I won't fear the rain

Today was one of those days. We have to accept that we will often have one of those days. Recently, I've had more than my fair share of those days. It feels like I've said "those" too many times now, and it's starting to sound weird. When that happens, it's a really uncomfortable feeling.

Those.

As I was walking to the place where my grandmother and grandfather were buried, I couldn't help thinking about the events of the day up to that point. I often visit the cemetery when I need to think more clearly about things. The relative quietness of the place seems to help.

Passing by the office of the crematorium, I saw a woman put a box of chocolates on the ground, back away, and a man pick them up. From a safe distance, she told him they were a "thank you" for all his help. The rest of the conversation happened as I had walked too far past them to hear. I reflected on how the pandemic and resulting restrictions on our lives had changed the fundamental nature of such moments.

The colour of the artificial flowers placed at my grandparents' headstone had faded long ago. The wind had blown some of them into the grass. It was impossible to tell, or remember, which belonged there and which had blown from other graves. A number of the headstones were adorned with a fair mixture of artificial flowers, suggesting that few others remembered where each flower had belonged. Maybe they all belonged where they were currently, for the time being at least.

In line with my grandparents' beliefs, I bowed my head in prayer. My grandfather was a Catholic, and my grandmother was a Protestant. Broadly speaking, they were Christian. I thought about the lives they had led, or the little I knew of their lives. For both of them, there had been many twists and turns of fate, but somehow they had been okay.

I looked up at the sky. Over the distant hills, I saw a dark grey mass of cloud. It was about to rain. In reality, it's always about to rain. We just don't know when. The presence of rain is always a possibility, just as the presence of sunshine is always a possibility. The jacket I was wearing wasn't waterproof, and I had no hood or umbrella. The choice was to stand there longer, deep in thought, or to leave and stay dry. Thinking about the lives my grandparents had led, I stayed a few minutes longer, deciding not to fear the rain. They had, after all, weathered many storms.

The wisdom I took from the visit was to not live in fear of what might happen - to not fear the rain.

On a previous visit to the cemetery, the epiphany had been regarding a woman in China. I had got to know her over the internet. Well, our options for meeting new people are somewhat limited right now. In the silence, I had time to consider our interactions up to that point, and how we had navigated cultural differences and other misunderstandings. I thought about lessons I had learned from my grandfather in particular. There was no doubt about what my heart was telling me: I was going to have a Chinese girlfriend.

As I was returning home today, the car in front of mine grabbed the last remaining parking space on the street outside my home. What it meant was that I'd have to walk a few blocks from my car, and back to it when it was needed again. A minor inconvenience. The words I shouted, in the safety of my car, towards the other driver would suggest that a major catastrophe had occurred.

Yeah, it has been one of those days.

Foreigner

A portable television, a pair of headphones and films, from all over the world, that were broadcast in the early hours. In the relative peace of my room, I'd watch films from mainland Europe, Africa, Asia and elsewhere. The small screen actually made it easier to read the subtitles and watch the action at the same time. Maybe the thoughts and feelings of people in other lands got through to me, and I became more of a stranger to everyone around me.

My mother used to say that my mind didn't seem to work in quite the same way. An assessment to be held in about six months will tell us whether she was correct. As a teenager, I felt this difference. I felt increasingly isolated.

Recently, I heard that I didn't seem strange or foreign to someone in another part of the world. It reminded me of all the time I spent watching those films from other places. Maybe I feel strange or foreign in what many would think of as my part of the world.

Amy

14th February 2021

There's an old saying that, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. I'm really hoping that it doesn't apply to Amy. A message came in from her at four in the morning on Valentine's Day. She wanted to chat, and had forgotten about the time difference. The day before, she had introduced herself by asking if I minded that she was from China.

I certainly wasn't looking for another long distance relationship. If the flow of events determines that a long distance relationship is what I'll have, then I choose to accept a great love in less than great circumstances over the other way round.

I have to be aware of how I'm feeling at the moment. The year started with the unwelcome return of my depression, and I still haven't fully shaken it off. In truth, it really became a problem at the tail end of 2020. The thing is, when I think of all that has happened over the last few years, it's no surprise that the depression has returned.

