I thought about posting after the Grand Prix Final. I
thought about a Christmas wish-themed post, as I think I did in the early years
of this blog.
I thought about posting at the turn of the new year. I got a
little past the “thought” point and started writing a post on January 10—just
after Gracie withdrew from Nationals. I had some things I wanted to say, much
as I did just after she skated at Rostelecom Cup. But I let other priorities
take over, and a few sentences into the post the words stopped coming.
Last Friday night—a little over a week later—I was sitting
here, too late for my own good as I often do (1:50 AM), trying to
re-familiarize myself with this year’s list of U.S. Nationals competitors, when
I went to close my Facebook tab for the night and was instead alarmed to see
something from someone in the skating community that had “John Coughlin” and
“RIP” in the same post. A quick search on Twitter brought me similar
information. I knew something about the allegations that had been made about
him via SafeSport; I did not yet know about his interim suspension from events
such as the upcoming Nationals. Regardless, I went to bed stunned and shaken,
dreading the spread of the news over the weekend.
Again, I considered posting some thoughts… but deep down, I
knew I wouldn’t get anything up on this blog until the day the senior events at
U.S. Nats arrived. Partly because that’s my pattern of late, and partly because
I tend to censor myself when it comes to writing publicly on weightier matters.
There are already so many reports, opinions, and speculations out there on The
Issues Of Our Times—my .02 feels pretty damn irrelevant. Know what I mean?
So I’m acknowledging the elephant in the skating room (or
rink?), if only because it seems bizarre NOT to this week. But I’m not
addressing it—not right now, at least. There’s enough of that going on already,
and I don’t feel my voice contributes anything new to the conversation.
I DO retweet some of those other voices, and you can go look
me up @KLBSt8ofSk8 if you’re curious about that.
In the meantime, it IS “the day the senior events at U.S.
Nats arrived”—so my predictions-from-afar will begin posting shortly.
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