Cathe, age 47, isn't skating for the benefit of the delighted onlookers ringing the dance skaters in Central Park; she's utterly absorbed in her own world, and doesn't even notice them.

I started skating 12 years ago, when I got divorced; I just wanted to change my life. I had seen inline skaters, when I lived in Philly — there was a large group there. I saw them flying around on the streets and I said, "I gotta do that!"

I came over to roller skates about eight years ago. I had to go indoors for a winter, to recover from sinus surgery... I had a bunch of stuff removed from the inside of my face, and I couldn't skate outdoors: it was too cold. So I ended up in a rink with my hockey inline skates and I rolled around about a half a dozen times, and I thought, "This just isn't fun." Then, this bunch of people showed up with roller skates, and they just blew me away. They just could do anything. They were having fun and they were playing and there was all kinds of great moves, and you forgot they were wearing skates. And I ended up meeting a couple of them, and I just had a ball!

This is my home rink, here at the park. I'm probably more familiar with the surface; I started out as an inline skater, so I did the streets a lot, I learned to play roller hockey for a while, did ramps for about two years, and I just liked being outdoors! I mean, I still skate the rinks, I go to Empire, I go to the Key, I go to the Roxy. But this is my preference.

It's a little difficult for people who watch us to appreciate that we don't know that you're there; the perimeter is almost the end of the world, if you will. It's very much a sandbox-playing experience: once you're in there, you're pretty engrossed in what you're doing and the whole world just sort of disappears...

For me, it's mentally liberating. It's been my mental health plan for a long time! I couldn't imagine not doing it. My hockey skates, I've taken all over the world, 'cause I skate everywhere. In Cork, Ireland, I hooked up with a bunch of teenagers on the internet before I got there, and we skated from the University of Cork, all over the city. I've done it in Italy, I've been all over Germany. There's a lot of people that travel from here to hook up with people who skate in Europe. It's a bigger sport than I think a lot of people realize.

It's one of the more unique sports because it seems to bring people from all walks of life. I mean, no matter what you do, when you put on skates it's kind of the great equalizer: it's, "So, what's your next move?" It's, "What do you do now, 'cause whatever you do for a living doesn't really matter, or how much money you make or how much you paid for your skates."