L'art du DĂŠplacement
Wesley Hong
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L’art du Deplacement
Sunday, 4/12/2009. 8:12 am. Thud. And in an instant it’s over. My body topples over the hood of the car, a lifeless ragdoll thrown across the street. The young girl, who had been before it just moments ago, lies nearby, her left shoulder scraped from being pushed across the coarse pavement, but otherwise unharmed. Her mother rushes to her, clutches her in her arms with tears streaming down her face. The girl is confused in all the chaos. With a puzzled look she returns her mother’s hug with one arm, grasping her rubber ball in the other. Meanwhile a crowd gathers around my body. The driver of the car is hysterical. Emotions run high. “Do you realize what you’ve just done?!” “It’s not my fault! It happened too fast!” And I stand by, watching the scene of my death silently. That’s all I can really do: I’m dead. I’m sure you’re curious as to why I did it. I can assure you it was not nearly as noble as it may seem. In fact, it’s probably quite the opposite. After all, I died because I had run away.
Sunday, 4/12/2009. 6:38 am. I slip out the window of my second story apartment onto the rusty fire escape. It gives a long, shrill creak under my weight, but it doesn’t matter. My parents sleep quite soundly. They’d have to in order to sleep at all, given the noise of the overpass above our San Francisco home. I scale the stairs to the roof of the complex, looking at the path of buildings laid before me. The morning air is crisp and clean, refreshingly thin. I sprint across the top of the building and my foot pushes off the ledge. I fly, if only for a moment, then begin my descent upon the building one story below. I spot my landing as a hawk does, eyes fixed on its prey. My legs straighten as I approach my target, my knees initially absorbing the impact as my feet make contact with the ground, then unleashing the force forward into a roll across the rooftop. As I rise, I keep moving forward and breathe a sigh of relief. The first jump is always the hardest. As you might have guessed, I’m a traceur. Traceur: that’s a French word we use for people who do parkour. We’re street runners. I guess it’s no surprise that the French began the movement. But while it’s a form of running, parkour isn’t a sport. There is no competition, no established rule. It is driven purely by the spirit of l'art du déplacement – the art of movement. In that sense, it’s more of a philosophy. And that’s why, in truth, I’m not actually running away from home – I’m running to it.
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L’art du Deplacement
Sunday, 4/12/2009. 6:59 am. My mother is probably awake by now, preparing breakfast before she leaves for her first job. She probably knows that I’m not in my room. She probably thinks that I’ve gone to school, even though it’s Sunday. And she’ll probably convince herself that I’ve just come home too late and left too early for her to see me in the next few days. She’s not a bad mother – she’s simply apathetic. Too preoccupied with the daily droning of life to expect anything out of the ordinary. She’ll probably realize I’ve left by day four – at the earliest. My father on the other hand, won’t even realize I haven’t been at home until my mother alerts him. Every night he comes home drunk. Every morning he lies comatose battling a hefty hangover. It’s a wonder he even comes back each night. Most children are welcomed into this world by the open embrace of their parents’ arms. Some are so unfortunate as to be punished and despised by them. But few are so abused as to be utterly neglected by them. For to be punished is to have one’s existence acknowledged; to be despised to understand the pain induced by abuse. To be ignored produces a different person entirely: a person empty and numb, neither compassionate nor malicious, who can hardly be called a person at all. I was one of those children. I am an empty shell. Even if my parents noticed my absence though, I’m already in Chinatown, a good distance from my South Beach residence. And their searches would never find their way to the San Francisco rooftops. I hop from the parking structure I’m perched on, striking the tin roofing of a nearby condo with a sharp clang. The muffled cry of an elderly Asian woman comes from the window. “Ai yah! Ni gan shen me?!” I pay no mind. I don’t know Chinese. I simply keep moving. That’s the first and most fundamental tenet of parkour. Its manifestation is the movement from point A to point B in the shortest amount of time. Its philosophy is to neither dwell on what’s behind nor be concerned with what’s ahead, but to focus on the obstacles immediately before you. There is no path to follow. There is only the beginning, the end, and the obstacles overcome. In the end, that’s the only thing an empty shell can know.
Sunday, 4/12/2009. 7:14 am. I step onto a campus at the far end of the Russian Hill District. I hate this place – this protected bubble in the middle of urban San Francisco, its high, pale white walls shielding the people within as if the world outside threatened their very existence. The inside lawn is host to a variety of vegetation – an environment so natural it is simply unnatural compared to the concrete jungle surrounding it. Chalky marble statues line the campus walkways,
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L’art du Deplacement
their stony glares judging my every move. I suppose it suits the residents well. The overzealous religious snobs. The stifled thought they pass off as education. If there was one thing my father did care for, it was my Catholic education. His hypocrisy was more a matter of maintaining family tradition and pride for our Irish heritage than religious belief, and that’s why I was sent to a private Catholic high school. As I said before though, I have my religion. I don’t need anyone to show me a path. I make my own path, travelling directly from the beginning to the end, avoiding and overcoming the obstacles laid before me. But this provoked the extremists, breeding questions concerning the Truth of things: “But what if it’s the Truth? What if you are veering down the wrong path?” They fail to see the simple principle of l'art du déplacement – the extension of our body as the extension of our mind, physical freedom as a model of our intellectual freedom. There is never just one way to get from A to B, nor is there a best way given changing variables such as weather or traffic. Even physical obstructions, such as fences, can be overcome and disregarded if approached properly, altering the efficiency of a path tremendously. So why can we state that there is any fixed path to walk to reach our destination? Why do we narrow the field of our vision to a single street when we can see a more efficient one by simply broadening our view? The freedom of parkour isn’t merely a physically liberating experience, but a mental one, encouraging one to open the mind to see all the possibilities. That’s the second tenet of parkour: freedom, in body and in mind. But the Catholic pricks scoff at it.
