When I was ten, my Dad asked me to punch him.
He called up from the landing in his running gear: shorts, sneakers, no shirt. He hated wearing shirts. As I reached the bottom step, he pointed to his naked stomach, rippled and glistening from exercise, and grinned. “Punch me. Right here.”
I looked up, baffled. “Punch you?”
“Hard as you can.”
A drop of sweat meandered down his nose and clung to its tip, swaying. I pictured my fist sailing in slow motion, sinking into his gut, his body buckling, the front door splintering into a fireworks of wood and glass, like those action films he loved; his smile turning to shock and then deep pride at his powerful little girl as he soared backward over the front stoop. I imagined I had hidden superpowers. Me, who could barely pull myself above the second knot of ropes in fifth-grade gym.
The sun shifted. Dad’s frame darkened against the bright doorway. How should I punch him, I wondered. How did you punch anyone? I squished my hand together, my palm damp with uncertainty.
His breathing slowed. “I’m waiting,” he said.
I raised my fist, pleading. “But I don’t want to hurt you.”
I have rewritten this scene dozens, perhaps hundreds of times. A father demands his little girl punch him. Should I make this an amusing tale, turn it into an exploration of gender, or hone it to a flash essay? When should I use short jabs: banged, punch, and gut, and when should I slip in baffled or splintering? I press on the edges of my story like a bruise. Why do I chase this moment from childhood that skirts outside my vision, playing with words, turning sentences, inverting paragraphs?
And why, at sixty-six, do I stand before a punching bag—one hundred pounds of deadweight torso hanging by a chain from the ceiling—still revisiting that punch, still dreaming of power, my fist raised?
Writing and fighting. One may feel like creation, the other destruction, but I have seen both build and destroy. One moves sentences, the other rearranges faces. One asks me to lower my guard, the other to protect myself. In both, I offer my vulnerable parts and await your response.
I took up sparring in my second half of life. Middle-aged, I struggle to teach my body new patterns. My legs, no longer supple, refuse to crouch. My lower back spasms and groans. I try to be flexible, but the grooves are deep, my muscles rusty. I yearn to tell my story differently, but old habits box me in.
The punching bag sways. I curl my fingers, squeeze out the air between the small pillows of my fist, lock my thumb across my knuckles, like the firm grip of a pen. I hover my hand near my cheek, to shield my face. Not too close, you’ll hurt yourself. I’ve certainly done that before: inflicted self-damage when trying to ward off danger.
I review the basics. Am I standing sideways, legs relaxed and bouncing lightly, ready to react; is my mind open to unexpected directions? Does my wrist draw a straight line from the back of my forearm; are my details precise, my verbs forceful? Do I rotate smoothly as I twist my waist, do my larger core muscles translate to my triceps and tightened wrist; does my theme propel the narrative, my paragraphs unfurl in the right order? Have I repeated each motion, each draft, correcting for errors and weaknesses? Have I captured the right emotions? What am I willing to risk? Will the ending leave its mark?
The first time I stepped into the ring, lumbering and scared against a seasoned fighter, I never saw her hook punch careening in. The room jolted from side to side and my vision exploded with stars. She slammed the other side of my head. My helmet rocked. A red flashing light triggered at the base of my neck. Anger. Deep and primal and pissed off.
Rage surged through my arms and legs, fueling my march forward, triggering my barrage of punches. I flailed back with one instinct: Must. Hit. Her. Back.
Flailing, it turned out, was an excellent way to get hit again.
Maybe you recoil from physical violence but for me, it holds a certain beauty. The language of hitting—a jab, a hook, an uppercut—become chess moves. In expert hands, they turn into art. Consider Muhammad Ali when he lands his fist against Ken Norton’s face; his arm a confusion of muscles, his glove reshaping the O of Norton’s mouth. Witness the transfer of force, emotion, and will.
