Friday, December 23, 2011

On the Way To Jesus' Birthday Party


I wrote this last year, before I had started this blog, and just came across it today.  It made me smile.  Enjoy.
 

Today Gretchen's PDO program threw a birthday party for Jesus. I made a ridiculous amount of popcorn as her contribution to the party. Anything worth doing is worth doing in a crazed and overdone manner, right? We filled up four tubs and packed everything up. Gretchen wore a new jumper she inherited from a third cousin. I was hesitant to send her off to play and eat and do crafts in her uber-fancy Christmas dress from my mother-in-law, although now I'm thinking I should have gone all in on that too. Isn't anything worth doing worth doing in a crazed and overdone manner? The dress she wore was not Christmassy, but it was cute: a peachy pink with brown polka-dots. She looked beautiful but was not happy with her attire, except the sparkly shoes, of course, which never fail to make her sparkle in response. As I was buckling her into her carseat, she asked me why I put her in a dress covered with eyeballs. Ah. Now I understand. It is harder to feel beautiful in a dress covered in eyeballs than in a dress decorated with polka-dots.

As we were driving to church, Gretchen hypothesized aloud that each and every car travelling in the same direction was also on the way to Jesus' birthday party. And how does a mother argue against that? Ideally, and in a more metaphysical way than I could really get into with a three-year-old, or so I thought, one would hope that on December 14, most people on the road are, in some manner, travelling toward Jesus' birthday party. When we were perhaps half-way to church, Gretchen became quite concerned: "Who is going to drive Jesus to the birthday party?"

"What?" I asked. I keep getting fooled into thinking Gretchen far more religious and profound than is reasonable for a three-year-old. She talks about Jesus being a baby and has been practicing her songs for the party: "Away in a Manger," "Mary Had a Baby Boy," and "Merry Christmas." She seems to at least sort of get it, or so I keep thinking. And then suddenly--and this has happened to me repeatedly--things really go down hill. It's amazing how quickly the innocent questions of a three-year-old can confound a rather ponder-prone 35-year-old.

"Well if Jesus is a baby, she can't drive. Who drives her to the birthday party?" Oh boy. Or girl, if one pays attention to the pronouns. My daughter is a crazed and overdone feminist if nothing else. The world needn't fear a diminished supply of girl power while she is around.

"When Jesus was a baby, there weren't cars." I decided to deal with the gender of Our Lord at another time because I secretly think that if God wanted to be really crazed and overdone about confounding expectations of power and about showing the least to be the greatest, God would have come as a baby girl. Just my opinion, of course. But back to the discussion: of course, if the answer is easy and sort of skirts the question, it's never going to cut it with a three-year-old. You cannot change the topic to the history of cars when what's really important is the baby Jesus.

"Well then how did she get to Her birthday?"

Where to begin. I paused a moment and decided that it was time to find a good children's version of the Christmas story at the local bookstore ASAP, but, in the meantime, I have heard the story quite a few times myself and could transmit the salient elements to get some of this straightened out before the party started. So I explained that quite a long time ago and in another part of the world, Mary, Jesus' mother, who Gretchen knows about from the songs, was going to have a baby, but she also had to go on a long trip. I was interrupted by questions of how they did this without cars, so I decided to say that they probably had a donkey, although I couldn't remember if the donkey was in the Bible or just in the illustration. When Mary and her husband Josesph arrived where they needed to go, there were lots and lots of people there already, and there weren't any hotels or inns that would give them a room, but one man said they could sleep in his stable, which is like a barn. And yes, that was good for the donkey.

"Where is the donkey now?" asked Gretchen. I reminded her that this was a very very long time ago, so that particular donkey is probably dead by now. "Well, then how is Jesus still a baby? How old is She?" Oh boy/girl.

"Well, Jesus isn't still a baby. We are celebrating that God came to earth as a human, as a baby, which is pretty cool thing for God to do."

"So Jesus isn't going to be at Her birthday party?"

