Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: yin-yang

Let’s talk more about Bagua

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I want to talk more about Bagua today. Yesterday, I talked more about Taiji because that’s my first love and what I’ve been doing for fifteen years. Bagua is a Johnny-Come-Lately in terms of time doing it. I think it might be a year? Probably not quite. Time has absolutely no meaning now.

I was watching the video I’d done of my teacher (doing the Swimming Dragon Form) because my memory is so terrible now. Even though we went over a few new movements several times yesterday, my brain was like, “Nah, I’m not remembering that.”

I’m glad that I have an excuse for it–my stroke, I mean. Not to mention the fact that I’m just getting older. I will admit that it surprises me that I’m not upset about it because I used to be very proud of my exceptional memory. I could remember names, dates, and facts without putting any effort into it. It’s because that’s a small price to pay for being alive.

At least that’s what I thought at the time. Now, I’m not so sure. Not about the trade-off, but about being glad to still be alive. Here’s the thing–yes, me surviving was a miracle and a once-in-a-lifetime experience. But, just like anything else, it fades  away with time. When I first got out of the hospital, I was marveling every day at being alive. I was supposed to be dead. I was not supposed to be alive. That’s sobering, I’ll tell you what.

But that was nearly three-and-a-half years ago. Day by day, the magic and wondered faded–just a litle bit. It had to, really, as it could not be sustained. When I first came out of my coma, my depression was down 90% and my anxiety was down roughly 60%. Now my depression has roughly doubled (so still down from where it was before, but not iudeal) and my anxiety is up 10% or so.

Taiji helps with all that. It’s the one thing that has kept me sane, frankly. Before my medical crisis and after as well. I thought it was all I needed because there was so much in it, you could study it for the rest of your life and just barely scratch the surface of it (if you don’t devoute several hours a day to it).

Then, Bagua entered my ilfe. Honestly, it came into my life a decade ago via my teacher showing me how to walkk the circle with DeerHorn Knives as an alternative to meditation because the latter was causing flashbacks. I was a pacifist at the time, but once as I was walking the circle (and focusing on the ‘enemy’ of the circle), I had a flash of, “If it’s you or me, then it’s you” so intensely, it shook me. That was the first time I had felt my life was worth fighting for (in that thought, I meant that if one of us was gonig to die, it would be the enemy/opponent).


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You’re my best friend; part two

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Yesterday, I wrote about Kathleen, my oldest friend and one of my two best friends. Today, I’m going to write about my second-oldest friend and other best friend, Ian. We met on Twitter in 2012 during the elections. We both were night owls so we would chat in the wee hours of the night. I will admit that I thought he was cute, plus he was witty and smart as hell, so I was drawn to him.

We were both in a very dark place. Both suffering through breakups, though his relationship was much more long-lasting than mine, and we commiserated over that. I had a bunch of sleeping issues and used Twitter as a way of self-soothing. It wasn’t a good way, mind, as political Twitter was a hot mess, but it was the best I could do at the time.

I remember it was Halloween when we started DM’ing each other because we both had planned on going to a Halloween party with our respective others and were crushed it wasn’t going to happen. He encouraged me to go to the party, anyway, and have fun–and I did the same for him.

From that, sprung up our friendship. In the first four or years, neither of us was in a good place. For me, I was in the depth of my depression and anxiety. I thought life wasn’t worth living, and I was barely treading water. Ian was having a hard time, too, so our friendship was forged in fire.

Over the next four or five years, we both grew in leaps and bounds. I got serious about Taiji, which helped me with my mental health issues. It gave me the ability to walk in crowds without freaking out, to put up boundaries with my parents (not great ones, but anything was better than the nothing I had in place before), and it grounded me when I felt as if I were all over the place.


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You’re my best friend; part one

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I met Kathleen when I was twenty-two. It was at a nonprofit for at-risk youth, which is now defunct. It was a toxic workplace where people worked for ages and had given up hope of making it better. I was hired as a Day Treatment counselor and not trained at all. Yes, they expected a 22-year-eld, fresh out of college, to counsel juvenile delinquents (my nickname for them because they were all kids who had been arrested for something) without any training. I was only four or five years older than our oldest students (we were considered a school as well), which was not good for my position of authority. One of my students even told me he had a girlfriend my age. It was an uncomfortable moment.

Kathleen was the administrative assistant, and I noticed two things about her: her flaming red curls and the tattoo on her wrist. During the yearly luncheon, we sat next to each other and chatted. I already knew I didn’t fit in with my other colleagues for several reasons. One woman was heavily made-up and very critical of me for not wearing make-up. She once said that I needed lotion for my scabby elbows and that I would be a good makeover candidate. I didn’t tell her that I didn’t want to look like a painted doll the way she did, but I surely thought something much less kind than that about her.

All the other people were married with kids and beaten down by the job. Except one man who pushed and questioned authority, but he turned out to be a wife abuser. The one guy I really liked was pushed out for being a Christian. And the director sat at his desk playing computer games all day while the kids didn’t have a computer. I was getting paid $18,000, which is outrageous even for the time and my experience. I didn’t know better, though. Also, once I got hired, the lead counselor in the Day Treatment program sloughed off the daily activity calendar to me. Meaning I had to schedule activities for the kids every day. That was NEVER in the job description. He was a deeply narcissistic and lazy man who ‘delegated’ everything he could. I shared an office with him and my contempt for him grew daily. He spent most of his time reading People magazine and chatting with anyone who would talk to him. He liked the young white girls and assigned them to himself while fobbing the toughest boys onto our Christian coworker.

