Sitting silently at a judo tournament in the minutes before it starts, I look around, for the moment an outsider. The referees gather in one corner, dressed in black suit jackets, ties and grey pants, all male, greeting and catching up on each other’s lives and students. The youngest of these men is 16, quietly becoming one of the elite, a judo official. Some of them have put on their judo personalities just like they put on their jackets, others already are commanding, in charge and sure of their place as an experienced referee. Spread across the mats are groups of students, most often separated by club affiliation. They joke with each other and play around, until they are called to pay attention and warm up. Most are boys and young men. This year about a fourth are girls. There are many more of the younger girls then teens, and few adult women, but there is more this year than last. The coaches also are spread around the gym, talking to each other, comparing results from the last tournament and telling each other about the students they brought with them today. If I look hard, I can find the 3 female coaches, one is the wife of a head instructor, helping him because he can’t coach two players at one time, one a black belt student assisting her sensei and one woman who has her own club.

The excitement is starting to build as more and more competitors step onto the mat, and soon it is overflowing with young people ready to test their skills against each other, the warm up music is loud and the competitors louder. In preparation, the officials are called to meet, and now it is time for me to put on my jacket, to become an official, commanding, in charge, confident, masculine. I am the only female referee working today.

As the first competitor is called to his match, the head referee comes over to talk to our team. He says the usual things, “Keep control of the matches, support each other, you are not out there alone”, and like I wasn’t even there, “protect her- she will need everyone’s help to stay in charge, especially when the adults fight.” I respond as expected, and thank everyone for their support, as I grit my teeth in frustration. All but one of the team is less experienced then me. A few of the men outrank me though, even those who began judo after I did. I don’t begrudge them their ranks, their skills or their authority. I resent the premise that I need extra assistance to maintain control of the match’s I am assigned to referee.

The day goes by fast, match after match is decided. I’m having fun as I almost always do at tournaments. Since I have reached the point where competition is no longer possible for me, refereeing is the nearest I can get to it. Throughout the day, my referee team does exactly what they were told to do, protect me, help me maintain control- even when I don’t need the help. Matches are conducted by a center referee and two others that act in support of the match; who sit on the sidelines with the advantage of a video to replay events and correct calls if misjudged. A throw occurs and my arm is on its way up to signal the score, before I can even complete my action, the support team makes the call for me. Over and over this happens, a few times the scores are different than I started to call, but not often. The room is deafening and my voice isn’t always heard by the intensely focused competitors, this time I had to call “stop” twice to get their attention. As I rotate off the match, I get called over to the head referee’s table for advice “you need to lower the tone of your voice, the competitors ignored you because they didn’t recognize your voice as a referee’s voice.” In other words, I need to sound like a man, not just look like and act like one, in order to referee effectively. When the black belt divisions begin, I am asked if I think I can handle them. I say “of course,” I referee the best match of my day, exciting, fun and with a great powerful winning throw, just as the supporting referee called “stop” and I ignored him, as the players were mid-technique. I am called to the side of the mat for a conference, and there admonished for not following directions, and then contritely congratulated on making the right decision, at the right time. The throw will count for the win; the player will be awarded a gold medal, because I didn’t follow directions well.

At the end of the day, the ritual of working together at a tournament continues. Everyone shakes hands and bows to each other, thanking them for their support and occasionally for their advice. One after another, my referee team comes to shake my hand and tell me that “I did well today.” The 16 year old, who had just refereed his 2^nd tournament approaches and pats me on the shoulder and tells me that he hopes I learned something today and assures me that with time, I will get better. He has already being indoctrinated into the male role of the judo official.

As always, I have a several hour drive home and have time to reflect on the events of the day. I review each match that I arbitrated and each match on my mat that left me with questions or concerns, I walk myself through the events of each overturned or missed call and closely review the matches that had injuries or controversy- such as a coach protest. To assist with my review of the day, I have kept a log of matches and refer to it whenever my memory is not clear. Later, I will review past tournaments to see if there are patterns in the injuries or errors. If I am lucky, I will have photos or film to review as well. The goal is to always learn something and improve my performance.

As I think about the tournament, I also remember the many conversations I had with the competitors today. As an official, I am supposed to refrain from these exchanges, after all I might show bias. But they still happen. One of the young girls approaches me and asks what she is supposed to do when she is told to strip on the side of the mat, when I get clarification, I understand that her uniform was too small, which often happens with growing children, and she was told to change. I spent a few minutes telling her how to prepare for this at tournaments after hearing that she had nothing on under her pants. I described what to wear under her uniform that wouldn’t interfere with her techniques, and I tell her to make sure a female official accompanies her to the side of the mat. This is the regulation, although it is hard to do when all the officials are men. As she runs off to tell her coach what I said, I wonder about the way she was told to change her uniform. She was escorted to the side of the mat by a male authority figure, and in full view of anyone who walked by, she was told to “strip”.

