to finish it.

I hobble in on crutches and one of the girls who went to the initial meeting with me points and laughs. "Roller derby?" she says.

"Not exactly," I respond.

But that's how I decided what my name should be: Graceless Kelly. The girl who falls down and gets back up, no matter how long it takes or how much it hurts.

A little more than a month from now, I will celebrate my 10th derbyversary at the same rink where I fell and broke my ankle. My league is trying to buy that rink before it goes out on the open market, because a regular buyer would likely repurpose the space (just like the rinks I skated in as a child or the one in New Jersey where I used to skate with a friend each time I came home in my early derby days). You can read more about the Capital Campaign and donate online (if you are so inclined) here.

There's a very short timeline to raise the money the league needs for the down payment. The deadline is 3/7, the day after I turn 37. I see some magic and luck in that. Just like I saw some magic and luck in the sport of roller derby when it caught my eye a decade ago.

Roller derby has been one of the biggest influences on my life. Over the next couple of weeks, I'm going to write more about how and why, and the importance of this campaign.











* With no protective gear and no supervision of any kind, of course. I wonder where everyone was. I feel like I did this more than once, but maybe it was all the same day. In any case, I didn't fall or even hurt myself. Must've had a guardian angel looking out for me big-time.