Is Amy genuine? Time will tell, as she said herself. She followed it by saying a liar wouldn't have the patience to wait. Twice already, we have communicated through the internet for hours at a time. Although she apologises regularly for her poor English, I understand her just fine, and she understands me too. She did confess, however, that sometimes she has to use a translation application.

In amongst all of this, I sent a message to a friend. I sensed that she had gone cold on the idea of us meeting for a catch up, when it was safe to do so. What had changed was that I had been open about my relationship having come to an end. In truth, the message I sent was deliberately ambiguous. It said nothing about feelings I might have for her, because that would have been a lie, but I neglected to say I didn't have those feelings. The rest of the content could either lead her to think I did feel something towards her, or at least make her want to question it. In the end, she went with wrongly assuming I was attracted to her, and the way she responded angered me for a short while.

At this point, it's a friendship I wouldn't be sad to lose. The whole incident has also made me wary of how I interact with female friends. It seems that when a man is unattached, there are plenty of assumptions about what he might want or how he might behave. A distance that previously wasn't there has now opened up. I'm not proud of myself for testing a friendship in such a way, but I'd rather be aware of misunderstandings or assumptions that might bite me where it hurts later on.

It could turn out that Amy isn't genuine. That's always a possibility. Even so, I will have no regrets. At the moment, I desperately need a reason to keep hoping. Talking to her feels good. To be fair to her, she doesn't seem to want anything from me, except for us to get to know each other and see how it goes. So, to answer her question, I don't mind at all that she comes from China.

The Black Belt Mentality

 To this day, I don't fully understand why he did it. We were waiting - the whole class - in the assembly hall for our PE teacher to arrive. From there, we'd be going to the local swimming pool. Maybe he was bored, sitting there. He decided to relieve his boredom by launching himself at me and trying to wrestle me to the ground. It didn't go quite how he had imagined it would.

I was always the quiet one. Consequently, I was always mistaken for an easy target. Later, with a puzzled look on his face, he asked how I'd been able to pin him to the ground. Stephen had a reputation in the school, you see, and may have been concerned about how being pinned in front of so many witnesses might affect that reputation. I've learned in the years since that such reputations are often built on willingness to fight, rather than ability. When I replied that I had been learning judo for a while, he asked what belt I had. The answer caused him to feel even more confused because, as he said, he had a belt of a colour which suggested he had been training for maybe a year longer in judo.

Some time after this, I had just walked out of the door at the end of the school day, and heard my name called from behind me. I turned to see a punch heading in my direction. It was only after I'd applied a standing arm bar that I realised who owned the fist that had nearly connected with my face. Rory? As far as I was aware, we didn't have a problem with each other. As we shuffled around - him trying to escape a standing arm bar, and me determined to keep it locked on - I asked what was going on.

Apparently, hearing of my interest in a girl on whom he also had a crush had enraged him. Having been dissuaded from further attempts at aggression, he decided we'd walk part of the way home together and talk about it instead. At one point, he asked for another demonstration of the lock that had been applied on him. I obliged, knowing he would have little or no opportunity to practise and perfect the technique, and would probably soon forget it.

The thing is, I never wanted to achieve a black belt in judo. It may sound strange to some, but it's the truth. At that time, a black belt represented at least seven years of judo training; for most people, it took around ten years to earn that belt.

There was a practical aspect to all of this. My father insisted that my brother and I missed some of the gradings for the next belts. His stated reasoning was that we would both be much more experienced than those of the same apparent grade. The real motivation was that we weren't particularly well off financially as a family, and he was starting to think of judo as an expensive hobby for his sons.

When I started doing judo, it wasn't with the wish to gain a black belt. As a novice, I wanted to earn a white belt. As a white belt, I wanted to earn a yellow belt. As a yellow belt, I wanted to earn an orange belt. If I had concentrated on the black belt, my motivation would have been something that seemed far in the future. The satisfaction of gaining a white belt, a yellow belt, an orange belt and so on would have been lost. It was better to learn appreciation for what I had, rather than become dissatisfied because there were things I didn't have.

"I'm doing judo to earn a black belt" is a poor motivation anyway. We should do judo to do judo. If I hadn't enjoyed the process of learning, and hadn't felt that each belt earned was valuable in its own right, it would have affected my practice. The incident with Stephen, and his insistence that a coloured belt should have been a reason for him to have escaped the hold in which he had found himself, suggested that he didn't really get it. His training wasn't the problem. The incident with Rory showed me that convincing others not to cause harm was a great motivation.

