The most graceful way to explain grace is to think about Tessa, my wife. I don’t mean she does karate or anything. She doesn’t need to. She was born with a core of grace that shines completely through. We all have that kernel deep inside, somewhere. We can even feel it, watching Olympic figure skating, usually. It takes that modern miracle of hand-held video cameras to awaken us to the reality that our own core of grace lies trapped, shrouded behind meat. I noticed it in college, myself, when I was cast in Fiddler on the Roof and was expected to dance. On a stage. Alongside people who could actually dance. Alongside MEN who could actually dance, so I couldn’t blame my sex and/or gender.

The word shambling best describes my style. I moved like a bear. A big bear. A big bear on his hind legs in rubber sneakers on a very, very clean polished floor. I blame years of lumbering across rocky barnyards and lurching atop moving hay trucks in heavy leather boots. But, then, I am also a descendent of centuries of northern European ancestors plodding behind plows and staggering in and out of public houses. Thus, solid science insists that genetic adaptation might take some credit. Analysis by the Pew Research Center indicates that any true old fart reading this right now has an 84% likelihood of traversing a very similar genetic landscape.

When you attend martial arts tournaments you see old farts who have actually shed much of that agricultural and industrial detritis. Not many. But almost every tournament has at least one old fart who swishes about in a hakama and slippers and seems to be the instrument of the sword in his hand instead of the other way around. These folks are usually snowy white on top, or bald as an acrylic doorknob. You can’t be that good. Neither can I. But we CAN be better. If we train.

We can’t join those demigods like Tessa who could have earned her way through college as a stripper. But we can feel more condfident when we stand next to them, or walk across a parking lot alongside them. And when our pets dance around our feet as we return home or as we try to feed them, we can glide through the chaos of frantic feet and thrashing tails with a cat stance and a step-behind x-stance. Sometimes, I close the refrigerator with a very gentle roundhouse leg. It’s fun. And Tessa even smiles sometimes when I do it.

Incidentally, Tessa paid for college entirely with grants and scholarships. Upon graduation, my student loan debt equaled the price of a brand new convertible Camaro. I had to play catchup. And I still do. On grace.