How I learned karate from a raisin.

Lately I’ve been thinking about where my life has been, and about where it’s headed. I find myself thinking about the past, about mistakes I’ve made, regrets I’ve had. People long gone, only to be remembered, and at that, vaguely, like a faded snapshot from an old Kodak. I’ve started to wonder why it is, that I dwell so much on the past, and I never really live in the moment. That’s odd, don’t you think? I can’t wait for tomorrow, but when it gets here, all I think about is yesterday, and then I start anticipating tomorrow again. But wasn’t today, tomorrow, just yesterday? Ouch, that one made my head hurt. It’s true though. Right now, this is where I am. Here.

As much as I had some fun at the good Dr. Grad Student’s expense, there was a lesson to be learned there. I think I’ve said this before, but it’s worth repeating. Everything we do, everything we touch, everything that touches us, changes us. Changes our course, the fundamental direction of our lives. Like the monster-spider from my youth, or the small blue-jay I named Danny. They are both disconnected, and seemingly insignificant, yet they helped shape the course of my life.

So, perhaps the simple raisin has had the same effect, changed my life, taught me something. Now, I know it sounds funny. But maybe Dr. Grad Student was my Mr. Miyagi. His method of teaching karate was at first, silly. No less or more silly than focusing on a raisin, this I can assure you. I mean, come on. Wax on, wax off, paint the fence, sand the floor. Ridiculous. We all laughed, and chuckled right along with Daniel during the movie, but inside, we knew better. We knew that Mr. Miyagi was a wise old sage, who knew exactly what he was doing. And honestly, don’t you think Daniel did too? Really down deep? Would he really have kept painting the guy’s fence for free if he didn’t think something bigger was happening? Nah, neither would I.

So when something is happening in our lives, making us take stock, or imparting some small nugget of wisdom we’ll carry with us, do we really know that’s what’s going on? I don’t think so, or at least not at the cognitive level. Just like beginnings and endings, these moments go by hardly noticed. Or maybe, they’re more like a magic trick. Slight of hand, if you would. It looks like I’m concentrating on a raisin, when in fact, I’m learning karate.

So if everything we do, or touch has an impact on our lives, then certainly my time with Dr. Grad Student has had to have an effect on both of us. But what? Besides re-igniting an addiction to raisins, that is. I think what Dr. Grad Student taught me, is that I’ve wasted so much time thinking about tomorrow, when really, all of my life is happening right before my eyes. Who knew? I wonder if that’s what she set out to teach me. And I wonder what did she learn from me? What lesson could a giant, raisin eating, pumpkin headed whale with a blow-hole the size of a quarter have imparted? I’m reasonably confident, that in the short term, she’s learned not to give more than one raisin to her hungry patients. That still makes me chuckle.

When I volunteered for the driving angry study, I did it because it sounded interesting, and it seemed like it could only be fun. Both turned out to be true. But, maybe, somewhere deep inside this old whale, I had an inkling that this might be a chance to learn something new, an opportunity to grow. Dr. Grad Student asked me why I followed through with the study, despite the fact that I didn’t connect with the “mindfulness” techniques she was using. I told her it was to help her complete her paper, and that once I agreed to do something, I stick with it to the end. This much is true. What I didn’t say, is that maybe I also thought I might learn karate.

I believe I did.

Kinoini~~~

The blue jay in my backyard.

I found him lying on the ground in my back yard one summer afternoon. I was about 5, maybe 6. There, under an oak tree, was this little baby blue jay. I knew enough about birds to know that their parents push them out of the nest when they think its time for the babies to fly. I think I learned that in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, but no matter, I knew it was true. If the baby bird flew, all was well. If not, well, you get the little fella that was on the ground in front of me.

