In The Ring
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So on mondays I get in the ring for an hour with these guys. They are all fighters. I most certainly am not. It's kind of like getting into a slow-speed car wreck that lasts three minutes. And then doing it again. And again. And again. Six to eight rounds, with bag work, mits, blitzing thrown in.
I stepped into one today, man. Talk about ringing my bell.
Anyway. I get a lot out of it. I get my adrenaline fix, I get to face my own weakness head on, and I get to hit people.
Win-win.
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But.
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I have a little anger thing going. You might know me pretty good for a long time and not even notice it. Or you might catch me on a bad day, get the idea I'm kind of an asshole. It all depends.
I mean, its not like I'm mad all the time or anything. It's just that, well, I got that speed in me.
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So is this getting in the ring thing bad?
Does it feed the dark gorilla in my soul?
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Nah.
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I tell myself it's good for me. I like it, it keeps me honest, it makes me reach down deep for something. Sometimes I find it, sometimes I don't. It's gone. You have that moment, you need something and you dig for it and you ain't got it, that's a moment. That thing right there is true. You want it, you need it bad, but you didn't do what was necessary. You were soft. You were lazy. You didn't put it in, so it's not there when you wanna take it out.
That's a kind of truth.
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I mean, it's easy in this world to get by sometimes, to fake your way through. The ring is one place you can't do that. You are what you are in a fundamental way there.
Everything else is stripped away.
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That's an overblown way of saying it, but it points to something vital nonetheless.
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I suppose there's bound to be good and bad sort of bound up together in it. I'd be wrong to deny the violence and brutality, but I'd be wrong too not to look beneath that at what else is moving there.
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The monk left today. We are luxuriating in having the house to ourselves again. But we'll miss him terribly.
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I got so much to learn.
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posted by tearful dishwasher at 7:58 PM
3 Comments:
you're already there, teach. it's the only class where i stand outside waiting for the bell to ring so i can get back to my seat, hoping it will be one of those good days, one where you really talk and don't just stand there, thinking. not that we mind the thinking, thinking is good, but we miss you when you go away inside and all we can do is try to be patient and wait for you to come back.
ding.
"I've got a little anger thing going on."
Christ, I need that emblazoned on a t-shirt. Or tattooed on my skin.
Yeah, me too.
The littler I try to make it, the bigger it gets.
I figured out it's one of the reasons why I run as often as I can (I'm up to 3 days a week now which feels so damned good, so damned freeing--and I'm aiming for 4).
I'm running away from myself. But I'm also running into myself.
I'm sweating out the anger. But I'm also honing it in that 50 minutes, making it meaner and leaner and faster.
If yours is a gorilla, mine's one of those grey horses that gets spooked by the wind and runs until it reaches the fence, then jumps the fence and keeps on galloping into the trees and never comes back.
Never been real comfortable expressing my anger. Always manifests as fear or sadness or both if I let it manifest at all.
Lately, I've been so angry that I feel like I could start running and never stop.
I love that photo below of the dog reflected on the beach.
Thanks for this post.
Gonna go run right now.
you are good to go -
yep
deirdre
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