take action

We’ve been talking about it for years now, and negotiating for months, but finally, this weekend, we did it. We adopted a dog, a one-year-old “mix of mixes” named Kesi, who was rescued and re-rescued from South Carolina to Georgia to several inappropriate placements in Connecticut. Although certainly traumatized, she is sweet as can be, of wonderful temprament (she adores R and E), and clearly intelligent. She is tough and strong, and distinctively beautiful. And she is ours. We couldn’t be happier with our little girl … unless, of course, she were housebroken. :)

I learned something about myself last night. I can bend from my waist with my legs straight and place my palms flat on the floor (something no one in my family can do, even my children). I can also do a belt-high front kick, four in a row actually, with force and precision without falling over. For the athletes among us, this may not seem like much, but all day long I have walked around with an extra bit of pride, empowerment, demonstrating these skills to myself in my office, on the way down the hall to the restroom. My body has ability after all, and strength, flexibility. Maybe it always did, I just never knew it. This is a great place to start. My foray into martial arts has already begun to change my sense of my capacity. It has bridged the disconnect between my physical and intellectual selves, and bolstered my sense of power in integrating two previously disparate halves of a larger, greater whole.

I’ve made the necessary arrangements to sign up for karate!

^{thanks, Velo}

My children practice Tang Soo Do, a Korean form of karate, so I will officially join their class (the beginner section) in two weeks. It will be good for my daughter especially to see her mother pushing her physical limits, or at least being active. And perhaps my children can teach me a thing or two.

I’m so excited….

I hate waiting. I always have. And yet, when I look back on 2007 I can see clearly how much time I have spent sitting around waiting for things to happen. Waiting for conditions to be right, or for decisions to be made, contact to be established, for for people to come around to my way of thinking. Waiting for some excitement to vary my routine. Waiting for the truth to make itself known, or for recognition, or validation. This must be what depression looks like for an optimist, a constant inactive, immobilized waiting for something good to happen, even in amidst the knowledge that it probably won’t. When I was a kid I learned both early and well that patience was a virtue. But patience can also serve as an excuse for complacence, inertia, or for victim status, stagnation. We are each responsible for our own life experiences, after all. And the betterment of our lives, our world, depends on action.

My mother waits for everything. She spends each day sitting at her kitchen table, poised in front of a cup of tea, waiting for the world to come to her. If the phone doesn’t ring she won’t dial it. If opportunity doesn’t knock, she will never open the door. And she has become so unattuned to the sound of knocking that if opportunity did knock, she wouldn’t hear it. She has spent her life waiting so patiently for something great to happen, that when it has she has not been able to recognize it. My heart aches for her, for opportunities lost or never recognized. I will not become my mother. I will not.

Patience is a virtue, but only in a life of action. 2008 will be a year of action, tempered perhaps with a modicum of patience. But mostly, rewardingly, action.