the past couple days have been pretty hectic. i am learning the finer points of my job, and trying to keep up with the responsibilities that accompany being a parent. it's been a bit overwhelming, so this afternoon, i just kind of cut the tether and let myself drift. i played a bit of piano (my latest preoccupation is a "kid a" cover i found on youtube), strummed the guitar that one of my acupoints students restrung (it's out of tune, or tuned in an unconventional way), and then felt the compulsion to do taijiquan (although i'm seriously out of practice). i think my energy wants to build and move... not in a compulsive way, but in a manner of fullness and heaviness, and in a manner which discovers the path of ease through its own gravity and weight...

my son mentioned to the persnickety neighbor that i am a mean dad; not sure if the idea was planted or not, but irregardless, it was kind of a blow to me. never imagined that i would be in this position, concerned about being thought of as "mean." but parenthood makes strangers of us all. the whole weight of concern over the well-being of a child and his future, well, it is impossible to address that in a balanced, "unmoved" way... i think that if parenthood does NOT change you in some way, then you either aren't being a good parent, or you're some kind of kangaroo, with a built in pouch for rearing... nevertheless, at present, i'm trying to approach things from a distance, floating like some unconcerned satellite. there is so little i can do from up here. and it is so easy to love and appreciate my son through the lens of the stratosphere...

i am really tired inside...

***

i was thinking about a day once when i drove over to queen emma park (nuuanu park), and it was a rainy, slightly windy day. i walked over to the basketball/volleyball courts, with the rock wall to my back, and performed all of the forms in my repertoire on the semi-slick asphalt. every now the wind would stir a fleet of raindrops from the branches of the banyan tree above, and there would be the slapping sound of their collective impact... i recall a peace in that place, but as with all such feelings, it was accompanied by a kind of loneliness, a kind of sadness...

this day was reminiscent of a thousand other days. i recall living in santa monica, and how, in the early days, i would drive alone to redondo beach, and try to rollerblade down the walk, just like all the other golden people. and i remember going to the pier at redondo beach (hermosa???) and feeling the sunshine and the grey green waves surging beneath my feet, and thinking how alone i was...

now that i am married with children, i realize the center, the heart that i was missing. i think i was always meant to be an accompaniment of some sort, the background to someone else's melody. i provide the structure and the undertones to bring the figures out and to life, in striking contrast to everything else... without my wife, without my children, i am nothing special to see. i am something that is slippery, that slides eyes away...

***

there is an eye and an ear that accompanies all art. but whose eye and ear is it? in the performance of art, the awareness of attention can be distracting and destructive, and it often becomes a practical necessity to "kill the buddha" (i.e., ignore the observers) in order to be true to an art. and yet, what purpose is art other than to be something worthy of an eye and an ear?

so again, whose?

art is a disappearing act. it is done, ostensibly for the ego of the artist and his vision, but in reality, for the purpose of killing the self as imperfection. it is to become lost in a process and an image and a sound that is larger than oneself...