There are many like it ...

There is a long tradition in historical European martial arts (well, as long a tradition as there can be for a practice that is really only about thirty five years old) of modifying equipment.  Mostly this is because even after thirty-five years we are only just getting commercially produced practice gear specifically for HEMA, so for most of the past four decades people have had no choice but to repurpose other equipment.  Sometimes this results in less than satisfactory work-arounds.  But what is satisfactory is the way in which even small modifications can imbue a piece of gear with totemic significance.

A few weeks ago my studio went to a tournament for the first time (I should post more thoughts on tournaments later).  In preparation for the tournament, we had school patches ordered to put on our fencing jackets.  I sort of expected to dismiss this as a cynical marketing ploy.  I was surprised to discover that I didn’t.

Like a lot of my fellow students, I own an Axel Peterssen Pro fencing jacket, which incorporates a leather plastron in the front.  This poses certain difficulties from a sewing perspective, as the whole point of the plastron is to resist penetration by a sharp object (for instance, a steel trainer that breaks in the thrust rather than flexing like it’s supposed to).  Some students decided to glue their patches on.  Others decided to take it to a tailor.  But I found that it mattered to me a lot that I do it myself, the hard way, with needle and thread.  This wasn’t just free advertising for somebody’s business.  This was an expression of who I am as a fencer, and I needed to make it.  I am a student of the Akademie des Heiligen Schwertes, and the crest of that school has pride of place on the chest of my jacket.  Through Tristan’s teaching, I am associated with the New York Historical Fencing Association, and the crest of that school belongs on my left arm.

And then I realized that one day there might be others, and the order of patches might need to change.  As much as I love the Akademie, it might not be my school forever.  This is really a pretty disquieting thought, because I actually do love the Akademie a lot, but I am … well, me.  Whenever I leave, if I ever join another school, it will be important to me that the crest of that school take its place on my chest, and the AHS crest move to my arm.  Which of course will mean that the NYHFA crest move, and so on …

So I bought a leather needle and some upholstery thread, bought or borrowed some Velcro, and I lovingly added Velcro to my patches and jacket.  The stitching is not fabulous, but it is mine.  And now my fencing jacket is not just protective gear.  My jacket says, This is me.  This is where I come from.  These people have supported my development as a martial artist, and I honor them.

If my jacket describes who I am as a fencer, my waster - my, well, my sword - describes what fencing itself means to me.  When I went to fencing last week, my waster had a bright orange grip.  It got a few looks.  Of course there is a story behind it.

When I moved to New York, Blue Rose and Karyai gave me a month’s worth of fencing lessons as a going-away present.  I turned this into a Pentti+ Type III nylon waster, which for a variety of reasons I am quite happy with both as a solo drill and as a sparring tool.  The only thing I don’t like about it is the grip, which is more rectangular than oval (KDF requires a loose grip on the sword that can slide easily around the handle, and which rather awkward when the handle isn’t, you know, round).  As far as I can tell, nobody likes the grips on the Penttis, though they have enough other positive characteristics that they are still the international standard in synthetic wasters.  Some people (including some of my fellow students) are of the opinion that since tournaments don’t allow you to compete with your own Pentti, you might as well get used to the square grip.  But most of those people have steel trainers with much more realistic handles that they can use for drills.  Since I’m not likely to have a steel sword for a while, I decided to modify my Pentti’s handle.

The grip tape on mine was shredding anyway (nobody told me you aren’t supposed to fence while wearing rings), so I decided to insert some cardboard shims to round out the grip, and then rewrap the whole thing.  And then I thought, since I was going to be exposing the nylon of the handle anyway, maybe I should inscribe something on it.  Why?  I don’t know.  Maybe I was inspired by Shanah Van’s love tattoo.  Or maybe there’s just a universal impulse to inscribe things that are important to us.

