Snapshot with Words

It’s a good sign when you’ve lived someplace for more than seven years and you still find yourself pulling over on the side of the road to look at something beautiful. Last month it was the Black Mountains skirted in fog. This morning, it was the light of late sunrise, clear enough to crack like glass. Driving down the mountain, I hadn’t even hit hardtop before being taken aback by the view.

There they were, textured gray trunks of tulip poplar and white oak, maple and sassafras, pointing skyward into the light that bathed them. The slopes of Fork Mountain come down at a particular angle on this part of the road, and the sunlight poured through at its own angle, creating a second forest of long, thin shadows cast in near perfect stripes across the duff-littered mountain face.

It never occurred to me to take a photograph. The trees, the sunlight, even the chattering calls of wren and chicadee in the background are at once fleeting and expected; a daily paradox. Every morning I drive down the same mountain. Every morning, so far in this life, the sun rises. And every morning humankind flits about this tiny planet like so many fruit flies on an apple. The challenge is not taking the photograph for a keepsake, but living in a way that assures that angle of the mountain, that clarity of morning light, that chorus of bird calls will be there many eons after we are gone.

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After fielding several phone calls and reading comments on Blogger and LJ, the verdict rings loud and clear: Option B, the French press. One reader put it best when he commented, “What would Thoreau do?”

Reader Poll

If you had to pack your life-for-the-next-year into your car, which of the following means of making coffee would you pack. Choose only one:

A)   SAECO Incanto Sirius espresso machine (market value $1,000). Fact: The number one personal espresso machine in all of Europe. Fact: Travels best in its original, protective box, which is roughly 6 square feet.

B)   BODUM single-cup French Press (market value $17). Fact: French pressed coffee, when brewed correctly, has more caffeine per ounce than espresso. Fact: Fits inside the glove box of most vehicles.

Incidentals: The conductor of this Reader Poll holds a public bias toward espresso machines, having served the greater tri-county area as a barista for 4 years. (Case in point: How else do you think I got an espresso machine that is worth more than the cost of my Volvo? C-o-n-n-e-c-t-i-o-n-s.) Likewise, the conductor of this Reader Poll is a Capricorn and therefore occasionally manifests borderline Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Symptoms include meticulous packing and organizing, over-thinking, over-thinking while caffeinated, and over-thinking.

Cast your votes in the comments!

Budo from Heart to Heel

Life at the dojo has been full-bore these past few weeks. To prepare for my sankyo test (brown belt), I come an hour early on Tuesday and Thursday nights to train with Hanshi. Since his daughter Sienna left, he no longer has a Sempai (first student) on weekdays and has asked me to take on that role. This means I attend the kid’s class and assist with the white belts so Hanshi can work with the other ranks.

As stand-in Sempai, I arrive at the dojo a little before 5pm and don’t leave until about 8:30pm two nights a week. Saturday mornings, my time commitment can range anywhere from 1-3 hours, depending. If Sensei Nate is there, he is Sempai because of his rank and I gladly submit. Either way, we both help with shoji, or ritual cleaning of the dojo. This usually happens on weekends and is sometimes as simple as sweeping and other times includes carrying in wood, offering to clean the bathroom, or moving any array of mats.

[1 year, 11 months, and 2 days of this karateka’s notes and achievements.]

Outside the dojo, any good karateka knows there are more responsibilities. In the case of Shuri Ryu Karate and Shintoyoshinkai Jiu Jitsu, these responsibilities are threefold. First, I must cross train at least three days a week (cardio and weights). Second, I must keep a journal of new concepts learned in class, as well as Japanese words and extensive lists of all the major principles and identifying features of the systems. Third, I must practice kata (forms) and kobodu (ancient martial weapons) to work the kinks out of whatever technique we examined in class.

Last, there is the expectation that all of this work is not simply the work of someone who wants to get fit, rather, it is budo. Budo translates to “martial way.” Budo is characterized by the highest and best use of our mental and physical abilities (sieryoku) and by applying maximum efficiency with minimum effort (jitakyoei). The highest principle of budo is the notion that gentleness conquers force. A good karateka may spend hours a day fending off imaginary attackers or perfecting the art of bone breaking, but when it comes down to it the essence of this art is not in its ability to destroy or cause pain. The power of budo lies in its ability to transform a person from head to toe, from heart to heel.

