Happy Birthday, Lee! 

And Happy Birthday, Bruce Lee!

You know, this is something I occasionally think about because now it’s hard for me to remember the timeline when it came to my interest in one Rock Lee. But I’ll try. As one of his fans, he deserves my full attention.

I started watching anime for the first time last year, and naturally, I discovered Naruto.   

Now here comes the “which came first - chicken or egg” situation. This was about the time Hulu started running ads about two new “exclusive” series. One was Sailor Moon Crystal, a reworking of the original Nineties series...and something I found a bit, well, I wasn’t sure what to think. I see this little character with black hair saying “The name of your foe is,” and he flies into the air, lands and announces, “Rock Lee!” And I see somebody in a tutu! People in spaceships? It’s called Rock Lee and His Ninja Pals. My reaction: “What?” But since it claimed to be a Naruto spin-off I figured I’d keep my eyes open.

Back to the original source material. The chunin exams arc is about to begin, and I see three figures in a wooded situation. The camera pans upward, I see this kid and my first thought was What an odd looking little boy. My introduction to Team Guy. Now remember at this point, all I knew was Team Kakashi, so the introduction of this new team took me by surprise and I wasn’t certain I liked it. After all, Naruto is the star, and Sasuke and Sakura are with him. How dare these upstarts try to worm their way in! And who did that ‘odd looking’ boy think he was by proclaiming to all the word that he wished to be Sakura’s boyfriend? Wait. Did he say his name was Rock Lee? Like ‘The name of your foe is Rock Lee’? Is this who they gave a spin-off show to? (Palm in hand).

Next stop: he challenges Sasuke and manages to beat the shit out of him. He is obviously taken with Sakura, and I confess my heart kind of broke for him when she reacted as she did (my feeling being ‘Oh come on! It’s not like he’s trying to hack you to death like Norman Bates! Good grief!’). I raised an eyebrow when Might Guy appeared and punched his student (Excuse me?), then apologized, leaving both of them to cry on one another while I sat there with my mouth open in shock. Who are these people? But right now, I’m only thinking, okay, interesting little minor character. Let’s get back to Naruto and the gang.

The squirrel did it. Or the squirrel started it. Remember Lee had sworn to catch all of the leaves (was it twenty?) and if so, it meant Sakura would become his girlfriend. He doesn’t accomplish what he set out to do, although he came very close, because it was at that moment he sees a paper bomb on an innocent squirrel, and because he’s ethical, moral and honorable, he rescues the animal and saves its’ life. The camera focuses on the forgotten leaves he never caught, but what struck me then was his selflessness in thinking of the life of a little animal and in that second, all thoughts of the girl he believed he loved were gone.

I’m impressed. Perhaps he’s not as odd as I thought. He kept impressing me - taking on the Sound Ninja, ripping a tree up by its’ roots. We’re just getting started.

So now we get to the meat of the matter. When did I know...Now that I remember…

One episode after another, after another, after another and I kept thinking ‘When’s he going to get his turn?’ because frankly, I’m kind of curious to see more of what this kid can do. He’s matched up against Gaara.

That did it. When he removed his leg weights and let them go - talk about friggin’ iconic. I was on the edge of my seat for the rest of that arc featuring him. I also emptied a box of Kleenex when I saw his backstory because I had no idea of what he had gone through, or how much this all meant to him. It tore me up when he wondered why he was the only one who was suffering. I was so proud when he ran away from the hospital to become part of the Retrieval Arc. That odd-looking little kid wasn’t quite so odd after all.

Those are the moments which made me a Lee fan. Whether it was the scenes he shared with Guy, Tenten, and Neji; the tiny things like saving the squirrel or taking a whiff of the flowers Sakura brought him. Whether it was watching his devotion, his integrity, the often silly little way he has in his mannerisms because he’s so enthusiastic. His manners, the way he never uses contractions. After a while, you start to find his dark eyes as enchanting as his smile. You see a certain innocence in him, but realize if he needs to, he’ll start opening Gates and piledrive your behind into the ground! You want the best for him because he’s the type that draws that emotion out of you.

I forgot to add: I started watching Ninja Pals almost immediately upon realizing how much I was liking Lee.

So as someone who has read more books than I can recall, and has watched even more movies, I love character studies, the things which make someone tick. Lee fascinates me. Each time I watch some episode I missed (because I have a load of catching up to do) and they delve a tad deeper into what makes him who he is, I can’t help thinking it takes a special character to do that to me. If he wasn’t so special, I wouldn’t have started writing a story with him as the lead protagonist - because sometimes you feel those secondary characters deserve more than they got in the main movie or the main TV series.

