Tenshi Mama

I want to be this lady when I grow up. She is 60, and she has fibromyalgia and a blue belt in Karate. Is that cool or what?

Taisen Deshimaru Roshi has said that in the martial arts these three things are needed: shin (mind-spirit), wasa (technique), and tai (body-strength), and that they must be in perfect balance. But he has also said that “in a young person the body is the fundamental element, whereas in an older man technique and spirit predominate.” Of course, it’s likely that Deshimaru Roshi never had a student who was a middle-aged woman with fibromyalgia, but we can try to extrapolate.

The difference is that while some of us had intense training before getting sick, most of us disabled folk who come to the martial arts come with the mind of a newborn, and the body of an old man. We have all the weakness, but we haven’t trained our spirit to compensate.

But it is what it is. I am not the young boy Master Deshimaru speaks of, and I am not the old man. I am this young-old woman, in this unbalanced body. I think that if I could ask him today how to balance those things, he’d remind me: I am in this particular place, in this particular moment, facing this particular technique, as best I can remember it with this particular mind, as well as I can with this particular body. And when this one is done, there will be another.

I think I already wrote a somewhat unfocused post on Zaadz about this, but it just won’t go away. Again I’m reminded how, when I’m really impressed with my growth, I realize that it doesn’t look much like growth from the outside. Here’s an example, probably way more confessional that I should post online. (Famous last words, huh?)

I lose track of my library books. I might have, considering the whole family, 20 books out at a time. And I do well until I get sick for a while, and then I lose track of everything, and when I’m feeling better, I can’t remember (or even find!) the books. When that happens, I end up with a huge fine, which I then have to deal with.

So when it happened last time, my thoughts were Hey! It’s been a really long time since this happened! That’s awesome. It gets less and less frequent. My husband, friend, parents, etc., though, say “there she goes again.” Which is the right approach?

I’ve tried hiding because I can’t count on myself. I’ve tried, for example, not taking out any more library books (or making any other commitments). It’s a horrible life! So I choose to move forward, to try again.

And to be honest, I think having areas to improve is delightful. Growth is what makes life such a treasure. (Good thing I enjoy it. I have a lot more coming.)

Anybody want to go for a good, long, bike-ride?

I still can’t get it through my head that this is not going to go away. I still think after a few good days that I’m all better, and I still blame myself when I have bad days. Actually, I don’t even realize that they’re bad days. It’s a strange mental process that lets me think on a good day, “Yay! I’m strong! I’m biking!” and then on a bad day think “I’m so lazy. I wish I weren’t so lazy.” Twisted, huh?

I learned something about good days yesterday, though. See, I ride a couple of miles to my community garden space, and when I have to go uphill, I often barely (baaaaaaaarely) make it in first gear. Yesterday, I went over the hill in my highest gear. In fact, I rode the whole way in my highest or second-highest gear. I never used anything under 6 (out of 7).

That’s the only thing that told me I was having a good day. I was happy that I’d decided to bike, thinking I wasn’t being as lazy as usual, but I didn’t recognize that the day was any different until I noticed how easy it was to bike. In fact, my first thought was that the bike, or the weather, or the roads were different. “Did I fill up the tires?” I just don’t consider the possibility that my body doesn’t work sometimes. I had decided (on the bad days) that it was the ride that was difficult, rather than my body not working.

You might wonder why I share things like this. It’s because I figure that there are other people out there living in denial, and reading about how thick-headed I am might just help them open their eyes. And, I suppose, I hope it’ll help me remember as well.

Well, healing happens, yes, but maybe even slower than I realized. I only made it through a few Karate classes back in February, and haven’t been back since. I have had more slumps since then, including one, fairly recently.

The good news is that I’m learning things. I think it’s taken me this long to get the big lesson through my head, the one about taking care of myself.

I thought I was getting it, but only recently have I really been able to set aside my obligations and go to bed if I need to, or even go sit by the river and watch the geese. In my old life, that would have counted as “wasting time” and “goofing off.” Now, sometimes it’s the only hope I have today of being well enough to work tomorrow.

So no Karate for now. My new love is my bike. And it hardly hurts at all to ride.

Writers who defend their clichés on the grounds that “they wouldn’t have become clichés if they weren’t good” may have a terrific point. And they should enjoy that, because what they won’t have is successful writing.

A cliché is a word or phrase that’s been overused. It may have been a clever phrase when it was new, but readers are tired of it now. Reading it is boring. (I hope you got that. I said “boring.” That word should terrify you. If it doesn’t, well, maybe you should consider a new career.)

• Cliché is a crutch that lets the writer use an acceptable one-size-fits all description, instead of crafting the perfect description for the circumstances.
• A cliché makes for uninteresting reading. The reader already knows what “flat as a pancake” looks like. It doesn’t invite her to create a new mental image.
• The best writing is a rich interaction between the writer’s mind and the reader’s. Using cliché is a lazy way of writing that encourages a lazy way of reading, making it very difficult for the reader and the writer to connect.

