Small Epiphany...

I pulled my pants out of the drawer yesterday and glanced down in a bit of disbelief...

"Are my legs really that short?"

After 32 years of wearing the same legs. The same short legs, it dawned on me that my pants are, in fact, that short.

Don't get me wrong, I know I'm a shortie. But it's all about perspective.

When I'm standing next to someone taller, I notice that person's taller than me...No big deal.

It's just different to look at my pants, my socks and my bitty size 5.5 shoes from that 3rd person perspective that makes me giggle at how small the shit I own really is.

Giving a warrior time to rest

Anticipation filled my stomach and tears stung my eyes as I glanced down at the clock in the car.

18 minutes until class...will I make it on time?

As I traced the route back home that I know so well, I felt many trips like this one pass through me. I pull into the parking lot of the warehouse I first entered as a student in 1995. It is near empty. I park in the back, like I always do and walk around the side of the building toward the front door.

I know the cracks in the brick. The squeak of the door. The smell of the locker room.

I slide my frayed gym bag off my shoulder and place it on the painted wooden bench. I slip off my shoes and place my bare feet on the cold vinyl floor. The grit from shoes that passed before me sticks to the bottom of my feet, but it makes me smile.

I peel off my clothes and adjust my knee braces. First the left, then the right. I reach into the bag and pull out my gi, which smells a hint of bleach. The pants glide over my now bulky knees and I cinch the waistband into place. The top is too big. If I don't tie it right, it will pull back and bind by shoulders, so I tie the side strings fast and tight so they won't come undone.

My belt is still stiff and shows the marks from folding it in half, then half again. Even though I haven't tied it on in months, my hands know exactly what to do to create the knot that will sit right at the KI tattoo etched on my stomach.

I inhale. Exhale. Exit the locker room, turn to my left and bow before entering the floor. The bounce and creak of the wood beneath me cause me to well with joy.

This floor holds my sweat, my tears and even pieces of my toes. It also holds an energy that I can find nowhere else.


On this floor and on this patch I have been confident, scared, excited and hurt. It is here that I fought hard through ugliness and anger to find "ME." I learned when to let go, when to fight, what matters and that my body will do amazing things if I push it just right. I have also trained with many amazing people.

My mind flows with my body through class, remembering how good it feels to punch and kick. As the evening winds down and I rei out for the last time. I tell Shihan I can't do anymore - my leg won't let me.

I pause to say goodbye to my friend Seila who I have mirrored for years. She and I still have the same belt rank even as I have come and gone. I tell her this is the last class for me for a while, but I'll be back after I'm healed.

Back in the dressing room I carefully remove the belt, the gi and my braces and pack them into my bag with my yin-yang journal that holds tattered newsletters, photos and many instructions from Shihan.

Leaving the locker room I pull the metal chain attached to the light. Click~click, then darkness. I walk out of the locker room and look at the darkened room that holds my patch and I fight back the tears that make my vision blurry.

Shihan and I talk after class like we often do and as we walk out the door I listen to the deadbolt lock the school and I feel a wave of emptiness as we turn to leave.

"The last time I left here it was because I chose to. Now I am leaving because I have to...and it feels...so..."

"Final?"

"Yes."

Sometimes I look back on my decision to leave Grand Junction and wonder if I made the right choice. This is one of those times. It is my dojo and the people surrounding it that make me second guess my decision to leave because this is what makes me whole. Now, as I face the hip surgery that will force me to give up training for up to two years, I know Salt Lake holds the tools I need to get my body where it needs to be when I have the opportunity to return.

But at the same time, I wonder how I will come back...

John Roseberry Hanshi once told me, "Never stop training."

I'm repeating these words over and over. I need my leg to heal so I can continue my physical journey - but now I must focus my energy on the mental journey that lies ahead.

Roseberry Hanshi, Me, Brassette Shihan after workshop in 2005

Buster vs Gadget

I'm not feeling so much like writing today...so I'm trying my hand at video instead.

I bought this toy at a cool shop in downtown San Francisco for Jason...Buster really didn't like it, but couldn't resist it at the same time.