Getting Ready to Roll

Each day my momentum picks up speed: I am packing, sorting, selling, donating, and organizing my life for one-year on the road. The first 4 ½ months will be at Interlochen. After that, who knows. I will not be the writer who is also a nanny or the writer who is also a barista or the writer who is also the waitress. I will be the writer who is always the writer.

To that end, I intend to pack everything I think I’ll need for the next year of my life into my Volvo station wagon. What doesn’t fit, doesn’t come. My parents have generously agreed to store what they can. This includes the essentials such as books, my grandmother’s chairs and china, and what I hope will only be a few boxes of memorabilia and artwork.

During the month of October, I sold 2 couches, 3 chairs, 1 table, 2 bags, 5 articles of high-end outdoor clothing, and a few other things amounting to $300 in sales (or roughly the cost of gas for my first big move). During that time I also took a small truckload of things to the dump and donated two grocery carts full of belongings to the local thrift store.

But perhaps most exciting of this all has been the act of taping boxes shut. Viewed here from left to right, the boxes are as follows:

[One small victory: The first round of boxes has been taped up!]

Top row of small boxes: Published clips in chronological order from 2000-2009.

Bottom row of larger boxes: One—5 years of lessons plans, Montessori Certification albums, and teaching journals. Two—3 years of arts writing folders on artists, sample magazines, and a few freelance files. Three—2 years of graduate school (craft handouts excluded).

Although I didn’t anticipate it, the satisfaction in taping these boxes shut has had me flying high the past few days. Box by box, I’m building my foundation for the next stage in my writing life.

***

Note to readers: My road is impassable for much of winter, therefore selling the furniture now has been essential. I've enjoyed the experience of eating cross-legged on the kitchen counter all week. Really. It keeps it interesting.

Bears Unrest

Heading up the driveway in my truck this afternoon, the folks who live at the bottom of the gravel road came out with some news.

“They brought down two bears this morning,” said Bill.

I knew what he meant. “They” referred to hunters with packs of hound dogs and 4x4 ATV’s. “Brought down” meant the bears were shot dead, then brought down Fork Mountain, their wide torsos limp across the back of a vehicle, paws flopping over the sides.

“It’s that time of year again,” I told Bill.

“I know. I don’t approve of it. Not that way, at any rate, but the hunters said they found a few bears’ dens and ran them down the mountain. They shot two of them, but a few more hurried off and are likely roaming nearby.”

“Ok,” I told him. I said a silent prayer then that all the bears might find the 34 acres I live on and take refuge there until the end of hunting season. There are bobcat, black bear, deer, weasel, opossum, raccoon, birds of prey, and more up here. I see evidence of them increasingly this time of year.

“They always seem to forget that it’s the bears’ territory up there,” said Bill, waving his hand up the mountain. “Go messing around enough and you can bet the bears are going to get wrassled up, come down the mountain to get away from all the dogs…trouble is, it’s not going to be any better for them once they get down here.”

I nodded, then headed up the mountain with a honk and wave, leaving Bill in an unfortunate cloud of fumes from my, oops, really old truck. I don’t judge those who hunt deer to feed their families, but killing a bear has always felt sacreligious to me. I think of Old Ben in William Faulkner’s “The Bear,” which I could not find to quote for tonight’s post, but those who have read the famous story know what I mean.

In anticipation of tomorrow’s Halloween, may it be Night of the Living Bears, rather than a continuation of today’s deaths.

*            *            *

Searching for “The Bear,” I came across two provocative quotes from William Faulkner:

In an interview with The Paris Review in 1956, Faulkner remarked, "Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique. There is no mechanical way to get the writing done, no shortcut. The young writer would be a fool to follow a theory. Teach yourself by your own mistakes; people learn only by error. The good artist believes that nobody is good enough to give him advice. He has supreme vanity. No matter how much he admires the old writer, he wants to beat him."

And another quote: “My own experience has been that the tools I need for my trade are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whisky.” [What about a pen?]

Linda Flowers Literary Award Night: Photos and Update

Two weeks ago, I was privileged enough to be recognized at an awards reception sponsored by the North Carolina Humanities Council. I received the Linda Flowers Literary Award for fiction and was honored on stage before the keynote award recipient, Marsha White Warren, was honored as this year’s Caldwell Laureate. As promised at the time, here are the press photos I received today that I would like to share.

Many talented artists made offerings that evening as a part of the reception, including poet Jaki Shelton Green, actress Joyce Grear, U.S. Congressman David Price, Professor Reginald Hildebrand, and humanities guru Doris Betts.

