our dreams will break the boundries of our fear

and we're caught in the crossfire of heaven and hell
and we're searching for shelter
[lay your body down]

this song is a dead ringer for black belt training. I have never been so soundly beaten. I have never been so alive. the other day, C. floated through the air an extra four inches to collide solidly on a double-jumping kick. I had no doubt that would happen. I have taken to leaping into the falls, to twisting in flight, to landing with a crash that rings through the spaces in me.

I have taken to believing in chi because I think it helps me. There is a hundred-yard stare, a moment of focus, a deep breath. And then there is pure and fluid action, no contemplation, no abstractions, just movement. There is great comfort in doing one thing and one thing only. And I rely on lots of things when I am constantly told to be more intense, to be faster, to be more.

I reflect on riding, on the electricity surging through my horse as we approach a challenging jump, at the way his nostrils flare huge when the adrenaline hits him, at the moment when I give him his head and the energy roars through him, freeing us from the ground in a single unbroken motion. With him it is never pushing or rushing, it is letting flow what has been held back. His unflagging enthusiasm inspires me every day.

The rest of my life is fairly ordinary, but these two things that I do are the things that define me, the enduring and important ways for me to brush the extraordinary. And then we land, coming off the oxer, coming out of the kick or the throw, just hoping it was enough.

music of the current moment:
Brandon Flowers / Caught in the Crossfire
Pink / Raise Your Glass
Glee cover / Teenage Dream
Carbon Leaf / Learn to Fly

après moi vient le sang

Well hello, January. What a winter of cold and snow and reflective sunshine.

As you probably don't remember, I spent a lot of high school in a philadelphia (the state of mind, not the state, unfortunately). I am recalling now some very good advice I was given, though I didn't want to hear it at the time. It went thusly: that you can never be friends with your former lovers until you don't want to be friends anymore. I always figured that at that point, the question had quite solved itself.

But being the late-evening internet wanderer that I am, I go meandering altogether too freely through old communications, emails and transcripts of conversations (shouldn't the universe conspire to delete those for me?) altogether too often.

And being my particularly astute self, I managed to dig up the only line that could make me think that oh yes of course if I broke this rule just once it would be fine. Because ruining my past relationships has not satisfied me, and I have to wander into a dubious space with my current one.

I detest uncertainty.

i get a thousand hugs from ten thousand lightning bugs.

First and foremost, I am always tired.

Second, this is what I'm thinking about:
sets of three
partner exercises
footwork, footwork
breathe!
sword takeaways
free fightings + one steps

Also, I am doing so much less for my thesis than I should be, but I still seem to be on top of my other work. I'm not sure what that means.

Ah, sickdays -- like some sort of vacation from hell, trapped in my parents' house with a deep chest cough and no medication but some sort of infrequent-use inhaler that, while it allows me to take a deep breath, is not curing my bronchitis.

This is apparently because I am idiotic and can't even manage to set up a doctor's appointment correctly.

This does not bode well for escaping from this place anytime soon.

I suppose while I am lying here, wishing I could taste the lentil soup I've been eating and also wishing that I could remember tae ryun four, I should get some things done, such as:
-finding a thesis adviser
-finding a thesis source base
-finding nommy recipes for vegetarian food

I also might explore the mysterious world of Hulu, the online television player. Other than that I have two books which I'm alternating between (Julie and Julia, by Julie Powell, and Skeletons at the Feast, by Chris Bohjalian), and after that I'm out.

More updates later, I suppose.

home front update

I've been home four days, and so far I have hair cropped short enough to frame my face, an ankle brace with reinforced stays that actually supports me, a very filthy pair of riding jeans, pain from kendo in my neck/shoulder that will not go away, and a lingering numbness from my right elbow down to my hand.

I'm still tired, only vaguely sleeping at appropriate times, but pleased enough to be back and able to do at least some things right away. Work starts on Monday.

cold turns your breath into clouds

It is anything but cold here, right now, in the gasping, record-breaking Lyonnais heat. I lay in the coolest room in the apartment with all the windows open, and dream while I am supposed to be studying.

I've been listening to this song a lot, possibly because the video is too cute for words. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4sa2HoXpsE&feature=PlayList&p=3C7EDDA78EE64DDD&index=1).

I am realizing that some combination of being physically inactive and living in the Land of Pastries has done some pretty serious damage to me. I'm not looking forward to having to buy new clothes for riding and for work when I get home -- hopefully something a summer at the barn and in the dojo can help me fix.

By the way, two songs that are really good to jump around in your underwear to are:
American Hi-Fi, "Flavor of the Week"
The All-American Rejects, "Give You Hell"
My weakness for bad pop-rock will probably never die.

I'll be home in nine days!

bisous?

As I sit here frantically striving for some sort of thesis topic to present to Professors Rossman and Reed, I have one headache inducing, worry inspiring thought -- France is not done with me.

Or, should I say, I am not done with France. Despite the myriad tribulations this country has put me through this semester (and, inadvertently, in semesters and years past), it seems my thesis will be nothing other than a careful treatment of some aspect of French history.

I need to be putting my energy into thinking up that thesis, I think, not blogging about it.