Tai Change
On Interstate 70 headed East thru Kansas we pull off Exit 120 near Wakeeney.
At a truck stop, I see a shiny purple motorcycle with a sidecar on a trailer. I talk to the driver-a woman--about the motorcycle. I’m really excited--I’ve never seen a sidecar before. I tell her I’m from Oregon and say hi to three boys in the backseat. When her husband comes back from paying, I spontaneously say, “I’m really embarrassed to have to ask you this, but we’re out of gas money and trying to make it to Saint Louis. Can you help in any way?” The man gives me ten dollars, embarrassed that he hasn’t got more for me.
Wow! I run back to the van and haughtily wave it in Spider Monkey’s face. Drainbo, indeed! “Good, now ten more and we’ve got something,” he says. What? I wasn’t intending to get more!
I wander around and see a helicopter on a trailer behind a truck. I go up and try the same tactic, excited about the helicopter. It says “Experimental” on the side, and the man tells me he and his son fly in air shows. It’s an Army helicopter from Europe. I ask him for money, and he dumps his pocket change in my hands. He resents me being there, distrusts me from the first, wonders what I want from him. Mostly, I suspect, because I want something from him, I approach him with a scheming mind and dishonest energy, a kind of forced enthusiasm. The motorcycle people got me honest and excited; the helicopter people got me dismayed and pressured to make money.
Upset, guilty, and hurt from my games, I go to the front of the store to do 24 Form in some empty parking spaces. I remember that people always watch, curious, when I do Tai Chi. Since I want attention, I figure this is a good thing.
Shaggy comes running out of the store, right up to me, and shouts, “What are you doing? You can’t do that here! The woman inside is calling the cops because she thinks you’re some crazy lady!”
What? He runs to the van and I walk into the store and up to the counter. “Is there a problem?” I ask the woman. “Problem?” she says. “Somebody told me you were concerned about me,” I remind her calmly. “Well you can’t be hassling people for money here.” “Oh, is that illegal in Kansas?” I ask innocently. “It’s illegal at our store!” she says. “I’m very sorry,” I say, honestly. Then I walk outside, run to the van, and leap in the open door. Everybody else is already inside, and someone closes the door in one smooth motion behind me as Wagner pulls out of the lot. The only real instance of Big Flow I experience with this group of men is in a get-away!
Everyone in the van yells at me for a good ten minutes about how I cannot do Tai Chi in the South. “This isn’t the West Coast!” they say. “People don’t know what you’re doing here, and they’re afraid!” “People will think you’re crazy!” “They don’t need a reason to arrest you! Stop giving them reasons!”
Then they dub me “Tai Change” for trying to spange with Tai Chi. There’s a note of respect in their voices. Despite their dire predictions, we are not followed by the police. I feel we will we okay, and we are.
With a small note of egotism and a large dose of honesty, I tell Wagner privately that I am his best protection against trouble of any kind. It’s true-my instincts are on full tilt, and my sense has never been wrong. No one else recognizes that. The guys in the van don’t even seem to follow their own sense--just rules and superstitions, like everyone else. They too live on cartoons, only different cartoons.
At a truck stop, I see a shiny purple motorcycle with a sidecar on a trailer. I talk to the driver-a woman--about the motorcycle. I’m really excited--I’ve never seen a sidecar before. I tell her I’m from Oregon and say hi to three boys in the backseat. When her husband comes back from paying, I spontaneously say, “I’m really embarrassed to have to ask you this, but we’re out of gas money and trying to make it to Saint Louis. Can you help in any way?” The man gives me ten dollars, embarrassed that he hasn’t got more for me.
Wow! I run back to the van and haughtily wave it in Spider Monkey’s face. Drainbo, indeed! “Good, now ten more and we’ve got something,” he says. What? I wasn’t intending to get more!
I wander around and see a helicopter on a trailer behind a truck. I go up and try the same tactic, excited about the helicopter. It says “Experimental” on the side, and the man tells me he and his son fly in air shows. It’s an Army helicopter from Europe. I ask him for money, and he dumps his pocket change in my hands. He resents me being there, distrusts me from the first, wonders what I want from him. Mostly, I suspect, because I want something from him, I approach him with a scheming mind and dishonest energy, a kind of forced enthusiasm. The motorcycle people got me honest and excited; the helicopter people got me dismayed and pressured to make money.
Upset, guilty, and hurt from my games, I go to the front of the store to do 24 Form in some empty parking spaces. I remember that people always watch, curious, when I do Tai Chi. Since I want attention, I figure this is a good thing.
Shaggy comes running out of the store, right up to me, and shouts, “What are you doing? You can’t do that here! The woman inside is calling the cops because she thinks you’re some crazy lady!”
What? He runs to the van and I walk into the store and up to the counter. “Is there a problem?” I ask the woman. “Problem?” she says. “Somebody told me you were concerned about me,” I remind her calmly. “Well you can’t be hassling people for money here.” “Oh, is that illegal in Kansas?” I ask innocently. “It’s illegal at our store!” she says. “I’m very sorry,” I say, honestly. Then I walk outside, run to the van, and leap in the open door. Everybody else is already inside, and someone closes the door in one smooth motion behind me as Wagner pulls out of the lot. The only real instance of Big Flow I experience with this group of men is in a get-away!
Everyone in the van yells at me for a good ten minutes about how I cannot do Tai Chi in the South. “This isn’t the West Coast!” they say. “People don’t know what you’re doing here, and they’re afraid!” “People will think you’re crazy!” “They don’t need a reason to arrest you! Stop giving them reasons!”
Then they dub me “Tai Change” for trying to spange with Tai Chi. There’s a note of respect in their voices. Despite their dire predictions, we are not followed by the police. I feel we will we okay, and we are.
With a small note of egotism and a large dose of honesty, I tell Wagner privately that I am his best protection against trouble of any kind. It’s true-my instincts are on full tilt, and my sense has never been wrong. No one else recognizes that. The guys in the van don’t even seem to follow their own sense--just rules and superstitions, like everyone else. They too live on cartoons, only different cartoons.