Who, by the way, I did not agree with on nearly anything, but I liked him heads better than anyone else in the place save Kathleen. He was hardworking and did anything he was asked to do. I remember one time, we were on a field trip and the van got a flat tire. The lead counselor called for a backup and when it came, shepherded everyone onto it, leaving our other colleague behind to change the tire. I felt bad for him and stayed with him.

During that luncheon, Kathleen and I got to talking. And she started calling me outside of work to hang out. I thought (and still think) she’s the coolest woman I had ever met, and I was gobsmacked that she wanted to be friends with me. I was a hot mess, riddled with deep depression and anxiety. I could not understand why someone who was so amazing would want to be friends with me.


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The grand unification theory of me

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This week, I finished two things. I’ve talked about both on this blog, and I’m going to do it again. The first is Spiritfarer by Thunder Lotus Games. It’s a game I had my eye on for quite some time, but I forgot about it because there was no chatter. Understandable as it’s an indie game that doesn’t neatly fit into any one genre, but, man, I really think it’s an underrated game. Those who played it and reviewed it LOVED it, but it’s not enough people. I’ve gone back and wandered about in a desultory fashion to find the secret chests I missed and because Med the community manager sent a newsletter with a BIG reveal that I didn’t get from the game itself. In retrospect, there were subtle hints, but they were easy to explain away or overlook at the time.

The other thing I finished this week was the Sabre Form in taiji. Or, as my teacher calls it, graduated from the form. The first time she said it was when she taught me the final posture of the Solo Form, and I nearly laughed in her face. I might have ‘known’ the whole form, but I wouldn’t be allowed to do it myself without heavy guidance. Now, many years later, I’ve done the form so many times, I could do it in my sleep. Well, I could have before it got radically changed by my teacher’s teacher. That’s another story for another day, though.

I can’t stop thinking about how much I hated the Sabre Form the first time my teacher taught it to me. I resented every minute, and I did not understand it at all. I wanted it to be the Sword Form, and it wasn’t. By the way, I’m beyond ecstatic that I’m learning a new Sword Form. It’s such a finesse weapon, which is not like me at all. Or at least….That’s the point of this post, and we’ll get to that later. For now, I’m musing about the Sabre Form and how it went from not to hot. While the sword is still my beloved, the saber has become my bestest friend. The karambit is the the honey of the moment, and the cane is that entertaining friend that always makes you feel better when you see them (as long as it’s not TOO often).

The saber is an infantry weapon. It’s not a thinking person’s weapon, and taiji is the scholar’s martial art. It’s about power, and I do feel powerful when I brandish it. Sometimes, I feel like a swashbuckler and sometimes I feel like a Hun. I feel as if I can do anything–and it feels good. I feel like I’m saying, “Don’t fuck with me!”, and I’m backing it all the way the fuck up.

The Sword Form is still my favorite, but it’s not about the power. It’s about elegance and grace, and it’s a finesse form. It’s about cutting someone before they know that you’ve even moved, and it’s about severing tendons. That doesn’t sound elegant or graceful, does it? The saber is about smashing and cleaving. That’s more in keeping with the nature of the weapon.

Side note: Just because the sword is a finesse weapon, it doesn’t mean it’s not deadly. It is; it’s just not the main point of the weapon.

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Feeling Like Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde

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hiding behind my mask.
The best of me and the worst of me.

I am periodically reminded that other people have a vastly different way of viewing me than how I see myself. They see me as charming, witty, fun to be around, attractive, lively, political, sympathetic, and a good listening ear. I know because I’ve heard all of these things from other people, and twenty years ago, I would nod my head but cringe inside because I thought they were completely wrong. Well, not completely, but mostly. They only thought that because they didn’t live with me or even worse, because they weren’t me. They didn’t understand that what I showed them was a facade, one I’ve perfected over the years. I felt as if I were a living doll, carefully created to give the perfect response to any given situation.

Charming? I couldn’t deny that, but I saw it in a negative life. My father is an extremely charming man, and I saw how people (mostly women) flocked to him as if moths to a bright light. He could make you feel as if you’re the only person in the world, and, yet, to him, it was just a way to boost his ego, and not because he actually cared about the other person. I knew I had that in me, that ability to make someone feel as if they’re oh-so-special. I have a fantastic memory for names and details, and it was almost automatic for me to use my arsenal of knowledge to impress and dazzle other people. Because of what I saw in my childhood, I didn’t trust the charm I could effortlessly pour in any given situation. In addition, I have a psychology background, so I know people’s weak points. I struggle to keep my temper under control because I could destroy someone with a barrage of well-pointed barbs if I so choose.

Sensitive, yes, I’ll give you that, and my mother often told me I was overly so. Personally, I think it was her way of deflecting responsibility when she was insensitive to me and my needs, but that’s another post for another day. I am what some people would call an empath, which means I feel other people’s emotions as if they’re my own. The worst part is that I feel the negative emotions more strongly, so when I walk into a crowded room, I’m overcome with anger, sadness, depression, jealousy, and pain, among other strong emotions. Twenty years ago, I had no ability to block out these emotions, so going anywhere was agony. I could just look at someone and know that she’s being beaten at home or that he has lost his job and feels utterly hopeless. I could feel the positive emotions, too, but they were more muted. I remember one time my mom talked me into going to the State Fair, which is something I abhor. She actually tells the story about how when I was a baby and my brother was three or four, she’d take us to the State Fair because my brother loved it (he still does), and she couldn’t get a babysitter for me. I’d scream my head off the whole time, which is still how I feel about it today. Anyway, that time my mother convinced me to go about twenty years ago, I lasted half an hour before I had to leave because I was overwhelmed by the flood of negative emotions swirling around me.
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