I’d seen this sort of thing before, a dead animal from time to time in my back yard or maybe in the woods behind my parent’s house where we used to play. Sometimes it was a small frog that my dad had accidentally hit with the lawn mower. A few times we’d found birds, usually sick or already dead. One time, we could tell that the bird had been killed by a tick that had swollen up with the bird’s blood. I guess that’s what killed the bird. Even now, after all these years, when I think back, I’m pretty sure that’s what it was. We had never heard of West Nile disease, or even feared anything like that. Rabies, yes, but even then, that was the stuff of science fiction. To us, back then, there was no fear, only curiosity. I hardly remember what it was like when life was that simple. When did things get so complicated?

This bird was different than the others, this one wasn’t dead. He was hurt, very scared, and based on the volume and frequency of his piercing screams, very alive. It looked to me like his wing was broken. I had no idea what to do, but figured he needed some shelter, and some food. Made sense to me; I knew that’s what I would want if I was in his predicament. I got a cardboard box and rigged a perch by jamming a stick through the side of the box. I grabbed an old diving mask: the plastic kind you get from the 5-and-Dime, and hung it from the perch. I packed that full of grass, some dirt, and some small sticks. I figured that he ought to get used to not sleeping on the ground. It was only 6 inches from the bottom of the box, but still, it was off the ground. I lined the rest of the box with leaves, grass, and sticks. This way it would smell like home.

I talked my Mom and Dad into letting me try to nurse him back to health, even though they figured he wouldn’t last long. The odds were heavily stacked against him. It was summer, so I took care of him every day. I named him Danny, for no other reason than it seemed to fit. I fed him chopped meat, because it was the closest thing to worms that I could come up with. He didn’t seem to object, and scarfed down the stuff pretty good. I gave him water with a little eye-dropper. I tried to feed him early in the morning, because of the saying, about the early bird catching the worm. Did I really learn so many things from cartoons?

I really took to this bird, and he seemed to lose his fear of me pretty quickly. He even perked up and started to look like he wanted to eat when I came to check on him. He did that thing that baby birds do, turning his head up and opening his mouth. Chirping pretty loudly. I’d like to say we became friends. To me, he seemed like a misfit, or an outcast, which is how I generally viewed myself, and still do. I’ve always rooted for the underdog, and Danny was surely that.

In the afternoons, I’d put Danny in the palm of my hands and hold him up as high as I could. Then I’d whoosh my hands down pretty quick so as to make him feel like he was falling, but not that he actually would. I don’t know why, but it just seemed to be the right thing to do. Natural. He didn’t object, and as he got stronger, and his wing seemed to start healing, he would spread out his wings and kind of flap them as he fell down. We did this, he and I, our afternoon dance, every day. We had an unspoken communication between us, a bond, an understanding. He trusted me more, and I knew that every day was a day closer to him flying away. As much as I wanted to keep him, I knew he was meant to be free.

One afternoon I held Danny high, same as I’d done so many other times, except this time he didn’t follow my hands in their rush toward the ground. Danny spread out his wings, and tentatively at first, then ever stronger, he started to fly. Hew flew up to a branch in the same oak tree from which he’d fallen those few weeks ago. It could have been my imagination, but I’d swear he stopped to look at me. I nodded and smiled, and he flew away into the blue summer sky.

Free.

I didn’t know at the time if what I felt was sadness or happiness because it was all jumbled up inside. I did know that I would miss that bird. I think that was the first time that I felt I could actually make a difference in the world. It wasn’t particularly profound, nursing one sick bird back to health. And, I suppose it pales in comparison to other kid’s trophies and awards, but it’s something I’ll never forget. I’ll never forget watching that bird fly free, against all odds, and how proud I was to be a part of that.

Thinking back, it really cost me very little effort to try to give back a life to a little bird. No, that’s arrogance to think I could give back what was not mine in the first place. I mean it cost so little to help that bird get back the life he was given. For something that cost me so little, I certainly gained so much. It’s true that nature is survival of the fittest. Natural selection. But I think that in order to claim the title, the winner has to be able to show compassion, to be able to give to those less fortunate. If we don’t, if we can’t show compassion, if we can’t participate, if we can’t give as much as we take in the cycle of life, then we will have an insurmountable weakness that will doom us all.