I decided on a tennis overgrip for my new wrap, which in turn meant I needed to decide which color I was going to get, because apparently tennis overgrips come in a bewildering variety of colors.  Naturally, this decision could only be made from a heraldic standpoint, and naturally, the heraldry in question could not just be classical.

I had recently decided that whenever I finally get my steel trainers (I can only use one at a time, of course, but many people eventually acquire two, to train with a partner) I wanted one to have a green grip and the other a blue one.  In classical heraldry (much of which is surprisingly modern; of course I am aware medieval and even Renaissance heraldry was much more practical than the symbolism-laden construct that we have inherited), green is associated with hope, joy, and fidelity in love; while blue is associated with truth and loyalty.  In Mandalorian armor, green is associated with duty, while blue is associated with reliability.  These are fitting reminders for something that supports me as an absent father and husband and as a lawyer.  So I resolved to own a trainer with a green handle, named Ijaa’bora - Duty.  After that, eventually, one with a blue handle, named Ruusaan - Reliable One.  But with green and blue taken, what color should my Pentti be?

Ultimately I decided to answer that question by asking what my Pentti means to me.

Drilling with my Pentti is calm.  Even if I am tired and cranky from my run up and down the minor hills of Prospect Park, when I am on the knoll or in the hollow where I drill my mind is quiet, like it is when I am painting.  At the same time, it is deeply invigorating.  When I wield it during warm-up cuts in class, I feel my muscles awaken and my breathing deepen as my whole body looks forward to what is to come.  It is satisfying.  The end of a sparring session, when I have withstood an hour’s worth of sweat and blows and know that I could keep going, feels like the end of a dance.  And it is a symbol of my friends’ love for me.

So I no longer own just a Pentti+ Type III nylon waster.  I own Shereshoy, whose name means … well, shereshoy.  Openness to what life will bring, and the groundedness to eagerly seek it out.  The desire to live, and the drive forward into the unknown - which is, really, simply another facet of the desire not just to live but to live.  Shereshoy means … I think the best literal translation is to seize life.  But what it really means is joy.

In Mandalorian armor, the color associated with this lust for life is orange.  In classical heraldry, orange is associated with worthy ambition - a fine synergy for this foreign adventure of mine, and coincidentally related to Master Liechtenauer’s characterization of the art of fighting as the art that dignifies.

So I took down my Pentti from its hook on my door and carefully cut out the shims using a pattern cut from paper borrowed from my Brooklyn roommates, from cardboard that came from the chair I bought when I finally admitted in a deeper way that I am here, and not elsewhere.  Beneath the shims I carefully inscribed the handle with orange ink: ner gai cuyi shereshoy - “my name is Joy.”  I wrote it in Mandalorian to remind me of family, in the style of Greek dedications to remind me of friends.  Then I bound that up beneath my cardboard and sealed it with an orange tennis overgrip, and I hung Joy upon my door.

Actions, Consequences, Free Will, and Disneyland

Shanah posted a comment to the last post that I started to reply to, and my reply started to get larger than the comment box as I was composing it, and then it started to dovetail with some other thoughts I'd been thinking of posting about, and the next thing you knew, I was writing this.

Here's as far as I got in my reply to my Sweatshirt Girl:

Shanah: I think you will believe again. I'm pretty sure you believed it when plenty of terrible things had happened already. Terrible things happen because the whole world isn't full of kindness and courtesy and joy and self-confidence. The world isn't that way, and no part of it can be made that way just by believing or wanting it to be so, or even by the mere practice of kindness and courtesy and joy and self-confidence. But I still believe

What do I believe? That it can be done? How?

My family has at various times by various people been criticized for being out of touch with reality, or raising me or my sister out of touch with reality. I grew up "sheltered," which some people see as cause for censure.

It is and it isn't, because sheltered can have two meanings. One is that I don't know about all the bad things in the world, which most people would consider sweet but impractical. The other is that I do know about all the bad things in the world, and I have a retreat (a shelter, if you will) where those things are not.

