Five Events, Connected

1. I am tired of being single, and I am tired of being gay. I'm sure there's something complex and interesting under all that statement, but that's how I feel. I've been happily single, open to whatever may arise, until about April. Then, I began to feel okay! Ready for boyfriend now!. I'm also entering a period of not feeling the gayness. At all. I'm addressing gay culture, the emblems, the affectation, the stereotypes, the fucking empowerment bullshit that replaces real achievement. I used to just let everyone do their thing. I still let everyone do their thing, I just don't want to be around it now. One of the reasons I moved to Queens: we're just part of the mix here.

2. Last night I was in a car. I was driving around a city that was infiltrated by elevated highways. I would take an exit, go round a skyscraper, through another, under a few more, and take more exits. One road leads to the other, seamlessly, just as the density of the city formed a continuous counter to the undulating roadbed. Yet after I took a few exits, I began to recognize the stretch of road I was on: I had come this way minutes before. I would take new exits, which turned out to be the same exits I had taken before, only in different combinations. The loop continued. Not Blair Witch Project but Matchbox Car Racing Track. After a few cycles of this I woke up. Years ago my therapist would analyze my dreams. Everything in a dream is you, every place, every person is a representation of an aspect of you. Dreams of motion are dreams of you in transition, in the midst of transformation. Dreams of driving a car are a high level of tranformation: you are at the wheel, directing the motion. Yet this dream I didn't believe the transformation was real; I kept driving and repeating the same places, the same conversation, over and over. I was manipulating events, only to have them turn into the same tired stretches I thought I'd left behind. I was up for another two hours stressing about what patterns I was repeating in my life.

3. I had lunch with Mike. I told him about me being in love. I told him why it was causing me pain. I asked him what he thought. Mike, my straight friend, architect, and a guy who teased me mercilessly during our time at Columbia, said "Well Chad, you obviously love him. But I think you're being an asshole. Who wants to be in love with that?". I didn't even blink, he said what I was trying to hide. Friends are the people who tell you what you need to hear, and when they say it, you listen to them like it's God's Truth on the fucking Ten Commandments, if you believe in that sort of thing. I cleaned up my messes in the afternoon, and recommitted myself to being love, everywhere. But I wasn't feeling powerful about it.

4. Emotionally spent, and fatigued from lack of sleep, I went to another intense BJJ class. Again, all rolling, except this time we started from standing position, the position a BJJ match is started from. I had no idea what to do, so I just jumped in. BJJ is the one place in my life where I cannot force an outcome, I cannot attempt to stop the action, I cannot make people wrong. Well, I can, but then I will just get my ass whipped harder and probably injured too. I also love that I don't have to be gay at BJJ; there is no time to be anything except focused on learning and going balls out. BJJ is also the place where if I make the same mistake repeatedly, someone in class, either an observer or my sparring partner, will simply tell me to stop it. Because I don't know many transitions from move to move yet, I tend to do ineffective but creatively imagined moves over and over when I'm filling in the gaps (which is about 80% of the time). I rolled with all the people I know. I got slammed a dozen times. I was shown two or three takedowns, and successfully executed none of them. I was given the opportunity to roll with our teacher, a black belt. His style is so relaxed, that he smiles and laughs. He accedes to your moves, sometimes two or three stages, before he calmly executes his attack. You tie your own knots with him. He of course was playing with me, testing the gaps in my knowledge, pushing me in a gentle and impish way to work those gaps. He patiently worked me over and let me flop around until he quickly closed up and just submitted me. He had me in a leg triangle, my left arm on his chest, and his legs squeezing my head down on my bicep. He giggled, I tapped, he released the pressure but not the hold, and kissed me on the head. Then he let go. Then I let go.

5. While we were rolling something exploded in New York. We watched the dojo's television after training was done. Some wondered if it was terrorism. I realized that I don't care anymore, terrorism, equipment fire, accidental steam explosion, mismanagement by power companies, it's all part of life in the city. I just wanted to know if everyone was ok, if they needed my help, and if Kimble would be okay if I couldn't get home until late. I started to feel like my old self so I quit repeating myself and I kept letting go. I acceded to my stuff and just let it spin itself out before I executed my attack. My crap dissolved. All the manipulation I've been putting in the world, all of being an asshole, of forcing an outcome, of stopping the action, and so on: it all came up, and I just noticed it, and it fizzled. Now, it's time to drive.

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[MattGaymon]

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