Kinoini.

Endings

Beginnings are, for the most part, easy to spot. First something isn't, and then it is. You really do know that something has begun. I'll concede this isn't always the case, but usually, it is. Of course, there is the rare example where something has begun, and you don't know it until you take a moment to look back, and realize, well, there it is; that was the beginning. It may be a happy thing, or a sad thing, or even a nothing thing. But its begun just the same.

When I was a kid, my folks used to take us camping on summer vacations in some campground upstate NY, or out east on Long Island. On one of these vacations, my brother and I met up with a couple of kids, a brother and sister, while we were fishing for sunnys. Their names were Erik and Elena. Ah, Elena. I was young, but at that turning-point age where I certainly noticed girls. Now at first I treated Elena like I would any other new kid we met while fishing. Just a cool kid who liked to fish, could catch a sunny with a pencil float just as good as the next guy. But Elena was not a guy. All the social skills I'd honed from hanging out with my friends failed me miserably in this situation.

Over the two week vacation, we fished, hung around, and just did what we always did. But I started to feel something when I wasn't around Elena. I actually had a pang, or a hurt in my chest. It was an odd feeling. I came to realize, that I liked Elena. You know what I mean, I don't mean liked, I mean liked. Elena and I soon became inseparable, and it was pretty apparent that she felt the same for me. We even held hands when no one was looking. Alright, it was puppy love, I was a kid, but it was amazing to me. I felt so good when we were together. And when we were apart, oh, I actually cherished the aching in my heart because I felt alive. I cherished even more, the anticipation of seeing her the next time. Elena would change everything for me. My first love. I'll admit that was a beginning I didn't see coming, didn't realize it was even happening, but looking back, its pretty clear. *Poof* A beginning.

Now endings. Those are tricky buggers. As with beginnings, let's dispense with the obvious endings that are easy to spot. Again, I concede those. But what of the endings that sneak up on us? The last time I saw Elena, I knew, obviously it was an ending. We made the obligatory good-byes, I'll see you here next summers, and I'll write you's. Our mouths were the paint brushes and our words the paint. Our every breath put the final strokes on the portrait of our relationship that I would hang proudly, and fondly, in the gallery of my youth. We did write, and stay in touch, for quite a few years. What I didn't realize was that was the last time I'd ever see Elena. She lived far away, and we never did go to that campground on the same two weeks in the summer. She was my Sandy and I was her Danny. We were worlds apart, but there was no end of school carnival for us at Rydell High. It wasn't just an ending, it was the ending.

This takes me to my point. Yes, I got here in a rather round-about way, but its my blog, so suffer with it, or scurry along for some other instant gratification. Beginnings are like Christmas mornings: packed with dozens of unopened gifts, their contents may be good, or bad, but certainly interesting. Certainly unknown. Endings hurt. Especially the ones, you don't see, or that pass by unnoticed for quite some time. Then, when you realize you missed a moment, it's too late to savor it, to take that last look, to hold hands one last time. All that's left is the "I wish I's" or the "I should have's". That, and angst. Even endings to the happiest things, always have a sense of sadness to them.

I grew-up in the same home that my parents brought me to after I was born. I lived there for 22 years, learned how to ride a bike, play catch, climb trees, skin my knees, and all sorts of things. Always in the same home. I moved out when I got married, and always took for granted that the home would be there. We visited my folks for Christmas, Thanksgiving, and assorted other special, and not so special occasions.