Sunday, 4/12/2009. 7:22 am. I need to liberate myself from suffocating air of the pious prison. I take a brief run up, rebounding off the concrete fortress wall and gripping the cold iron of the school’s gates. I pull myself up and hop over deftly towards freedom. I scratch myself on one of the piercing tips that line the top of the gate, warm, crimson blood trickling down the side of my arm. Such a courteous parting gift for their visitor. I stick to the streets; the buildings are low, few, and dispersed, but I’m far enough away from home to risk it. I make my way towards Fisherman’s Wharf, an early celebration of sorts. I’ve always enjoyed the sea lions. My legs float over a rail as my hand guides me forward in mid-vault. I slow to a walk as I navigate the pier’s vendors. The shops nauseate me: Dreyer’s Ice Cream; Bubba Gump Shrimp, Co.; Hard Rock Café. Commercial successes each of them, reaping the benefits of brand and familiarity.
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L’art du Deplacement
I pass them without another glance, taking a seat upon a steel railing to watch the sunrise, streams of light pouring between the buildings of Alameda across the bay. The sun scatters across the water in a speckled band, dancing a celebratory step as gusts of wind billow across the ocean. I hop off the beam for a moment and rest my foot upon it, stretching out my legs to keep warm. The sea lions are already awake, barking loudly in their hoarse voices, congratulating me on my escape. I’ve crossed the entirety of the city, well on my way to somewhere new. Escape – the third and final tenet of parkour. With freedom comes the ability to escape confinement. There is no limitation to movement, no obstacle that cannot be overcome or circumvented. Philosophically it is an escape from convention, a matter of creation and originality – to see the world anew. And thus, for me it is a break from the ordinary – the monotony. The monotony that consumed my mother’s life. The monotony my father drowned in alcohol. The monotony of the repeated preachings in school. The monotony of chain stores, pop culture, and social fads. That’s what I find comforting in the cries of the sea lions. And in reality, that’s what I wanted to escape from. I did not fear being an empty shell – I had long accepted it. I did not fear the pressure of my colleagues. I feared monotony’s conquest. And that’s why I had to escape its grasp.
Sunday, 4/12/2009. 8:10 am. The Palace of Fine Arts lies ahead of me, the final major landmark standing between me and the Golden Gate Bridge. I’ve run so long, yet I am not yet free. Because I’m missing an integral piece still. I’m missing my destination. But I simply keep on running until it comes into view. A bright red ball catches the corner of my eye. You know, the classic red Voit balls that you’d use for everything during elementary school: dodgeball, four square, wall ball? You should, since I never even got to touch one. But maybe you were deprived like me. More so I suppose, because at least now I know what I’m missing. To have that little red ball is to have purpose, to have intention. To possess it is to have received it, and in turn, to be obliged to give it. That’s why the little girl wandered so frantically into the street when her ball fell loose and bounced freely while a car came speeding down the empty streets. That’s why she chased it down, paying no attention to the presence of oncoming traffic. Sure, she didn’t know what she held in her tiny hands. But she protected it. And so in an instant it was over. My body toppled over the hood of the car, a lifeless ragdoll thrown across the street. The young girl, who had been there just moments before, now lay nearby, her left shoulder scraped from being pushed across the coarse pavement, but
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L’art du Deplacement
otherwise unharmed. Her mother rushed to her, clutched her in her arms with tears streaming down her face. The girl was confused in all the chaos. With a puzzled look she returned her mother’s hug with one arm, grasping her rubber ball in the other. Meanwhile a crowd gathered around my body. The driver of the car was hysterical. Emotions ran high. No one comes to embrace my body. Because that’s all there ever was. There was no one to embrace. I’ve never had a chance to hold a red Voit ball. People see the sacrifice of life for another’s as a noble thing. They often fail to see the selfish truth behind it. I am an empty shell. I am neither benevolent nor malevolent. I am numb. It’s always easy to find a reason to die for someone. What’s truly difficult is to find a reason to live for someone. That’s what I gave that girl: the opportunity to share her ball with someone else. And what she gave me in return was a destination. So now, I continue to follow the first tenet of parkour. I keep on moving.
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