Distance Learning: TCC, Caregiving & Love, by Denise Emanuel Clemen (August 2015)

After my mother came to live with me, the names of the T’ai Chi Chih movements took on new depth. Daughter on the Mountain Top, Daughter in the Valley: Some days I was one, some days the other. Push Pull: My mother is my mother, even as I mother her. You should carry a gun, she’d tell me when I’d take a walk alone after dinner. Why can’t you just tell me to have a nice time? I’d mutter, stalking out the door. Joyous Breath: Every breath is joy. Wait. Maybe not. Maybe the final breath holds the most profound joy. Light at the Top of the Head, Light at the Temple: Please. I’ll take some light wherever I can get it.

Two and a half years into caring for my mother, I also became my boyfriend’s caregiver. By then the movements themselves felt ripe with significance. Bird Flaps Its Wings was me watching my boyfriend soar back to health, me on the cusp of my freedom from my mother so I could better care for him – or his full recovery so I could better care for her. The actions of picking up and letting go in Around the Platter Variation spoke volumes. Maybe Pulling in the Energy and Six Healing Sounds would work miracles. Maybe Rocking Motion would comfort me. Maybe if I held Cosmic Consciousness Pose long enough and cast my gaze infinitely skyward, I’d find the strength I needed.

My boyfriend died in June of 2014. My mother is now in hospice, not yet actively dying, but traveling to the end of her life in inches. I’m still me. Beginning the fourth year of my role as a caregiver, I’m constantly learning and re-learning how to do it – sometimes fumbling a bit, sometimes getting through a day gracefully, occasionally immobilized by frustration and grief, unable to get off the couch.

TCC is not a miracle cure or a magic spell, but since becoming a teacher in October 2014, I’ve felt my practice deepen. The best days are the days that I teach and the days that I’m in class as a student, keeping company with my teacher. But every day I marvel at the love that radiates out from the core of TCC. The love I feel for my teacher and our friendship, the love for my fellow students who’ve walked with me, talked with me, and held me when I’ve needed holding, the love I feel for my own students as they find their tan t’iens, or soften their wrists, or settle into the soles of their feet.

And as if that weren’t enough, this spring TCC delivered yet another marvel: a connection with a fellow TCC teacher and caregiver. It’s 2091 miles from his house to mine, but every day another mile falls away.

HEADER: Pyramid Poems

life

ever

on the move

limitations

melt away

let go

now

– D.K.W.

light

awake

feet grounded

calmly aware

joyful breath

happy

peace

– J.C.M.

the

truth is

now revealed

my life is now

expressing

its truth

here

– Leya

tired

long day

off to bed

nei kung, my friend

sleep awaits

sweet dreams

rest

– Anon

let

inner

wisdom guide

all thru the flow

feeling strength

grateful

peace

– S. Marsh

so

quiet

could hear all

chose instead to

hear nothing

at all

free

– Sheryl A.

be

in the

here and now

thank you thank you

overflow

joyful

me

– Pauline Q.

nothing

is ever

static and the

only thing certain is

that nothing is

ever really

certain

– Johnny

to

be still

awareness

what do I feel

gratitude

answers

all

– Judy

when

I walk

in mountain

forests I can

witness love’s

ancient

truth

– David M.