Finding My Way, But Getting Lost First

If you can bear with me, I’m going to try and decipher my struggles with the past few weeks of karate class:

In Chapter 9 of Kenji Tokitsu’s Ki and the Way of the Martial Arts, he discusses ki, the guide to budo. Remember that ki is the Japanese word for qi (Chinese) or “chi.” Budo is martial way. Seme is the act of disrupting an attacker’s ki.

The combat of ki is the combat that takes place before the exchange of any blows and it is said that when a practitioner begins to sense the role of her ki in combat, she has begun to practice true art of budo. In this way, it is possible to create your own victory before physical contact has even been made. “Nonetheless, it would be wrong to say that there is a level where the mind alone is determining force, because without physical technique, there is no combat,” (47).

Tokitsu writes, “…the practitioner’s focus progresses from a preoccupation with the simple technique of movement to working with a state of mind. Not letting yourself be disconcerted by seme and discriminating the false from the real in the actions of your opponent amount to acquiring penetrating insight that is sustained by strength of mind,” (47).

In the past two weeks I have clung desperately to the simple technique of movement, the building blocks of kihon. I have resisted a shift from print block letters to cursive, as Hanshi would say, and my muscle memory has hardly been weaned from the classical blocks, punches, and kicks I practiced so routinely as a white belt. I believe this is partly because I find comfort in practicing what I know and doing it well.

I also believe that, perhaps after acquiring the worst bruise of my entire life, this is what my mind did: “…as soon as you think of striking a blow and hurting your opponent, the superego whispers that this is not right. This whisper, as tiny as it might be, is big enough to put the brakes on the spontaneity of your act and you have just enough detachment to feel this.This is often interpreted in a moral way, but it is technical in origin…I would say that morality derives here from a pragmatism pushed to the limit. This is the particular quality of budo. It has nothing to do with associating moral values with the practice of weaponry,” (49).

The notion of morality that is free of judgment is absolutely difficult for me to fathom. If the morality in budo is pragmatic, meaning a philosophical view that a theory or concept should be evaluated in terms of how it works and its consequences as the standard for action and thought, then my state of mind should not flinch when I am asked to do more than I think I can do. It means that hitting someone is not about hitting someone at all, rather, administering the best and most efficient and correct movement in response to whatever came before. This movement can be a movement of mind or of the body, and will be most effective when it is a movement of both. This, of course, correlates directly with the notion of zanshin, which Hanshi has been teaching us about all along.

Tokitsu says it best: “When you engage in combat, you plunge into the problems of ego, but not just in any old way. For example, those who are passionately dedicated to winning are carried along by a will to dominate others in order to affirm themselves…they will discover, paradoxically, that this will to dominate can be satisfied only if it allows itself to disappear,” (50). To be certain, I have not yet even begun genuine kumite in the dojo, but I do believe I have been in combat with myself since I walked in the door, as every karateka must experience on some level. And I can see now that when I have written about the problems of ego in the dojo, I, too, am not discussing it “just in any old way.”

I am passionately dedicated to doing everything I do as best as I possibly can. I find this affirming. As Tokitsu predicts, I am finding myself, paradoxically, dissatisfied in the face of the tremendous amount of information and movements Hanshi has taught me, and my body’s subsequent inability to keep pace. Additionally, I am not very forgiving of myself and I don’t have anyone of lower rank on the tatami to remind me where I came from. I only have upper ranks, whose presence and strength constantly reminds me where I need to be, though I’m not there yet. This is the error in my thinking.

Further, this explains why, for the past two weeks, every time I step onto the mat I want to cry and every time I get home I feel fed up: “Encountering again and again in the process of practice the contradiction between this desire for realization on the part of the ego and the effacement of this desire that is necessary to actually achieve the goal, [the practitioner] will be led to a profound reexamination of themselves,” (50).

This also explains my growing affinity for kata, imaginary combat versus multiple attackers, and my reduced commitment to practicing kihon (basic movements) at home. As Tokitsu says, when we get older (or injured, or slowed by our bodies in some way), we can do one of two things. We can experience discouragement, or we can enhance our understanding of the art of budo and rely more profoundly on the combat of ki. If you choose the former, as I have unknowingly, “[many] quit or reduce their level of training, contenting themselves for the most part with the practice of kata,” (51).

How’d this guy get so smart?

And here’s the kicker:

“In this way, the activity of combat leads to a process of introspection and fundamental questioning that takes you in the direction of a reorganization of the personality, a reorganization that aims at making you more penetrating in your judgment, capable of not allowing yourself to be perturbed, capable of acting spontaneously and accurately and being able to draw on your greatest abilities. The process of this reorganization is the training that contains the striving toward self-development that constitutes budo…Through this sort of bird’s-eye-view of the evolution of a practitioner’s consciousness, we are able to understand that it is at the moment when practitioners become aware of the importance of that which is ordinarily invisible that their subjective education begins,” (52-53).

