The Life Force
My friend Mona loves me in the most mysterious yet straightforward way, by which I mean that her way of loving me is quite practical and useful and not a bit sentimental and her reasons for loving me, whatever they are, are a mystery to me. She shares my passion for politics and cooking and we both think that humans are a doomed species (although we maintain a cheery attitude most days despite our apocalyptic worldview because we think that there is nothing left for us but to laugh and enjoy what beauty remains in the world).
Beyond that, we are as different as a “before and after” picture in the back pages of a cheap magazine.
Mona is slight and tensile as tempered steel, while I am at the fat end of zaftig. She is
a Chihuahua next to my English bulldog. Every hair of her home is always in place, and mine is a busy snarl of hand-me-downs and someday projects and I have accepted the fact that I never will achieve such a thing as a décor. Mona has a complete file of everything I have ever told her in a mental Rolodex and I can’t remember her birthday. She is not much younger than my mother, but we do not have a mother and child relationship, although I would like to be very much like her when I grow up.
Mona is in amazing health for her age – sharp as the proverbial tack and she hardly ever complains about the few issues her body has racked up due mostly to mileage. I am a mess with a wandering and unreliable short-term memory, a high cholesterol count, persistent Lyme disease, fibromyalgia, and I am Epstein-Barre positive, with blood pressure
high enough to have me listed under the “Caution: Contents Under Pressure” column in my medical chart.
Oh, yes – and I whine about it.
Did I mention that her reasons for loving me are a mystery?
Several years ago Mona brought me an article about the health benefits of Tai Chi –that ballet-like martial art performed by phalanxes of old Asian people in the parks of cities all over the world. I used to watch them gliding around the grass in black pajamas and marvel at how resilient and flexible the elderly practitioners seemed to be. Mona wanted me to read the article because it discussed the health benefits of Tai Chi, which include an increase in general feelings of well-being along with demonstrated relief from most of my laundry list of maladies and complaints.
“Hey, my friend Justine teaches this. You would love her. She’s starting a new class.”
She’s Mona. I went.
She was right about all of it, especially the part about loving Justine. Not one to accept only the superficial, I hung in there with the surprisingly rigorous workouts because I was so intrigued with the spiritual teachings that Justine offered occasionally in a gentle and inviting way, never proselytizing.
It is hard to tell from the outside, because I remain on the cusp of actual obesity, but my body and energy level have changed radically during the almost two years I have practiced this art. Also, I am proof that a fat girl has no excuse not to do it. Once learned, Tai Chi can occupy a lifetime of study, as understanding of the form and the philosophy behind it deepens. The discipline is a path toward physical and mental vitality, and I am only beginning to delve into it. I want what it gives me.
When beginning to practice Tai Chi, this new way of moving and thinking about my body was agonizing. I literally prayed to get through each class and many times I had to sit down and re-gather myself before I could continue. I have spent most of my adult life as deliberately far from my body as I can manage to get. The study of Tai Chi requires an intimacy with one’s body – requires an honesty about one’s body and one’s relationship to
it.
I discovered that I had many absentee-landlord issues in connection with my poor body that needed focused attention. Much emotional growth and healing were stimulated by my deepening discovery of the Chi and its purpose in my own body and in every element of life. While I now have deep gratitude for this new awareness, at first it would move me to tears, right in the middle of class. So much needed to be healed.
I believe that it was no accident that my intense period of writing the manuscript for Un-Shattered: A Bill of Rights for Incest Survivors and Their Families coincided with my first steps as a person aware of the Chi in all things in a deeply personal and also universal way. I tried never to miss class while I was writing – it was the one thing outside of my job that became imperative. Tai Chi soothed me, energized me, and reacquainted me with parts of myself that I had long neglected – parts of myself that needed to be reintroduced and integrated.
The first time in class that we made a fist, the world changed forever. “I have a right to this,” my mind whispered to me. Tai Chi has been a series of quiet revelations. My own personal revolution transpired along with the liberation of my voice onto the page and the liberation of my body through reuniting it with my mind and spirit. The combination was transformational.
And yet, I dreaded getting as far as Fast Set.
