Trish's Aikido Origin

I love this space for these deeply personal stories. In the past 2 weeks, craving for connection on the mat has been expressed so often in this group; but this new mode of connection is more intuitive for me to relate to than Aikido’s wordless mutuality – which I can sense in others, but truthfully, often remains a mystery to me. At the end of the day, I am a person of words.

In the stories written here, I hear much evidence of the deep economic inequalities so common in the US which still stun me. While with its own issues, growing up in Germany meant growing up in a relatively (not perfectly of course) stable middle-class society, and a lot of the stuff that some people in this group have had to face, I did not have to confront in my childhood.

Not in chronological order, this will be a somewhat arbitrary list of things that shaped me:

Growing up with parents who did not only love me, but who were also wise enough to let their children make mistakes and take risks, and to know when to let us go even as we did things that filled them with fear for us, or that were painful to themselves. An older sister who, albeit far away, is also close, always.

Counting the countries where I have lived for at least 6 months, I get to 7. If people are houses, then living abroad and immersing yourself in other cultures and languages means finding the keys to rooms in yourself which you did not know existed. Living abroad also makes you lose your home while never fully establishing a new one. 

Having grown up in a stable family and society, choosing the struggle of over-privileged girls, flirting with anorexia in my teenage-hood (although never becoming a severe case, it would be a lie to claim this was not formative).

Randomly choosing to learn Russian at university (really wanting to learn Polish which was not offered at the time), and traveling to Russia for the first time at age 22, which for reasons that I still do not quite comprehend, uncentered me, stripped me bare, threw me out of the universe I had thought I knew. I know Russia is not popular in liberal circles these days, and for good reasons; but as much as I despise the Russian political leadership, there is a longing in me to go back (not sure to what) that sometimes borders on pain.

People in all these places who influenced me – in Kazakhstan, in El Salvador - people who are not really part of my life any more, but who are woven into my very fabric. Relationships that thrived until they broke or drifted apart. Getting hurt and hurting others, knowing that neither the other nor I intended this, but that this is what things came to be.

Experimenting with different professions. Becoming a mother and having my universe turned upside down again. In the wonderful ways - kitschily hailed in those sentimental “the-heavens-opened-up-for-me-as-soon-as-I-held-my-baby” stories of the gloriously happy women who found true meaning in motherhood, blablabla, rolling my eyes – yes, yes, all of that is true, and I found all that and revel in it, too. But also the other side, the stories that are not told – that motherhood also meant seeing parts of me disappear; my I turning into a me; in some ways becoming a stranger to myself.

Aikido – as the kids get older, some of these things lost re-appear, and we get to explore again. There is more time now than, say 1 or 2 years ago. But truthfully, for me, Aikido often competes with other things for which there always seems to be too little time. I sense how meaningful Aikido is for many in this group, how you reflect that, how it is a pillar in the structure of your lives. And I think most of all, it is the reflection of that meaningfulness in you that draws me to Aikido; not (yet?) so much the thing itself. Part of me can imagine that Aikido might be that way for me one day, too, maybe. But I do not have a true Aikido story yet, and I am still figuring out if this is the beginning of one.