When it becomes possible to attend martial arts classes again, I'm going to join a new class as a novice. It may happen that I gain a black belt eventually. It might not happen. All that matters, really, are those hours I may spend each week practising a martial art, for no other purpose than practising a martial art.

I hope you understand.

2020

We're coming to the end of a year that has tested most, if not all, of us. For some, it may feel like 2020 has been all about loss. For me, it has been about acceptance.

 

The work I currently do is very much concerned with how we come to accept the existence of suffering. One thing that often comes up is a potential disparity between how we deal with our own suffering and the suffering of others. If we focus on one of those, at the expense of the other, it will eventually take its toll.

 

The extra time that many of us have spent alone this year has afforded us an opportunity. It has been an opportunity for something we often neglect. Whether we have done so consciously or not, it has been a chance to reflect, to think about where we are in our lives, what's important to us, and other things. In their absence, the way we relate to others may have been on our minds. It seems that many had the time to learn or practise things they had wanted to learn or practise for some time.

 

Unfortunately, there have been those who have tried to deepen divisions between people. Tragedy has been used as a catalyst to shame individuals, based on their group identity, in a misguided attempt to change behaviour through an apparently socially-accepted form of bullying. At a time when the focus might have been very much on a feeling of "us", the media and certain organisations fostered a sense of "them".

 

Here in the UK, the new year will bring a particularly uncertain future. If we believe that the result of the referendum in 2016 was accurate, then a slim majority of those who voted chose an uncertain future. I dare say that, no matter how anyone voted, they had reasons that made sense to them. The fallout from the whole thing, however, deepened any existing sense of "them". Sadly, a lot of the sentiments shared via social media were xenophobic or showed similar intolerance of perceived difference. Little doubt was left that a feeling of "them and us" was pervasive within our society.

 

Was the opportunity for reflection squandered? Maybe. It could also be that many chose to develop aspects of themselves which were all about a separation from others. Alternatively, a desire for greater connection may have led to a reinforcing of group identity, leading to the somewhat ironic outcome of social exclusion and disconnection from other groups of people.

 

I don't pretend to possess any great wisdom or insight. These are just thoughts that have come to me. Your mileage may vary, as they say. Coming to terms with our response to such things is very much about understanding who we are and, hopefully, being able accept it. If we recoil from and shut away the things we judge to be our darkness, they will only show themselves in other ways. It's my belief that we've seen a lot of darkness in 2020, but those whose inner darkness most visibly came to the surface tried to tell us they were the only ones to see the light.

Judo

When I was seven years old, I started to learn judo. My mother has claimed that it was her idea. The reasoning she gave was that she was worried my brother and I would be a target for bullies.

What actually happened was that one of the teachers at our primary school mentioned the judo classes. They were to begin that evening in the older building of the school. My parents were taken aback by the quieter of their two sons being the one to mention it. My father was thrilled that I had shown some interest in an activity that could be seen as manly; my mother's reaction would be best described as ambivalence.

After a while, we moved to a new home. The same instructor was teaching at a nearby community centre. It didn't take long for us to work out that, if we stayed on the mat after the children's class, he didn't mind if we took part in the adult class too. Our parents judged this as getting good value for money. Essentially, it meant that the seven years I was to spend learning judo had more learning packed into them.

The purpose of this post isn't to tell you that I was a great judoka. Even if that were the case, I have retained little of what I learned. No, there was something else about the adult class that had a more profound effect, even if I didn't realise it at the time.

At the end of the adult class, something happened which made it different from the children's class. As my brother and I (the only children present) knelt at the edge of the mat, we were fully expecting to bow and be dismissed as usual. Instead, the instructor told everyone to close their eyes and imagine the stress of the day running out of them into the floor below.

The area in which we lived was recently identified as one of the most deprived areas of the UK. Perhaps things got worse since we moved away, or else most of it escaped our attention as children. Judo felt like a break from all of that, for just a few hours a week. Years later, jujitsu lessons would serve the same purpose, but would be a break from something else entirely.