It is this second kind of shelter that my family has always strived to create. We operate (or we try to) in the real world, which is full of divers terrible things. We experience those things, we're hurt by them, we deal with it. And then there's this metaphorical family space we have, called the Cove, where those things simply are not permitted. Take a trivial example: sibling rivalry. My sister and I did not fight. Ever. This is not because siblings don't fight, or because we happen to have personalities that just would not produce fights. It's because siblings fighting is bullshit, dear readers, and my parents decided that we would not have it in the Cove. And there was an enormous amount of effort expended to ensure that that kind of bullshit, and many others, were not present in the Cove. An enormous amount of effort was necessary because these kinds of enclaves are (the world being full as it is of divers terrible things) under constant attack or threat of erosion.

Of course, lots of parents decide that. People decide similar sorts of things with similar amounts of conviction all the time. Lots of them try with all their might to make it happen. And yet, it ain't always so. So what made it so in my family? Was it just luck? I doubt that. Twenty-four years is a pretty long streak. Was it conviction? I doubt that too; the idea that human decisions can just make things happen strikes me as pretty laughable. Maybe it was just great parenting skill? That's even more laughable than conviction, as all parents know. What gave effect to my parents conviction and all the effort that went with it?

What gives effect to any conviction, or any effort?

In certain Christian circles it's popular to talk about "free will," and to lots of people it's hugely important to believe (or not believe) in "free will." What exactly people mean by that can vary wildly. Permit me briefly to state what I think, with one example, which is necessary to finish the discussion above.

I think that God is potentially in total control of every aspect of existence. Since I am convinced by my own observation that I have a will, it follows that God could completely manipulate my will without my ever suspecting it if he chose to do so. I am of the opinion that, in the main, he does not so choose. Instead I think his normal MO is to take his hand off the stick to a greater or lesser degree and let me operate my will under local control, so to speak. More or less, I think I get to decide what I get to decide.

So I decide something: then what happens? I imagine the decision (my actions and the intent behind them) leaving the little anomalous bubble of local control that surrounds all people most of the time and entering the rest of existence, which God generally keeps under his direct control. It has to pass through this great medium of God-controlled "space" before the decision can reach or affect another person. In short, I think that I decide what I decide, and God decides (or at least gets the option to interfere with) what effects my decisions have.

This isn't to try to remove personal responsibility; I think it's plain that God likes the laws of cause and effect even if the world works the way I think it does and he could override them willy-nilly should he so choose (and even if, on occasion, he does). Let me give an example that's been much on my mind lately.

David is facing Goliath. His opponent a giant of a man, fully armed and armored in a hundred pounds or more of a semi-mythical metal from a bygone age (remember this is the height of the Dark Ages, and the Bronze Age ended in cataclysm two hundred years ago). David has answered the challenge and decides not to use unfamiliar war gear, declining even the loan of a sword. He sticks with what he has and what he knows: a sling, a weapon he is a proficient with, the deadliest missile weapon of the ancient world. He takes five stones.

Why not more? Not because five was all he could find; the army would have had plenty of sling shot. Rather, because if he hadn't downed the Philistine in five shots, he'd be dead. I imagine he picked the five himself rather than accepting another slinger's bag because he wanted to make sure those five were as good as possible. This is a picture of an experienced slinger at work.

So why not only one? Because he was expecting to miss.

David is plainly trusting in God to save him. Anybody facing a fully armored man with nothing but a missile weapon would have to, but he says as much in stirring fashion. And yet he is also trusting in his skill, and his choice of ammunition suggests that he has a fully realistic view of his chances: he knows he can win this fight if he can land a stone in the right spot, and he knows he's a damn good shot, but he also knows that the odds of actually making the critical hit in time against a man armored from head to shin in bronze are quite low, even for him. He trusts in God, but he also takes more than one shot.