My folks grew older, they both retired, and decided it was time to sell the house and move away. Their house was vacant for a few weeks in-between their moving and selling, and they asked me to stop by and check on it every now and then. I did this at least a couple of times. What I didn't realize, or the connection I didn't make, was that the last time I stopped in, would be the last time. It didn't really occur to me until I passed by the house almost a year or so later. I slowed to see what the new people had done to the place. Then it hit me. I couldn't go in there any more. I could see the sidewalk along the house, leading up to the steps. The same sidewalk where I'd ridden my bike hundreds, maybe thousands of times. I could still see the images, the ghosts of my brother and me and our friends, playing happily and carelessly. Those familiar cracks in the concrete, that house, the room I called mine, the basement where my brother and I had fantastical adventures during rain storms were all relegated to my memory now. Never to be seen or touched by me again. Only to be remembered. Another portrait on another wall in the gallery of my life.

An ending, the finality of which I didn't see. I had a small hurt inside, that felt suspiciously like the way I felt when I said good-bye to Elena. What made it even worse, was there was nothing I could do about it. The ending came of its own volition, like an uninvited apparition in the middle of the night. Close my eyes though I might, muster all the will and wherewithal I could to stand against it, the ending came just the same.

Endings, are indeed, tricky things.

Kinoini.

What Defines A Life?

What defines a life? Not the biology definition, I’ll leave that up to the scientists. I mean, what defines a life, what is its value? How did I become the man I am? Nature, nurture? Genetics? Fate?

I can look back at my life, at the thousands of days, tens of thousands of hours, and much of it is a blur. I can’t tell you what I ate, or did, or watched on TV on any particular day. I can’t tell you if it rained, or if I was sick, sad, happy. But there are times, that it seems that life slowed, came sharply into focus, and I remember those things. Some of my older memories are so out of context, I can’t remember how old I was, or even what month it was, but I remember. Are these things, these crystal clear snapshots, what build the foundation, the walls, the structure of my character?

When I was young, very young, my brother and I had a tree fort. It was actually two: one in each set of trees a few feet apart from each other. I climbed into one, and could see into the other. I saw a huge spider in the other tree fort. It was huge to me, and since I was little, probably not that big today. But there it was. I was scared to death, but also fascinated. I carefully laid out a plan in my head, so as to avoid being captured or bitten by said tree-fort-invading-monstrous-spider. I picked up a stick and slowly climbed up to peer into the fort.

Here’s where my memory fractures, like trying to look at my own reflection in a broken mirror; different angles of the same image, but I can’t quite make sense of what I see. The spider was in fact a dried paper-like body. When I poked it with the stick it just crackled like paper, and broke. I tried a few times and ended up making a mess of the whole thing. Here’s the thing that stands out in my mind. I felt enormous relief that the monster-spider was dead, and couldn’t harm me. But almost flush with relief came a moment of sheer terror. What if the spider had shed its too-small skin, and was lurking nearby? Maybe sick, or hurt…or hungry? The hair stood up on the back of my neck, and I was paralyzed with fear. Fear. I never did found out what it was. Maybe my brother was playing a trick on me. He doesn’t remember.

When I told my Mom, she didn’t believe me. She thought I was mistaking a toy for this monster. My memory fades off here. I don’t remember if I showed her the proof, or even if there was any proof left. I actually can’t remember anything after that.

The point is, its there. Among all the days, and weeks, there it is, this piece of driftwood on the sandy beachscape of my memory. To me it’s obvious, that I’m a collection of memories, meaning, that I function, because I remember, collectively, all the things that have gone before. I remember not to touch the stove, I remember my phone number, who my mom is, and how much I love my wife. Everything I do, feel, say, think are contingent on that collection of memories.

But is that me? Is that my life, this pixelized canvas. Would I be the same if that spider memory wasn’t there? Or maybe another was missing? How much of who I am, is me, my soul, my personality? Or would anybody, with the same memories plugged-in, turn out to be me? I guess philosophers and psychologists have tackled this question, long before my time, and will continue to do so long after I’m gone. After the ocean of time has eroded away my little patch of beach, and my pieces of driftwood.

