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Scaling Down

November 23, 2011 in Numbers, Poems, Risking, Weighing Down, Words

For more years than I can remember I have started each morning by weighing myself. My day progresses based on what that number tells me. Have I progressed, regressed, avoided the consequences of an ill-timed snack by exercising? The scale has become my oracle and my tyrant. Tomorrow morning I will begin my day without a number. This is a foreign, unsettling experience, but it is time for me to begin living without a perpetual early morning assessment. Many years ago, I wrote the poem below. Finally it is prescient.

 

No Weight

 

There are no numbers left

to look at,

there are no weights

that can measure

the success of me.

There are no numbers

to step up to

or step into

or

step on to.

I leave this morning

without a scale,

a weight

a measure,

 a shadow that

I keep looking

over.

I have none of this

today

just a reflection

and the suspicion

that grief

is a fluttering thing

too light to sink into

anymore.

“No weight!”

I hear myself saying

and I want to

turn back

and step onto

something

get aboard

and wait for

the pin

or

the digital reading

to size me up

one last

time

for old time’s sake.

But I can’t make that move,

won’t raise my foot

to step up

into another number.

I am facing the

world

without a number

and this is the most unfamiliar

place that

I have ever been

this simple

space between

the scale

and the front door.

I may be huge

out there,

I may be small

I may make an imprint

or—

not at all

but I will not

listen to

another

number line

or some other

media voice

trying to take

measure of me.

I have a choice

and I choose

to live

in uncertainty.

The fat of me

and the thin of

me is

just fine with that

slender thought.

I’ve got a world

to live

and I’m not

waiting

                            anymore.

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Go First

November 10, 2011 in Love, Poems, Risking, Words

Consider

After ten years with her

consider not

protecting yourself

think more as a canyon

and less the raptor.

Don’t imagine the

way up

bring a sleeping bag

some fresh water

and a single frango mint.

Put it next to

her at 3 am

count her fingertips

as is they were stars

remember that

loving is a solo sport

even in twos

you are still

the one

who chooses

the riverside

and dew

over the folded

comforter.

 

Consider her flippancy

is the zipper of

her bag

she is out there with you

seemingly encased

in goose down

but out there

with

you

under the same

Fall equinox—

 

that you weren’t

put here to

escape to higher

ground

that love

is never synchronized

someone always goes first.

Go first.

Build the fire

At 6 am

heat the water

place the word

“maybe”

against the

calendar entry

next to “New Year”

and wait like

the Buddha

under the Bodhisattva tree

no protection

under all elements

against all odds

 

open up your posture

in this dark

and wild canyon.

 

Consider not

protecting

yourself.

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A Fine Mess

November 4, 2011 in Fine Mess, On the Real, Poems, Uncategorized, Vanilla, Words

When you ask for a real critique, be ready. I knew I would get the real when I asked my friend Aaron what he thought of my spoken word. He hesitated a moment and then offered up his assessment. Told me I was great with audiences, comfortable speaking, strong voice, good content…but…not enough of…me, not enough mess in the picture. That’s what audiences come to see, someone not only offering insights, but taking real risks with their soul and life under construction. There has got be some high wire to spoken word or it falls flat.

The truth is I am just that, a fine mess. Battling petty addictions, kind one moment, impatient the next, an advocate and comfortably complicit with events around me that require anything but malaise. I step up. I step back. I speak out. I measure my words. Last night I was asked to hit up one of my standard pieces, my namesake, Vanilla Soul. This was on the throes of celebrating several fine arts advocates get recognized for their work in Tacoma. The night, my many friends, and the honorees, were sublime.

As I went into the beginning lines of the work though, something in me teetered, something not the same–I wasn’t on automatic, I was a beginner, fresh, unsteady, every word was not coming to me, but more importantly, I was feeling those words, fine mess, no more fronting. I got a little love at the end of the work, but I know there is more, more risk, more me, more mess to come.

This is chapter two, this is into the breach. This is connecting the dots between local and world events and my own involvement, complicity, revelations, all in a spirit of deeper ownership, in rejection of abstract “thems” and “usses” in both love, and calling out, and owning in and every scrap of life in between. This is me climbing down the cliffs into the fine mess. Still sky above and rivers hitting the rocks hard. Time to become a real poet and squeeze out the authentic of voice.

