It’s the eve before my 47th birthday, and tonight was spent pretty nicely.

A few weeks ago my sister invited me to go to a cardio boxing class she enjoys. I went to a first class three weeks ago, and I went again tonight, for a fifth time. I enjoy the classes for the most part because they center around a lot of movements I am fairly unfamiliar with- jabs, hooks, upper cuts, crouching, and kicking. I am learning a lot, and my body is worked out solidly in the class hour. The hard part about these classes is that I am not very coordinated and struggle greatly with balance, and have no core muscles to speak of. And I can’t do many pushups. I am humbled in each class I go to. But I end up sweating a lot and feeling sore the next day, which is what I want to feel. It tells me I am working my body, and that I will get stronger.

Well, tonight felt extra tough in the class, but after the compulsion to cry left me, I felt grateful to get through it. I’ll just keep trying to learn and to improve at a pace that suits me. I’m not competing against anyone.

After class, Mom had called to invite me by their house for dinner. Mom had ham steaks, corn on the cob, scalloped potatoes, and green beans on the table when I arrived. Hungry after exercising, the meal was delicious, along with the cold tea.

As a bonus to the meal, Mom mentioned to me that the Cubs were on TV tonight- watchable on ESPN! I got excited at the prospect of an evening unwinding watching the kids take on a great Pirates team.

After dinner, we turned on the TV to discover the Cubs were in a rain delay- a delay that lasted two-plus hours. Not knowing how long the delay would be, Dad and I endured ESPN jumping for 10 minutes at a time from game to game, trying to fill for the game on hold. Finally, around 8:15, the infield at PNC Park was uncovered and the Cubs took the field- and almost three innings were completed before lightning and thunder announced a new cloudburst. The game went into a second rain delay, and with the local clock nearing nine, I needed to go home.

As I was prepping to leave, Mom asked me again about birthday plans. Not one to enjoy big spectacles, I just suggested we go to our usual Mexican food haunt.

“You know, the night you were born, it rained all night. I remember laying in my room, looking out the window, watching drops hit the window. I remember it, because it was unusual for here. We usually don’t get much rain like that.”

—

While driving away from their house and toward home, my mind wandered over a few moments and faces in my past, as I often do, and for whatever reason, I ended up pausing on a day trip I took back in August, 1994, with Aida.

When I was in seminary in Mill Valley, I worked as a grounds hand at a large apartment complex down the road from the school. One day as I was sweeping out walkways in a building, a slow-moving, slightly hunched brown haired woman in a blue housecoat caught my attention. I was a little creeped out at first because her movements were stiff and guarded. And then I saw the stick. And then I heard “Hello?” And then I went a flight of stairs and said “Hi” and regarded this blind but regal woman.

In time, I would bump into Aida again and again around that building, until she invited me by for tea and a talk. Shortly thereafter, she became a friend.

Living in the school dorms while in school there with a roommate and no TV, Aida invited me over to join her and a few others to watch the opening ceremony of the summer Olympics in 2002.

Every so often, I would take her to the store if her usual means was tied up. And every so often we’d go get a meal, to just talk a bit about life and love.

When I was nearing the end of my program at Golden Gate, it was clear life would be changing for me. I knew I’d probably move somewhere else, and I wouldn’t see Aida much, so as the summer of 94 approached, Aida mentioned that the Terracotta Soldiers were coming to the Asian Art Museum, and that she would like to see them. Maybe she knew this might be as big an event we might ever share together, or that things might change in our lives soon, but I seized her expression as a necessity for the both of us.

And so, one rainy Saturday afternoon in August, 1994, I escorted Aida, richly attired in a long brown dress and long red scarf and a gold necklace and bracelet that complimented her dark Mediterranean skin, out of her apartment and into the cab of my truck, and then out of Marin and over the Golden Gate Bridge into Golden Gate Park, where the Asian Art collection, in the M.H. de Young Museum, was at the time.

Dropping her off at the entrance to the bustling museum, I parked my truck and then walked across the lot in a gentle rain to find her, and we weaved into the crowd wandering in and out of the facility.

In a short time, we were in the room she wanted to “see”- a room filled with rows of the giant frozen fighters which were crafted en masse to protect China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang (260-210 BC), in his afterlife.

Shortly after Qin Shi’s ascension to power, one of the public works he began was a massive mausoleum, a commendation to his power after unifying all of China under his rule. The necropolis he would begin to build at age 13 would require 38 years and 700,000 laborers to finish, and it would represent a small city, nearly 4 miles in circumference. Terracotta figures populated the city in various roles, as statesmen and servants, but around Qin Shi’s tomb, a garrison of soldiers were wanted to protect their lord. In 1974, some local farmers uncovered the first glimpses of 3 pits that contained these militia men, nearly 8000 in number, accompanied by bronze horses and chariots and adorned calvary horses.The Terracotta Army was a remarkable discovery.

And so, Aida and I followed the flow of the crowd that circled around the exhibit recessed in the floor below, I reading from the informational placards as Aida leaned in, gripping my arm, absorbing the words.

The museum was busy and full of excitement that afternoon as the sky remained gray and the gentle rain continued. The lines of carefully sculpted soldiers stared silently past us, holding within themselves secrets of the time they came from, they oblivious to our stares.

And that of Aida, who, ironically, could not see them either.

It was an amazing afternoon at the museum, with Aida and the army.

With a good friend. And some rain.

—

Image Credit: ‘Fearless terracotta soldiers′ by SpAvAAi via Flickr. Creative Commons license.