Another girl asked me why she has to fight girls and can’t compete against the boys. A young man approached me and asked if I was a black belt, as he didn’t know that all referees were required to be black belts and that women could earn the rank, as he hadn’t seen any on the mat before today. Many other quick conversations or quick interactions occurred throughout the day as I told a competitor “good throw” or “nice technique”, “good luck at Nationals this summer”, or as I often have to say, “Use this loss to learn what you can do better next time.”

As I get close to home, I turn my thoughts to the struggles women have had to endure, just to participate in this “sport”, and how they are still continuing. I am surprised at what I finally discovered today- I’m still indoctrinated and trained to not even notice the condescension of many of the male judo players . The books we have and the stories that are told about judo’s history, barely mention women. There are a few, Ms. Fukuda- the highest ranking women in history, Rusty Kanokogi, one of the first female fighters and more recently we hear about Kayla Harrison, the USA’s first female gold medalist in judo, and Rhonda Rousey, who is making a name for herself in MMA and movies. Pick up just about any book on judo and you will find only a paragraph or two on the history of women judo players. Heilbrun says in her book Writing a Woman’s Life “The ultimate anonymity—to be storyless. Anonymity, we have long believed, is the proper condition of woman.”[i] The women of judo have been almost storyless. The story of most of the many judo woman has not been told at all. “Power is the ability to take one’s place in whatever discourse is essential to action and the right to have one’s part matter.” [ii]My part matters. So do the stories of all the women who live in the world of Judo. For it is much more than a sport we play, it is who we are, our identity, our extended family. As with most families, there is conflict, bad times, and wonderfully good times. Our stories occur in a time of revolution, of changing feminine roles and we have a place in the history of judo.

[i] (Heilbrun 1989)

[ii] (Heilbrun 1989)

“Whether it is because the faith which creates has ceased to exist in me, or because reality takes shape in the memory alone…”

This passage had me thinking about both reality and memory and their relationship. If reality is in the memory alone, which type of memory? Voluntary memory, memory that we construct in our minds, intentional memory, that pays attention to the events that we want to pay attention to. Or is reality shaped in within the powers of involuntary memory? How is reality constructed?

As I am reading In Search of Lost Time, I notice that memory and how it is the source of the narrator’s reality, experiences, and existence. The first part of Swann’s Way, where the narrator describes his experience of emerging from sleep without a clear sense of where he is or what time it is, when he required a few minutes to place himself and reclaim his identity, indicates that this conflict between reality and memory may be a theme that threads through this novel, a theme of finding one’s identity, of awakening and determining what is memory, what is reality and the possibility that the recovery of lost realities can be accomplished by remembrance.

“The hour when an invalid, who has been obliged to start a journey and to sleep in a strange hotel, awakens, in a moment of illness and sees with glad relief a streak of daylight showing under his bedroom door. Oh joy of joys! it is morning. The servants will be about in a minute; he can ring, and someone will come to look after him. The thoughts of being made comfortable gives him the strength to endure pain. He is certain he heard footsteps: they come nearer, and then die away. The ray of light beneath his door is extinguished. It is midnight; someone has turned out the gas; the last servant has gone to bed, and he must lie all night in agony with no one to bring him any help.”

With the reading of this passage it is apparent that the for the narrator, the present is uncomfortable and painful and that he suffers with no one that will come to his aid and so he looks through his memories of his past trying to relive what will never again occur.

By the end of Swann’s Way, the narrator acknowledges his total discontent with the present; especially when compared to his memories of the past.

Several passages describe this disillusionment:

“… The flowers that people show me nowadays for the first time never seem to me to be true flowers.”

“I sought to find them again as I remembered them…they had long fled, and still I stood vainly questioning their paths.”

His disappointment is significant. The narrator confesses, “How paradoxical it is to seek in reality for the pictures that are stored in one’s memory… The reality that I had known no longer existed.”

In these quotes he seems to indicate that the past memory holds a greater reality then the present. Yet it there are differences. In the first quote he is disappointed in the present and feels that the present is not the true reality, in the latter quote it seems that he is searching for the past reality and it still has possibility of return and finally he comes to the conclusion that that the past reality no longer exists.

The narrator has manipulated his memories to include or omit certain aspects. Stored in that memory isn’t the actual events, but how those events made sense to him and fit into his previous experiences.

Our memories are filled with gaps and distortions, because by its very nature memory is selective. When we try to remember an event or time, we often recall a deception. Are our memories therefore fiction? Or do we have the power to create our own reality?

