Showtime!

Jan and his parents, Dan and Ilene, before the show last night

During the 75th Anniversary of the Sun Valley Ice Show

With Darlin - after the show

All eyes were on her, as she began to move.

I’ve seen Darlin skate enough times to know the outline of her body wasn’t her own. It was thinner. And the way she moved looked lighter, more effortless than usual.

Darlin and I skated together in Sun Valley – even choreographed together – and to my delight, she has lived around the corner from the rink for nineteen years now. She is the youngest of my family, her boyfriend Jan, is a ski instructor at Mt. Baldy, and more than once, she has made dinner for me, driven me around town in her convertible.

But Darlin is also a skater – whole body and soul – the likes of which you will see maybe once, twice, in your lifetime.

When Darlin, was two she began skating. She was competing by the time she was six and I noticed something different about her. It was the curve of her body – the way she used every vertebrae, leapt bigger than big, and pulled inertia with her.

She skated from the inside out.

In 1995 Darlin went to the U.S. National Championships, the qualifying competition for the Olympic and World teams. For years she skated in Phillip Candelero's show, Scott Hamilton's "Champions on Ice" and Nancy Kerrigan's show and toured the world. She has been a principal skater in the Sun Valley show for nineteen years.

But tonight as her music "Your heart is as black as night" by Melody Gardot began, I held my breath. It was her first time back in the show in three weeks, since she tore her M.C.L. while leaning over her Carmen Gia to get her sunglasses. She told me before hand that she was really nervous about hurting it again since her doctors had told her to stay off of it for six weeks or she may end up having surgery. But it was the final show of the season and she said it was feeling better. So she went for it and skated beautifully. I was captivated (as usual) but so was the rest of the crowd and they cheered wildly when she finished. I am so proud of my little sister and the beautiful person that she is, inside and out.
 
Darlin's boyfriend Jan, and his parents invited me to join them for dinner last night before the show. We went to a new place in Ketchum called, Dashi's and it was delicious. I had the black cod and I loved every bite. They were so nice and bought my dinner as well as Jan's before we headed over to the world-famous Sun Valley Lodge for the ice show. This year is the 75th Anniversary of Sun Valley and so the show director's added some new things to make the show even more entertaining. Including video clips of the skaters before they performed. It was really a cool idea and the headliner for this weeks show just happened to Sasha Cohen, one of my favorite skaters. She is right up there next to my absolute, favorite skater of all time, my sister Darlin.