What I train for? I try to write each day, as I have since I was too young to even know why. My inspiration included the Bronte sisters, Jane Austen, Margaret Mitchell and Daphne DuMaurier, because they wrote the books my mother loved and taught me to love. I wanted to tell stories full of unbridled passion and real human beings with all their little problems and life not always turning out as we hoped. I wanted my readers to visualize everything as though a movie was playing before you. So as a writer, you struggle with all the right words and...

Well, Lee, this is for you - one more time. 

I...I do not...I do...not...understand,” he said between deep gulps. I watched his head bounce up, vanish, bounce up again, then drop out of sight - over and over as it had for the last ten minutes. No matter how often I saw him perform his push-ups, the idea of him managing a conversation and performing a countdown in his brain astonished me to no end.

“What do you mean? What don’t you understand?” I replied, drawing one leg underneath me as I readjusted myself in the large wicker chair.

The fall morning was too beautiful to stay indoors, even if your work engulfed you, preventing a full enjoyment of the day. Still, it was nice being close to one’s muse. One’s overactive muse...We had been out in the garden for hours, me with my writing and him performing what came naturally. At one point there were pull-ups and rotations from a stout tree limb fifteen feet off the ground. On another occasion, he did nothing but run. For the two of us, it was typical.

Once more I asked, “I know sometimes I feel like I’m talking in riddles.”

“No...No...it...it is not...not that. You said you...you were...having...problems.”

“Yeah.”

“But...what you are doing...it seems simple, right?”

Twirling my favorite pen as one might a baton, I stopped before launching into one of my habits: clutching the instrument between my teeth. How many times did I have to remind myself: you don’t know where that pen came from? Even if I was the only one handling it. Even if I kept it safe within any of my numerous notebooks. I snatched an antibacterial wipe from a nearby container, and while I cleaned the pen, concentrated once more on what he asked.

I couldn’t help smiling at the notion. From others, I might have taken exception, but from him? The innocent expression indicated one thing: his questions were because he was curious and cared about my well-being. For the last hour, I had grumbled, scowled, buried my face in my hands, torn one sheet from the binder, then another, doodled terrible stick figures - a couple with bushy eyebrows (seeing those made him giggle as he joked ‘I do not look like that, do I?’). Still, I wondered how I might better explain so he’d comprehend, not because he was stupid, but…

“Yeah, I guess it does seem simple.” Smiling, I tapped the notebook resting on the portable writing desk in my lap. “Every time you see me, I’m putting words to paper.”

“Or typing...typing away...on...your...computer. Sometimes...you never stop.”

“Neither do you.”

He paused, considered my words, then returned to his routine. “That is true...But...But is it that...difficult?”

“Writing?”

He nodded a response.

Chuckling, I used an index finger and thumb to massage the insides of my eyes. “You wouldn’t believe how hard it can be. Not all the time, but...I don’t know...It just feels like it’s all stuck up here.” I pointed at my head. “And it doesn't want to come out! I see it...I can hear it...Everything! Descriptions, what everybody says to each other, what characters are thinking or feeling! Then I try to write it, and I read it, and I think…”

“What do you think?” after I didn’t respond for several moments.

“That it’s the most godawful garbage anybody’s ever written.”

“Two thousand!” he shouted.

Was he already finished?

“But I have seen books in bookstores. I tried to read excerpts.” He sat cross-legged on the ground near me. “And I told Guy-Sensei the writing was so painful I thought I was going to cry. Tenten is more explicit. She said the authors should be locked in a room and forced to listen to the pain they have inflicted on their readers.”

I snickered, rolling my eyes, nodding in agreement.

The chunin continued. “And some of those books have been made into movies. Although truth be told, the filmed versions were not any better than their source material.”

I laughed again. “Who died and made you a movie critic?” Shrugging, he responded with a smile I'm certain he prayed would make me feel at ease. Under normal circumstances, it might have. Right then, nothing I felt empty, lost in the problems of my own making. “Yeah, well, I’d like to be a little bit better than that. Not that I’d sneeze at a million dollar contract from a publisher or a movie studio, but my name’s going to be on it. I’d like people to look back at my stuff and think ‘Wow! Another Gone with the Wind! Another Pride and Prejudice!’ Not ‘Oh my God - take away that woman’s laptop and paper and pen and break her hands so she never writes again!’”

There came that soft giggle which never failed to make me smile. I couldn't help it. “That is so silly. I have read your stories, remember? No one would ever accuse you of writing...well…some of the books I have seen. You do not write about vampires or werewolves or fifty whatever.” A blush came to his cheeks. “You write about...people, life.”

