Waves
🌊
I recently read that time is an ingredient in alchemy. So what do you do when it throws you for a loop?
I was on my way to Capoiera last week when I got a notification that the location for class had changed. I had already waited for the train for 12 minutes and as it approached, I I realized I’d have to move to the other side of the track and catch the south bound train to get to the new location.
I sighed and quickly switched sides.
I was going to have to wait another 12 minutes to come. I called my Mestre and he told me I could come to the academy first, that original first location, the one whose train I was waiting for in the beginning of my trip but by the time I finished the call with my teacher, that train had come and gone.
Some kind of hot sensation began to fill my chest and the bottom of my throat. I don’t like being late. Something to do with time.
I was also carrying food for everyone since this weekend was an encontro, a series of games and workshops where Mestres fly in from all over the world to train and play the students. Feeding people is a responsibility I felt blessed to carry and I didn’t want to mess it up. A man was sitting next to me as I waited for the third train. He asked me about the quality of the bluetooth in my headphones and I brushed him off as politely as I could. I said I didn’t know what he was talking about, which was only half true.
He was pleasant enough but I didn’t feel like talking. If I had been more present I would have simply said, “hey I don’t feel like talking.” But I didn’t.
What’s funny about all of this is right before I left my house I said a blessing: Now I prepare my body to be subjected to the waves. Teach me to surf.
I was talking about the waves of Capoiera, the ups and downs of the role’s, esquivas, and aú de frentes. But the universe, the one Song, heard me and winked. And then she sent her Tides.
After this 45 minute ordeal, I arrived at another station and waited for the F train which took a very unusual amount of time to come. I started to notice how the hot sensation in my throat was no longer there, how it had come and gone, how it rose and fell like all waves do. When I finally arrived to the academy I learned we were actually gonna walk the Williamsburg bridge all the way to Brooklyn to train.
Well played, mama. Sri Mata. Game on. 📿