You see, learning the art of Tai Chi Chuan (Yang form) begins with what is called the Slow Set. Done properly, it is a series of 125 moves that flow into one another slowly and with deliberate intention to experience and interact with one’s own Chi. The Slow Set takes about 40 minutes to perform but it is, well, slow – and even people of my size and decrepitude can manage it with practice and tempering. The Fast Set is something completely other. The Fast Set hops, scuffs, prances, and flies by with impressive speed.
A derivation of the same 125 moves from Slow Set is performed in less than five minutes. I just knew I was going to be a candidate for the stretcher, but I also knew my ego-investment would require me to try.
I was giddy with amazement to find that I actually am pretty good at it. I have no idea why
this is, but I am. Go figure.
My teacher, Justine, has an uncanny knack for knowing where her students are and what they need. There is always time for questions and Justine’s respect for the form extends naturally to her students. Today I asked a question that has been nibbling at me for a while. In slow set Tai Chi, the object is to move one’s own Chi and each movement flows unceasingly into the next. In fast set, we strive for smoothness and continuity, but each
movement ends with a discharge of energy, usually through a specific point in the palms of the hands. My question was: What is the intention behind that discharge? Are we repulsing an enemy or are we ridding ourselves of unwanted energies and tainted Chi?
Justine’s answer was simple – while taught primarily as the martial application of the art, the discharge in practice could be whatever the practitioner needs for it to be.
I often come away from class with another fascinating layer of metaphor to explore and this time it did not take long to present me with an opportunity.
After class and my question, I went on with my day, attending an important meeting for work and then puttering in the garden. Today was beautiful, and the meeting went well. The opportunity struck that evening as I stood at the kitchen counter preparing a sauce for our dinner. Despite 40 years of healing, a bit of scar tissue remains over a nerve bundle deep in my vagina, courtesy of my first rapist. If I stand the wrong way, if I move too suddenly, or if I have recently had intercourse, the scar tissue sometimes suddenly causes a spasm deep in my core.
The pain is swift, absolutely without warning, and completely immobilizing. I feel as if an ice
pick has been thrust into me. My knees buckle, but I do not dare sit down. Usually, I need about 30 seconds before I can begin to breathe, shallowly at first, then deeper and deeper, while the pain begins to loosen its grip and ease off. These spasms tend to come in clusters, so the first one to hit brings with it a measure of dread – especially if I have to be functional among people.
When the spasm hit this evening, Joel was standing next to me at the sink. He stayed with me, rubbing my back and gently encouraging me. I have long ago ceased to feel ashamed before Joel about the episodes, but as the pain tapered off, I felt the hot tears gathering – the physical pain of the event is not nearly as debilitating as the mental flashback that always accompanies it. In an instant I am a child again, a child who has been brutalized in a way that has thoroughly confused her. A child who has just been told something about herself and her place in the world for which she has no context. A child who has just learned what it is to be expendable - a disposable utensil for a stronger person’s entitled sense of transient need.
That child lives in me always, and while I have learned how to comfort her, I never will be able to heal her fully. These episodes always leave me feeling weak and weepy.
The stories of my daughters have added another dimension of agony to the mental scar tissue I carry inside me. When the pain hits, when the wave of shame engulfs me, my thoughts always turn to how they must have felt, how they still must feel sometimes. My thoughts turn to the hurt little girls they have inside of them, and my desire to hold and comfort those little girls is so sharp, so intense, I sometimes moan out loud. I understand the dark places they go. I understand the inner courage it takes them to return from those dark places and live in the world, to enjoy what beauty remains for them.
I am glad I know this thing about my girls. I am glad I bear a similar scar, though one not so desperately deep as theirs. Is it bad for me to be glad about this fact? How can it be bad? I choose what is safe and whole for me and what is not. I am glad I know this thing about my girls. I am glad I bear this scar.
When the first spasm hit tonight, I thought about Justine’s answer to my question in Tai Chi class. She was right: the discharge can be whatever we need for it to be. I tried it both ways. While Joel rubbed my shoulder, I gathered my Chi, and breathed it out - it was a weapon. “Back off!” it said, “Back off me, and get out – you have no purpose here today. I
reject your attempt to diminish me.” Breathe. Soften. I gathered my Chi again, and discharged the toxic energy and its soul-depleting message along with my exhale. “Let go,” it said. “Let it float away. This is not who you are.”