"Well, yes, Jesus will be there, but not as a baby you can see." That made no sense to Gretchen, and before we started to get into invisible super-powers, I tried to explain. "Jesus is God. We say there are three ways you can think of God, as God who made everything, as Jesus who was born as baby and lived as a human, and as the holy spirit, who is always with us and among us and helps us to follow God and Jesus."

"So Jesus will be at church?"

"Yes, but you won't be able to see Jesus like you see most people. We say that we see Jesus when we see people acting like Jesus taught us to act, so hopefully you can always see Jesus in the church."

"Does Jesus live at the church?"

"I suppose you could say that. He lives everywhere, but the church is sort of His home base. It's a good place people can go to find Jesus in others and to learn about Jesus."

"If Jesus lives at the church, where are the rooms? I've never seen Her room."

"He doesn't need a bedroom. I suppose if you were going to say that one room was His special room, it would be the sanctuary, where we sing and worship and learn about Jesus, but He lives in whatever room has people who love him and act like him."

"Doesn't Jesus ever get to sleep?" Gretchen seemed apalled by this thought. Lucky for me, we had arrived at church, and I could get away with just saying, "No, he doesn't sleep, but he doesn't mind." Or so I hope.

I say it was lucky the conversation ended there because I felt myself teetering on the edge of a muddy theological pit, and it was a relief to get out of such conversations with at least a crumb of confidence left that I hadn't said anything either too simplistic to be "true" or too esoteric and uncertain to be considered any kind of answer at all for a three year old. But even more than being relieved to be let off the hook, I felt lucky that I had been put on the hook in the first place. Surely such conversations make all the bodily functions involved in day-to-day parenting worth the handling.

Afterwards, when I was relaying our earlier conversation about Jesus' birthday party to Doug, I asked Gretchen if she had seen Jesus at His birthday party. "Well," she told me, "you can't see Jesus like you can see other babies, but She was there." That, my daughter dressed in an eyeball dress, is a lovely thing in which to feel confident.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

On the Way to the Kingdom



You can design and create and build the most wonderful place in the world, but it takes people to make the dream a reality.  –Walt Disney

Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain.    –Psalm 127:1a

The week before Thanksgiving, we took our first family airplane trip, using the money we had paid Southwest for the ill-fated Boston Marathon/California trip(s).  Long story there, and not really relevant.  Since the money was already paid and had to be used before Christmas, we decided it was a good time to visit Disney World.  At ages four and seven, our children are at the prime ages for wonder and magic and animated characters come to life.  We were prepared for them to be enchanted, transfixed, and thoroughly delighted by every experience available at what is arguably the best theme-park on Earth, a place carefully engineered and bountifully financed to be meticulously clean, generously courteous, and fully centered around the delight of the paying public.
Disney World is all of those things.  It’s spotless.  There are employees paid to rove the park and move ill-placed strollers to the designated stroller areas.  If anyone litters in Disney World, one would never know.  The whole time we were there, I saw one abandoned water bottle.  (Another do-gooder and I had to compete to recycle it.  I won.)  Disney employees are never tired or grumpy or even just ordinary.  They sell you your grilled-vegetable sandwich with pleasure and send you off on the Winnie-the-Pooh ride as though they can’t wait for you, and you in particular, to experience the wonders that await you.  And most of the rides are truly wonderful.  They are iconic and sweet, like It’s a Small World or physically and emotionally shocking, like Dinosaurs, or full of possibilities like “Living with the Earth” and “Spaceship Earth.” They are technological marvels, like the new Toy Story 3 ride, and the “It’s Tough to Be a Bug” show.  The shows and drawing studios and parades are filled with talented, trained, and beautiful people.  Everest, the newest roller coaster is the best of all possible coaster experiences: fast, tall, forwards, backwards, light, dark, monsters.  Every little girl at Disney World is “Princess.”  It is, or at least ought to be, everything Walt Disney dreamed that it could be.
And yet.
The worst part of Disneyworld, in my opinion, is the people who go to Disneyworld.  As winter approaches and I consider the next several months of darkness and bitter bitter cold, making even a trip to the library or grocery store seem onerous and unpleasant, as I try to rack up the miles before I am running on sheets of black ice in the dark, as I mourn my garden and the absolute lack of any fresh produce grown within thousands of miles of this colorless, frozen center of the continent, I sometimes ask myself why it is that I live here.  The answer, of course, is the people who live here with me.  This place is home because it is filled with family, both genetic and chosen.  Grace enters my life through the people who, out of the abundance of their hearts, choose to show me love and kindness and set for me an example of what life on earth has the potential to be.  Thanks to them, I occasionally glimpse the kingdom I’ve been promised is among us, and it’s a magical, awe-inspiring place.
Orlando, Florida, on the other hand is lovely and warm.  The highs were around 80 every day of our tenure there.  In spite of the deliciousness of wearing shorts and sunglasses and occasionally sweating just standing around in the sun, the Magical Kingdom failed to be the kingdom in which I would choose to live.  People were pushy.  They were in a hurry.  The children, mine included, were whiney (disclaimer: they have been known to whine in the cold center of the continent as well, but stay with me anyway) and dissatisfied.  We had an occasional moment of community, as when, late in the evening, there was a long line of people waiting to catch a bus from one of the parks back to the hotel.  We did not all fit onto the first bus to arrive, and so we were planning to have to stand around waiting for another 20 minutes for the next one.  Unexpectedly, a second bus followed close on the tailpipe of the first one, and when an employee announced the destination, we all cheered.  He grinned and announced it again and again, and we all cheered every time.  But most of the time the other people at the park were people who would potentially get to the good rides first.  And clearly, we were the same to them.  We were the people who were in line for the bus before they were, but who could easily be pushed past.  There was no sense of community at all.
I had a microcosmic view of this cross-section of fare-paying humanity before we even arrived at Disney World.  The morning we left for Disney World, we didn’t leave our house in time.  Maybe it was my fault.  Maybe we should have planned all along to leave earlier.  Whatever the cause, we somehow found ourselves trapped in the early-morning rush hour on the way to the airport.  Adam became convinced that we were never going to move again, that we were not ever going to make it to Disney World, and that, as a result of his extreme anticipation and subsequent motionlessness he was going to die. 
In spite of Adam’s conviction, we did eventually arrive at the airport.  We hustled into the terminal as best we could with two enormous suitcases and two small children.  In a stroke of what we thought brilliant good luck, the line to check in was nearly non-existent.  Even so, our bags were labeled with “late check in,” as we were there less than an hour before our flight.  We hurried to a bathroom and then to the security lines.  Clearly, the traffic in which we had found ourselves earlier in the day had consisted of people destined for the security lines at Midway Airport.  Gretchen was getting over a touch of pneumonia, so we had to go through the “Family and Medical Liquids” line for her last two doses of antibiotics.   Of course, this was the longest line.  To make matters worse, the security guards kept pulling people with strollers out of line behind us and hustling them up to the front of the line.  While we were waiting, our flight was called for boarding.  Then it was called again.  Finally, our individual names were called.  And there we stood, nearly motionless in the liquids line.
