Most people know me as Meredith Gordon, mother of Henry and Wren Gordon, wife of the amazing Andy Gordon. But there are a few, a select few, who know me as Tofu Torture, number 723 and former back blocker for the Green Mountain Derby Dames.
Yup, that’s right, little unathletic me, used to be a roller derby dame.
I played five years ago. I played when none of us knew what we were doing, the sport was still new and the concept felt more like a sideshow attraction than a real sport at times. It was amazing and some of my best years.
For those who have never seen a roller derby “bout” (what we call matches), it can be a bit like trying to make sense of the stampede of wild bison. There is slamming and falling, leaping and sprinting and all of it done on roller skates.
How it all works, roughly: There are two teams of five players on the track at a time. The track is a huge oval taped out on the floor. Each team has four “blockers” (yours truly being one) and a position called a “jammer”. The jammer is the player that scores the points. You can tell who she is by the star on the side of her helmet. The whistle is blown and both jammers take off, headed to the “pack”, the group of eight girls that both team’s four blockers make up. Each member of the opposing team that the jammer passes while going through the pack earns her team one point. So the blockers job is to help their jammer get through the pack and score points, while keeping the opposing jammer from passing them and scoring points. This all happens with a lot of body checking, jumping and whipping (when a player grabs onto a player’s arm and is hurled through the pack).
It’s a crazy sport and one I loved to play. I remember how proud I was of my bruises the next day after a bout or even if I was limping a little. I was a roller derby girl and those were badges of courage. It meant that you were playing hard and not shying away from pain. To a woman in her twenties who is childless and can sleep off any hard bouts all the following day, it’s perfect.
Roller derby not only gave me a great physical outlet but it gave me an instant second family.
When you play roller derby it can easily take over your life as many of the leagues are skater owned and operated. This means that on top of practice up to three times a week, you have marketing meetings, promo events, recruitment flyers to make AND handout, and then travel to bouts in other states as well. You get to know your teammates very well and you quickly can become very close.
After three years on the team, I decided to retire, focus on comedy for a little while with with my husband and then start a family. I never gave away my equipment, just pushed it to the back of the closet. Maybe my daughter Wren, would find it one day and we would have a chance to laugh about it. Even though I loved it, it was ready for it to be a great memory.
Then, after five years of me hanging up my skates, it was announced that they would be starting another rec league. A pickup derby league for retired skaters. My heart jumped. Could I do it all over again? What has my body forgotten over these years? It certainly had forgotten how to stay in any kind of shape. But that bait was way too juicy for me not to take a bite.
So I dusted off my helmet, changed the bearings in my skates and signed up. Our first practice was two weeks ago. All I can tell you is that more than my physical state had changed since I first played.
I laced up my skates and no felt something I hadn’t felt in a very long time… scared. What was wrong with me? The last time I had these skates on, I was fearless. I was ready to face my opponent head on, broken bones be damned. No one counted on me except my husband and he’s a grown man. But now I had children, one of whom can’t even walk yet. What if I did break a bone or throw out my back? That would make life at our house pretty tricky seeing as though I’m a stay at home mom now. Then the thought came into my head, should I even be doing this? Am I being incredibly irresponsible by putting myself in harms way each week while two small children sit at home expecting me to be at 110% for them? Am I being selfish?
To be honest, as I write this I’m not sure of the answers to these questions. The only thing I’m sure of is how I would like to be viewed by my children. I would love them to remember that mom didn’t let a little thing like pain stop her from doing what she loved, whether that thing is roller derby or being a mother.