The next spasms never arrived.
- Another Mother 2012
Beyond that, we are as different as a “before and after” picture in the back pages of a cheap magazine.
Mona is slight and tensile as tempered steel, while I am at the fat end of zaftig. She is
a Chihuahua next to my English bulldog. Every hair of her home is always in place, and mine is a busy snarl of hand-me-downs and someday projects and I have accepted the fact that I never will achieve such a thing as a décor. Mona has a complete file of everything I have ever told her in a mental Rolodex and I can’t remember her birthday. She is not much younger than my mother, but we do not have a mother and child relationship, although I would like to be very much like her when I grow up.
Mona is in amazing health for her age – sharp as the proverbial tack and she hardly ever complains about the few issues her body has racked up due mostly to mileage. I am a mess with a wandering and unreliable short-term memory, a high cholesterol count, persistent Lyme disease, fibromyalgia, and I am Epstein-Barre positive, with blood pressure
high enough to have me listed under the “Caution: Contents Under Pressure” column in my medical chart.
Oh, yes – and I whine about it.
Did I mention that her reasons for loving me are a mystery?
Several years ago Mona brought me an article about the health benefits of Tai Chi –that ballet-like martial art performed by phalanxes of old Asian people in the parks of cities all over the world. I used to watch them gliding around the grass in black pajamas and marvel at how resilient and flexible the elderly practitioners seemed to be. Mona wanted me to read the article because it discussed the health benefits of Tai Chi, which include an increase in general feelings of well-being along with demonstrated relief from most of my laundry list of maladies and complaints.
“Hey, my friend Justine teaches this. You would love her. She’s starting a new class.”
She’s Mona. I went.
She was right about all of it, especially the part about loving Justine. Not one to accept only the superficial, I hung in there with the surprisingly rigorous workouts because I was so intrigued with the spiritual teachings that Justine offered occasionally in a gentle and inviting way, never proselytizing.
It is hard to tell from the outside, because I remain on the cusp of actual obesity, but my body and energy level have changed radically during the almost two years I have practiced this art. Also, I am proof that a fat girl has no excuse not to do it. Once learned, Tai Chi can occupy a lifetime of study, as understanding of the form and the philosophy behind it deepens. The discipline is a path toward physical and mental vitality, and I am only beginning to delve into it. I want what it gives me.
When beginning to practice Tai Chi, this new way of moving and thinking about my body was agonizing. I literally prayed to get through each class and many times I had to sit down and re-gather myself before I could continue. I have spent most of my adult life as deliberately far from my body as I can manage to get. The study of Tai Chi requires an intimacy with one’s body – requires an honesty about one’s body and one’s relationship to
it.
I discovered that I had many absentee-landlord issues in connection with my poor body that needed focused attention. Much emotional growth and healing were stimulated by my deepening discovery of the Chi and its purpose in my own body and in every element of life. While I now have deep gratitude for this new awareness, at first it would move me to tears, right in the middle of class. So much needed to be healed.
I believe that it was no accident that my intense period of writing the manuscript for Un-Shattered: A Bill of Rights for Incest Survivors and Their Families coincided with my first steps as a person aware of the Chi in all things in a deeply personal and also universal way. I tried never to miss class while I was writing – it was the one thing outside of my job that became imperative. Tai Chi soothed me, energized me, and reacquainted me with parts of myself that I had long neglected – parts of myself that needed to be reintroduced and integrated.
The first time in class that we made a fist, the world changed forever. “I have a right to this,” my mind whispered to me. Tai Chi has been a series of quiet revelations. My own personal revolution transpired along with the liberation of my voice onto the page and the liberation of my body through reuniting it with my mind and spirit. The combination was transformational.
And yet, I dreaded getting as far as Fast Set.
You see, learning the art of Tai Chi Chuan (Yang form) begins with what is called the Slow Set. Done properly, it is a series of 125 moves that flow into one another slowly and with deliberate intention to experience and interact with one’s own Chi. The Slow Set takes about 40 minutes to perform but it is, well, slow – and even people of my size and decrepitude can manage it with practice and tempering. The Fast Set is something completely other. The Fast Set hops, scuffs, prances, and flies by with impressive speed.
