Cast of One

I’m sitting here again, with one leg resting comfortably on my bed and the other providing some support for the floor, and I’m starting to go a little stir-crazy. Oh, and the foot that’s on the bed is also wrapped in an air cast.

A little over two weeks ago, I went to a martial arts tournament in Chicago. I had an immense amount of fun there and finally, after the third try, passed my promotion exam. The only thing was that when I landed on my foot while backing up, I rolled my foot. According to my sensei, he could hear the pop from the center of the small gym to the wall. I knew I’d messed up something in my foot, but I was pretty sure it was just twisted. At worst, it was a sprain. Nevertheless, it hurt. It hurt enough that I kept my foot elevated for two weeks afterward, took lots of ibuprofen (but well within the safety range), and in general tried to get back to normal life, which was an abject failure. My foot kept hurting, and it wasn’t getting any better. Finally, I bit the bullet and decided to go to the doctor’s office. Yes, it’d cost money that I thought could be put to better use elsewhere, and yes, other people had said it was probably a sprain and that I was treating it well anyway. Still, at this point better safe than sorry.

The doctor was quite nice about the whole thing. She agreed it was probably just a sprain, and that just to be safe, I should get some x-ray pictures taken. Just to be safe, you understand. I’d go home afterwards and she’d let me know the results.  So I limped down the corridor to the x-ray department, where a tech put me up on a table, covered all of me except my foot with a lead apron, and took some shots while I reflected that lying on a table in an x-ray room is one of the loneliest spots on the world. No one else can be with you. It’s just you and the camera, and you’re waiting for the doctor to say what’s wrong with you.

Finally, the x-ray technician came back with a serious look on her face. “We need to go back to the doctor’s office,” she said.

               

“Why?” I said.

               

“I can’t tell you that,” she said. “But we need to go back to the doctor’s office.”

Now, I’m sure there are rules for why the technician can and cannot tell me certain things. However, I can tell you I was nervous about the results the whole way back, up to the point the doctor showed me the x-ray of my foot, where the fifth metatarsal had snapped in two.

So I’m wearing a cast now for the next couple of weeks. It’s a walking cast, so I can move about in it, mostly, but it is not an easy, particularly when I’m in my apartment. See, the cast has a flat sole on it designed to keep my foot stable. This sole is also pretty thick, so it’s almost unnoticeable when I’m outside. When I’m at home, though, I take off my shoes, and I suddenly realize just what kind of difference a half-inch makes. My first few steps without a shoe on my other foot resemble an epileptic yak recovering from a hangover, only without the grace.

Then there’s the fun of trying to sleep. I usually sleep lying down, which means my left foot is snugly beneath the covers. Trying to shift a cast beneath the covers isn’t futile, but it’s almost not worth the effort with the resulting tangle it creates.

Finally, though, there’s trying to drive a stick shift in an air cast, with your ankle locked at 90 degrees. I gave up the first few times I tried it, but finally I’ve learned how to shift with the cast on. There’s a certain type of victory in relearning how to do things after you’ve been injured, and it is one of the best feelings in the world.

The big thing about wearing an air cast, though, is that it is a guaranteed conversation starter. It’s a sign you’ve been injured, that the injury is going to take a while to heal, and there seems to be a universal truth that any visible injury probably has a good story behind it. Whether or not you want to talk about it, though, is a different story in and of itself.

Still, for now my foot is getting better, which is a definite change from the “hurting so much at the end of the workday I wanted to scream or cry” phase, and hopefully I won’t have to have this cast on too awfully long. Before Thanksgiving would be wonderful, and I’ll let you all know if that happens!

Signs, Signs, Everywhere a Sign

In case you’ve been living under a rock recently, the presidential debate is in a mad dash to the finish line, with both sides clearly convinced their candidate will not only win, but that he’ll get America back on track. Feelings are running high, and that even applies here in northeast Iowa.

When I came into work the other day, the coffee station had several mini brochures advertising Ben Lange, the Republican representative running for office. Usually this is frowned on, but I happen to know that quite a few people in my company support the Republicans. A LOT, and some of them are in the position to make hiring and firing decisions. I’m not entirely sure what they’d do if they saw brochures for Lange’s opponent on the coffee table.

The interesting thing about living here is that, while I think a lot of people are Republicans, there are also a lot of Democrats, too. You see a lot of signs for Obama planted in front yards, along with the occasional “superfan” who has yard signs from everyone in either the Republican or Democratic party scattered throughout their lawn like mutant plastic flamingos.

