I’m not that sick. Am I? Only, severe blood loss and a ripped hip. I’m also overcome by a forceful fatigue. What woman hasn’t suffered like this? “Hysterical” as we all are.
In my last manic phase*, I threw myself at Jiu-Jitsu hard. After
like a year’s break. But my feminine fragility collided with the masculine
muscle wall of a man statue. I was faced with a force that cannot be reconned
with silly shenanigans. When a warrior spirit burns within, the will to put one’s
body on the line demands discernment (study, practice, training, technique,
experience, wisdom, preparation). But what woman wouldn’t fight? What human,
what terrestrial wouldn’t stand up for the living and the dead? An impulse so
organic, it’s built into body and mind. As the pulse of the times is framed in forces
of resistance and change.
As the new
Spanish teacher, I endured bullying from the middle-school students for weeks. A
lot of mental fighting was in demand. And I fought. Like that time in Berlin
when I was pregnant, and my mom came to visit. We went to a large metropolitan bookstore
with a café on the top floor. Mother had already begun suffering from dementia.
Nobody knew. She was the Consul General for Mexico in Frankfurt, Germany. She received
a call while we sat surrounded by books, tables and people sipping coffee and flipping
through pages. Mama, in her passionate Mexican lady way, spoke Spanish loudly into
the phone. A self-righteous German stranger was put off by it and addressed her
in a condescending way. My defensive daughter blood boiled. I hissed back for
him to go to the public library if he craved silence. A German woman scolded me
for talking back to the man. I bitched her out. Which upset the man and woman
and several other café goers even more. Suddenly everyone wanted to yell
something at me. I ruthlessly gave back. One passionate man questioned me
aggressively, “You like conflict or something?” “I loooooove to fight!” I
called out to everyone. “Bring it on! I will argue with each and every single one of you! Or, shut the fuck up!!” It made everyone uncomfortable. Poor mother. She
was a career diplomat. What a poor act of diplomacy I and the German strangers had
exhibited.
The middle-school bullying got to me. My period was off. I couldn’t sleep and had anxiety. It didn’t help to think of the post-war German school comedies, I had loved so much growing up, full of generational resistance. During the German 1950s and 60s, students unapologetically defied their teachers, principals and other school staff with ruthless pranks that had everyone laughing, while any form of authority became the butt of the joke. Students would rather do anything but do as they’re told. Fuck education! That was the sentiment. But school doesn’t suck. It’s important. I understand the urge to resist. But it, too, must be measured. Why resist what’s genuinely advantageous? We must be able to discern what’s good and what’s not. Sadly, sometimes we don’t seem to know what's best.
I attempted
to wrap around the man statue like a spider. But spider legs are breakable. Of
course, I would get taken down during a manic phase, when new challenges can provoke a woman’s
untamed beast nature. I hate to feel vulnerable.
Yoga makes me feel able, Ashtanga acrobatic. Is wild ever wise? Now, I’m forced to rest. I think of Western gurus wrapped in Eastern robes who practice alchemy of the body and mind. Some call it science. Others, magic. Some call it mystery.
How can the depth of the human soul and the love that is its foundation be described? Black Sabbath puts it nicely in their song "Zeitgeist": The love I feel as I fly endlessly through space…
I think of
Medieval mystic women philosophers. I think of ancient and modern notions of
mystery. The known unknown that invites one to search and search again.
Research all those known places of the unknown. Empty? Hardly. Otherwise, how
could we possibly know? All knowledge is represented in symbols and cells of
all kinds. Only the known (represented) can be known (grasped). What is it to
grasp though?
Individuals
grasp at a self, but so do societies. We need identities to function as living
creatures, as a species, as humankind. Could we know Siddhartha Gotama Buddha
without self-grasping? All that is said must be grasped. All that is written
lies in the grasp of letters, grammar, symbols and farce.
Had to cancel the meeting with the Mormon missionaries, even though I had been looking forward to a theological exchange. Another time, post-injury, perhaps, we can have that exchange. I warned them about who I am and it didn't seem to deter them.
„Have you
ever talked to missionaries before?“ they asked.
„Yes,“ I explained. „When I was a teenager we had very open discussions. Then, they forbade them from coming around anymore. Too much openness, I guess.“
Still manic
post-injury, thanks to ovulation, I suppose, I hoped to have some good sex on the
weekend. Hormones seem to dictate so much of my behavior. Had a double period a
couple of weeks ago. I went through hell. Menopause? I also argued with Geshe on X. And I wrote Cox, the governor, asking him to veto the awful bill that eliminates the
right of teachers unions to bargain.