Not but a few weeks ago I demonstrated wunsu kata for Hanshi and he noticed my improvement, but commented that it was almost “too perfect,” and that I needed to “flow more.” In this, he was slightly opening the door to what Tokitsu is discussing here.

The wall I have to scale in order to surrender one understanding of myself to this more away, slightly more evolved other sense of myself, seems endlessly tall. And the more Hanshi “force feeds” (his words) me with knowledge and movements, the taller that wall seems to grow. It is too much all at once.

Or is it? Does it hurt a six-year-old to know how many miles around the Earth is even though she may never get to see the whole thing? Will such knowledge discourage her from exploring what comes her way, even if it is just one state, one region, one country at a time?

I don’t know what to do next, but I do have some faith that naming the problem is half the battle.

Here is another example: In the past week I have been given two more magazine assignments and I said yes to both. I’ve negotiated with a regional organization regarding a grant-funded writing project that would pay more than half my annual income (we’re in the final stages) for roughly eighty 400-word articles. [Aside: I’ll believe it when I see it. Grant-funding is notoriously helpful and precarious all at once.]

So I’m at my desk. I got home at 9pm after being at the dojo. I’ve been responding to emails, addressing grad invites, printing info to help in the articles I need to write, and making a to-do list. It is now after midnight.

In my former view, this would not dissuade me. I would go ahead, right now, and write that blog post about Chapter 9 of the book I’m reading on ki. I would catch up with my written blue belt journal for karate. I would write Cam another poem because it’s my turn, again. This are all good things to do. And right now, I am not going to do them.

Is this the beginning of carving out time for paid gigs and cutting away at the time for my more creative work? Is this that fatal turn that writers make (sometimes more than once in a lifetime), starting to steer more towards the immediate and the paid and less toward their muses? (And boy, isn’t it lovely when the buck and the muse are lined up?)

I don’t really know what to do but I’m not sure I like where this is all headed.

I’m not ready—I’m just NOT READY yet to leave my job at the coffeehouse (and my benefits). Not in the middle of a recession. Not on the cusp of student loan payments. Not now. Not now.

So now, what?

One day at a time? I’ll try.

Taking it Easy

Here. Right now. Let this post be an example of me, choosing differently. There’s this thing I really want to write about ki in the martial arts based on chapter 9 of this book I’ve been reading. But I did an hour of PT, then read submissions all morning, worked 12noon-6pm, ate, came home and caught up on email and graduation invites. Also, did I mention I’ve been writing roughly one poem every other day since April 5th?

It is now just after 9pm. And instead of writing for another hour I am going to put my feet up and drink a beer. And the essay I want to write can wait. It will be there tomorrow. Right?

The Story of the Fawn

I write about having a “new view” a lot. But by this morning, lord if I hadn’t completey shed the skin of that fussy, angry woman who dominated my view last week.

Tonight, Jeff and I stayed late at the dojo (he has keys) to do extra pushups and sit ups and I told him that I read about 2,000 pages in the month of May. Then I held up my palms as though I were reading a book and said, “This,” indicating the eight or so inches between my eyes and the imaginary book, “this was my view for the past month…Completely limited. Trapped. Insular.”

“Yeah, who was that woman last week? I don’t think I’ve ever met her,” he said.

“My evil twin,” I offer.

“That was her dark side,” said Lis, totally serious. “We all have one.” Then she smiled…halfway.

In order to finish the sit ups I told Jeff to tell me a story. He started talking about a fawn he saw in the woods and describing its spots in great detail. I huffed and puffed, hoisted and lifted, crunched and crunched some more, and made it to 100.

We all know a fawn loses its spots after a while, offering a new view to those who see it. A more mature view. A changed view. A fresh skin covering an animal capable of leaping and bounding with precision and lightness.

I should hope for so much.

Call for Comments

On the eve of attempting more balance in my life between work and play, scheduling and not scheduling, I find myself wondering what has worked for folks out there in the past? What one piece of advice do you have? Trick of the trade? Maxim, memory, or approach?

My biggest challenge, I think, is knowing that I have work to do and being ok with leaving it on the desk to come back to the next day. If it needs doing, I tend to do it right away...which just keeps things coming. This is all well and good until I crash and burn. Thoughts?

Breaking it Down

I read an essay last week that inspired me to think about what I would do if I suddenly learned I had two years left to live. Two things came immediately to mind: travel the world and learn to play fiddle. (Mind you, this list is different from what I would do if given three wishes, which would be more benevolent and include things like world peace, enlightenment, and safety for my family.)