Proust: “But my grandmother, in all weathers, even when the rain was coming down in torrents and Francoise had rushed the precious wicker armchairs indoors so that they should not get soaked, was to be seen pacing the deserted rain-lashed garden, pushing back her disordered grey locks so that her forehead might be freer to absorb the health-giving draughts of wind and rain. She would say “ At last one can breathe!” and would trot up and down the sodden paths   too straight and symmetrical for her liking, owing to the want of any feeling for nature in the new gardener, whom my father had been asking all morning if the weather were going to improve her keen, jerky little step regulated by the various effects wrought upon her soul by the intoxication of the storm, the power of hygiene, the stupidity of my upbringing and the symmetry of gardens, rather than by any anxiety to save her plum colored skirt from the mudstains beneath which it would gradually disappear to a height that was the constant bane and despair of her maid.” (12-13)   This small description of Marcel’s grandmother resonated with me as I often feel this way during storms. Living for a time in North Dakota I loved the ever changing weather and my garden. It’s raining lightly and I am in my garden. The weather has been so humid and hot, this light rain is a relief as it takes the water out of the air and into the ground. Sitting quietly, weeding, I feel as if I can finally breathe again. I have large garden that takes a lot of work, but it is good work. Some days, I have my boys help with the chores, most days I do this alone, while they do their schoolwork. This garden, a hobby for many these days, is necessary for our families survival. It is what sustains us, along with the many chickens, rabbits and the occasional beef cow I raise. The grocery store is way too far away to walk, and I do not have a car. I move down the row to weed another section, and just for a moment take off my hat and lift my face to the rain. It feels so refreshing and peaceful. As I open my eyes, I see that the sky is darker on the horizon. I better get moving, and yet the peacefulness of the moment calls me back. Breathing deeply, I start to pull weeds again, enjoying the quiet natural sounds. A quick flash, then a loud boom. And another flash and boom. That darkness of a thunder storm approaching. The excitement in the air is building and I sit back and watch the darkness descend. The soaking rain and bit of wind still refresh me as they move over me and my garden. Lightening streaks across the sky, followed a few seconds later with its accompanying thunder. The smell of wet earth and ozone permeate the air. I sit in my garden, wet to the skin, relaxed and entranced with natures show. Then it intensifies. All of a sudden, I see the hail approaching. This is not as welcome as the rain. Hail begins to damage the plants, knocking them to the ground. It hurts when it reaches me and I run for the house, wishing I could protect the garden and fearing that the damage will be too much to salvage. The hail passes quickly, and the storm moves on. I am thankful that it didn’t last long. Some damage in the garden, and I return to weeding, and now standing plants upright, removing damaged areas, restoring the garden, breathing the clean air, and almost wishing the storm had lasted longer.

Writing, something we all do, one way or another. It may be as simple as a shopping or to do list, or a text to a friend, it may be a journal to share or a diary of private thoughts to keep to ourselves, an academic paper, research, book report and the list goes on. We may write for ourselves, to help us understand what is in our minds, or maybe to remember what happened- our side of the story. We may write for others, an article to educate, a letter to inform or to connect. Whatever we write, no matter how simple or how complex; writing something down has consequences. For women who are abused or closely monitored the consequences can be hard to understand. Even for those who are not in this situation, the basic oppression of women within a field of study or in an organization can make writing an act of courage.

In this program at Evergreen College, In Search of Lost Time, we will be studying memories, reading Proust and other novels, and writing. This will be difficult for me, especially writing about personal memories. I do have a memory project in mind for this class, just a portion of my history, but some of the other tales are already coming to the surface. I know the assigned journal is to be a mix of academic studies and personal stories, and that some of them will be made public.

Many people keep a journal, or diary. Sometimes like this one, journals are assigned as a learning tool in the academic setting. They can be a place to try on ideas, to dream about the future, to acknowledge our thoughts about assigned or even unassigned readings. They can also be dangerous. Even if we never intend to let another person read our thoughts, there is no absolute guarantee of privacy, once they are written down.

I kept a diary throughout my teen years and into early adulthood. I wrote in in whenever life threatened to overwhelm me, a problem even as a young girl. It contained dreams of college, of independence, of an Olympic medal. It also contained my reactions to being punished for my behavior and my refusal to do some of the things expected of me as a female in my family, my rebellion. For years, no one even knew I wrote things down. Then one day they found out- It became the family’s dinnertime reading story. They laughed at the dreams I had of a future, made fun of the possibility of college and planned for my punishment for thinking I might have different plans then they did.

Surprisingly, my compulsion to write was not squashed, but I did learn to never, never let anyone see what I really wrote, or thought. I’ve done academic writing of one sort or another throughout my schooling, writing without giving too much of myself away. Now, I am at a point in my life that I am compelled to tell part of my story, and let it be heard.

I’ve already been warned that if I do, if I tell anything about my family life growing up, there will be consequences.