Ho hum. Here’s another blog about tai chi practice. Bored yet? Two hundred ninety-five days of the same thing, day after day after day. Sometimes, I am. Today, after my haircut, I walked home through a Florida rainstorm. After a block, my flip flops were so soaked that my feet were slipping out of them. So I took them off and walked the last couple of blocks to my parents’ place in bare feet. A couple of Hispanic kids on bicycles, soaked to the skin in the rain, saw me and laughed at me. look at the gringo on foot, barefoot?! they seemed to say.
But in truth, walking barefoot was easy and beautiful. Blythe time I got home, I was laughing at myself, and the world, and its beauty. Ten thousand years ago, walking in the rain here might have been seen as nourishing and wonderful – because it is. And yet, my mother and father both called or texted me to say, “hey, what’s the deal here… Do you need a ride home in the rain?”
But the answer is, no, I don’t. I’m content to walk home in the rain, to enjoy the weather for what’s it is in New England, a late spring shower of delightful refreshment. I feel both soothed and energized by the experience. Compared to that, tai chi was only the daily practice. What I always do. This was a reminder, that chi flows into us from other sources than just daily practice. The rainfall energizes and enlivens us, too.