Since I tend to overcomplicate things in general, I was surprised by this sudden moment of clarity and even more so by the simplicity of my desires. While such a list may be different next week, at the time, it seemed lucid enough. Travel the world and learn to play fiddle? Heck, I could start enacting those things right now!

It’s been a trying month. Traveling the world and playing fiddle (an instrument I associate with wild, glorious abandon) seem the perfect psychological fix-its to over-exhaustion, self-doubt, and loss of perspective due to excessive amounts of reading. Likewise, entertaining the thought of my own mortality makes plausible sense given the number of hours I put into physical therapy just to keep up with my karate infatuation.

The indecent hematoma brought things to a head, and before I knew it I had an attitude in the dojo and a mind that preferred to fantasize about touring Ethiopian coffee plantations, trekking the Himalayas, and perhaps a sweet rendezvous in Jerusalem. Saturday, my attitude turned to anger as Jeff and I chatted on the steps of the dojo after class and he let me vent for a good three or four minutes (employing a healthy dose of expletives).

This emotion escalated this morning, when I officially finished ALL OF MY HOMEWORK for the MFA and still couldn’t even get myself to smile, clap, stomp, or cheer about this milestone. Why did I feel so angry? Because as soon as my homework was done I looked at the next things on my list—two writing assignments for magazines, an editing contract to write up, 12 submissions to read, a West coast publication to research, graduation invites to address—and didn’t allow myself any breathing room from one task to the next.

How did I get this way? There’s nothing to complain about on that list of things to do. There’s nothing to lament about having the priviledge to train with Hanshi. There’s nothing to moan about at all, really. At this point I realize the anger was entirely my own creation, which also meant that a solution could likewise come from me.

I took out my calendar, scheduled work time to attend to that to-do list starting Wednesday morning, and gave myself permission—no, required myself—to NOT touch anything on that to-do list until Wednesday. Then, I put on suntan lotion and sunglasses, stripped to my skivvies, and proceeded to lie on my back for the rest of the afternoon, staring up at the cloudless sky.

When the desire to attack the to-do list struck me again, I packed my bags and left for my parent’s house. I bought a pint of ice cream at the store on the way. Tomorrow? Shoe shopping in BigCity with my friend Amy. Tuesday? Nothing planned except karate class.

Wednesday, a new view.

WTF?

I wouldn’t call it bad kokuro, bad attitude. No—that’s note quite what I have. But there is indeed some level of resistance developing as I train and it’s starting to show up on the tatami.

Tonight we practiced rolls to warm up for jui jitsu take downs and the narrating voice in my mind that never stops was ornery: What the fuck are we doing? I’m not messing it up on purpose, it’s just that I don’t know what to do. I have absolutely no desire to fall face forward and catch myself with my (bruised) forearms and the balls of me (surgically impaired) feet. I can’t get through a single drill without him adding one more thing for me to think about. What the hell is going on?

Maybe it’s that I’m tired. I’m ready to be done with grad school (and I almost am). Maybe it’s being the least skilled in the class, every time, all the time (we have no more white belts—they all dropped out). Maybe it’s the impossibility of the White Pine Tree test that we’ve been asked to train for. Maybe it’s the knee pain, the gas costs, the late nights, maybe it’s, maybe it’s, maybe it’s…

Maybe it’s the fact that all of those things are ego-related and in karate there is no place for the ego.

Hanshi wasn’t impressed by the grotesque bruise on my arm. He said it was a spleen deficiency (in Chinese medicine it is).

“Has anyone seen it yet?” he asked.

“No sir, but they will soon—every time I had someone a latte, in fact.” I motion with my arms, handing him a mock cup, the puffed flesh of my forearm turning bruise-side up.

“You should be proud of that bruise,” he said. And then he kept talking. I don’t know what he said because the bitch in my head was too loud: I’ve played that game before. I was proud of my bruises for four years and I never want to have that attitude again. It’s not something I need. What’s he talking about? This bruise is because, in drill practice, I missed my punches (on purpose) and got blocked every time. Proud? Of what?

It’s not until I get home that I realize what he meant.

I should be proud because I’m training and that is not something that everybody does. Just as the muscles on my quads are starting to noticeably firm up as a result of training, I’m going to get other marks that are signs of training too—in the form of bruises. No difference between the two.

I’m not sure how I can get my opinions to quiet down in my own mind, but something’s got to give. I’m doing over an hour of PT a day, including pushups, crunches, sit ups, and punches with 10 pound weights to train for the test. The PT is slow and meticulous but it’s what will someday allow me to run again—a necessary component of the test. Next month, I’m dropping $250 on personalized Feldenkrais appointments for this same purpose. I’m writing down everything that I eat and drink everyday and exercising six out of seven days a week. Hanshi doesn’t know any of this. Only I know it and that should be enough. Am I so externally motivated that I’m going to let my own mind prohibit my advancement in this practice?