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Step In

November 2, 2011 in Heavy Bag Boxing, Late is on Time, Physical Practice, Words

Sometimes late feels like it’s just on time. Two days ago, I finished a meeting at 5:45 PM, the very time I usually place my gloves by a bag to reserve my space for my boxing class. I got home at 6:02 PM, two minutes after class has started. For the first time it occurred to me that I could arrive at class late and still get some benefit.  Do I sacrifice 40 minutes of cardio structure and bliss, because I am going to miss the first twenty? I threw on my workout clothes, gunned the engine, hurriedly squeezed my gloves on as I walk down the steps and toward the boxing studio and arrived with students in mid punch, mid
session. A bag was open, opposite to a newbie, who was doing her very best to give the bag an awakening. I stepped in with the first jab, like a dance partner cutting in, during the middle of a song, and wailed away following Kim as closely as I could. Sweat started pouring down about twelve minutes into my abbreviated session and by the time we were done, I was happy and just on the right side of tired. That session felt like a unique victory.

When is it too late? When have we missed the chance to be alive? I don’t know, but I can tell you that when we engage, get moving, take part, the past fades away, dominated by the vibrant present. It doesn’t really matter what happened up to that moment. Present trumps past, trumps passivity, trumps scared. Being there, even twenty minutes late, or twenty years, is still
being there. You don’t need to start from the beginning. Just step in.

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Surrounded

November 2, 2011 in Masters, Physical Practice, Tai Chi, Words

Surrounded

I am surrounded by masters.

Last Tuesday, I made the perilous journey to Ballard from Tacoma with just 55 minutes to make class in time–all without the comfort of the Viaduct exchange. I made my way off 99 at First Avenue and followed it until I felt like I had a realistic chance of taking a left turn to what I would hope to be Western Ave. My thanks to my girlfriend’s advice (vaguely recollected), because there Western was, bright as any entryway could be– with a simple jaunt to Ballard and my Tai Chi studio from there. I arrived three minutes late in the back studio, quickly switched into studio shoes and made my way out to standing meditation, so glad to be back in the studio I had missed for two weeks. Midway through class, our teacher was ready to lead us through the whole sequence. I was at the front of the studio and very quickly deposited myself in the middle, with a line of students in front of me, another behind me, with students to my left and my right. I heard myself say…

“I am surrounded by masters.”

That insight proved to be true, and necessary as I tried once again to replicate the subtleties of practicing a Tai Chi form without having that form deep in my bones. Every direction I looked someone was there to teach me. My teacher, who is subbing for Kim while she “collects” mastery in China, stepped over to offer corrections and adjustments, and they were good, but in between, mid form, I could look any direction and get some help to the next sequence, the next turn of the hand, diagonal step, exhalation, balance, or push. This work is not just about choreography, it is about right practice, and there is not way to talk your way into it–you got to look, listen, feel, get into your head and back out of it. It helps to have ordinary humans who are also unwitting masters to help you in whatever direction you travel.

I am surrounded by masters.

Perhaps master is just momentary, hard to sustain, but I have found that in most of my classes of physical practice, I have masters, people worth observing and studying, all around me. No one is showing off, they are just deep into their own grace, own practice and rather than “out doing” anyone, I am learning to absorb, appreciate and perhaps be inspired to find my own style. Maybe we don’t need to look too far to find mastery. Maybe the examples of it, are evident every day, if only for moments and if we place ourselves in the middle of the world, rather than as an outlier, we can see good practice in every direction.

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Poem for My Daughter

November 2, 2011 in Daughters, Poems, Words

This is my poem for

the daughter I

will never have.

I want you to know

that my mother

had a ring for you

that is was a ruby

that is was lost or sold

by my stepfather

when my mother died

that it does not

matter,

my mother would have

loved you

through my fingertips

into your teacup,

that she would have

followed you

to school

and sent you a message like

“The salad bar is

safer;

Calculus is

your birthright

and

Go ahead, be dramatic.”

This is a poem for the

daughter I never

had.

This is a word

for students

I sat with when

we imagined poetry.

I saw a little

of my daughter

in you,

so when you wrote

swiftly about your

horse

and I could feel the

cooler air

in the high spring,

I was remembering

at hoof speed,

I was the camera,

the saddle,

the rhythm

the drum skin

of earth.

This is the empty room

that sometimes is entered

by the daughter of

a girlfriend, a daughter

who would like to

keep a coffee table

between us.

This is my pen gliding

across the paper

like an ice skate

while you ignore me

and I realize

that ice fields can

stop stories cold.

This is to let you know

that in my best moments

I keep you within a glance

of my heart

and love you with

my mother’s eyes

while my fingers

close the

figure eight

and my pen seeks

bigger circles.

This is a poem for

the young girl I mentored

who told me a story

we made into a play,

who sat riveted

by my mother’s scenes.

For a few special people

she is visible

through me,

and perhaps

the teacup

was meant for you,

and, after all, we did drink

and awful lot

of tea together.

This is a poem for all

of the daughters

we never have

the memories

we make

like sand paintings

that must be

poured at

the river’s edge

each evening.