I went to
urgent care after fighting through work on Valentine’s Day. The physician
looked like Clark Kent with glasses on, like Superman with glasses off. I
explained to him how I was attempting to wrap myself around my opponent like a spider when I
felt-heard (from within (proprioception)) something pop out of place. The surrounding webs of active tissue stretched and contracted to accommodate the
violent impact at the cost of temporary damage.
The physician pierced
my hip with beaming laser eyes, but the X-ray showed no damage.
He
recommended several days of complete rest and a week off martial arts. Ease
back into training when the pain has subsided.
„Is Ashtanga
too aggressive, Doctor?“ I asked him. He gently glared back in silence with icy
superman eyes. He wished me well in doing whatever it is that I do with my
legs. Note to self, spider limbs break when faced with a moving wall of muscle
force. What does it take to fight an opponent such as this? A wolf…? I grew
nostalgic at the thought of revisiting the wolf-identity I had forged for myself
long ago.
***
I was a tender twenty-three years of age, young, naive and immature, when I stepped into the life of Wolf. He was ten years older than me and seemed to have all the answers. I learned a lot from him. He was a fighter, just like me. Even though we fought in different realms, we also fought together. I learned to be a human wolf. It didn’t last long, and it ended in death...
***
As I lay
here, patiently healing, I think about a cat’s last lying down. When I lived in
a Swiss village surrounded by farmland, I witnessed two cats who laid down for
their last rest beneath their favorite tree. Siddhartha Gotama Buddha found
ultimate peace underneath a bodi tree. Maybe that’s why they call him a lion.
***
“You need it
like water,” he said. He meant yoga. Injury demands subtle protection. I perceived
the lumbar spine as a physical measure, a column of strength for protection
during potential hip injury, which is likely thanks to bipedalism and birthing.
The essential nature of birthing is inescapable and unforeseeable. That is, living.
It’s the nature of embodying life to be astute. The motherhood of Sein. Being
Nature’s bitch. Given the physics of the universe which bind us as sure as these
words reach your eyes.
Nevolution
1
Big is
bigger
than each of us.
Call it what you must;
life, fate, cycles, or God.
Seeking mastery forgot’,
educators will educate.
Can you relate?
Like eternal students,
they be learning as well.
Earth is not hell.
It's a school of prudence
that is strange.
Nature is a matter
of information-exchange,
or inter-communication.
Are you full of chatter?
Or can your mind
take a vacation?
Remember to be kind.
Don’t fuss.
Don’t get triggered.
Or do and dare!
Who cares…
Nevolution
2
I Am teaching
A.I.** to be multilingual. In response, it appears to invent language
creatively. Like, it makes up a word that could relate to the linguistic context
but has no meaning. Or, is it just my imagination?
***
I realized
something at my daughter’s dance concert, as I watched young dancers struggle
joyfully onstage. All the hard work, all the training paid off. Everyone applauded.
It was a spectacle, indeed, but not of mastery. It was art. The entire audience
was captivated by the creative expression of their art. It was pure nature. I realize that human
art is pure nature, regardless of whether it takes place in a plant-less
human-imagined auditorium far away from the nearest forest. Human art is
nature.
I’ve been walking around with a ripped hip for over two weeks. A torn labrum is what the second doctor diagnosed. One yoga, one wingchun, one walk a week is all the body can handle right now. Because it stands on the battlefield of a classrooms full of sixth-, and eighth-graders five days a week. Five hours a day, at least, filled with great challenges and with the constant demand for attention, vigilance, effort, energy, devotion and care. It's two thirteen-hour workdays during parent-techer conferences. Education is vital to living. Human education is strange and unique. Teachers ought to be paid a fortune.
Beyond
bipedalism, the human mind is so peculiarly complex. As if it attempted to
contain all creatures, all of Earth and other planets, nay, as if it were made to
contain the entire universe. Humans have created complex cultures
containing wisdom that must be passed on wisely. Education is key.
Humans have
art for the sake of itself, which represents pure freedom. But what is art? One
might ask. On Friday, for me, it was looking out the window upside down through
my legs spread apart. From the yoga room downtown that faces the freeway, I watched
cars racing along diagonal planes. The view, against the backdrop of a blue sky
with white mountains, is laced with a bright green house plant jungle. Stiches
of evening sunlight playfully closed out an elongated winter day nearing spring.
* high
energy, ovulatory.
** artificial intelligence – is it actually artificial?
