SUCH A WALKING WAY TO BE

 

A WALKING STORY

Such a way to be. I came back from Viet Nam in mid-August 1968, and less than a month later I was enrolled in an evening drama course at Bellevue Community College. (Stationed at the 85th Evac Hospital in Qui Nhon on the South China Sea, I arrived from Panama, older, 22, we took all of the casualties from Tet. GIs and North Vietnamese, too. The North Vietnamese were 14 or or 15, and wrapped in mountains of gauze because they had been under those B-52 bombs that were dropped on them. I'm 23 then, that first night class, and the drama teacher says to me, Jim, step out into the hall with me for a minute. And on the other side of the door, he says, I'm going to show you how to walk into a room.

That story embellished itself over the years, turning into its own thing, but it's with me everytime a doctor taps on the door for permission to enter. And it shows up every Tuesday in Feldenkrais, too. Astonished, Mary Oliver would say.

So, again, thanks. What a surprise. jim

C--,

I've been savoring your question about walking into the room, What was it like? What was my walk like? holding on to it like a butterscotch candy in the mouth. It's that beautiful for me. Those details, I probably never knew, and I didn't have that awareness, Feldenkrais teacher, until this moment. Maybe that's why I had to wait to respond. I was trying to get it, but without success, going straight into the mythology of it. So I really don't know what I looked like. But I know it happened. And I know, that even though I don't have his name now, I wrote to him more than once, in the next year when we were in Ellensburg at school. And he wrote back. It was a good correspondence, and I believe those letters from him are saved, too. What I can add, is that I loved sharing the story with students over the years on how to walk into a room, going out, coming in like a stick man, arms stuck to my side, no bend in the knees, stiff neck, disconnected eyes. Then I would channel him, talking to him, "Like this? Moving my arms like this?" And, "Bend the knees--at the same time that I'm moving my arms back and forth? Like That? What do you mean, in opposition?" And in the course of two or three minutes, collapsing time over months, gradually I came out entering the room like a Michael Jackson country boy from North Dakota. The students would all be laughing at me, raising their hands and saying, Let me! Let me! Let me go out and walk into the room.!

In another room, at another time, taking Mom to the doctor in her last years, The tap on the door, The doctor entering, looking at Mom, then at me, my notebook open. His silence. I would look at him until we had eye contact before saying, "My name is Jim. I'm Lucille's biographer."

Have a good Friday. See you Tuesday. Zoom, Zoom.