I’ve struggled my whole life over how to engage my body in conventional exercise and movement, I’ve never been able to do it. I love to walk, and my cardiologist told me Wednesday that was probably the best exercise there was for me and my heart. All told I walk two or three miles every day.

For years now, I’ve been intrigued by Tai Chi, I fell in love with the idea of it when I was in San Francisco and saw a group of older Chinese men and women doing Tai Chi in a public park one morning, I love the grace and ease and simplicity of it.

And my friend Scott Carrino is a Tai Chi Master teacher. He wants to work on his writing, I’m interested in Tai Chi, so we are bartering – writing lessons for Tai Chi lessons. I have great trouble with directed physical exercise, and also great trouble with symbols, rituals and metaphor.

Scott is a gifted baker, builder, musician many other things, but he has always struggled to find his voice in writing. He had a raggedy childhood and somebody put  the idea into his head that his writing was no good. My job is to put another voice in there.

We meet every Thursdays for an hour, the first 30 minutes devoted to Tai Chi, the second to writing. I am struggling to get easy with Tai Chi, it is hard for me to remember the movements, my mind has never really worked that way, I have no doubt I am mildly autistic. Learning disabilities were not much discussed in my youth, and i am grateful for it.

Because I never learned what to think, I could think. Scott’s issues with writing are psychological, I believe, and quite common. He hasn’t found his voice, and doesn’t feel entitled to one. So our hours together are pleasant but also challenge both of us as teachers. It isn’t easy to teach a close friend, and Scott teaches me like I might blow up at any minute, he knows my resistance to ritual and being told what to do.

For my part, I struggle to get him to stick to our writing plans, and I also wish to encourage him, not hector  him. We are both learning a lot about ourselves, including the fact that we love one another, we are both being so patient and gentle. I don’t know if Tai Chi will stick with me, it hasn’t so far, but I’m still drawn to the idea of it and I am going to work on my five steps, if I can remember them. I took  a video of Scott going through the movements to guide me.

Tai Chi would be good for me, and I like the idea of it. But resistance to that kind of ritual is very deeply embedded in me, and it is difficult. I am determined to help Scott get over his writing block, he is talented and creative, there is nothing wrong with his writing. He wants to give me the gift of Tai Chi, which he believes would be exceptionally good for my health and fluidity of movement.

I don’t envy him with me as a student. It’s not easy for me, either.

So we each want to give a gift to the other, and we both face the challenge of a willful, stubborn and sometimes troubled older student, set in his ways and beliefs. The Pompanuck Trials, I call them, Fate came and pestered us, and she loved watching Scott feed the fish in the pond, she jumped in and tried to catch one.