Observation. Imagination. Creation. This must be the real circle of life, even if it’s got nothing to do with Simba. It certainly is the circle of my life, and in microcosm, skateboarding. Through skateboarding my childhood has become my adulthood.
Absorbing the words people speak, hearing a perfect song, or witnessing an overwhelming vision plants a seed in my mind. It’s not always something I can even identify, but it churns around for a while and develops into a dream. Oh how good it would be to visit Peru, or to live by the beach, or to stick a 5-0 across a perfectly smooth ledge.
But then you have to perform. It’s so easy to talk about things you want to do or dream about your dreams…but dreams are boring. “Nothing ever happens” in a fantasy, even if it’s so simple and meaningless. But when you get to create your thought, make it real, that’s an addiction.
Problem is it’s almost always frustrating. It never looks right, never sounds right, and it deserves constant improvement. The creation is fluid, birthing new observation, which sets in place the cycle that never ends. Until one day of course. Maybe. Who knows really?
In honor of my childhood, skateboarding, and its presence in my older self, I would like to present “Heaven.” It’s a collaboration with my brother, Nathanael, and my other semi-brother who isn’t a Roney but we like to treat him like one, Matthew. It’s a creation after many years of observation and imagination, and takes me straight back to the past, straight back to the present.
And it has a few bad words, so shield the ears of your little ones.
Young William Grows Old 