Who is Madam Tomboy
She sips bourbon from a jam jar. She believes everyone should learn how to drive a stick shift and a motorcycle..just in case. Her alchemy is hammering a knife blade from a car spring coil, until she’s good enough to pound carbon steel. She’s just discovered Justin Bieber and plays his songs on her ukulele as her teenage son cringes. She walks out the door without brushing her hair, but not without wearing some turquoise jewelry. Her best work is accomplished when she’s a bit hungry. She reads Outside and The New Yorker cover-to-cover.
Born and raised in Indiana, she was a stringbean who dreaded Phys Ed and usually picked last. She didn’t care too much. Instead, she played the piano; dreaming of being athletic and sporty…maybe some day.
In her late twenties living in San Fran, she dreamed of swimming in the ocean, so she learned how to at the Chinatown Y. Soon she was swimming in the Bay and rode her motorcycle through the hilly streets of San Francisco. Before moving to China, she bought an Ashtanga yoga instruction book and cassette. In China, she wrote about food for her column in the San Francisco Chronicle and practiced yoga about every day.
She had a baby and moved to Vermont. She wrote two books about her life growing up in Indiana and another on her experiences living in China. She rode her bike across the country before putting her life in park and devote her time to raising her son. She hoped to mountain bike, run, and learn to snowboard…some day soon.
Ten years passed and recently after the death of both parents, her baby turning into a teenager, and two devastating house fires in one year, Madam Tomboy showed up. Not elegantly, but stumbling in, first on a snowboard, then on a mountain bike. Now on a skateboard. Sweaty and scrappy, through broken bones, bruises, tears, and ear-to-ear grins bringing a new sense of freedom and excitement. Closing one door and opening another.
She’s not the fastest, the strongest, the most technical or coordinated. She’s usually the last one across the finish line, but she crosses it. She’s falls and knows how to land. Mostly importantly, how to get up. She’s a late bloomer. She wants to master the Scorpion pose. To learn to surf at the beaches in Costa Rica or Hawaii. To snowboard in Japan. To Nordic ski in Norway. To bust out a break dance move. She lives life to the fullest and taking in all it has to offer.
Someday has arrived. I am Linda Furiya and I am Madam Tomboy.
