My old aikido gi, hakama, and belt. Yes, I stopped before black.
"It is my body leaves my love, not I;
My body moves away, but not my mind;
For back to her my struggling fancies fly
Like silken banners borne against the wind."
--Kalidasa: "Shakuntala"
I trained at Aikido Silicon Valley for over 5 years. Sometimes,
goodbyes hurt. My attendance became less and less due to work and other
life demands, until I found myself no longer practicing, and it didn't
make sense to keep going.
I stay in shape by going to the
ill-attended gym at work. Gym workouts are such solitary affairs,
everyone too lost in their own rhythms, routines, and workout music to
form a sense of camaraderie. Instead of feeling and feeding off the
energy of a training partner, you focus on only your own movements and
improvements, or lack thereof. No ki-ai's ring out into the still night,
no epiphany from Sensei's words of wisdom, just rote repetition to burn
fat and build muscles. When I take out the earbuds and the music drifts
away, I hear only the silence of the room and the soft humming of the
fluorescent lights before turning them out and making my quiet commute
home.
Many days, I miss practicing. So that I would not have to
face the things that hurt me, I tuck away the gi and hakama and belt
deep in my closet to soften the sting of remembering joy that I could no
longer harness. I dream of buoyant high falls and of the sensation of
feeling confident and strong, only to jolt awake, pushing the images
from my mind.
Today is the annual Memorial Day weekend
"Gasshuku" at Lake Tahoe, three days of intensive, all-day aikido
practice. I remember my experiences, my colleagues, and my teachers
there. These days, I do a lot of walking, and thinking. Vignettes flash
through my thoughts like the spaces between a wooden fence, at once
hidden and clarifying. I smell the musk of human sweat in a hot dojo,
the scent of wood and varnish as bokken and jo clash against each other.
I feel the soft give of tatami mats beneath my bare feet, now bound too
often in sport socks and running shoes. I remember the resistance and
then blending of a training partner I had worked with in close
proximity. I taste salt on my lips and miss the dull pain of bruises and
sore muscles after a hard but euphoric training session.
Without the
constancy of training and feeding my body what it craves, I lose focus,
drop my train of thought, often finding myself lost in reverie. I pause
in my walk and look over my shoulder to confirm the voices are just in
my head, those that whisper my name like the rattle of the last winter
leaves skipping across pavement, calling me back to a place I had chosen
to leave behind me. Maybe one day, I will come back.
For now, I
turn forward and continue resolutely on my walk. There is resistance in
the heartstrings that bind me to that part of my past. I pull and pull
in my desire to put distance between us. The strands thin out, stretched
like cobwebs, but though parts of them are tattered and flapping, they
still hang on and seduce my struggling fancies back to them like
gravity, like silken banners borne hopelessly against the wind.