Of course, feelings run hotter in Decorah. The town’s liberal population is pretty vocal in their beliefs. After all, this was the place that had the Inaugural Ball for Obama in January 2008, and it’s the town where fans turned out by the hundreds to get a look at Obama when he stopped by here last year.

The town’s conservative element is pretty vocal, too. There’s a branch of the Tea Party in Decorah that was very vocal when President Obama visited, to the point where the apparent leader of the Tea Party faction sounded like a campus preacher, barely able to finish up how much he hated Obama for one aspect before he had to launch into yet another aspect. There is a Christian bookstore in Decorah that leaves no doubt as to where its political loyalties lie, since greeting you when you walk in are a list of best-selling books by noted conservatives and conservative Christians.

I point this out because of an item in Decorah’s newspaper a week or so ago. Apparently, someone had gone around and stolen several Democratic yard signs from people’s lawns and tossed them in a ditch out of town. Since this is northeast Iowa and not, say, New York, Chicago, or even the Twin Cities, the police were investigating this and trying to find out who could have committed this act of vandalism. It’s funny, this is not something you normally associate with an act of vandalism, but it is defacing other people’s property.

That’s as good of an illustration of how divided things have gotten around here as any. There’s been a pretty nasty undercurrent this year anyway. The little jabs have a bit more of an edge to them, as though the other side is really going to do whatever it can to destroy the American way of life. Personally, I do feel that one of the candidates is much worse than the other, but I don’t know that I’d go so far as to say the other side is Anti-American. We’re supposed to be the melting pot, anyway, right? Doesn’t that mean that every point of view, no matter how different, gets to have its say? Apparently not this time around.

What really worries me are the people who believe the stuff that should be reserved for conspiracy theorists. Barack Obama wasn’t *really* born in the United States, you know. He’s *actually* a Muslim, you know. Probably with Al Quaida too, if I had to guess. Seriously, there’s at least one person at my office who knows for a fact Barack Obama put Osama Bin Laden in the Witness Protection Program. He knows this for a fact. (Also, I apologize to Republicans. I wanted to find something equally as crazy about Mitt Romney, but there really doesn’t seem to be anything similar.) Given this environment, it doesn’t strike me as odd that someone would get it into his or her head to go around taking down lawn signs of a candidate they don’t like. It does make me wonder, though, if you hate a candidate so much you want to rip out other people’s lawn signs and throw them away, how do you escalate your attacks? Hopefully no one in this area has to find out.

On Spending the Weekend Alone, or what I’ve been doing instead of writing

On Spending the Weekend Alone, or what I’ve been doing instead of writing

I’m writing this in late October, on a Friday at about 10 pm. I haven’t written much lately, because I’ve been wishing I was doing something else. Hanging out with friends definitely makes the top of the list. Or it would make the top of the list if there were a lot of friends out here.

I suppose I should start a bit earlier. When I talked about letting go of fear in kendo, I started to become more self-confident, and this has led to me rekindling some old friendships and reaching out to new people. It’s also led to me learning some things about…well, being human and how to better deal with life in general that I only wish I had learned sooner. I’ve been more willing to talk with people and even make my views on topics known, which has sometimes been good and sometimes bad.

While I’ve been reaching out to people, I’ve also started to realize that I need to put myself out into the world more. This may sound a little crazy when this blog has been all about what I’ve been doing out in the world, but there’s a difference between being a visitor for a day or so and actually forming lasting relationships. The problem is that, while I have quite a few people that I know now, I haven’t really formed a lot of friendships.

If you were to ask me why that is, I could offer a lot of reasons. I could tell you that I have drastically different hobbies than most of the people around here. I have nothing against watching stock car races or snowmobiling or dirt biking or hitting the bar on the weekend, but my tastes run toward things like comic books, board games, role-playing games and martial arts. I could tell you that timing is a big part of it. I’m usually out of town during the quarterly events when the Rochester Gaming Club has their open game day, and that when I’m up in Rochester for kendo the used bookstore/gaming store/comic book store is closed. I could tell you that my efforts to invite people over have so far crashed and burned, where one group of people I invited over decided not to show up and decided not to tell me about it. However, a large part of it has been my decisions. Sometimes I’m fine with being alone. Sometimes I really don’t want to get out and meet new people because I don’t know how they’ll think of me, which isn’t easy to admit.