So will I have mattered? Do I matter now? See where I’m going with this? If something so small, this tiny memory might (let’s agree, for simplicity sake it does) impact the totality of my consciousness, then do I impact the totality of humankind? Where do I fit in? What is the value of my life?

Do I matter?

Kinoini

I Think I Lost My Glasses

In the midst of all the mayhem and chaos, I realized I’d lost my glasses. It was an odd moment to think about something so minor, what with the woman screaming in the background, the emergency vehicle lights flashing like obscene holiday decorations, and the cop barking orders for me to fill out the accident report. It was then that I’d realized that I lost my glasses. Silly, huh?

Just about 10 minutes before this delightful moment, I was driving with my son after having picked him up from his mother’s house, and we were talking about going to the driving range the next day. It was a warm September evening; the Sunday night before Labor day. Why golf? Just about a month earlier, some co-workers, and dare I say “buddies”, had asked me to join them at the driving range after work. I use the term “buddies” loosely because they were “moment buddies”: the moment they stopped being my co-workers, they stopped being buddies. Got it? Jolly old friends and all, keep in touch, good luck, say hi to Martha and the kids, break a leg. Poof. Who was the guy that sat there last year? Anyway, these buddies had talked me into going. I despised golf, but they convinced me that we would have a few laughs, and mock each other about how poorly we’d just hit the unsuspecting little golf ball.

So I went. I picked up a club for the first time since my chubby little fingers had wrapped around a plastic Fisher Price golf club from the set my parents bought me when I was too young to remember how young I was. I whacked the hell out of the ball. Perfect. Since I suck at most sports, this excited me. With the irresistible force of a gambler hitting twenty-one on the first hand he’s dealt, I was hooked. Another slobbering idiot patting himself on the back for the one shot out of a hundred that doesn’t slice so bad that it comes around like a boomerang in the Australian out back, hitting a fellow golfer squarely in the back of the head.

So here I was, talking to my son about going to the driving range. The light ahead was green for us as we headed into the intersection, which had recently been re-designed to make things safer and smoother. Making things safer and smoother meant painting an inordinately large amount of lines on the pavement to direct us as to where we should be when we’re making turns, going straight, or whatever course we’re so choosing to take, up to and including some kid running a red light and smashing into us head on. But I digress. Seriously, there are more lines on the pavement in this intersection than there are on the face of an alcoholic, chain-smoking school teacher, who’s retired to Florida, and spends way too much time sitting in the sun whining to her friends about whether or not her daughter, Pansy, will be visiting this summer with her no good husband and bratty two kids. Yep, that’s a lot of lines.

But that’s not what caused the accident, or so I think. I actually have no idea what was in the mind of the other driver that night. I saw the headlights coming at me from the other way, and thought nothing of it. I had the green, so if the car was making a left, there would be no problem because they had the red. So we talked about golf, right up until she smashed into me, head on. All I remember is talking golf, headlights, brake, boom, lots of things flying in slow motion inside the car, airbag, then quiet. Somewhere in there, I honestly remember thinking its been a nice life, but you can’t win ‘em all. Instinct took over and I tried to steer the car so the driver’s front side took the hit in order to protect my son. As it turns out, we weren’t physically hurt. Well, except for bruises from the seat belt, and friction burns on my arms from the air bags. Mentally, though, I’d be changed forever. That’s another story.

I checked my son out, he was fine, but scared shitless. So was I. I walked over to other car and all I could see was that driver was dazed and apparently in distress. I asked the passenger if they were ok, and she said, “Let’s just let the lawyers work it out.” Umm, ok. I’m not the brightest bulb in the box, but I knew that didn’t bode well. So I walked away, called 911, my fiancé, then my son’s mother.

So I’m standing there, talking to the cop, my fiance’ on one side, my ex-wife on the other, and the other driver screaming in the distance with injuries unknown, when I reached up to take off my glasses, and realized they weren’t there. I know I had them on, but they were gone.

I think I lost my glasses. We never found them.

Kinoini