Maybe it started as coincidence, or maybe I was already tuned to that frequency without admitting it. I was out running, headphones low, city air thick with that mix of heat and concrete that never really leaves San Diego even at night. Venezuela has a way of compressing time, of making decades sit on top of each other like stubborn layers. Then I saw them. Boards under arms, shoes scraped down to honesty, laughter sharp and careless. No performance. No nostalgia cosplay. Just kids moving through the city as if it still belonged to them. I slowed down without planning to. I watched first, because that is what I do. And what I saw was not rebellion as a slogan or skate as an aesthetic. It was continuity. In a place that has been economically bruised and socially exhausted, they were proof of something still breathing without asking permission.
Remembering Kids, the movie, is unavoidable but also dangerous. It is easy to flatten generations into references and moods. What mattered to me was not copying a vibe but recognizing a posture toward the world. These guys were not performing edge. They were living inside it. Born into internet speed, consoles, endless updates, and at least three releases of Tony Hawk Pro Skater before they could even vote. Yet here they were, offline in the most literal way possible, wheels hitting ground, bodies learning physics the hard way. Graffiti was not decoration but a language they trusted more than official signs. Friendship was not sentimental, it was logistical. Someone films. Someone watches backpacks. Someone bleeds a little and laughs it off. The city does not give them much, so they take time, space, and motion.
There is a strange humility in being older and not pretending otherwise. I am a millennial, thirty three years old, a runner who did not grow up skating these streets. I was transparent about that. No authority, no attempt to translate them for an audience. Just a camera, a presence, and an honest curiosity. They clocked it immediately. That I was not there to extract cool or manufacture meaning. Trust arrived quietly. A nod. A board offered to hold. A question about lenses. For a couple of hours we shared a night shift that felt suspended from the usual narratives about collapse and loss. I found myself smiling more than expected, not because I wanted to be them again but because I recognized the sensation of belonging without explanation.
Late into the night, when the city noise thinned out and the streetlights did their imperfect job, I understood what moved me. This was not about the future of skate or whether they represent some last generation. Labels are lazy and often wrong. It was about stamina. About refusing to fold inward. These kids were not naïve. They know the country they live in. They joke about it with a sharpness that comes from growing up too fast. But their rebellion has weight because it is not theatrical. It is repetitive. Practice, fall, try again. The same trick. The same spot. The same night energy. That kind of insistence teaches you how to stay upright when everything else feels designed to make you sit down and shut up.
So when I say thank you, I mean it without romance. Thank you for letting me see you as you are, not as symbols. Thank you for trusting a woman older than you, a runner drifting into your orbit, to capture something real. Those hours gave me back a memory that was not mine but still familiar. The feeling of being in motion with others, of resisting despair without speeches, of choosing joy as an action. Skate does that. It keeps the body honest and the mind alert. Viva el skate, yes, but more than that, viva the stubborn decision to keep going, to not lower your arms, to claim the night even when the odds are ugly. That is not nostalgia. That is survival with style, no apologies attached.
All photographs and content used in this post are my own. Therefore, they have been used under my permission and are my property.
Real skateboard lifestyle !! Tks for sharing brother 🛹✨
You're welcome, mate! BTW, I'm a girl, haha
🛹❤️