Cannoli in the Sun

2013 looks like it is going to kick ass.
Yesterday, got an hour of just play with a White Crane Silat player (those White Crane guys got everywhere).  Today, sunny skies but cold, time with my daughter...and found a local place that makes cannoli.  Hee, hee, hee.

Calendar is filling.  New projects.  All good.  Looking at knee surgery sometime soon, but I've done that before.  It will be good to have legs that can handle aerobics again.  The combination of no longer fighting for a living, the fact that I'm too good a cook, and the writer's lifestyle... easy to get out of shape.

Also realizing, and this may be a blog post later, how much of who I am was based on fear.  I don't even like that word.  Fear was always the enemy. Always the thing to overcome.  But if I had never listened to my parents argue about whether they had money for food, I wouldn't have accumulated the skills or needed the self-sufficiency.  If I hadn't played football as the smallest boy in my high school.  If I hadn't left home at sixteen.  If I hadn't walked away from everything I knew a couple of times.  If I hadn't gone to work in a maximum security jail as a 148# kid.

From hunger to taking hits to new cultures to...I always had to be at the very top of my game.  No choice.  The fear, whether of letting others down or what could happen was a constant drive.

I was never driven by desires.  There's not a lot in the world that I want.  K to be comfortable and...that's about it.  Warm place to sleep.  Food.  Cold water and hot water.  Coffee.  Learning.  New experiences.  We all rate our lives.  Some people use money to keep score or relationships (quality or quantity).  Some have other measures.  I think I do mine with stories.

2012 was tons of new experiences and new people.  At least seven new countries.  Ten countries total. Fifteen states or thereabouts.  Swam in three new seas.  Stick sparring in a villa on the Adriatic.  Shot (poorly) with German cops and well with the crew in the Big Easy.  Ate horse.  And fish eyes.  Fine Hungarian wines and Barack (thanks, Atilla).  Discovered gammon.  Hung out, ate, played and trained with people who cannot be named.

Maybe a retrospective later.  For now, it's time to enjoy my cannoli and the sunshine.