Clichés to avoid

icing on the cake * bright and shining * all for the best
play favorites * give it a rest * just deserts
better late than never * too tired to sleep * play with fire
diamond in the rough * wet behind the ears * short and sweet
live dangerously * point of no return

When cliché is a good idea

There are a few good uses for cliché.

Twisted Cliché

Irony should be used carefully, because the technique itself is becoming cliché. But if you can pull it off, the rare twisted cliché can be fun. “What a great birthday! The tickets to Hawaii were just icing on the bright red Porche.” (I didn’t say I could pull it off!)

I used to get a kick out of my dad saying “Never put off to tomorrow what you can put off indefinitely.” Isn’t he clever?

Revealing a Character

Fortunately, your characters don’t have to be as good at putting together words as you are. If Mama has been telling Henry not to go out with his friends, you might quote her as saying, “Mark my words, boy. You go up there tonight, you gonna get caught red-handed!”

Cliché used in this way lets the reader know who Mama is. We learn not only that she doesn’t want him to go, but we learn how she talks to him, and we begin to learn something about their relationship.

Because cliché doesn’t have the impact of more creative word-crafting, it’s likely that Henry isn’t going to be very strongly affected by her words. But rather than have Mama talk to the boy without using cliché, and possibly really reach him, here I want to show the reader a character who uses cliché easily, and to show the consequences of that sort of interaction. In fact, as I’ve been sitting here making up this interaction, I’ve discovered that Henry feels that his Mama never listens to him, and he ignores what she says because it’s so vague he can’t even argue with it.

(Dang. I hate it when throw-away characters
come to life, and I have to save them in a drawer.)

Cliché Hunting

Those two uses of cliché are usually ok. But the rest you have to fix. Here’s how:

• Practice listening for cliché as you go through your day. Any phrase that could be taken from one scene and dropped into an entirely different one and work fine should get your attention.
• Read your work out loud so that clichés you miss will catch your attention.
• Visualize your scene clearly, so that you won’t be as tempted to use the first phrase that comes to mind to describe it.

Now you know another trick for making your writing sparkle! If you have questions, send me an email. I’ll answer as best I can.

Psst! How many clichés did you find in this article?

Well, just to follow up a bit, I have to say it was an understatement that concussion mimics fibromyalgia. It brought on a full-blown flare, including reduced immune function indicated by a three-month bout with cold/flu/bronchitis/etc.

Unbelievable. Yet it is passing. I’m able to get through class again. And I’m back writing again, much to the relief, I’m sure, of my large audience of readers.

If you’re down, or having a flare or relapse, keep the faith! Healing happens.

A few weeks ago, I got a concussion by cleverly slamming my forehead against the edge of a shelf. It hit at an angle, across my left eye, the bridge of my nose and my right eyebrow. I think it happened because I was already a bit dizzy and uncoordinated due to a minor fibromyalgia flare.

Not especially interesting in itself, but what I found amazing was the discovery that the resulting symptoms mimic fibromyalgia, exactly! And apparently I’m not the first to notice this. Dr. Mary Lee Esty, in Neurotherapeutic Therapy and Fibromyalgia Using EEG-Based Stimulation suggests that Fibromyalgia is a brain dysfunction. She points out that problems relating to whiplash are “the result of the biomechanical forces of whiplash causing traumatic brain injury and its inevitable central nervous system dysfunction.” She also points out the whiplash, traumatic brain injury and fibromyalgia have an “almost complete overlap” of symptoms.

I haven’t been back to Karate yet. I’ve biked many miles, but not enough. I’ll consider this EEG stimulation at some point, but for now, I’ve got to get moving again.

I am far behind in my blogging; I have several notes in my journal that I’d intended (still intend) to put up here. But I didn’t want to put this off:

Yesterday, I biked 5 miles to the bike repair store. After some loitering and a mile walk, I arrived at the dojo for my class (a hard one!). That was followed by another mile walk and another 5 mile ride.

10 miles biking, 2 miles walking, and an hour of Karate.

Wow.

Wire-tapping, herding Americans into “free speech zones,” detaining citizens without charges, and generally ignoring the law are acts George W. Bush excuses by saying that this is war. What does that mean, exactly?

War used to be easy to identify. It happened between states—governments, actually—according to predictable rules. But when someone blows up a building for a political cause, is it an act of war, or a crime? When bin Laden’s people did it in September, 2001, it was an act of war. When McVey et. al. did it in 1993, it was treated as a crime. When Iraqis do it, it’s treated as both at once.

It’s important to know the difference, because our constitution limits what police can do. They are forbidden, for example, from driving down the road shooting whoever looks suspicious. They aren’t permitted to arrest people and put them in secret prisons with no access to attorneys, and without filing charges.

The idea isn’t new that “rights” just don’t apply to certain groups of people. We’ve all heard someone say that child molesters don’t have rights. Lately, we hear that terrorists don’t have rights.

But here in America, we’re supposed to understand that people are innocent until proven guilty. Innocent men have rights. If we forget that because of the horror of the crimes involved, we will have given up on what it means to be freedom-lovers.