I enter a poem by Ocean Vuong or an essay by Brenda Miller and emerge stunned. Tears blur my vision, my cheeks flush. I close my eyes to the glare of beauty, the final twist of their strike. Their endings come out of nowhere and flatten me.
Punching and writing are both contact sports. To spar requires an opponent, a foil, the rough trade of flesh and feelings. I need someone to hit. To write requires a willing target, a reader on the receiving end of my words. Why else do we write—to provide a voice to an ear, a jolt to the senses, a figurative fist to the jaw.
I cannot express emotions on the fly. But in the ring, sparring—being compelled to retort in seconds—helps me find my voice; it was only when I took up fighting that I summoned the courage to speak. I breathe in dust and sweat, bitter fear rising in my throat, and circle my opponent, carving out space on the floor, taunting them to hit. When they do, I am in some way worthy. Not a victim, a warrior, every bruise a badge. But to channel that heat into a coherent response, a well-placed jab, a fluent combination of hook and spinning backfist, takes years to master.
Writing offers space to spill out my anger. I touch the tender parts and try to capture the ache on paper; choose moments—the shifting sun, a trickle of sweat—and reorder time. Writing requires precision and, at the same time, shifts me into a cooler analysis.
I gather my self-doubt, my strong legs, the full weight of me—to propel each punch. This is the paradox, to put my entirety behind each throw and yet focus on a single point of contact that crystalizes meaning. Writing, too, asks me to invest my whole self behind a single note. To evoke my childhood, my coming of age, poised on a stair step.
Streetlights blink on through the laddered windows of the gym. I circle the hanging bag and pound its torso. One. One two. One two three. My knuckles smack the vinyl, leave brief starbursts on the surface. I want to make the bag sway, leap, and sing. A line along my left arm tingles from a pinched nerve, my shoulders tighten, and the backs of my fingers rub raw. The chains squeak overhead like laughter. My shirt has soaked through with effort.
I will throw a lot of punches. Thousands. Hurl my fist. Aim for the target. Do it over and over. Fail. On the weight machine I move the pin to a lighter load—notice how the previous person had lifted three times my amount. I consider my colleagues in the ring and the strengths they’ve developed; how they stagger up, ignore the blood staining their shirt, and take another swing. I press all the weight I can lift above my head.
In the locker room, I turn in the mirror. Muscles ripple across my shoulder blades. They have arrived, unnoticed, a result of hours at the bag. Sometimes, I will come across a sentence I have written and wonder where it came from. A gift, too, of practice.
Every time I step into the ring, I learn how to be a better fighter. And, afterwards, rivulets of water stream from my bangs, stinging my eyes. My body melts from exhaustion, my mind quiets. After, I drink in air like water. Emptied. Complete. I return to my practice. To the same story that I keep drilling.
Dad laughed. “You can’t hurt me, Boo.” He softened his stance, as if inviting me to try. Fear and tenderness roiled in me. I imagined breaking him. I believed I would hurt him.
“C’mon.”
I dropped my arm and shook my head. “I can’t.”
Disgust flickered across his face, and he walked away.
The scene replays on the page, but that won’t change what I said. I want to yell, “Don’t be afraid!” to her. I imagine my small, clenched hand drifting through the air and glancing off my dad’s wet skin, throwing me off balance, tipping forward, and he catches me, presses my body against his chest, his heart a slow thundering drumbeat. Maybe he would have taught me how to punch. But I never took the chance.
I didn’t lift my fist again for thirty-five years.
Now, I ball my hand up tight, hurl a punch like a shot put, and deliver my might, crashing through whatever stands in my way: a stomach, a chin, insecurity. I have rocked men back with my fist and sent women to the mat. Many of my rivals are bigger, stronger, and better than I am. I must find my own strengths, rely on my quickness, make more of my small size. Even being underestimated can be leveraged as a weapon. I am still learning.
What I know is that when they say, “Throw a punch,” they mean it. Tighten your fist, then let it soar, birdlike, weightless, landing with the heft of an anvil. Pack your words tightly. Then release them into the air.
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