There is a chance in this scenario that any crack slinger could win the duel - not a good chance, but a chance. And David is clearly doing his best to maximize his chances. That is what makes his statement noteworthy: that God will bring about David's victory. This would be wishful thinking if David hadn't accurately appraised the situation. But he had; he knew exactly what he was facing, and he was doing his best to skew the odds in his favor. He picked a good stone, he slung it (we may presume) as accurately as he could - expecting to miss, remember, as well he might.

But the stone hits home on the first shot, and does exactly what you would expect a sling shot to do at short range against an unarmored portion of the human body. David shoots, God hits.

David probably wasn't the best slinger in the army. For that matter, a man used to fighting in armor probably would have had better odds, even against a man as well-equipped and experienced as Goliath, than the best slinger in the army. So why didn't they fight the duel? Just because David was the king's shieldbearer? Well, maybe. But if it was so all-fired important that the king's shieldbearer fight the duel, presumably Saul would have either recalled David himself or picked a new shieldbearer for the occasion.

What really sets David apart is that, despite doing his damndest to win that duel the old-fashioned way, he was trusting in God to make his actions and his intentions mean something. This is basically how I think the universe operates.

(I don't mean to say that God helps them that helps themselves. God might not have caused that shot to hit. The response of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego is always to be kept in mind. What I mean to stress is that for David, doing your damndest was not incompatible with believing that God is the one who makes your damndest accomplish anything at all, and that is the way people best can expect their decisions to bring about what they desire.)

And this is basically why I think it is possible to create a world full of kindness, courtesy, joy, and self-confidence. Notice I don't say where those things reign (which would have been my natural construction). They don't reign; God reigns, because I don't think such enclaves are really possible other than in the context of the Kingdom of God.

The whole Kingdom is not like that, or at any rate the whole of Christendom is not. But despite all the terrible things in the world it can be done. I've seen it.

Happy Birthday to a Dear Friend

For her birthday, Shanah Van asked that we give somebody else a gift lin lieu of giving one to her. This post is probably going to be late, because it’s taken me a while to figure out what to say, and also because I’m writing this from a place that doesn’t have internet access.

You can tell this is a serious post because I’m going to start it off with some disclaimers. Let me start by breaking the rules a bit and saying that I love Shanah Van. This has been true for some time but “I love you” was one of those things that was locked away in the statue room for the right person. Now it’s been given to the right person, so I can say “I love you” to Shanah and not feel bad (I suppose most of you know this, but for anybody who doesn’t, let me note for the record that I dislike qualifying “I love you” with phrases like “as a friend” or “in Christ.” Of course I don’t love Shanah the same way I love my sister, or my mother, or Thayet, and I harbor no romantic inclinations towards her. But the fact remains that I love her, and that’s that).

Second, let me say that this post is bending the rules of this blog just a bit. My intention is not to honor, and not to offend. I don’t think anything I’m going to be saying is news, so anybody who knows who I’m talking about ought to also know already what I say here. But if anybody finds anything here offensive or uncomfortable, please let me know, and I’ll be happy to redact accordingly.

That said, on to the post.

I couldn’t think of one person to give a gift to, so instead I’m going to do a partial tour through my statue room, now that it’s closed. There are plenty of statues I’m going to skip, and of course the whole concept means I’m not going to be hitting any of the guys (and I’m still missing a blogname for Blue Rose’s boy). What can I say? Can’t hit everybody in one post.

In my head there is a long hall, all in white, with bright lighting that seems to come from everywhere and nowhere. At the end of this hall there is a painting framed in rich brown wood, which is the only color in the entire scene. We’ll return to the painting later. At the end of the hall you can turn left or right. I don’t know what lies to the left. To the right, at the very end of the hall on your right, is the door to the statue room.

This hall and the door itself are all plain featureless white, all brightly reflecting the same sourceless white light. Inside are statues of all the girls I’ve ever had crushes on (there is only one girl I can say I have ever loved, in the romantic sense, and she isn’t here). They stand on a vast crowded floor on low circular podiums, carved in white stone smoother than the creamiest Parian marble. All is the same pristine, unbroken white except for Nari’s statue, with its steel thunderbolt—pristine, but not cold. There is a warmth in the stone of the statues, a bittersweet fondness as of old friends. I have often wished that I could carry a document like this in my wallet, so that if I were in a serious accident somebody could try to find these women and tell them what a difference they made, that Natalie remembered them. But of course such a document would be far too large to carry in a wallet.

