Sienna Tide (fiction)
As much as I enjoy feeling aimless and lost at times, there has always been something inside me that craves commitment and desire to achieve, to do, to act. It is not until I’ve been dragged to the very bottom of my self-esteem; to the darkest caverns of self-loathing that I have found the buoys that bring me back to join the world in any functioning way.
In college I discovered that as much as I had athletic tendencies, I did not unconditionally love a sport. Running leads you nowhere, and group games always left too much room during the game for me to space out.
“Sienna, catch the ball!”
“What? Oh!”
My mind was somewhere out in China when the ball came soaring into left field. I’d thrust my glove into the air, miss by at least 20 feet and awkwardly run to catch a ball knowing it was far too late to strike the hitter out. Fuck, I’d think, shame on my team for my inability to focus on a ball all afternoon.
Fighting. That’s what always brought me back to the surface. I fought and kicked and climbed and screamed inside my head while my metaphorical lungs starved and choked for the air above the dark pool of self-doubt. I fought. I sparred with myself. I got angry, I had purpose and I loved every moment of fighting the good fight. Every hit, every parry, every block, every movement fueled the desire to fly out of that thick, dark abyss.
After college, I discovered that intramural teams were harder to come by and found local league clubs even less satisfying after work hours. Alison suggested fighting.
“Maybe you’d like fighting.”
“I fight with my mother already.”
“I mean like sparring. Kickboxing. MMA. Muay Thai. Jiu Jitsu. You know, that kind of stuff.”
I didn’t know, but I was curious. I hung out with relatively lazy (but good) guys who spent most of their time filling out fantasy sport rosters, playing cards and drinking beer. That was good and all but I needed something else. Something more kinetic. I was going through post-college depression of feeling aimless (in a bad way) and was for all intensive purposes quite a miserable person… and gaining weight quickly. That I blamed on the free pastries, bad coffee and fluorescent lights at my office job that had me considering a career in arson.
“I will investigate this MMA business that you speak of.”
Two years later I’m going through my closet and I’m torn between leaving and taking my MMA gear bag with me. It seems extreme to assume I’d get to train at all, but it’s like not packing your underwear – it’s so unnatural and you know you’ll feel uncomfortable, naked and dirty without it once you get where you are headed.
The first day I went in there I was terrified. One of the problems with my face is that when I’m terrified, I look angry and defensive as hell. This is quite helpful in some circumstances including street fights, scaring off creeps on the city bus, and working with children. However, it’s quite a put-off to trainers and teachers taking on new students. It wasn’t the physical conditioning I was scared of, it wasn’t the pain, it wasn’t being a slow learner, it was the possibility of disappointing everyone at this gym including myself. Am I cut out for this? Can I prove myself to be worth a damn here or anywhere else in my life?
Have confidence in yourself, I repeated in my head again and again and again and again. This is yours; this is for your fight, your climb back to the surface, no one else’s. Do not let anyone take this away from you. This mantra is difficult to keep up when you let every negative thought possible seep through every pore of your body. When you find that physical act, that action, that raison d’être, nothing else matters. No one else matters. You love it so much it becomes part of you so completely. No one can take it away from you once you absorb it into your being. It is yours forever because it is part of you now.
When I discovered my new love affair with sparring I felt like lovers do during that honey moon period. I could survive anything, anyone, climb a mountain, build a plane, write a sonnet, whatever. Every day that was bad I still could smile and go to bed at night looking forward to the next. I could make myself happy and the motivation and power to do it was all right there inside me. The buoy was a tool and in some ways just an illusion. I was the one that swam out of the abyss, it was my energy and my kicks.
And oh, how I love to kick. My form will always need work, but there is nothing more delightful than having a day where I get to throw roundhouse kicks in a training session. Like breathing, sleeping and fucking, it is now so natural and satisfying. Even the gratifying thwacks of my shin hitting pad and the hiss of exhaling breaths are clear in my sleep.
I pick up a thai pad and stare at it. I stare back at my packed bag. I stare back at my MMA bag. I throw the pad in the bag.
“Christ! Fine, I’m bringing it!” I shout to the room and zip the bag up violently. I imagine if I had a dog it’d probably cock its head in confusion at my belligerence. My phone is vibrating again on the bed. It’s Chris this time. I need to… change my number. Slide and cross. For now though, I need to pack and get the hell out of this state. My plane leaves in two hours. I turn off all the appliances. I send a final e-mail off to Alison detailing my absence and promising her pain if she lets my secret out to anyone, including my step-father.
The cab ride feels quick, but that may be because my mind is consumed with the details of Chris leaving only a few short hours ago. That man is one of only a few that can hold me just below the surface of the self-loathing pool. He was so clever at pointing out my own reflection in that dark, awful body of doubt. I was so consumed with my own image in that self-hate that’s slick and glossy like an oil spill. He pushed me in and kept me just below the surface, throwing punches every time I rose up from below. I mastered head movement. I learned how to teep. I gasped to the surface. Tonight I used a switch kick with a repeating bridging technique that got him out of my apartment. I’ve crawled onto the shore, but I’m exhausted. He’ll be back tomorrow. But I’ll be gone because I ran. Sparring only works for so long. Spar for too long and you forget there’s a world outside of the basement of the gym.
The pleasantries of checking luggage and obtaining my ticket pass by without being logged in my memory. I make it to the lobby and fill my ears with Thom Yorke while blankly observing travelers. It’s dark out. I could see the stars if I wasn’t in the city. You can see the stars in Wyoming, though. That’ll be nice. I make it onto the plane. I consider ordering a drink but I don’t need it. I pass out quickly into a dreamless sleep. We’ve arrived. It’s dark out. I head to the car rental agency. Again, I don’t really remember this. It’s not logged in my memory, I just know it must’ve happened. This is all part of the blur of running. I drive to a cheap motel. It smells like old people and dust in here. We all turn to dust eventually. The polyester quilt feels fake, but I realize this is only natural – this is an artificial environment designed to be temporary and therefore uncomfortable. I look to my MMA bag for comfort before crawling into bed.
Tomorrow is when the new adventure begins. Tomorrow I will start my new journey and begin the search for my cousin. I turn the single motel lamp off. In my dreams I am swimming in an ocean. It’s dark and cool, but it’s not terrifying. It’s soothing. I dive down into the dark and I don’t need to breathe. The abyss is filled with a thousand bright lights. They brush by on occasion and send shivers through my skin. It’s curious and it’s wonderful; not terrifying like the sea of self-doubt. I wonder if watching the Jodie Foster film, Contact, may have something to do with this dream.
I open my eyes in the morning. The sun is slanting in through the piss-yellow venetian blinds. My head is absolutely clear and I begin reviewing the strange series of events that brought me to this crappy motel in the middle of absolutely nowhere, Wyoming.