“I try,” I muttered, exhaling. I was frustrated. I had been working on one chapter for three weeks - bits and pieces here and there. What should have been a basic, informational few scenes stressing the heroine’s dilemma bogged me down a third of the way through. In that time frame, I rewrote one scene more than a half-dozen time. Another key scene faced four times under the knife. Each time I looked at the words, I groaned, cursed (I never did that in front of him), and either hit the backspace key or drew several furious lines through the sentences on the lined paper. That second scene annoyed me to Hell. It sounded stilted, forced. Characters I’d handled for almost a year fell to pieces. I imagined them glaring at me from my Chromebook screen or my notebook, each of them thinking ‘What in the world is her problem?’ I honestly didn’t know, so in the meantime, I returned to previous chapters - the chapters I loved, chapters over which I had also once struggled.

“You are seeking perfection.”

I looked up and into those large dark eyes. “I guess.”

“Of course you are! You have shown me so many wonderful chapters, and I am always honest and tell you how they are. They are good. No, how great they are. The old adage is right. You do have a way with words.”

I ducked my head. That was something I had heard since my school days.

“And then you return and tell me, ‘I redid this. What do you think?’ It will be the same scene, but you have added more dialogue, removed this or that, changed a phrase about, added a new thought...and it is still good. Then you work on another chapter or scene, but you keep returning to the other, although I did not think anything was wrong with it in the first place. But you know what?”

“No, what?”

“No matter how many times I read it when you make the adjustment, whatever that might be, it is even better than before, although I did not think it possible...But you must realize, the time is going to come when you cannot make another change. That it is as good as it will ever be. Otherwise...you will never finish.”

“Huh.”  

He scooted closer. “You have been working on our story for a while.”

“I just want to get it right.”

“I know. I appreciate that. But you joked the other day you have barely scratched the surface and you have written...sixteen chapters?”

“Eighteen, nineteen,” I confessed. “Some of them don’t have chapter numbers yet because they come later in the story. And a few are so long, I could split those down into another chapter or two.”

“Yes...They are good too, you know.” He gave me a thumbs up accompanied by a toothy grin. “I especially like the one, you know, the one where…”

“I know.” This wasn’t the first time he told me he did. Every time he read that part, tears filled his eyes when he finished. “It’s kind of my favorite too.”

“How many revisions?”

“I deleted a sentence last night.”

“Not again!” It was his turn to sigh in frustration. “If you have not scratched the surface yet, it will be another year or two or three before you write ‘THE END’, and it will not be the actual end because you will revise and rework and rephrase it and…”

“Yeah I know, I know!”

It happened before I knew it. Pen, notebook, and portable desk were thrown to the ground. I was upset with myself, not with what he told me. He realized that too, having seen my temper flair before. He also said nothing when he saw me tear up, reaching down to touch the cherry wood of the lap tray he’d given me as a birthday gift. If I damaged something which came from his heart…

With great calmness, he picked up the items, placed them on the table in front of me, then raised the lid on the Chromebook.

“When I said I did not understand why it is not simple when you are writing, I was wrong.” He maneuvered the mouse, digging deep into the carefully organized folders in the Cloud. “When someone has a passion for something, and it means everything to them, others should not tell them they must give it up or lower their goals.” Although I observed him in profile, he was smiling. “I ought to know.” He turned briefly, winking at me. “This is what you work hard for. This gives your life meaning. It is your code - your Ninja way. I have made a promise to support you as best I can, just as Guy-Sensei still does for me. I am sorry if I do not always appear to understand.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s not you. A lot of times, you’re the one who gives my brain the jumpstart it needs.” I gave the lap desk a quick once over, pleased there was no damage. “I’m sorry.”

“It is alright.”

“But it’s not alright. You gave me something special and I…”

“Your passion got the better of you.”

“That wasn’t passion. That was me and my stupid temper.” My voice dropped lower. “Lee, what are you looking for?”

“It is fine. I have found it.”

I saw that the folder he clicked bore the tentative title of the story I had given my nearly undivided attention to these last eleven months. “But I don’t…”

“Your writing means the world to you. One day you will finally show everyone what I consider myself privileged to read. But until then…” He squatted in the chair next to me. “Start it again. I want you to hear how good it is, and I find that reading it aloud can make a great difference.” When I hesitated, he gave me a slight nudge. “Go on. Remember, nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

Black letters against a white background were plastered across the screen, meaningless when I first took a look at them. All of that came from me. The inspiration was the person at my side. Giving him a peck on the cheek, I smiled and began to read the words familiar to both of us.