Worry

She worried about people; he worried about things. And between them, that about covered it.

"What would you think of our daughter sleeping around?" she said.

"The porch steps are rotting," he replied. "Someone's going to fall through."

They were lying in bed together, talking. They had been lying in bed together talking these twenty-five years. First about whether to have children, he wanted to (although the roof was going fast); she didn't (Down's symdrome, leukemia, microcephaly, mumps). Then, after their daughter was born, a healthy seven pounds eleven ounces ("She's not eating enough"; "The furnace is failing"), they talked about family matters, mostly ("Her friends are hoodlums, her room is a disaster"; "There's something about the brakes, the water heater's rusting out").

Worry grew between them like a son, with his own small insistencies and then more pressing demands. They stroked and coddled him; they set a place for him at the table; they sent him to kindergarten, private school, and college. Because he failed at nearly everything and always returned home, they loved him. After all, he was their son.

"I've been reading her diary. She does drugs. She sleeps around."

"I just don't think I can fix them myself. Where will we find a carpenter?"

Their daughter married her high school sweetheart, had a family, and started a health food store in a distant town. Although she recalled her childhood as fondly as anyone--how good her parents had been and how they worried for her, how old and infirm they must be growing, their house going to ruin--she rarely called or visited. She had worries of her own.

~By Ron Wallace from Micro Fiction

The funniest thing I have seen in quite some time

"Don't be amazed if you see my eyes always wandering. In fact, this is my way of reading, and it is only in this way that reading proves fruitful for me. If a book truly interests me, I cannot follow it for more than a few lines before my mind, having seized on a thought that the text suggests to it, or a feeling, or a question, or an image, goes off on a tangent and springs from thought to thought, from image to image, in an itinerary of reasonings and fantasies that I feel the need to pursue to the end, moving away from the book until I have lost sight of it. The stimulus of reading is indispensable to me, and of meaty reading, even if, of every book, I manage to read no more than a few pages. But those few pages already enclose for me whole universes, which I can never exhaust."

~Italo Calvino, If on a winter's night a traveler

talking to strangers

Distractions can be pleasant sometimes.

I meant to log some project hours at the library for work today.

Instead I talked to a stranger for an hour while drinking my favourite coffee.

This is not something I usually do. I am the first to admit that I am shy. However it is something I very much enjoy. As long as the person is not a freak (which you know in the first five seconds after which you can easily dismiss them) there is something fascinating about watching someone you don't know wax on about whatever. I mean, it always starts out as pleasant enough conversation with each party contributing dialogue, but I am such a champion listener that somehow it turns into a platform for "what should be done,"; "what is right"; "what is wrong," etc. I think I have cathartic eyes.

I remember a few years ago I was on a bus. I am the person that you sit beside who doesn't speak or even look at you. The person who disappears into a separate world reading her book. But on this bus ride as soon as I sat down, the guy next to me started talking. We had a good conversation which is not something that comes naturally to me when it's with a stranger. It wasn't about anything really. Just bits and pieces for the hour long ride. He said that every time he rode that bus he always talked to the person next to him. More interesting than looking at the back of people's heads, he said. And he's right. I can't count how many times I rode that bus. But I only remember that one ride.

And I can't count how many times I've bought coffee from my local coffee joint. But I will remember today. To each of them, I am just another person they talked to. But for me they are the person that talked to me.

So, to all those individuals that live to talk to others. To those that talk to the person sitting next to them on the airplane, the person standing in front of them in the checkout line, thank you. And don't ever stop talking.

Landlocked blues

If you walk away I walk away
first tell me which road you will take
I don't want to risk our paths crossing someday
so you walk that way I'll walk this way...

and the world's got me dizzy again
you'd think after 2[8] years I'd be used to the spin
and it only feels worse when I stay in one place
so I'm always pacing around or walking away

I keep drinking the ink from my pen
and I'm balancing history books up on my head
but it all boils down to one quotable phrase
"If you love something give it away"...

I've grown tired of holding this pose
I feel more like a stranger each time I come home
So I'm making a deal with the devils of fame
Sayin' let me walk away, please

You'll be free child once you have died
from the shackles of language and measurable time
And then we can trade places, play musical graves
till then walk away walk away walk away walk away

So I'm up at dawn, putting on my shoes
I just want to make a clean escape
I'm leaving but I don't know where to
I know I'm leaving but I don't know where to...

~Bright Eyes

I can't put it out

I slept nine hours last night, but my eyes betray me. Big black circles. I have 86 terms to learn for an exam tomorrow. I know about 20. I have an assignment due on Tuesday. I am not yet 1/3rd done. I have a 12 page paper due on Thursday. I've written one paragraph. The stresses of a typical student, I guess. But instead of working, I find myself preoccupied with other thoughts. I revert to staring across the room. Here, in the library, rows of journals fill my view. Usually a calming environment, but I feel a fire in my belly. I'd rather be anywhere than here. Any country other than this one. It's been too long now since I left; the forces of school and work constraining my movement, controlling my time. I want to disappear again into that world of pure freedom where no one knows me and the ones that do have no idea where I am.

ahyah!

Today my body aches without movement. I have band-aids wrapped around each big toe, one covering an enormous blood blister.

I went to a Karate class last night. In high school I practiced karate for three years. I won a medal in a tournament. I had some incredible teachers that did what incredible teachers do - push you hard beyond the boundaries you've drawn for yourself. And then some. I felt confident and strong. I could do knuckle push-ups. I could do hundreds of sit-ups. I felt that if anyone tried to do anything to me physically I would be able to take them down. And then some.

Then I got busy, the club fell apart, and I stopped practicing. A few years went by. I tried again in university with a different club. There was a Japanese Sensei but not enough high level belts to keep me motivated. I stopped again.

Then I went to Japan. Ah, perfect, I thought. What is better than practicing Karate in Japan? I tried another club. Not what I was looking for.

It's been 12 years since I've practiced seriously. I try again.
And find exactly what I've been looking for.
Sensei is perfect. He is an old Japanese man, tiny in stature, thick in accent. He takes the "beginners" aside and starts going through the basic punches and blocks. My arms, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hands, fingers, thumbs remember everything. But below the waist I am mush. I can't touch my toes, my knees wobble, my feet tear on the floor. But still he singles me out along with two others as having experience.

"You have practiced before?"
"Yes, a long time ago."
"Where? Here?"
"No, Nova Scotia."
"Ah, beautiful place."
"Yes."
"Come here."

Japanese spins through my head. I want to speak to him, ask him where he's from, and if he misses ramen as much as I do. His English is perfect. "Power!" "Down!" "Touch your muscle. Hard!"

As the higher level belts kumite to my right, and the beginners learn the basics to my left, a senior black belt works with me and two other girls on a kata. My legs remember all too well the awkwardness of backward stance. We start slowly, working on turns, setting up blocks, and looking before stepping. And then, full on. My kiai is loud, filling the room. The two other girls are a little shy, but I know no other way. I have found my club.