Hell no. I can’t be. Enough.

I'd Post a Photo But It's Too Gross

Hematoma, allright. This puppy rivals any bodily insult I ever procured during four years on the pitch. This baby’s measurable, historical, barbaric, down right obtrusive. We’re talking 25% of my forearm, raised and discolored. It’s so bad it looks impossible. No, you’d think. That can’t be real.

Take your right forearm, wrist to elbow, and cut it into quarters. Now, imagine the upper left quadrant, the inside and top of your forearm, and turn it every shade of brown, pink, purple, green you can imagine. Don’t be bashful. Use the whole fucking box of Crayolas. Go outside the lines. Press down hard until the wax starts to split.

There.

That. That. Will give you some inkling of an idea of what this bruise is all about.

I almost drove off the road today just staring at my own forearm as it stretched out before me, my hand griping the steering wheel. I seemed to get lost in the swale of colors, the ungodly pink center, the morphing from top to bottom, the sheer audacity of its surface area. An oncoming car honked and I steered back into my lane. Christ.

I find this quite disturbing. Am I that anemic? Fragile? Maybe, but why the hell didn’t my fellow karateka brush my arm out of the way more thoroughly. Had the first brushblock moved my arm, I’d have maybe a dot-sized bruise here and there from someone’s palm brushing my arm off course. Why didn’t I notice what was happening until it was too late? Why didn’t Hanshi? The brushblocks didn’t block. The full, second-thrown, classical blocks did, bone on bone, and that’s where the damage was done.

I’m no whimp. But I’m no dummy either. There’s got to be a happy medium to train on the tatami. How do I walk in the there tomorrow without simultaneously pouting and raging?

"It's Just a Little Hematoma"

I suppose I was slightly aggravated when I walked in the door. My mind had been racing all the way to the dojo, despite the fact that I tried singing along to my Buddhist “Songs of Realization” for the short drive. I think my mood had something to do with not having enough hours in the day to accomplish everything on my to-do list. At any rate, by the time we bowed in and faced the mirror for a series of kicks, I was tight-mouthed and pissy and my hamstrings, which I’ve been working a lot in PT, were mirroring my mood. We kicked and kicked and I had to duck out of the line to stretch. I could feel the muscles along the back of my left leg snapping and pulling like fishing line on a tangled reel.

Tonight we worked sambon kumite, or three step sparring, that is a type of yakasoku kumite (promise fighting). The moves are determined in advance and both partners know them. We move forward fiercely but always with the promise never to hit. This does not mean that we aim our fists improperly, hardly. It means that we stop just a few inches shy of the face/chest/gi with each move.

What’s the primary mistake, no matter what belt you are, in this type of drill? Proper ma. In Japanese, ma means distance or timing—same thing. Think about that for a minute. Someone throws a punch at you and it missed your face by a foot, although if you look straight at the fist it’s right in line with your jaw. Is this the result of too much distance or bad timing? Some say the attacker was too far away, others would just say the attacker moved too soon. Timing and distance are inherently and forever related in this way.

The second mistake most people make in sambon kumite is the first action of the body. In karate the first movement is always down, but the first activity is in the hips. Your vision is metsuke, seeing without looking, and your feet move as soon as the attacker’s feet move. If you trust your stance, you will move down and crescent step away from the attacker, rotating your hips to do so. Most people, subconsciously at least, do not trust their stances and so they lift slightly into the attacker to adjust their weight, then shift their feet. This is equivalent to sticking your head into somebody’s punch and it is discouraged.

So we move in pairs, brush blocking and crescent stepping and kiaing and I can’t seem to get it down quick enough. I’m trying my best but Hanshi is there with every move, correcting, nit picking, showing me over and over again how to do it. He barely gives me a chance to complete once sequence of the three-step movement before stopping me, correcting me again, then making me start over. It’s aggravating because I understand what he is saying and I know what I need to do, but I’m not likely to get it on the first try. I need to be able to try several times, at least, before incorporating his corrections immediately into my movements. He seems oblivious to this or, at least, he seems not to care. “No,” he says. “Like this.” [Demo.] Then, “Stop,” he says. “Like this, see? Simple.” [Demo again.] “Yame,” he says. “You’re not getting it. Like this.” [Demo again.]

It occurs to me that he might be pissing me off on purpose. And it wasn’t just me that he was correcting but, to be fair, the moves were more difficult for me than for anyone else in the class. So much is still new to me and I’m still really struggling making the shift from beginner concepts to advance (or even intermediate) concepts of basic movement. Finally, he directs his attention elsewhere for a bit and I can make the movements without interruption. I start to gain a little speed, but not much power. The brushblocks are difficult for me to believe in but by the end of the night, I can feel their relevance and see why they are necessary.

