Starting from 0
Tai chi today was probably the best class I've had in a while. It's pretty cool how much confidence even making 15 minutes beforehand to practice gives me. The main form that everyone does together every class can be divided into three sections, and I am... I'd say a third of the way into the third section. I started classes the first week in January, so I guess that's good progress. Incremental practices doing what they do best and sneaking the results up on me. It's funny how everyone - not even just my teachers, but my fellow students - peg me as a martial artist, and ask me about it. The Vietnamese guy who notices how I hold my back straight instead of leaning forward when holding a bow stance or a horse stance. It came out that I am a black belt in taekwondo, but I tried to downplay it a bit. It's been so long since I've used the black belt that now takes up space in a box, next to my old gi and the letters and medals I wore to my high school graduation ceremony. It almost feels dishonest to say that I have one anymore. Part of why I chose tai chi as my re-entry into martial arts is because it is so different from anything else I've ever learned, and I really wanted to experience properly starting something new, from 0.
Yesterday and today I have been on the lookout for omens and have seen a few. A flat tire, a mistype of the word 'hours' into the name Horus, a little girl that shares one of my names in the news, kidnapped by ICE. The things the sunbeam that moves into the living room from the kitchen decides to illuminate for me in the morning. A flattened squirrel in the road on the way to class, tail still twitching, and having to just... move past it, move on, to the next thing, while there are still next things. Made me think about the news, which I'm trying not to read too much. The counsel lately has been to keep to myself and keep some intentions and opinions close to my chest, and I've been taking the time to do a little more introspection, a little less talking and filling empty space and a little more thinking. The time to move is fast approaching, and I will need a plan when it arrives... or maybe I'll just make it up as I go, as I do.
Tomorrow I'd like get to the post office on my lunch break (and the grocery store, if I have time) and finally send out some mail I've been sitting on since January. Gonna try and be a little better about getting post out timely, and maybe - maybe - even be so bold as to write letters to friends. I watched a great video essay on the post office earlier this month and I'm still thinking about it (and the forever stamps I have burning a hole in my stationery drawer). Getting something someone wrote with their own hands is its own precious kind of little gift, too. One of the closest ways you can get to translating a thought directly from your head to someone else, and a little more meaningful even than speaking, which can be (and is) so ad hoc, especially these days... letter-writing is magical, and I'm always trying to do more magic. I've got cool science stamps, too, which I think folks will appreciate.