A Good Argument - Kate Bueler

A good argument. I just had a good argument with a punching bag. I can say I won but let's see what happens when I wake up tomorrow. Will I be able to move? Will my hands stretch above me for the awaking my body to the morning? Will I lay there thinking maybe the wrapping of the hands in yellow and putting on the gloves too big for my tiny hands wrinkly the same make as my mother and brother might have been a better idea than reality.

I had a good argument with a punching bag. I won. For I can still move this am. And it felt really good to just take my fists into something heavy and hit hard. The jab and the hook. Sometimes more powerful than I expected sometimes weaker than I thought acceptable. My friends face on the other side cheering me on but I still fear I might sock her. You are supposed to dance around the bag. You are supposed to block your face. You are supposed to wait for the buzzer. You are supposed to call out the numbers. You are supposed to do a lot of things. But a good argument with a punching bag. That should be prescribed. A great way to get out what you can on an object that can't fight back expect for a swing your way. I guess you could fall over. But still the risk or pretty low in a world where we unload our truck or empty are bucket on the wrong person all the time. Sublimation at its best.

I used to be scared of punching. Well let me take that back. My father used to stand in front of me on the grass in front of our yellowish house next to my tree swing and have me punch his hands-left and right left and right-for I should learn how to punch and I should not punch like a girl. Strength I felt in my chicken arms as I pounded against the weathered hands of my father.

This was before I feared punching and fights and the temper that lived inside my father. My father the sweet man he was, he is, had been raised in the don't ask don't tell of baby boomers so many emotions trapped inside and anger and sadness and desperately shy at one point all mixed into the perfection of him being a fighter. My dad used to get into fights. Street fights. I don't know when it all started. But I do know there in the story telling there was always some type of justice. That guy called my teammate the n word. Or that guy stole from the store I worked at. But somehow the justified crossed over to someone cutting you off in a car, to little league, to a nephew during a drunken poker night. See there might be justice in fighting in protecting but some fights are not about the punching of the opponent. Its the punching of ourselves.

I learned early on. To try and calm my dad down. I learned early on how to break up fights. One of my first memories of college was me breaking up a fight between two soccer players one from Berkeley the other from oakland. They all had a few lbs on me. But I jumped in. I learned early on that I was scared of anger. Scared of anger and fighting and punching. I learned early on not to touch it or taste it or play with it because it would lose control. But tonight. As I punch this bag. With my wrapped hands and red gloves. I pound out anger. Anger in a way that doesn't scare me. Only scared party is that bag, of the hook. And as I end class I can't think how much I want to call my dad. He would be proud I could punch and not punch as a girl. We all get to choose how our family lives inside of us. As I punched that bag. And had a friendly argument, a good argument with anger.