A derivation of the same 125 moves from Slow Set is performed in less than five minutes. I just knew I was going to be a candidate for the stretcher, but I also knew my ego-investment would require me to try.
I was giddy with amazement to find that I actually am pretty good at it. I have no idea why
this is, but I am. Go figure.
My teacher, Justine, has an uncanny knack for knowing where her students are and what they need. There is always time for questions and Justine’s respect for the form extends naturally to her students. Today I asked a question that has been nibbling at me for a while. In slow set Tai Chi, the object is to move one’s own Chi and each movement flows unceasingly into the next. In fast set, we strive for smoothness and continuity, but each
movement ends with a discharge of energy, usually through a specific point in the palms of the hands. My question was: What is the intention behind that discharge? Are we repulsing an enemy or are we ridding ourselves of unwanted energies and tainted Chi?
Justine’s answer was simple – while taught primarily as the martial application of the art, the discharge in practice could be whatever the practitioner needs for it to be.
I often come away from class with another fascinating layer of metaphor to explore and this time it did not take long to present me with an opportunity.
After class and my question, I went on with my day, attending an important meeting for work and then puttering in the garden. Today was beautiful, and the meeting went well. The opportunity struck that evening as I stood at the kitchen counter preparing a sauce for our dinner. Despite 40 years of healing, a bit of scar tissue remains over a nerve bundle deep in my vagina, courtesy of my first rapist. If I stand the wrong way, if I move too suddenly, or if I have recently had intercourse, the scar tissue sometimes suddenly causes a spasm deep in my core.
The pain is swift, absolutely without warning, and completely immobilizing. I feel as if an ice
pick has been thrust into me. My knees buckle, but I do not dare sit down. Usually, I need about 30 seconds before I can begin to breathe, shallowly at first, then deeper and deeper, while the pain begins to loosen its grip and ease off. These spasms tend to come in clusters, so the first one to hit brings with it a measure of dread – especially if I have to be functional among people.
When the spasm hit this evening, Joel was standing next to me at the sink. He stayed with me, rubbing my back and gently encouraging me. I have long ago ceased to feel ashamed before Joel about the episodes, but as the pain tapered off, I felt the hot tears gathering – the physical pain of the event is not nearly as debilitating as the mental flashback that always accompanies it. In an instant I am a child again, a child who has been brutalized in a way that has thoroughly confused her. A child who has just been told something about herself and her place in the world for which she has no context. A child who has just learned what it is to be expendable - a disposable utensil for a stronger person’s entitled sense of transient need.
That child lives in me always, and while I have learned how to comfort her, I never will be able to heal her fully. These episodes always leave me feeling weak and weepy.
The stories of my daughters have added another dimension of agony to the mental scar tissue I carry inside me. When the pain hits, when the wave of shame engulfs me, my thoughts always turn to how they must have felt, how they still must feel sometimes. My thoughts turn to the hurt little girls they have inside of them, and my desire to hold and comfort those little girls is so sharp, so intense, I sometimes moan out loud. I understand the dark places they go. I understand the inner courage it takes them to return from those dark places and live in the world, to enjoy what beauty remains for them.
I am glad I know this thing about my girls. I am glad I bear a similar scar, though one not so desperately deep as theirs. Is it bad for me to be glad about this fact? How can it be bad? I choose what is safe and whole for me and what is not. I am glad I know this thing about my girls. I am glad I bear this scar.
When the first spasm hit tonight, I thought about Justine’s answer to my question in Tai Chi class. She was right: the discharge can be whatever we need for it to be. I tried it both ways. While Joel rubbed my shoulder, I gathered my Chi, and breathed it out - it was a weapon. “Back off!” it said, “Back off me, and get out – you have no purpose here today. I
reject your attempt to diminish me.” Breathe. Soften. I gathered my Chi again, and discharged the toxic energy and its soul-depleting message along with my exhale. “Let go,” it said. “Let it float away. This is not who you are.”
The next spasms never arrived.
- Another Mother 2012
