A creative mind must be balanced by a disciplined body.
Splinter
Over five years ago, my sons enrolled in kenpo karate. Even though I’ve wanted to learn a martial art ever since the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie, an interest reinforced by Sonya Blade and later Buffy, it never occured to me to take a class until then. I grew up with untreated ADHD – as well as dyspraxia, which impairs balance and coordination – so I doubt I would have fared well before diagnosis and treatment. I’ve talked about my nemesis, the space-time continuum, in the past. Surprisingly the biggest improvement I’ve seen with nonstimulant medication is sensing my position in time and space so I’m nowhere near as clumsy or accident prone as I used to be. I still need techniques and katas broken down into smaller pieces and it takes me longer to put the pieces back together again and master them, but the adult class allowed me to progress at my own pace.
At first I wanted to make it to purple belt and learn the bo staff so I could be like Donatello. Then I wanted to reach third brown to learn sais like Raphael…but I had to reach first brown to get a red belt. Most belts took me the usual four months to reach, apart from setbacks due to the pandemic and later my own bout of Covid (followed by three months of brain fog and shortness of breath). First brown took nine months.
I couldn’t imagine achieving first black but I couldn’t imagine stopping, either. I’d be required to perform every kata in the system up to that point and be responsible for over 200 techniques, to say nothing of random attacks and ground escapes. I helped teach younger students, I continued learning at my own pace, and at some point, I started drilling the curriculum.
My test was a few weeks ago. I think I received more injuries in one afternoon than I did in all the years of learning and training, and a few times, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get back up, but somehow the kid that was always picked last in gym became the middle aged mother of twins with a first degree black belt in kenpo karate. It wasn’t easy or pretty, but I did it. And now I’m one step closer to becoming a ninja.
A week after that, a memory appeared on social media to remind me that my journey from first brown to first black took almost two years. I released my third novel, Girl Next Door, that same week. Both milestones feel weirdly anticlimactic despite or maybe because of all the time and money I’ve invested in them. I always feel bad when I don’t accomplish something, but I never feel good when I do. There’s always that voice in the back of my head asking, “what’s the point?” It certainly isn’t financial security.
As a reward to myself now that karate wasn’t dominating my brain, I enrolled in an introductory class for aerial hoop. I’ve taken some classes in the past even though I’m afraid of heights and probably ‘too old’ by society’s standards. The list of things I want to do is long. The time I have left to do them is short.
Boy does that sound overdramatic.
Also, I hope I’m not jinxing myself into even less time.
Summer break is in two weeks. I’ve already started writing my next novel, Fallen. I’ll be devoting my time off to completing it despite that nagging voice asking “what’s the point?”
I hope to build an audience large enough to justify the efforts of my publisher to see this series through to completion. At some point during Girl Next Door, I realized I was writing a trilogy of trilogies. Fallen starts the second cycle, which will continue with Devil You Know and conclude with Dark Angel. After that, the third and final cycle begins. Maybe someday I’ll get around to writing my magnum opus, which has undergone a lot of false starts and reimaginings.
And for now I’ll continue working at a slow steady pace to a second degree black belt. I’ve already exceeded my expectations for that particular journey. It takes the edge off. Still that voice asks, “what’s the point?”
I love learning and doing, but I also love eating and having a roof over my head, and I want to travel the globe someday. My “day job” is adequate – for now – and accommodates my writing schedule, but I feel ill at ease for the future. National and international events don’t help my state of mind.
I remember indulging in sunset yoga for the first time during the summer of 2016, a year some half-jokingly called the beginning of the darkest timeline. The class was a free community service, yet I felt as pampered and privileged as Marie Antoinette. It isn’t being offered this year. Bummer.
