WHEN I THINK OF BEFORE, I THINK OF ALL THE COLORS.
The bright white cotton of my Tae Kwon Do uniform.
The ruby-red strawberry smoothies I chugged at breakfast, straight out of the blender, so fast the juice dripped down my chin, so sweet and pure. The tiny seeds caught in my teeth.
Closing up Glenview Martial Arts for the night under an orchid-pink sky streaked with orange like the sun's been smeared by a finger-painting deity, digging his hands in, getting them wet.
I remember the summer: Fireworks on the Fourth of July. Sparklers igniting in fountain-shocks of yellow. Ashy smoke and streamers.
The clear blue chlorinated sheen of the Glenview community pool, where Hannah and DJ worked the concession stand, selling pizza, 7Up, and frozen Charleston Chews. During breaks, my friends would lie out, perfecting their tans. At night they went on double dates with the lifeguards.
They thought about love.
I did, too, but in a different way. For me, it wasn't about finding the perfect guy.
For me, it was about teaching.
In August, Grandmaster Huan ran a three-week self-defense summer camp for kids, in the hope they'd join Glenview Martial Arts for the fall session. This year he asked me to help out.
To get my black belt, I had to assistant-teach sixty hours of beginner and sixty hours of intermediate classes. Teaching makes you better, because in order to explain something to someone else, you have to know it cold.
The camp kids made me nervous, though. Compared with my regular crew, the August kids were prisoners from the gen-pop, scary little brace-faced terrors, dropped off by parents in desperate need of an afternoon cocktail. These kids didn't know to take off their shoes and sit quietly in the hall while the previous class finished up. They didn't know how to bow or in what order to bow. They didn't know the Children's Home Rules or Five Tenets of Tae Kwon Do.
Would they "respect ma authoritay" (as Cartman would say) or laugh at my attempts to control them? They probably had no idea how old I was. Sixteen? Twenty? Forty-five?
I couldn't let them down; it was my responsibility to demonstrate proper technique.
There was this one new girl, Taylor, who was about to enter sixth grade. She had so much heart, and she cracked me up because she kiyap'ed (yelled) louder than anyone else when she kicked, but always a split second too late, like she'd almost forgotten to do it. She had trouble with blocks and counterstrikes because she didn't like getting in other people's space, especially boys' space. Most girls don't, and I wanted to change that.
Her long straggly hair whipped her in the face when she punched. I showed her how to braid it and pin it underneath, all tidy and sneaky, and then I made it my mission to turn her into a fearless fighter.
"Let's say you're at a U of I party, having fun, until a drunk frat boy corners you against the wall," I said. I'd seen the U of I sticker on her mom's car.
Taylor smiled shyly and ducked her head.
I grabbed the collar of her dobuk (uniform) and pretended to slam her against the wall.
She twisted, anxious to pull away, but I held fast. "That'll just make it worse. He's bigger and stronger than you."
Taylor was frustrated. "So what do I do?"
"You have to pull him toward you."
I placed Taylor's hands around my wrists. "Pull me in closer."
"But I don't want him to come closer." She grimaced.
"I know, it's weird and it doesn't seem logical, but it's what he's least expecting, right? If you pull him in, that throws him off-balance mentally and physically, and you can get the upper hand."
She nodded, but the way her throat moved, I knew she was trying to swallow her fear. It's scary to go against your instincts.
"Okay, so pull me in and, at the same time, drop to one knee and see what happens."
She tentatively did so, and I launched myself forward as if yanked, pretend-smashing my face into the wall above her.
"You're using his own momentum against him. You don't have to be stronger than him, you just have to time it right. That's the beauty of it. And he'll never expect it."
She nodded again, eyes determined, looking more certain this time.
"And check this out," I said. "In order to break my fall, I have to let go of you, see? And then you can run. Let's try again."
We went over it every day for a week, and on the second-to-last day of camp, I saw the exact moment when she got it, when she realized she had more power than she ever imagined, when she saw all the possibilities slapped into her hand like tickets at a carnival.
And I thought, this is what love is: all the possibilities.
My life wasn't perfect or anything before the diner.
But there were so many colors.