Also by the end of the night, my forearms are throbbing. Now, don’t get me wrong—I gave four years (and two surgeries and one concussion) to a sport that was all about getting bruised and not giving a fuck about it. So I’m no wuss when it comes to the concept of “No pain, no gain.” But, when I sparred with Steven, his second block was strongest, not the first (brushblock), and it took only a few sequences for a giant welted bruise to start forming on my right forearm. This is because the second block is a rigid block (bone to bone) whereas the brushblock is a perry (sp?) block – softer but totally effective. Steven was relying heavily on the rigid block and it did the job, but also did a job on my arms.

I asked Hanshi after class if the brusing was from my resistance or from blocks that were too hard and he said neither. Better to be slightly bruised there than on your face. Those bruises meant I was doing my job, he said, and then he told me to put some ice on it when I got home. I didn’t have the nerve to explain in more detail what I was feeling—that the first blocks should have been harder (but no bruising) and the second blocks must a follow up (rather than bone on bone smacking repeatedly). As they say, “In the dojo you have no opinion of your senior.”

No opinion—fine. But if we do that drill again I’m telling whoever I’m with to brushblock my punches out of the way like they mean it, because now I know what happens if they don’t. In the meantime, the aggravation I felt served a purpose: the more we moved, the louder my kia got and the more Hanshi corrected the more determined my punches became. I wouldn’t put I past him to infer that he intended to provoke us, mildly, all along…and all for the sake of learning, which I’m sure he knew we’d come around to in the end.

Statistics

Number of pages I have read in the last 19 days: 1,386.
Number of pages I need to read in the next 8 days: 559.
Reason for this: At a certain juncture this spring, my thesis became all that mattered.
Supporting quote: “Be careful what you don’t read, because the lack of it goes into your writing, too.” (David Long)

Ratio of men to women at most potlucks I’ve attended this month: 4 to 30.
Number of times in the last 48 hours I’ve been asked if “that was a date,” as a result of being seen off campus with a male member of our artist community for no particular reason other than hanging out: 6.
Reason for this: The single women of this lovely artist community are, ahem, highly deprived and therefore acutely aware of “anything” that could develop into “something.”
Supporting quote: My friend left the mountains this weekend to attend a wedding. Upon her return, she left me a message that said, “Katey, I have a story to tell you.” I called back and didn’t even have to ask if she got laid. She laughed until she screamed. There was no need for her to say yes, because instead she said, “The men get it in the real world. They hit on you and buy you drinks and they aren’t all looks and no activity. They like you, they make a move. It’s so normal it hurts. We live in a bubble. Katey, this weekend I was a fucking piranah!”

Number of minutes it took to send three images on dial up connection: 62.
Number of people to receive said images: 1.
Reason for this: The only thing that’s “high speed” on Fork Mountain is the rate at which the weeds will overtake your driveway.
Supporting quote: This, from a recent postcard I sent to Dave Swidler, “I decided to send you this news via postcard. It’s faster than dial up.”

Number of miles to the grocery store, one way: 17.
Number of miles I get per gallon: 26.
Resulting cost of craving a pint of ice cream: $4.50 in gas + $3.79 for ice cream = $8.29.
Supporting quote: “It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.” (R.E.M.)

The Sound of Settling

Sometimes, it breaks your heart just remembering how much you love them.

SG with his muscle car and greaser hairdo, this laugh that brings his whole face together like the sun shining.

SD with his eco-punk ways, tonight dawning a shirt that said, “Cancer! Everybody dies!” and yet, when you leave he says, “Goodnight, beautiful woman,” because he is just that sort of man who can say this to every woman and mean it.

JS with his quiet determination, his dreams the size of his silence—enough to fill a warehouse with ironwork.

KK with her sultry half-buzzed I-know-what-you’re-thinking gaze, that too-too heart-smart look of a woman who has felt half a life of hurt in just two decades.

AA with her snort laugh and pencil-thin arms, tan like a Jamaican and all the wide-eyed dreams of a woman in love on the fast track.

NT with her Queens moxy and studio potter timidity, all leveled out with the most badass sense of what-next and who-for I’ve ever seen.

ZLo with his getting’-grown-up look about him, finally a true and steady love at his side, grad school on the horizon but still…that ever-present boy that smiles and plays and laughs with the rest of them, setting the standard for spontaneity.

This is only to name a few of the beautiful people that come together to make life here in the broader community of the craft school the social adventure that it is.