In revisiting this place it is not my intention to revisit old feelings for the sake of old feelings. But I would like to single out a few because they taught me something significant that has helped to bring me here.

There is Nala, who can be named at last after Twilight and Kathelia’s wedding. Her statue is a lioness with an imperious tilt to her head, gaze focused on something distant, caught in the motion of crouching into unseen grass. Nala was the first girl ever to show interest in me as a boy, and also the first girl I had a major crush on that I learned to be friends with. My first crush ever was Raven, but in all the ways that matter it began with Nala. She was the one who first introduced me to that complicated dance through the woods of pursuit and pursue. It would never have worked out, but for anybody who thinks Thayet and I are a surprising match—oh, you should have been there in middle school with me and Twilight and Nala, in the days of the Empire and Gen. Hayes.

There is Thea, whose statue is a long and sinuous dragoness backwinging as she sets down on a lake unseen, head tossed upward with the joy of the grass and the sun and the water. Nala was my friend. She was wild and romantic and fiery, like a wood elf come to life. We would wrestle and play and fight and dream together. But Thea—Thea was kind to me. My old friend. The girl I used to go on dates with that left me with a grin I just couldn’t shut off, because she liked me for me. Thea taught me that I really was as good as anybody. She believed in me.

There is Princess, whose statue is the dragoness Sasha—I don’t know how else to describe it. In early high school my Dragon Girls inspired me to write a pair of beauty pieces that tried to explain our relationships. Thea’s was titled Simply Wonderful. Princess’ was simply I Know a Girl. Princess taught me for the first time what it was like to be friends with and attracted to a girl who was my intellectual equal. Someone who didn’t think I was smart, or weird, or verbose—just Natalie. Wonderfully Natalie, enjoyably Natalie—but just Natalie. She taught me how wonderful that is, and how necessary, and how possible. When we went out we’d just talk, enjoying the electricity that crackled between us. People would always mistake us for boyfriend and girlfriend, and she was (is, I suppose) a beautiful girl—but I think I was always just Natalie to her, and to me she was just Princess.

There is the Hawaiian, whose statue is just her, standing behind her keyboard, wearing a smile being lifted on unheard chords to God. The Hawaiian was the first Christian girl I had a real crush on. She taught me how necessary, how indispensable it is to fall in love with a girl who loves Jesus. And she taught me that you have to wait for God’s timing even when you can’t see any external obstacles.

There is Blue Rose, about whom I could say so much, but I imagine that too much would embarrass her. Her statue is just a long-stemmed rose, standing upright, suspended by unseen forces above its podium. She is the lady knight at my round table, who has always looked out for me, always called me back, always called me on by her example to be like Jesus. I always felt that we went through Stanford like two figures out of a Tyrtaios song, neither running ahead nor lagging behind, encouraging each other with our words. She taught me … well, lots of things. She taught me that the true things do not necessarily become untrue just because they operate differently in new life circumstances. She taught me the importance of being myself even as myself changes and grows. She taught me new ways to be brave and obey God.

There is Shanah Van, whose statue is herself in an enormous gown (green, though the stone of course is white) with layers of petticoats. She is caught in the midst of a spin, and though her face is blankly serious there is joy lurking beneath the surface. Shanah was my Sweatshirt Girl, who with Blue Rose kept me going through those first two years in Testimony and thereby opened up so much of what God had for me, and who bears a large portion of responsibility for the fact that I dance (and therefore, in a way, for my meeting Thayet). I think Shanah was the first girl at Stanford to flirt with me—she taught me how attraction can nourish friendship, if the friendship comes first.

