TCC As Life Raft

My proverbial boat ran itself onto the rocks in 2007. It took only a minute for my husband to tell me the marriage was over, that he was marrying someone decades younger, and that they wanted the house so they could raise their new family there. Cast into physical and emotional anguish, I did the best I could. I went to grad school. I fell in love again. I took anti-depressants, and every now and then, I didn’t end the night swimming in a sea of gin.

Five years later, still locked in mortal combat with my ex-husband over finances, I agreed to become the full-time caregiver for my 88-year-old mother. After thirty years of marriage, moving farther and farther from the ocean, I left the geography of my divorce and moved from Los Angeles to Ventura County, landing close enough to the ocean to hear the waves. The man I loved was a train-ride away, and without knowing it, I was building the life raft that would save me when I lost him.

I joined a gym in my new city, happy to see interesting classes. I resurrected my yoga practice, and after daily conversations with my boyfriend about T’ai Chi Ch’uan (he was a long-time teacher), I decided to learn that too. I was dismayed that first morning at the gym to discover I was in a T’ai Chi Chih class. What was this modern practice originated by some white guy in the 1970s? Unsure how to exit gracefully, I stayed and by the end of class, I decided to return.

“T’ai Chi lite” my boyfriend, Dan, first called it – even as he encouraged me to do it. I stuck with it, practicing at home, reading The Vital Force, downloading the app, and practicing twice a week with my teacher, Lisa Otero. By the time Dan was diagnosed with lung cancer in late 2013, I was training to become a teacher, and he was learning T’ai Chi Chih.

After six months of juggling care for Dan and my mother, Dan entered hospice. On June 6, he took his last breath in a hospital bed in my living room as I lay next to him whispering in his ear. Some nights after my mother is tucked safely into her bed, I practice in my living room as boats sway in the marina. I look out at the dark water, swamped with gratitude for my TCC practice, somehow still afloat.