I’m pushing. Been leaning so hard into life for a good while now, and just a week or so more to go before all the paperwork for the MFA is in, all three essays for art magazines written for the month, all 17 submissions for the lit mag read, all the thank-you cards written and bills paid or at least good enough for now, and yes, all SEVEN books read in the month of May. It’s been a bruiser in the best way possible, if one can imagine that, and it’s nights like tonight—despite the rain, despite everyone’s spring-fever fatigue, despite the distance and the gas costs, despite, despite—when we all come together for food and drink and it just feels like home.

Three Views

Lis, the black belt I worked with last night on brush blocks and partner kicks, writes today with some advice:

“You've been in class what 4 months? Five? Give yourself room to screw up, have fun with karate and do what your body allows you to do. And don't push or expect too much from yourself. Karate is not mastered in months or years. Hell, not even over a lifetime… Chin up! From one perfectionist to another, we'll get there once class at a time.”

During dinner, I read from Chogyam Trungpa’s Shambhala: Sacred Path of the Warrior, a favorite spiritual text of mine, where he writes: “We might kill for goodness or die for goodness; we want it so badly. What is lacking is a sense of humor…A genuine sense of humor is having a light touch: not beating reality into the ground but appreciating reality with a light touch.”

All of which also echoes what Hanshi has been telling me, “You’ve got to let yourself flow with these movements. Make them your own. Don’t lose the precision, but move with them fluidly.”

Overbooked

It’s not that I’m falling out of love with karate…It’s that we no longer have any white belts in our class and I’m the one with the least amount of training, so practically everything we do is new, different, challenging, or all of the above. In the blue belt, I can no longer move like a beginner. Or at least, I’m not supposed to. I still need to know the basic movements and be able to break down a basic punch, kick or block to its most rudimentary layers. But now, what matters more, is working with advanced concepts rather than beginner basics.

I need speed and accuracy, first of all, and second of all, I need to be working from a fighting stance at all times. I need both presence of mind with each movement and the ability to always anticipate the next move. I need, above all else, to be able to flow.

None of these concepts come easily to me. I wouldn’t say I’m discouraged…just slightly lost and not entirely clear on how to proceed.

After class tonight, I asked Hanshi what I can work on at home besides kata. I used to practice my beginner basics – kicks, punches, blocks – but now, many of those moves only reinforce concepts I’m trying to move away from. They are the foundation, when I need to be honing my skills for the first floor of the building. So, Hanshi tells me to keep practicing my kata and to work with the kicks. He says try stances and moving between them rapidly with reverse punches that I pull back quickly. He says find a wall, a doorknob, anything I can put a little pressure on with one side of my body, and then kick with the outside leg.

There is something else that he didn’t say, and that has to do with focus. I’m still not sleeping much more than 6 hours a night because of being so busy with magazine work. It’s good work, but on top of 30 hours a week at the coffeehouse, 60 minutes a day of physical therapy (typically I do this from 6am-7am) and the remaining MFA work, and it’s all sorta adding up and dispersing my ability to focus.

Come June, I’ll have no more excuses. I must stop over-committing myself because it’s going to start costing too much.

Missing Home

I’m mentally jabbing this guy’s eyeballs out before he can even lock the door of his car in the Ingles parking lot. Call it a trigger reaction, but seriously—he’s got these jeans on that accentuate his non-ass and the cuffs slosh across the wet parking lot tripping up his fake black leather boots. And his t-shirt? Well, that’s the trigger reaction part: TENNESSEE HOTTIES, it reads in block print, and beneath the lettering is a box of eight pornographic photos, women clad in strings of panties presenting their asses and breasts into the air as if they were cats in heat. As a final low-blow, he tosses his still-glowing cigarette into the parking lot and scuffs his way through the automatic doors. I’m sorry, but where I’m from, that could be a $500 fine.

I’m not three feet behind him in the produce section when it strikes me that what this is really about is missing home. I’ve just driven 17 miles one way to buy groceries in a dry county. By the time I’ve loaded up and driven back home, I’ll be out $4.50 in gas and 60 minutes driving time. Back home, it would have been well under a buck for gas (round trip) and 15 minutes total driving time to get to Barbur Foods and back. And yes, I could have bought wine there. Or beer. Or both.

I cut my cart over to the chip aisle to dodge any potential grocery-cart-rage that might come exploding out of me and onto this man, and there I see the lovely Kettle Chips display. I buy a bag of them, from Salem, Oregon. I return to produce and buy Stemilt organic apples from Wenatchee, Washington (where my freshman year roommate grew up and not far from where I went to college). I buy organic sweet potatoes from southern California and spinach from the same farm. I head to the frozen section and buy Soy Delicious ice cream from Eugene, Oregon and consider my quench for home moderately satisfied.