Kind of like me and cheap chocolate.

Murphy is my co-pilot

Today was one of those days...The type of day that you have to sit back and actually do a self-check to see if what you are experiencing is really happening to you.

I did.

It was.

And after analyzing the thoughts and feelings of myself and those around me. I overcame the fact that Murphy was steering the car today, not me. I accepted it and decided that I will make tomorrow a better day.

I wearily tied up my loose ends and came home to unwind.

I went to empty my hot chocolate powder into my coffee mug. But alas, it was turned upside down and the powder was now balancing on the outside of my cup instead of resting down inside it.

F@#%ing Murphy....

Do you have a manual for that?

"If you ever get something really expensive, you better read the manual," Jason says as I rattle off the title of this blog....

HA! He's still getting to know me a bit. He's also partially referring to my asking him if my Bodybugg is placed in the correct location on my arm. His response to my question was, "Your manual will tell you exactly where you're supposed to put it..."

"What?" I say, pretending I didn't register his answer.

My deep rooted inability to thumb through manuals for gadgets goes back about as far as my desire to take stuff apart or enhance it using my imagination, not paper instructions, to guide me.

I love electronics. Cell phones, PDAs, computers and the like. I get so excited when I pick up the new gadgets box...I remove the protective seal, take in the aroma of newness and immediately turn it on.

I can't help it. New techie things call to me. I must to give in to moving parts, power buttons and battery packs. It's my worst ADHD behavior.

Recently I purchased a new cell phone. I was hoping the thickness of the manual was due to being printed in various language options. To my dismay, the first booklet was for me to learn how to operate all of the features in the phone.

I don't have time to read this...Ok, I don't want to take time to read this. I read all day long: Emails, white papers, contracts and the like. I don't want to read about how my cell phone works. I want to see how my cell phone works.

I'm more experimental when I arrive at home in the evening. When I experiment with these types of gadgets, the ripple effect of pain is a lot smaller. It goes from me, to Jason, to tech support. If I experiment like this at work, the circle of pain can extend to my department and then the IT departments support staff and then I have to hide.

I also take great delight in taking things apart to make them bigger, better and usually faster. I started as a small child with electronics given to me by my parents. Stereos, electronic cars and my last major experiment was with a pair of roller blades I wanted to turn into racing skates when I was home one summer from college.

Was I planning on racing? No.

I wanted to do it because I could do it. After three trips to the sporting goods store for racing bearings, axles and high performance wheels, I found myself bored with all of the separate sets of instructions and diagrams, so I tossed them aside.

When the garage door to my parents house came open and my Dad walked in, I actually tried to hide the fact that I knew I needed help. "Oh, shit," said Dad at the grease and small parts scattered around his workstation...."Here we go agin."

This is how a lot of our conversations go. Dad and I share in a lot of bonding as we are very similar in some ways. In others, like paying attention to where the little parts go when you take something apart, we couldn't be more different. But it's fun. It keeps both of us giggling at each other as we explore through life.

This weekend, Dad got a new cell phone and called me on it. Instead of answering the phone, I'm digging around for the new Bluetooth unit I bought to answer it. It's somewhere near the manual I've not read yet.

I miss his call. Return his call. End up in his voice mail. As I leave a message in his voice mail, my voice mail notification 'beep' sounds in the middle of my message to him. I hang up and dial my voice mail.

This is when I take a turn for the unintelligent. I listen to my voice mail from Dad, "Yo Dani. It's Dad. I got a new cell phone and I'm trying to....Oh, there you are....Hello?"

"Hello?" I say into the Bluetooth. I then gasp at the amazement that I just tried to talk to him through a voice mail message. My phone's beeping again. It's Dad.

By now I'm howling. I explain to him what I've done and he proceeds to tell me about a new gun he purchased that a coworker took apart and couldn't return to it's original state. He had to take it to the sporting goods store to have it put back together.

I said, "So he takes stuff apart like I take stuff apart."

He laughed and said, "That's exactly what your Mother said when I told her the story. "

Sometimes, I'm just a bit too predictable.