We have lost you before

we knew you

but yet we knew you

still.

These are apologies,

dropped like violet petals

at the doorsteps,

for all the expectations

we never swept up,

that got blown

across the plain

whisked into the pulse

of a gallop

until no apologies

or petals

are left at all.

This is your poem,

a poem

until just this moment,

you never had.

 

 

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Where You Living?

November 1, 2011 in Paserjes, Rank and Class, Vanilla, Words

Dr. Leticia Nieto teaches the theater of nuance. My troupe members, Paserjes, are not learning to become cardboard cut outs of oppressor and oppressed. We are learning how to express the ease of living within the attitude of rank, how to relax into entitlement, or tighten our peripherals in the role of target. This will make us more effective and believable when we recreate stories for migrant and bilingual audiences. Actually, many of my of my theater mates know exactly what the target roles feel like—but the art is in the expression—bringing social rank into our bodies, our gate, our ease or tenseness. For me, one of a few straight white males, I am reminded of how easily I have come to expect certain things to work out, to be frustrated by obstacles, to see them as unwarranted. In truth, I am looking at a path that is not constant uphill. My inclines are often graded downward, at least as far as day to day living is concerned. My quiet domestic tizzies, in the comfort of home can become a habitual loss of perspective. I am in the lower middle ebbs of the middle class—I have huge advantages that I rarely recognize in the frequent moments that I act upon them. All the advocacy in the world doesn’t guarantee that self recognition.

I sit here relaxing in Ballard twenty minutes before I prep for my Tai Chi class and I am starting to get why I am not comfortable living in predominantly white, relatively affluent environments. Entitlement has not only texture, and smell, but it carries a drone, like a sustained chord that carries over distance and time within certain socio boundaries. You can feel it, and you can hear it. These are personable communities that can deeply lull the walker into a state of well being. They are defined in part, by what is missing as much as what is in sight. What you see is by far, not all of what you get, because what you get is often what you can suppress or ignore.  The invitation is to settle here, if you have the money or want the relative safety, that this is the most high and the normal as far as neighborhoods go.

Is it? Does upscale white with patches of homeless and kennel certified dogs equate to ideal? I’m hearing that drone and not loving it even though this kind of community is familiar. I have passed through it frequently in my life, even though my address may be somewhere on the outside parameters.

Unsettled is not bad—it is the cacophony that may stimulate movement, a trajectory. I would need to be anesthetized to be  comfortable here. At 50, I don’t want that kind of peace. So let’s keep mixing it up at Paserjes and I will keep stirring myself into new ingredients.

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Words

October 19, 2011 in Images, Vanilla, Words

Two weeks ago I was asked write a piece about how we address our spiritual and religious differences and side step the pitfalls of superiority. I’ve got my own blind spots, we all do, but I have always been better served by trying to remain open. I wrote the piece infused with the inspiration of my very new Tai Chi practice with Kim Ivy up Embrace the Moon in Seattle. Here we go:

Tai Chi

Align your feet
round your back
raise your arms
or better
let your arms be raised
breathe in several languages
consider your first move
whether it is your left foot
that departs from the right
or your right that journeys away
until you have a new base
a base that is different from the
first togetherness

remember that even the
peaceful Buddha
will sometimes pound the mortar
so prepare for a sequence
that leads to an emphasis
and stomp as your fist
descends into the cup
of your hand
while your feet remain apart
and ask yourself:

’Am I in a field? Even with this roof
and these walls and the windows
am I in a field?
Am I in a plain?
What is the direction of the sky?
Is the heaven below me?
Because if I keep going, even below
reaches sky
and sky reaches space.”

So find that
and don’t be afraid to
try several directions.
Years from now one sect of students will say:
“The diagonal north was always the best”
and they will come from that school
and believe that every direction should end
there.

And others will speak of the south
hands pinched like the beak of a crane
and tell you that practice is best
under the sun and around bodies of water
and they will travel far from where these two
legs began. Let them go.

Follow the eastward sect
that count each beat, make turns that
are full circles, balance ideas
at parallel paths,
always even to the earth
and breathe in counts of two.
Listen to the numbers
The numbers are the book,
the bible, the torah, the koran
the astrological charts
move to the count
until your feet say: Enough.

Make one big circle with your arms
and keep changing the position.
Up becomes down, Down to up. Circle continues.
You are never done here,
Yet, move on to other things.

Find a place to gather
Mark it by bringing your feet together
if only for a hard earned moment.
Lower your arms
Join together and lower your arms
Stay here as long as you can.
Religion will make you move again.
Look at the people around you.
See their faces, anticipate their migrations.
Let them go.

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