[Group photo]

The 2007 Caldwell Laureate, Emily Herring Wilson, honored me by describing Linda Flowers’ vision and inspiration and making special mention of the ways in which my fiction echoes that vision.

[Emily and myself on stage]

Next to graduation from my MFA in Writing at Pacific University, this very special evening marked one of the most supportive moments of my life as a writer. I found myself in an auditorium full of people who care about, invest in, and contribute to the humanities in an engaged way—many of them for a lifetime. Of course, the only people happier than me were my parents, posing here as the photographer asked us for a family photo:

[Schultz family]

As an endnote to the award, the local paper ran a lovely article about it this week. Likewise, I had a phone conference this afternoon with the executive director of NCHC, who explained the details of the residency I am given as a part of the award. In addition to the award cash prize and publication, the council has offered me $250 in gas and food expenses to cover the costs of a one-week residency at Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities in Southern Pines. I learned today that I can actually stay at this residency for up to one month free of cost (supporting my own food needs beyond the $250) if I schedule in advance. I couldn't be happier!

Morning Light

[Sorry my posts have been in the morning rather than the night I compose them. I have had internet connection problems all week.]

This time of year, I wake to the sunrise. With floor-to-ceiling south-facing windows in my bedroom, I shut the alarm off, sit up in bed, and spend the first few minutes of my day watching the world wake up.

Some mornings, it’s still a hushed gray along the horizon. Others, full pinks spread across the rim of mountains. But always, there is a moment of metamorphosis between night and day. Like a flower slowly opening its petals, it happens step by step yet—all of the sudden—it appears in full bloom. So it is that the morning’s light finds its way into the lower field…

…then up the steep sides of Fork Mountain…

…finally into the fullness of another fall day.

Story of the Sai

In preparation for my upcoming sankyu (brown belt) test, Hanshi introduced me to the sai last week. This ancient martial weapon takes after an agricultural tool used for planting seeds. The long, middle spear was pressed into the soft soil, allowing a farmer to easily deposit a seed where it needed to go. When the Japanese invaded Okinawa during feudal times, they not only made physical invasions but made thorough attempts to destroy Okinawan culture as well.

[Hanshi loaned me his personal set of sai this week, so that I can practice Taikyokyu Sai, an ancient martial weapons form.]

The first thing the Japanese did after gaining control in Okinawa was demand that everyone hand over their weapons. There remained only one communal knife in each village and it was chained in a public place where it was accounted for daily. This knife could be used by famers to slaughter animals but could never be removed from its central location.

As a means of continuing their martial arts, Okinawans began developing kobudo kata, or ancient martial weapon forms. What we call a bo staff today (looks like a broom handle without the broom head) was used to carry buckets of water and grain, as farmers slung the bo over their shoulders, a bucket dangling from either end. What we call the sai (or trident, though that’s not quite the same) was used for planting seeds. There are other agricultural tools adopted as martial weapons, each with its own story.

The Okinawans weren’t the only culture that had to adapt to invasions, preserving certain aspects of their culture in secret. As they trained in hidden meeting grounds, later other people such as the Maori and the Hawaiians adapted their martial arts to disguise intent. Study the Maori arts and you’ll see a lot of percussive slapping and shifting, making their forms look like a tribal dance. In fact, a slap was often an elbow break or a head slap into a knee. Study Hawaiian Lua (which evolved into the tame, touristy Hula) and you’ll find an ancient art of bone breaking so brutal that tribal members could sever every limb from an invader’s body without the use of a single weapon.

Taikyokyu kata is a basic form that can be practiced with or without weapons. It fends off 8 imaginary attackers in 22 moves with an embushen (blueprint) in the shape of the Roman numberal “I”. As I moved in crescent steps across the tatami (mat) tonight, charting my path along an imaginary “I” helped me remember where to place my feet next. Hanshi’s soft-toned coaching from the sides helped me remember the moves (“Furl, now theory. And step, jab, furl, yes…Repeat. Go back where you came…now furl, hold the crane stance…and theory…”).

I like thinking about the history of such a form as I make the movements. It’s not that I focus on the violence of it—hardly. But moving in such a precise, principled way across the mat in a series of movements 1,000 years old conjures its own sort of energy. When I work any karate form long enough, my mind and body become one and it’s at this juncture that I can understand why a culture might go to such extremes to preserve these ancient forms. The harmony of breath and movement does more than mimic spiritual ascendance, for brief moments it actually makes such ascension seem possible.