But for right now, there aren’t a lot of people around. Family is off visiting, working, or having fun with their girlfriends or wives. Most of my online friends are out getting ready to travel or going out to clubs. And I’m sitting here feeling a bit lonely, honestly. I’m not trying to gain anyone’s sympathy, because by the time this is posted I’ll be feeling  better. Actually, I’m feeling better even as I’m writing this. That’s one of the good things about loneliness—just reaching out is enough to make it go away. The bad part is once you realize you’re in a situation where you are lonely and you realize your list of friends is a little thin, you have to put in some effort to change it. Actually, you have to put in a lot of effort, especially if you aren’t used to it.

So this is why I haven’t been writing on this blog a lot. I will get back to it. There are more things I want to touch on, but I want this blog to be part of me putting myself out into the world. Hopefully future posts will reflect that.

The Exchange

A couple of new stores have opened up in Cresco in the last couple of weeks. The first was Fifi and Fido’s, a pet store that had a run of less than two months. Then there’s The Exchange, which has lasted longer despite being the most out of place store in Cresco.

If the Exchange were in Decorah, it would be right at home. Decorah is a haven for art gallery type places, which The Exchange is. It’s also home to those places that love hosting arts, crafts, and eclective things like masseuses, which The Exchange does. While I don’t know that Decorah has a store where people can sell their crafts, which The Exchange does, I would not be surprised if they did.

Maybe that’s the secret to The Exchange’s success. It wouldn’t be out of place in Decorah at all. It might, in fact, be hard-pressed to stand out from the crowd. But in Cresco it’s a beacon of art, culture and making your own way.

Part of this is due to the proprietor, Christine. She’s a former IT manager from Reno who grew up in Cresco, went to college, moved far away, and then came back. Chalk it up to a life-changing experience. I’d like to honor her privacy and not say exactly what it was. But she wanted to live out her dream, so she started making pottery. She’s got a potter’s wheel, a kiln, and she displays her work in the showroom floor.

It’s not just her work, either. She displays arts and crafts from several people, and this can be anything from photographs to homemade laundry detergent—which smells great, by the way.  Artists and craftspeople from all around Cresco are bringing their wares out to display to the public, and never mind that the number of artists seems to be in the single digits. I think art is kind of like a virus—a small sample gets into the system, takes root, and little by little starts to expand its influence. Only instead of killing what it comes in contact with, it inspires people to take up brushes, cameras, needles and thread or whatever medium they can think of and use it to create something uniquely theirs.

Then there are the activities. A masseuse operates out of the second floor. In the evening, hip-hop dancing classes are held, Pilates classes are offered, and at this point God only knows what else. The sky seems to be the limit with this place.

A large part of this has to deal with Christine herself. At the risk of offending the people I know who grew up somewhere, went to college and then came back, I cannot understand why anyone would do that, particularly if you didn’t grow up in a city, like Chicago or New York. Even a smaller city like Rochester or Grand Rapids I could understand. But growing up in a small town, seeing the wider world, and then coming back to the same small town? I don’t understand. Christine has done this, though, and she does love the town, even as she strives to bring some culture into the area. And if you were to speak to her, she is so determined, so optimistic and so passionate about it that I would bet on her succeeding. I want this to work for her, because when I talked with her she was so happy about what she was doing it was almost infectious. I could feel myself want to start making pottery and trying to sell it, a desire that has previously eluded me.

I’ll end this blog with a plug to go visit The Exchange’s Facebook page.  If you’re in the area, I can’t recommend it enough. http://www.facebook.com/TheExchangeCresco?ref=ts&fref=ts

Miss Michigan

Four years. That’s about how long it’s taken for me to become a stranger to the state where I grew up. I can still navigate pretty well, but I catch myself surprised by landmarks I’d forgotten, and looking out at all the trees feels wrong somehow, as though I should be able to look out at the horizon. It’s not exactly a sense of claustrophobia, but it’s more the sense that space has its borders.

   

I’d decided to take a well-earned week off work in order to visit my mom and dad up in northern Michigan. There wasn’t really much we were planning to do, but it’s been months since I’d seen them, and our family is close. Not really close distance-wise, but close as in if you’re feeling lonely, you can pick up the phone and nine times out of ten have someone on the other end of the line you can talk to for at least a half-hour. It’s one of the best things about my family. So I packed up my car and drove off into the distance, the sun setting behind me.

