pantoum's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BODY MEMORY I went into a deep depression after I found the Ginger with Dickboy and had to wean myself off the news and whole chunks of my music collection (although I still read select New York Times stories online). It was months before I could listen to Will Kimbrough's Goodnight Moon without sobbing, for example— and this from a woman who didn't even learn how to cry until I was well into my thirties. Giving up the news was hard for me. I used to read the paper from front to back every morning as I drank my coffee, but it was clearly affecting my mood and making me really jaded at a time when I was sinking. I am well nigh sick of peppy music now though and can even smile and laugh most days, so Leonard Cohen and Lou Reed's New York album may be in order again. Incorporating regular exercise into my days has really boosted my mood. I started waking up at 5 a.m. last month and decided to do something useful with the time instead of just staring at the ceiling until the alarm went off, and so have been cobbling together cata sequences from tae kwon do and shorin-ryu and tai chi, plus enough repetitive tae-bo moves to give me a cardiovascular workout and help me work out some of my anger. Fifty backfists in a row in double time will do a fine job of dissipating anger, let me tell you, and my kicks will, too . . . eventually . . . once I build up these weak ankles again. I study a picture of me breaking a board when I need motivation—which is often, because I am getting shin splints every time I exercise or walk around the track. What is up with that? Anyway, my roundhouse kick still needs work, but my side and front kicks are coming along and hunkering down into a horse stance is starting to feel like muscle memory again. I also realized this morning that, without even thinking about it, I still count in Japanese: iti, ni, san, si, go roku, siti, hati, ku, zyuu.... and lawdy do I miss karate! Giving up basketball and kayaking was hard enough after my shoulder injury, but sometimes I think it is worth the risk of having to have my shoulder reconstructed again just to return to the practice. Shorin-ryu, especially, incorporated Zen Buddhist philosophy and meditation into the craft. And, since I'm a bad sitter, getting still really makes me face some things that I need to face. At this point, I'm pretty sure I could still take a knife away from an attacker and could probably still throw someone over my back. These repetitive movements are nicely meditative too, but I'm a little frustrated by all this isolated movement, which doesn't provide the adrenaline rush or body insight that I gained from sparring with someone or breaking boards.
I miss that knowledge more than I miss the adrenaline fix. 10:43 a.m. - 2005-03-01 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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