1. Welcome to Me
The memory of my old life feels a thousand years away. Maybe it is, but I still remember.
I remember my mother, my father, the block we lived on. and a happy childhood. I remember her sense of humor, his profound inner peace, and the sense of pride they both helped me to develop. I remember graduation, championship games, Saturday morning cartoons, popped hydrants and corny jokes. I remember the last time I ever saw my parents, at the end of our Breath, the sickly gnawing of concern poorly hidden in their eyes.
I remember loving the thrill of competition, but also the joy of succeeding and overcoming, together.
I remember less 'third places' the older my friends and I got--less places that weren't my house or theirs, where we could just 'be,' without expectation of trouble or payment. I remember, throughout public school, the tacit assumption that I was 'difficult' from my teachers; a quiet tension and unease from several of them, like they were waiting for me to act out. I remember less lenience, for me, and for kids that looked like me, when we did act out--and I remember the odd provocation from a few teachers, to complete that self-fulfilling prophecy.
I remember, in me and in my friends, the sense of anger and rebellion that engendered. I remember feeling like a challenge had been issued to our dignity, by a faceless force I couldn't fully perceive.
I remember the football team. I remember loving the sport for the thrill and freedom of expression it gave me. I remember how it changed the way I was seen--a star quarterback isn't 'difficult,' he just has 'charm.' I remember feeling alienated from my friends by my success, despite my happiness--because I knew they had no less inherent dignity than me. I remember arguments with them, and with other players, about 'settling for less than they deserve.'
I remember being able to name that faceless force in college, when I had teachers that weren't quietly combative with me--when I started to read for myself, and not just for a grade. I remember falling in love with learning. I remember being a leader on the field, and I remember committing myself to that ideal in the League, no matter what. I remember learning the reason I went from 'difficult' to 'charming.'
I remember learning that when I was the performer they expected me to be, when I smiled and danced and let them think my joy was theirs, then I was a star. I remember learning that when I stood up for my team, used words like 'strike' and 'labor,' when I dared to have an opinion about something off the field, when I displayed proof that I'd cultivated my mind and not just my body, then, maybe, I wasn't a 'character fit.' When I challenged the authority of wealth, of men who didn't even watch the games, much less put on pads, to rule our lives and dictate the evolution of the game, I remember the words 'disruptive,' 'entitled.'
I remember grudgingly being called a 'generational player' even by the people who could barely stand me. I remember fighting for my team, on and off the field. I remember giving due praise to every member, demanding the best from myself and from them.
I remember three championships and two rings before the end of my twenties. I remember 10 A.M., the morning after my third championship--the 'Breakfast of Champions.' I remember seeing my future--things that were related to my passion, but not my passion--in the faces of faded, used-up men, barely twice my age, strewn out across a reserved hotel dining room.
I remember declining to renew my contract. I remember searching for some higher meaning, something to aspire to, to pursue, a challenge to test myself against that wouldn't be denied to me in time, like the thrill of exertion was denied to those men. I remember a deep dissatisfaction with a world defined by the material, by use and exchange values.
I remember, when I began pursuing the outlandish, the fringe, the old and the forgotten, seeking not just harmony of mind and body but of a dimly understood 'third thing,' how the word was no longer 'disruptive,' or 'difficult,' but 'crackpot.'
I remember it all, because of the Tattoo--the first one I learned to ink; the first one I ever do, every Breath. It doesn't give me some fantastic power, it doesn't even let me hoard what power I do develop during each Breath. It doesn't have a name, because my teacher didn't give it one. But it does give me two things that she, and I, hold to be precious, valuing what we each do.
Because of that Tattoo, ink painstakingly siphoned and squeezed from dusty books across Purgatorio, applied with sharpened splinters of bone, I'm still 'me,' inside and outside. Because of that Tattoo, I get to decide what 'me' means, the way people are supposed to--iteratively, working from a solid foundation. I still love football--more than ever, without a cadre of businessmen deciding they know better what to do with my body than I or any teammates might. I still find my way to the body the Elder Powers gave me, that first Breath where 'I' existed. I still hone it, perfect it, and make it mine, each Breath I return to it.
I still love to learn. I still talk to the other souls I meet. I still feel the same since of joy at testing myself, succeeding, being part of a team. I still express that joy the same way. It's nice to have something that feels like home, that I carry with me wherever I go. 'Home,' actually, is several Breaths behind me now. There doesn't seem like much point in counting, but I still remember it no matter how far away it feels.
Welcome to 'me--' Darren Spears.