The vacation itself was wonderful. I arrived in northeast Michigan and then drove with my parents to their cottage even further northeast, about a half-hour from the shores of Lake Huron. It’s in an area almost surrounded by trees, mostly pine it seems, with a series of lakes created when a river was dammed. For the next few days we would kayak out on the lake, take out the pontoon boat, play board games and occasionally go out to eat. We went for an art walk through the town of Cheboygan and had scallops at a restaurant overlooking a marina. It was fantastic.

I’ll be honest, I have a hard time thinking about what to write here. The vacation was beautiful and relaxing, but it was not eventful. This is in part because the community around the lakes works to keep it uneventful. No high-speed boating, no disturbing the local wildlife, and they frown on anyone being too loud, even if there’s no noise ordinance. I can’t see anyone with a Type A personality lasting for more than a few minutes here.

What really stands out, though, is that I actually miss the state of Michigan. I even take a certain amount of pride in saying I’m from Michigan, although I can’t honestly tell you why. There are a lot of great things about Michigan that I love and want to point out to people in Iowa, even though I’ve had about as much to do with them as I’ve had to do with the discovery of the Higgs-Boson particle. Detroit, for instance. I’m proud of the city’s musical history, which has produced sounds as diverse as the Four Tops, Alice Cooper and Eminem. And my gift to the Detroit music scene? Singing karaoke a few times. As I said, it sounds kind of ridiculous when you think about it.

So I miss Michigan, and I’m reminded of what I left when Mom, Dad and I go out on the pontoon boat in the evenings and see the setting sun reflected in the still waters of the lake as though it were a mirror. I’m reminded of what I left when I go down to Ann Arbor and drive past the house where Lee used to live, hoping a little bit that it’ll be mysteriously gone and knowing that the cold reality is that life goes on, even when someone dies. I’m reminded of what I left when I get together with my friends and play games with them, and I’m reminded of what I left when I drive past the sign that says “Welcome to Indiana!” which is the most goodbye-sounding greeting I have ever received.

I’m not saying that Iowa is bad. I want to make that very clear. Iowa is like a coworker you befriend in your thirties, where Michigan is the friend you’ve known since you were in elementary school and left when you graduated. But there are times, after getting back from Michigan, where I look around at Iowa, at the town of Cresco, and I know it’s just not the same. Not that it should be, either. But sometimes the best thing to do is to keep your eyes focused straight ahead, even while you’re looking around. Looking back can mean missing some things in the past you really, really liked and you didn’t know how much you liked them until they were gone.

That being said, I’m back here in Iowa. I’ve been looking for some things to write about, and a friend of mine rightly took me to task for not posting anything up for a while because the only things I could think of to write about were touristy. She pointed out that yes, they are touristy, but touristy can also be cool. So we’ll see what happens.

Kendo Camp--Three Days, One Blog

Kendo Camp, Day 1

Where do you begin with kendo? Trick question—everyone begins from a different place. Some people take a class because they’re curious about why people are running around hitting other people with swords. Other people get into kendo because it looks like fun, and face it—on the surface, running around and hitting people with sticks is pretty fun. To hear one of the teachers at kendo camp tell it, he got into kendo because his older brother was practicing the martial art.

I got into it because of the coolness factor, which I suspect drives more peoples’ decision then they care to admit. Why not? This is the chance to learn how to use a samurai sword! Think of all the movie and comic book heroes who use swords! This is your chance to be Luke Skywalker!

Of course it’s not that simple. It never is. By the time I’d learned I was light-years away from being Luke Skywalker the martial art had gotten in my blood, and no matter how many times I left, I kept coming back. Kendo is deceptively difficult, and you quickly learn that your best physical effort isn’t quite enough. You also learn all the ways that you’re screwing up with each swing of the shinai. And yet each time you screw up you learn something, and when you’re frustrated and at the end of your rope you just have to keep trying until you hit that breakthrough, which is one of the greatest feelings in life. At that moment, you know that you have improved slightly and you know how much work it took to get to that point. Anyone who wants the rewards without the journey could learn a lot from kendo.

If you keep at kendo for a few months, you may find it gets in your blood. You may find that, even though sweat is dripping onto the hardwood floor of the dojo and you just want to quit, if you had a little more time to practice you could finally perfect your form! Of course, by the time you’ve showered and put away your shinai and bogu, you want nothing more than to sleep. But the desire is still there, and the next time you pick up a sword it awakens.

