Purpose, as well as intention

I go to class with a scrambled mind, and leave trying to remember what I was so scrambled up about. Tai Chi is in the moment. I cannot be thinking about mowing my lawn or paying my bills and replicate a motion successfully. In fact, I can't even be thinking about the mistake I made a move ago and perform the next one with any skill. There is a lot of muscle memory involved, but you can't make your muscles remember the right thing unless you get it right in the first, second, and third places. Each correction is like a bit of spit and polish on a stone sculpture, or more accurately, a chunk of unwanted stone removed with a sharp tool, sometimes a very large sharp tool. What I get out of two hours of class is only what I put into it, so eventually everything else in the world fades away.

It's been like this since the beginning. I started taking this class because I needed the credit for my degree. I thought I'd be totally new-aged out of the idea and drop the class shortly after the mod started. Instead, this teacher, a stand in for the normal college class teacher, drug my perception of tai chi centuries into the past. I began to ache if I were late to class. I wanted that hour. I wanted the cleansing properties it scrubbed into my mind and body, the rush of getting children up, dressed, fed, out the door, off to daycare at the same time I was getting dressed, fed, out the door, and off to school--the rush being scrubbed from my memory. I left that class capable of seven-and-a-half hours of third-year literature classes. I did this two days a week. I believe it's what kept me alive. Literature classes involve a lot of brain work and without peace of mind, the mind gets lost.

I used to drag myself to class on most occasions, but I have stopped imagining that I could use the night off. Now, I try to figure out how I can have another night on.