The last statue I want to take you past is that of Esther Selene, whose statue is the a mare’s head thrown back and whinnying, against a backdrop of a crescent moon whose arms enclose three stars. It was Esther Selene who taught me a large portion of what I know about dating and romance (and who first taught me how to apply what I know), who taught me the joy of doing it right, and who put the last nail in the coffin of the idea that at heart I’m really just a nerd, and nobody outside of my family will ever love me.

And that brings us to me, as we weave our way through all the other statues whose subjects I don’t have time to honor now, and I direct your attention away from the statue of the country girl in the checkered dress with the basket on her arm. It would bend the rules too much to talk about who I am, but I suppose you know—and to the extent that I am a worthy partner for a woman, a large part of the credit goes to the women above.

Now it is time to close the door to the statue room, and return to the painting we passed by at the start. The painting is of a woman, with tumbled curls of hair so brown it is nearly black and creamy pink skin, with a full and mobile and very red mouth. The wood of the frame is a rich brown, and to the left of the painting as I show it to you there is a heater shield trimmed in silver and blue. To the right is a hoplite aspis, also in silver and blue.

This is Thayet, after the half-K’miri queen of Jonathan IV (did everybody catch the details there? Don’t tell me you haven’t read the books), whose subjects call her the Peerless—but I call this woman my sister, fellow priestess, lady knight, and my future queen. I call her, after the phrase of Solomon, the one whom my soul loves.

The woman in this painting loves Jesus. She is morally brave, and willing to do what he tells her to. She is wild and romantic and fiery, but I would like to call your attention to the self-evident fact that her painting is not of a kite. It is of Thayet as Thayet I, founder of the Queen’s Riders (and let us recall as well the character of the Queen’s Ladies). Wild and romantic and fiery, yes, but flighty—no. Her emotions run high, but as a person, she is steadfast. She is practical, in her way, which is usually not my way—that is to say, we are both young, and we have different (but I think complimentary) areas of expertise when it comes to living life well both practically and morally.

There is a surprising sadness in the face of the woman in this painting. She has been through a lot—which is not especially impressive, of course, nor particularly admirable. Lots of people have been through a lot and come through it the worse for wear; suffering is an opportunity to build character but doesn’t produce it. Here is what I do find admirable: to bear suffering and retain one’s happiness, one’s sense of delight. Of course, lots of people can stay happy in the face of crushing disappointment; it’s one of many defense mechanisms the psyche can choose from. So here is something more admirable still: to bear suffering and joy simultaneously, with joy the deeper and higher of the two. Happiness can be a defense mechanism. Contentment and wonder can be defense mechanisms. Joy comes from the Lord, and my love is a joyful woman.

She’s always been there for me. Of course, there are lots of reasons to always stick by a person, not all of them good. But Thayet stuck around because she believed in me, believed both in what I’m trying to be and that I can do it, and she believed those things for the right reasons. Anybody can believe in a dream and the ability to accomplish it as wishful thinking. I don’t care about wishful thinking. I care about honesty and obedience and dreaming the dreams Jesus dreams for us. I care about sticking it out even when you don’t feel like it because Jesus told you to. And that is why there is an aspis on the wall. Her emotions run high, and I love that. But her colors are argent and azure.

She taught me to open new areas of myself to introspection. She taught me new ways to believe in myself - not in the tired, defiant way in which we must never believe in ourselves, but in the simple, humble way of acknowledging what is. She taught me to be more open. And to hold on to the old, Nehemiah-like determination as well.

And that again leaves us with just me. And who am I? Have I grown as a result of knowing all these girls? Well, this is still Speaking Natalie, and I’m not going to answer that question myself in detail. Ask my parents. Most of you know how. I will content myself with saying yes. I am more myself—more who I am supposed to be, and who I long to be—for the varied loves of these women. There is more to say in my heart about each of them than I can say here, or could say here if I had all the time in the world.

Happy Birthday, Shanah. I love you.