Capoeira!

Some responses to me sharing that I practice Capoeria:
"Awesome!"
"Impressive."
"...what? You do...what?"
"Aren't you too tall?"

I have fallen in love with a girl named Capoeria. And by girl, I mean a Brazilian Martial Art that incorporates dance, deadliness, and awesomeness into the most holistically satisfying experience imaginable. Actually, let's test that statement: Envision something satisfying. Like, really really satisfying. Now add a rocking chair and contentedly rubbing your belly to that image. It's like that! (If being in a rocking chair and rubbing your belly was your original answer, just add teddy bears and the smell of momma's cookies in the oven to that.)

Pronounced cap-o-a-da(ish), it is great for building strength, learning how to defend yourself, and simultaneously looking awesome. I mean, there are plenty of deadly martial arts out there, but how many teach you to walk on your hands and do a back flip as a part of their natural curriculum? And how many of them use such things in practical ways? It requires minimal exposure for the supremacy of a spinning-handspring-kick-of-death to be felt, and the affirming "oooh's" and "ahhh's" are nearly knee-jerk in their authenticity. Indeed, such ascendancy resonates bone-deep, apparently encoded on some strand of the human DNA. Like a mighty Leviathan rising from the vasty deeps, its presence simply must be felt.

Not that i'm saying I can do any of those things yet! Let us just say that I can "hold my own" and that I "do just fine." Nevertheless, my deposit of a few months has, much as that persuasive Portuguese bank teller assured me, yielded maximum quantities of enjoyment. The interest rate is storybook perfect, and the long-term enjoyment exponential in growth.

I am a self-avowed, if you would allow the term, obsessor. One who obsesses, fixates, and circles 'round, moth like in my devotion. I accept this fact with a mixture of pride and resignation, and recognize that I am a man condemned to wander the cavernous tunnels of always needing to find something new. This having been said, I have also found a few key activities that combine to form a hard, immutable core around which the peripheral and more fleeting obsessions gravitate in elliptical paths. Capoeira is most definitely one of these, and I couldn't be more pleased! It is here to stay, and I must ride this confirming truth to its ultimate termination. If along the way I happen to learn to back flip...well, it never hurts to know how to back flip. I am told by reputable back flipping sources that it is a great party trick.

Le Profound

Well, I haven't posted a poem written by my own hand in a while. I was searching through my compiled words documents of scribbled lines, of half completed poems and completed poems that are in no way completed, and I found this little gem. I am trying to reconnect with my poetry, as school made composing hard for me. Mad props to anyone who can actually figure out what it means!

Storm Summoning

I summoned the lightning,
And was summoned in turn by the solemn,
Psalms.
Angel-songs solemnly sung,
Solemnly held,
Solemnly long.
Beholden to the rising rhythm,
Of rising voices riding on slender slim-
Ghost steeds of past victories,
Gliding softly,
Gliding within.

I summoned then the thunder,
And was summoned in turn by the erratic,
Gongs.
Devil-songs erratically sung,
Erratically held,
Erratically strong.
Captive to the chaotic clamor,
Of cloying notes closing within,
Obsidian-black fences of past failures,
Holding me captive,
Holding on whim.

And left now to my own devices,
I combine (both) to summon the storm,
And seek balance in the triumphant wailing
Triumphantly held,
Triumphantly strong.

Robert Falconer

I never knew my grandfather. He had to have been a good man, because my dad is a good man. I am told that he was marvelous with his hands, that he liked to laugh, and that he was kind.

I was still very young when grandad was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. I have vauge memories of he and grandma Joan's old house in connecticut. Sleep overs. Late night games of Heart. And Grandfather's room, a foreboding place that I was forced to enter and pay homage to a man I barely knew.

I was scared of him back then. I didn't know what Alzheimer's was, not really anyways, and; as only children can do, I appreciated the stigma without the cause. Later in life, I remember hearing my grandmother tell stories of how he would ask her for breakfast three times after having already eaten. Towards the end he reportedly threatened her with a butter knife, unable to remember his own wife.

The commercial is what made me think of him. Some medicine that possibly could maybe reduce the symptoms. It was the way the commercial played out that had me thinking of grandpa. Watching the elderly actor portray a man struggling to keep his identity, seeing his equally elderly wife loving tend to him, it was all too easy to transpose grandfather and grandmother into the scene. Within a minute, I found myself crying - a startling event, as I am not prone to tears, and have always been frustrated at my lack of ability to cry when feelings might otherwise warrent it. In that moment this actor was my grandfather, and the commercial a call to remember his terrible struggle during the final years.

Robert Falconer. My namesake. There is a power to names, a spiritual connectivity that cannot be denied. In my living room back home there sits a picture of the three Robert Falconers - my grandfather, my father, and me. How strange that it took a drug commercial to remind me of this connection, and to turn my attention back to the man after whom I was named.

I'm not quite a Prancing Pony

Although it is only a matter of time. Soon, very soon, the tyrannical siege of finals will have been lifted, and I will be free to roam (play) the verdant fields (video games) of my ancestors. No longer will my time be limited; nay, it will be spent in close communion (reading) with the very source of my powers (books). I will soar to the very heavens (soccer fields) and frolic there with the round fairies who inhabit those fair stretches (soccer balls).

I do not, of course, mean that I am not quite a tavern from a high-fantasy trilogy, but am indeed referring to the equestrian breed known to exhibit such uninhibited joy in their step. I may seriously attempt to prance, although I will leave it to those present to determine it's relative likeness to that of a pony's.

Translation to all of this: Finals end soon, and I will be the happiest boy you ever did see.