Perhaps that’s why I’ve come to kendo camp here, out in Madison, Wisconsin. I’ve come despite a shoulder that complains if I use it for too long and a car whose engine tends to shake intermittently. Some things you just have to power through. Over the next two days I’ll be training hard for hours on end, pausing only to eat and then go back at it. My stomach is already tensing at the thought. Still, I know I’m going to learn something, and when I learn something here, I want to apply it to all aspects of my life to become a better person. Perhaps I’m seeking God out here, in the form of sweat and a sword. 

 

Kendo Blog, Day 2

I’m exhausted. And hurt. My right shoulder and arm are jumping the border of sore and hurt like it was nothing, and I’ve developed what is called “the kendo walk.” It looks like a duck-footed very old man, and it’s the standard method of walking unless you make an effort to walk normally. The weirdest part is that mentally, I’m still ready to go. Put a shinai in my hand, give me some bogu to hit and let’s get to it. I expect this feeling to last until about four seconds after I get to bed.

That’s the odd thing about kendo. It revs up your spirit and your mind even as your body is getting pounded. I think it’s one of the benefits of kendo—your mind and spirit get as much exercise as your body,  and perhaps one day your body will be able to keep up with your mind and spirit, or at least your mind and spirit will supplant your body’s strength. Mental and spiritual energy seem to be ridiculously long-lasting.

Yamanaka sensei and Saito sensei are proof of this. They got up at around 5:30 am like most of the kendo students and taught an hour-long session of kata outside. Then they taught two three-hour kendo sessions, and now they are in the dormitory commons room, cheerfully drinking beers, getting cheerfully drunk and staying up later than people half their age, up to and including me.

I never really understood how important the basics were until Yamanaka sensei corrected a lot about my men strike, the most basic strike in kendo. Then I started trying to do it right, and I’ve kept on trying to do it right throughout the practice. The 1^st-dan and under class practices nothing but basics, and I love it. I keep wanting to practice them more and more. I don’t really care about sparring, or any of the types of sparring practice that are meant to show us how to use a sword in a “real” sparring scenario. I’ve focused on getting this one thing right. It’s not a bad feeling, either. I realize that doing it perfectly is probably not possible, but it feels almost within my reach, and the feeling I get reaching for that goal is incredible.

Kendo Camp 3

Well, it’s over. In a way I’m disappointed, because I really want to still practice kendo. On the other hand, I’m exhausted and want nothing more than to get back to my apartment and start sleeping. I’m sore, and my shoulder is letting me know it doesn’t want to be used for a while. Maybe for the rest of August.

On the other hand, I survived an intensive kendo weekend! Nine hours of practice, eleven if you count the free-form practice and the kata practice at dawn. And  I didn’t have to sit out any of them! I feel really accomplished, but more than that I started to really understand what it meant to make a good men attack. For about the last hour of practice my men attack became more and more consistent. Not perfect by any means, but much better than it was. That alone was worth the cost of kendo camp.

I’m getting my kendo gear all bundled up, pretty much all of it soaked in sweat accumulated from two days’ worth of practice. I don’t think anyone other than me would want to touch it. On the other hand, the kote, the gloves and wrist protectors, are nice and flexible, and almost has me wishing they’d be like this more often.

Again, the thoughts you have after a kendo practice can be kind of weird. You want to keep doing more kendo, for one. After reaching one goal you’re ready to try working on another, although you know deep in your heart of hearts that concentrating on another aspect of your kendo may cause the first aspect to deteriorate a bit, since you’re paying less attention to it. And that’s fine. It’s another part of learning how to do kendo, and on some level it starts to seep into the rest of your life, too. I keep thinking of things I want to improve, and instead of wanting to juggle everything all at once, I think I’m okay with focusing on just one aspect and improving from there. The result is, to quote the Eagles, a peaceful, easy feeling, a feeling that yes, you can handle whatever is thrown at you in work or relationships, with family members or coworkers. It’s odd that all of this can come from learning how to swing a sword properly, but there you go.

Also on the third day at kendo camp? I let go of fear. Not that I didn't experience it, that feeling where your guts tighten up and your legs feel rooted to the ground. But when I started practicing on the third day I let go of all the fears I had--fear that my shoulder wouldn't last through the practice went first, then the fear that I wouldn't do good kendo, and finally other fears just went away and I was practicing kendo, accepting that whatever would happen to me would happen, and more importantly that I could deal with it. I don't know for certain, but I think that's what is known as the zen mindset.

Time to make the drive home.