dev kiyo

9:41

today is 8 days after the 8-year anniversary of my move to philadelphia with a friend named Dylan, which i did with the help of another friend named Duncan. trading turns with me for 10 or so hours through August heat, Duncan helped drive the moving-trailer loaned to us by Dylan’s dad. my first night in philadelphia on the floor near a box-fan, Duncan, Dylan, and i slept in one bedroom of the 2-bedroom apartment Dylan and i had moved into. last night, Duncan called me as he drove back from another city i once lived in, telling me about a theoretical study that posited children who grew up hearing arguments between their parents were more likely to become artists, saying that’s the sort of upside he’s waited 30 years to hear.

when it’s as early in the morning as i’m typing this, today is more the past than it is the present. i want to connect with what once was, so i lie on the floor of my loft apartment, the first place i’ve lived alone. i point a small desk-fan toward me and focus on how good it feels, how that good contrasts with how my shoulders feel against hardwood floor, all the conflicts of this moment and my documenting of it, how i feel about the desk i’ll be sitting at momentarily, to carry out meetings and emails for my job. i’ve been awake since 8am and not much has happened yet.

11:14

i feel compelled to make meaning and i’m using the past to do so, as i’m bound to my desk and the emails and the meetings. months after i moved to philadelphia, i was fired from a different job. i decided to document and time-stamp all the big thoughts i had in the absence of that job. if i’m compelled to document it, an experience in my life becomes a big thought. one long-ago documented night walking up the stairs of the Walnut-Locust BSL station, two men were at the top of those steps, one man clinging to the railing and the other clinging to him. the man connected to the railing was the father of the man who held him there. I’m scared, I’m scared, he said with his eyes closed, one foot only approaching the step beneath the top. his son said nothing.

in-between meetings for the job i have now, i climbed the ladder in my loft apartment to my bedroom. more than a year ago, this apartment wasn’t yet mine and i was in here with my friend Alexa, who mentioned passing my building in her entry for this project. Alexa said the loft’s ladder was not something anyone would want to climb down at night, not an exact quote but something to that effect. whenever a person descends the ladder, i try to remember exactly how Alexa worded it. as anyone descends feet-first, i say “it’s scarier that way. you can’t see where you’re going for that first step down.” i went up the ladder this time to take a brazilian jiujitsu gi out of a drawer, just something i’ll need later today.

13:05

i have enough free time to document the present-tense. i decide i need bananas right now and leave my apartment. i see a father and son wearing green shirts, going to get something out of their car. i see a house sparrow dust-bathing and think of the woman i loved most. a daughter leads her parents down the up-ramp of a parking deck. a man wearing high socks in the grocery store is open-carrying a pack of Newports. i decide i also need to buy a bag of clementines. i recognize the attributions of gender and relationship i make throughout this entry are assumptions i otherwise avoid when i don’t feel compelled to add meaning to my day. discarded white desk at the corner of a building, as if it’s inviting passerby to get to work beneath the building’s window. flag pole jutting from the front column of a frat house, empty of a flag and therefore resembling a rifle barrel. if you weren’t here as a reader, no one else would be here with me. when i get back to my apartment, i close my eyes for 10 minutes.

15:24

When you see your parents argue, it teaches you that more than one thing can be true at the same time, Duncan said something like that. You hear the view of your mom and how it differs from the view of your dad, and that creates a third viewpoint, the exact quote was something i should’ve typed down. should i try to make something meaningful happen today, because today will be documented, or should i live a true day, if i’m thinking of a true day as one that isn’t documented? does attention to one’s life, either by yourself or by others, make that life more meaningful? is meaning a product of attention and thereby why meaningful things tend to receive more attention? i walk to Wawa to get the same hoagie i always get on days when i’ve waited too long to make a decision. i’ll eat that hoagie and get back to you on this.

17:48

four or so nights a week, i walk to my middle-class hobby of brazilian jiujitsu and i’m doing that type of walking right now. the salary for my job provides middle-class comfort. before i had my current job, i didn’t have a salary or a routine. i had people i loved enough to work hard, toward the goal of being able to live in comfort with them. i survived poverty and violence and survive mental illness and violence. i was always working hard and trying to make something happen; i wasn’t resolving the conflicts i had with other people and the conflicts i had within myself. therefore, the woman i loved most has never been in my apartment.

19:26

for the last few years, two viewpoints have argued about how best to teach brazilian jiujitsu: the traditional step-by-step technique detailing as espoused by an information processing model, and the constraints-led approach as espoused by an ecological dynamics model. three classes a week at my gym, we train a constraints-led approach, wherein we’re given objectives and various attentions to take within games, but not given exact paths toward the objectives of those games. the dude i was grappling heard that 14-year-old throwing a fit at the same time i heard it, both of us stopping our game to instead look at what was going on. the 14-year-old explained nothing, just shoved away the person winning against them. “anyone would assume we both have kids,” i said to the dude i was grappling, “because we both stopped fighting as soon as we heard a kid getting hurt.” he agreed that would be a fair assumption and we returned to our game, trying to figure out our own ways toward an upside.

it is fair to tell you i endure these hurts for the 10-minute walk i have after a brazilian jiujitsu class, wherein not much at all is happening in my head. i’m walking with earbuds in and capable of music, yet deciding to cue no music to play.

22:14

sorry, almost forgot to get back to you on this. nothing really happened today, therefore my day was mostly true. i leave my apartment again for want of something meaningful. Many men wish death upon me, says a passing car. night without air is moving in my direction. i go to the same grocery store i went to earlier today and it’s about to close. everyone else is walking in pairs of two. present-tense becomes panic. if something happens, i have to document it. what can i buy that would juxtapose meaningfully with other matters i’ve documented today? i hope nothing else happens today. if something big happens before today is done, it would be easier to think about tomorrow. the past is easier to experience because i experience the present as a violence.

near the end of our phone call, Duncan told me he hopes his kids will master at least two crafts: one craft that’ll make them happy and another craft that’ll make them money. we agreed that would be good for them, and that we hope those two crafts won’t be at odds. i’m walking through the same grocery store for the second time today and i remember the day after Duncan helped Dylan and i move to philadelphia, how i ditched Duncan for reasons i don’t exactly remember, how i didn’t see Duncan for years after ditching him, how i’m not sure i thanked him or apologized to him for being my friend. had i remembered and mentioned all this when on the phone with him, i don’t know if Duncan would feel much of anything about it. for the few years they were together, i think my parents must’ve argued all the time, because i’ve got such an ability to make something out of nothing.

dev kiyo is a very-Japanese grappler and editor (currently) living in philadelphia; you may have seen them in grocery stores or on dating apps. more importantly, they are Wheeler Yuta's number-one fan. you can maybe follow dev on instagram (@crudzu), and you can definitely follow Wheeler Yuta on instagram (@wheeleryuta).