In the car, I turn on the radio and there is Death Cab for Cutie, a Seattle-based rock band.

I drive home there is the quiet, the spaciousness, the lime green of spring, and like a bad mood that just lifts away, there is absolutely nothing to complain about.

Small World

My friend called to tell me that she and a buddy hitch hiked home after backpacking this weekend and got a ride, by chance, from my ex-boyfriend. Later that day, he emailed to tell me he’d picked up some friends of mine.

…And it made me wonder, at what point does someone stop being your ex-boyfriend and start just being your good friend? Furthermore, if I’d been the hitch-hiker and had never met him before, what light would I have seen him in, this tall, handsome, friendly man picking me up for no reason other than to help out? The thought made me wish, in some ways, that I could see him again as though we’d had no past. As if starting over might somehow be more meaningful.

The answer is clear. Someone stops being your ex-boyfriend when you finally meet someone else who you love more than the ex. It’s been so many years and I’ve been with other people, but I still know that—for both of us—we haven’t met anybody else we’ve loved more than we loved each other. And even though that will change for us both, it’s an interesting position to find yourself in…knowing what someone was, and not yet knowing where you’ll be.

Reading Ya-hoo!

A little over 30 people came to the reading and celebration last night. I was nervous before the reading until Wesley got up on our makeshift stage and said the nicest, most encouraging things on the planet about me-as-writer. And I have to say that the accomplishment of the thesis didn’t really hit me until I heard someone else describing what it took for me to get there…and by the time she was done introducing me to a houseful of supportive friends, my nervousness had melted and all that remained was the sense that there was something I had to say, and that it was already written down and now all I had to do was read it. And read I did.

I don’t believe I’ve ever felt so supported in my writing life as I did last night. I’ve been smiling for 24 hours straight! Thank you, friends!

Prep for the Party

Tomorrow night is the big MFA thesis reading at my house! A friend is organizing the potluck and reading for me, so I get to celebrate with my NC peeps and practice for the reading that will happen next month for graduation. Afterwards, a bunch of women friends are spending the night (might as well, after trekking it up so far) for our seasonal Girl’s Night on Fork Mountain celebration. Ya-hoo!

In preparation, I weeded for two hours yesterday. This afternoon, I weed-whacked for two hours (the driveway is half a mile long, plus a few side areas that needed to be dealt with) and cleaned the waterbars on the road, then lifted any precarious stones or branches off the road as well. Tomorrow, I’ll rake gravel for a few hours and then, finally, I think the road will be set for real traffic.

Also in preparation, I’ve been researching binderies all week and finally found one that is used by a local university. I special ordered 24-pound acid-free archival quality paper, printed two copies of my thesis from my home printer, and boxed is all up with a note to the bindery, rush order. The buckram bound leather ones will cost $40 each! Meanwhile, I had three floppy copies made at the local print center, spiral bound, and they’re sitting on my desk right now. I’ll read from one of them tomorrow night.

The Stories We Don't Turn Into Stories

It’s that kind of weariness that comes from lack of sleep. Getting to bed after midnight and waking at 6:30am to the alarm for about ten days in a row will do that to you. Or to me, at least. It’s not that when I’m tired I can’t see the stories, no, that’s not the case.

Today there was Hanshi, and his speech about how to control a fight by controlling the head. There was the awkward comedy of telling twelve people twelve different times at work that, “Today I only have hummus, onion, tomato, bagels, and bread,” and then explaining why 70% of the menu was not available. There was the informal study I conducted on my kitchen mice as I sat on the countertop in the dark and ate a grapefruit very, very slowly. There was the bard owl, it’s death-cry and four-pulsed call into the night. There was the dream I had last night about the Israeli, how he wore John Lennon glasses and a garland of red hot chili peppers and how I woke laughing at the dream and then laughing at myself because I had rolled over onto the pillows where he’d slept and left his scent. There was the two hours of roadwork I put into the driveway this afternoon to prepare for this weekend’s party (the scrape, the lift, the cussing, and then the delightful discovery of a trillium grove).

So the stories are there, just waiting to be written. They can be written to be captured, written to be understood, written to inspire, written to draw parallels, written into their own truths. But it’s my temperament that goes down the tubes when I don’t get enough sleep.

Tomorrow is Friday. I will work and then come home and put about four hours into the road. Then I will finish a book. Then I will sleep, hard, hard, and long.

On the Body

I decline the PT under the advice of another physician (friend) who sends a packet of at-home exercises which cost approximately 41 cents postage, as opposed to $70 twice a week for several months.

I sign on for a 5-session deal with a local Feldenkrais movement therapist at $45 a pop. Not cheap but not expensive and it comes recommended from my acupuncturist. Part of this plan also gives me access to audio CD’s I can work with at home to deepen my healing practices.