A few months ago, I lost a friend. She was the person with whom I felt most able to discuss spiritual matters. Others might have the impression that I'm not at all spiritual. It's something that's not easy to convey, and an aspect of ourselves that is all too easy to neglect. In counselling theory, it might be described as one of our "configurations of self". For me, martial arts practice is a part of my spiritual configuration of self. There are other components though.

Before the pandemic hit, I used to go to salsa classes once a week. The long drive to Chester was somewhat reminiscent of the long drive I used to take to Enniskillen, for jujitsu lessons. It was always dark on the way home and, at certain times of the year, dark on the way there too. Sometimes it rained. It always felt restorative. There's no better way to describe the feeling, unfortunately.

As I write this, it's dark and it's raining. Maybe it's time to go for a drive...

The inner conflict

When my father left home, I was in the final years of junior school. It's hard to be more precise about these things, because he kept coming back and leaving again. He didn't know what he wanted to do, it seemed. It's difficult to put memories of that time in any kind of order.

I had no interest in the school youth club, but my brother wanted to try it out, or our parents needed to talk without us there. To be honest, I don't remember the reason why I had to go, but there was no sense that it was something avoidable.

There was a snooker (or maybe pool?) table in a side room. As that was one of my brother's interests, it was natural that he'd spend his time there. Me? I was incredibly socially anxious at that age, so the time there was mostly spent wandering aimlessly. At the far end of the club was a small indoor play area - the kind with lines painted onto a wooden floor. A game of football was in progress. There were loose footballs at the side, so I decided to just kick a ball back and forth at the side of the playing area.

Mark Charlton had never given me any trouble before. It's likely that we'd had no interaction at all, really. Him marching up to where I was, asking if he'd given permission for me to kick a ball around, came as something of a surprise. Him becoming increasingly aggressive and trying to push me around came as even more of a surprise. I'd been taking judo lessons from the age of seven, so had already been doing that for a few years at the time of this night at the youth club. I knew how to maintain my own balance, and how to disturb someone else's. By the time a "responsible adult" was able to intervene, Mark was on his back, and I was sitting atop him, letting a rain of punches fall on his face.

My first time at the school youth club would also be my last.

Sometimes, when we leave our home, we go back to check that we have locked the door or to check something else. We can tell ourselves we've had a blank moment, that we are becoming forgetful. We could also say that we've done something so many times that it requires little conscious thought. Perhaps it requires no conscious thought at all.

What does any of that have to do with judo? Well, experience is a great teacher, and experience taught me a very valuable lesson. If you practise, practise and practise some more, you reach the point where little conscious thought is needed for the performance of a skill. In fact, conscious thought can get in the way. Forget you even learned a martial art or combat sport and just act. The people of Japan have a word for this - mushin.

It wasn't that I wanted to fight. In truth, a day where I didn't have to fight would have been very welcome. Unfortunately, my brother didn't think I should be allowed such a luxury. No one taught me how to throw a punch, but I learned. The first few years of secondary school were also pretty rough. Some would talk about this with pride for their own sense of toughness. I can't do that.

Will the constant fear of sudden, unprovoked physical attack ever go away? I don't know. I was never in control, you see. I was never the one who decided a violent encounter would happen. Nothing in my demeanour had ever suggested that I wanted to fight - it happened against my will.

On one occasion, I'd had enough. As he marched forward with his hands raised into a boxing guard (he loved the Rocky films), I kicked his thigh with as much force as I could muster. He dropped to the floor, appearing to be in agony. Panic set in. I knew from experience, if my brother did anything wrong, we were "both as bad as each other"; if there was any sense that I'd done something wrong, it was for me alone to be shamed to the point of submission, and any perceived transgression was talked about as if it was the worst act any human had ever committed. I ran to my sister's house, where my mother was visiting, and told her what had happened. When we got back, my brother said he was going to kill me.

"Honestly, I can't leave you two alone for five minutes. You're both as bad as each other."

For a while, I lived in Northern Ireland, and the atmosphere of the area in which I lived felt so threatening that an obsession with martial arts practice took over. With the lockdown in place, as a response to the pandemic, there's a real danger of that obsession taking over again.

At the moment, I'm limiting myself to practising tai chi and eskrima.