The Native Iowan

Time is short. For this year, time is short.

I have discussed Man and Time and the attempt to slow, or delay, or manage Time’s passing. It is an innate part of Man, the cognisant, aware, Man; that lives and breaths and thinks and ponders. The voice of the poet is the voice of Man’s yearning to understand.

It has many titles… “The Great Divide”, “The Other Side”…

I was traveling internationally with my parents. Decades ago, old folks and young family… trying to get through customs and immigration… the folks got separated, Dad ahead and mom behind, He turns and says as he walk through the no-return doors at Nadi International, “I’ll see you on the other side.”… We all laughed.

It would be considered a “dark” joke, not PC, today. A dark thought… to to see morbid-ness in the every day. To see the razor’s edge. To laugh as an anecdotal reminder as Death arises in daily life.

I learned long, long ago to allow Death to be an advisor.

Like the Dojo mat.

And the Great Deep Blue Ocean.

For an Iowa farm boy I have a lot of experience with The Great Deep Blue. Being an Iowan its only natural I know my way around a mat. Iowans are born rasslers. Cant explain why. You can understand why folks “North” play hockey. But why is Iowa the rassling centre of the universe. I do exaggerate.

The Great Deep Blue… I knew zero as a young’n, but I learned quickly, the way of the water, the truth of the tides, the wonder of the waves, and the mystery of the briny deep.

I was too young and too green when I got posted to Siota PSS in Central province, Solomon Islands. I quickly learned to feed myself from the sea. I had good teachers. It was a great experience for a young adventurer.

And it never ended. I learned that being on, in and around The Great Deep Blue would become a necessity for me.

My time in the Islands gave me very positive lessons in Death and Dying. Folks die all the time, we know that, and in the islands I learned how to place my hands on death and dying. It’s a fine skill to learn. It’s a great and glorious event to stand near. Sad yet fulfilling, and scary as hell, all at the same time.

Proximity to Death makes one aware of mortality in general and personal mortality in particular. Which takes us back to the need to place a handle on time as it passes.

Time can pass ever so slowly, or rush quickly, heedlessly forward.

As I age, my sense of time becomes more acute. Age teaches that time is finite. Age produces impatience because of the awareness of the finite nature of all and everything. Eventually one resigns themselves to a capitulation of sorts, a white flag in the battle to control time. That’s called getting old, being old, admitting one is old.

I aint there yet. Not today anyway. Some days I wake feeling sore and tired, and yes, old. But I shake the old-man feeling off, as a dogs shakes water off his coat, and move forward, albeit slowly, but forward none the less.

Much of my life has evolved around “martial arts” of one form or another. I define martial arts as anything that is combat or one-on-one or self-defense type training. I often refer to it as “warrior train”.

The world of MMA is huge these days but I was a kid when we first saw Bruce Lee, or the movie “Billy Jack”. I joined my first Dojo when I was in 7thgrade. Ive trained with masters and I have trained children and women the basics of foot stomping and running. My old Instructor, Mayor Carl Sharff, used to say, “dont be chicken, beat feet”.

I recall being a kid and deciding I was going to make a set of nung-chucks… Two large lumps of hard wood, using my dads plane I shaped and shaved for days. Fitted a bit of chain between the two and started swinging away. I “came to” on my back staring up at the sky through the big walnut tree. Id clobbered myself with the nung-chucks. Knocked myself out cold.

My theme song is “Time is on my side”. Or, maybe, “Born to be wild”. I dig the line ” I like smoking lighting…”.

I’ll end on this note. It’s a good place to end…

https://youtube.com/watch?v=egMWlD3fLJ8&si=EnSIkaIECMiOmarE