I review my little food and exercise notebook, which I began the day after I passed my blue belt test. I have exercised 14 out of the last 18 days. My pain has not lessened but it has not gotten worse. I could be eating a little better (those sugar cravings that parallel the menstrual cycle are something else!) but I’m eating better portions, so that counts for something.

Hanshi has asked Jeff and I to start training for the Pine Tree test. That’s the one wher eyou have 60 minutes to run three miles, do 500 front kicks, 75 punches holding a 10 pound weight, 10 push ups, 30 sit ups, 2 minutes continuous sparring on the bag, 200 jump rope jumps (no misses), and probably something else I’m forgetting. Jeff wants to do it by this summer. I feel I’ll be luck if I can do this within two years.

…But I have to start somewhere. Right now, my starting steps are tiny and they have to be at the level of home-physical therapy and work with the Feldenkrais audios. I’d like to lose 25 pounds but I can’t seem to make that happen. I weigh the same I’ve weighed for the past year and a half, although I know my legs are stronger because I can actually see where the muscles are developing more. Still, if I’m lighter on my joints I’ll heal better and stay better longer and I’ll be that much faster for the test.

One day at a time, right?

Just Flow With It

Hanshi says he’s force-feeding me more than any student he’s ever had. This is largely a symptom of having a small, mixed-level class, combined with the fact that I have a high retention rate.

Saturday, Jeff and I worked kata as Hanshi dissected and corrected our moves, made adjustments, and quizzed our knowledge. Wunsu kata, the second kata I had to perform in order to pass my blue belt test, continues to unfold for me. I am just now starting to understand, spacially, how the spinning kick and concluding strike and kia move together.

Hanshi said my form has improved greatly, then he paused and concluded: “It’s very perfect. ..now you need to learn how to flow with it.” Then he demonstrated the movements and it looked as though he was moving under water—grace and strength—a sort of formalness without the rigidity.

“Flow with it. Ok,” I said. “I think that’s a good metaphor for my life, actually.”

Next, we worked Anaku (small bird form) and Empi-Sho (flying swallow form), both of which are far over my head. I followed as best I could and still managed to learn a bit. If nothing else, this early exposure will help impress these forms into my mind at the level of pre-thought. Since over-thinking is my most natural pathway, this is in fact for the better.

Door Number One

It’s auction night up at the craft school, sixty-odd students plus staff, old timers, community members, and collectors gathered on humble metal folding chairs spread across a hardwood floor to make bids and raise scholarship money for future students. All night long I eye the exit door like an old wound, something you know you must slither through as much as it hurts without looking back to assess the damage.

I’m sitting next to him, all the worlds of art and bidding and high-brow mixed with craft-brow and happy-brow surrounding us, giddy on free beer and the warmth of spring air, and what I notice is that I’m living out an old pattern but the ruts are only surface deep. Yes, the connection has been genuine. Yes, part of me wants more. No, it is not possible. No, I will not push it.

And yet, why do I sit here, next to him, the warmth of his thigh alongside mine, the deep scent of him (dried clay, sweat, playfulness, mixed with the oil of dark, dark hair), his voice like a rich talcum powder absorbing the damp heat between us? And why do I ask, even though I know it is not best, whether I should stay the night in the dorms with him, despite the fact his mother arrived today from Jerusalem (she sits on the other side of him now, as the auction carries on), despite the fact that I already know he is too busy, despite, despite, despite?

I ask because picking at our old wounds, the scabs of them, is all we know to do during a time of limbo. I am no longer the same lover I once was. Likewise, I am not yet the lover I want to become. And so I find myself wanting more but knowing it is not what ought to be, and sitting with that feeling for several hours as the auction carries on before us. We’re in the front row. He bids, I bid, his mother laughs. There is beer, wine, friendship, noise. And before the final bid is made I turn to him and say:

“I need to go. Should I go? I should go.”

He smiles. Brings a hand to his lips (does he notice this? I don’t think so). He shakes his head.

“I could stay. But I shouldn’t, right?” I say. I stumble, falter, laugh and look at the old lover as she takes over my brain, makes one final attempt.

“I’d like to but…” he says, returning his hand to his lap, putting the other hand around my shoulders.

“And you’re right,” I say. “There is too much else going on. I should go. I should just go.”

“I need to be here. I need to finish my class, my experience here. I wish we had found each other earlier…Will you come to work early tomorrow so that I can find you and say goodbye?”

I nod, tell my legs to move, and lift out of the seat to walk to the back of the auction hall. There, right there, I see four doors through which I may exit, all of them old cuts my psyche has nursed along for years. And one – I choose one – and walk on out, understanding the difference between who I used to be, and the woman I am trying to become.