When we finally arrived at the first check-point, I handed over my driver’s license and asked the man to whom I gave it if there was any way we could get into a shorter line since our names had been called and we were worried.  I spoke in my sweetest, least demanding voice.  It was a plea, not a demand.  I imagine those security people get a lot of similar such requests made at varying levels of perceived entitlement, so I don’t blame him for saying “no,” which is what he said.  I was, however, rather appalled that before saying “no,” he looked at me for a long time, looked at my driver’s license for a long time, looked back at me for a while, looked back at the license… and then repeated the process with Doug.  He took noticeably longer with us than with most people, us two frazzled parents trying to get to Disney World.  I thanked him anyway and entered the next phase of the Family and Medical Liquids security line.
In the line where you must take off all coats, sweaters, and shoes, the kids and I came through slowly (and after a long wait during which strollered parties were kindly escorted ahead of us) but uneventfully.  Doug came through last, and for whatever reason, his backpack triggered some sort of suspicion and was pulled off the conveyor belt for closer examination.  I was hastily putting my shoes and sweater back on, flanked by kids, when Doug told me to take the kids and hurry to our gate.  There was a good chance that we would not make it anyway, but we certainly would not if we waited for him.  So we ran.
We arrived at the gate, panting, both kids with a look of terror on their faces, just as the flight attendants were closing up shop.  They were leaving the desk, taking down the rope line guides, and gathering near the door.  I hastily offered the man closest to the door our three boarding passes.  He looked at them suspiciously.  “May we still get on?  My husband is right behind us, in the security line,” I said.  The flight attendants exchanged glances and sighed heavily before letting us on.  My heart was pounding out of my chest as we walked through the frigid hallway to the door of the plane, but I was determinedly trying to maintain a calm voice as I explained to my kids about getting on a plane, a new and strange experience for them.
Once on the plane, things did not improve.  Southwest is a first-come-first-seated airline, and we were certainly last.  Adam entered first, and I instructed him to keep walking towards the back of the plane in hopes that we might find two or three seats somewhat near each other.  We made it to the back of the plane without any such luck, so we turned back around.  My heart was still pounding, and I was sweating.  Just then a stewardess came down the aisle toward us with the news that she had three seats near each other.  “Oh thank goodness,” I sighed and turned my kids around. 
The seats were, I suppose, somewhat near each other.  All three were middle seats, two across the aisle from each other, and so separated by two large men and the aisle, and one was two rows ahead of the others.  Oh my.  “We need to make some decisions here!” the flight attendant told me. 
Deep breath.  “OK, Adam?  You go sit in that seat up there.  Gretchen, you are going to sit in that seat,” I pointed to a seat flanked by two large men, “and I’ll be right over here.”  I pointed to the middle seat on the other side of the aisle.  Under the best of circumstances, this is not a thing that my four year old daughter would ever agree to, and even less so the first time in an airplane.  She began to scream.  What else was there to do?  I faced the two men sitting in the aisle seats and, with all the sincerity of a mother facing two and a half hours of screaming child hell (and so were they, incidentally) said, “I know this is not ideal, but it would be so extremely kind if you could each move over one seat so that I could at least be directly across from my daughter.  I think that would really help her.”  The daughter, of course, was shrieking and clinging to my leg and refusing to sit by herself between two large unfamiliar men.   The two men to whom I had addressed my plea did nothing.  They did not move.  Their facial expressions were carefully blank.  They looked at me.  Behind me, the flight attendant who had been insisting that I “make some decisions” now said to the non-responsive men with the power to prevent the entire airplane from enduring half-a –continent’s worth of screaming, “Of course you do not have to move.”  At that point I had to be careful to keep my own face expressionless.  Of course they were not going to move after she said that.  Thanks for your help, lady. 
The flight attendant again requested that I sit down, and I looked at my screaming heap of daughter in resignation.  I was bending down to physically lift her over one of the expressionless non-moving large men, which was going to be uncomfortable and awkward for everyone, when a man several rows back stood up from his aisle seat.  He was also a big man—not fat, but tall and solid, and between his large frame and his orange hair, he reminded me a bit of my brother-in-law.  He volunteered to trade with one of the expressionless men and to sit in the middle seat on the other side of the aisle, allowing me to sit next to my terrified preschooler on her first flight.  I exhaled enormously and gasped out a breathless and enthusiastic thanks.  He responded that it wasn’t that big of a deal, and he faced the guy he proposed to trade with. 
The large expressionless man continued to be still and expressionless.  He did not stand and move back a few rows.  “Really,” the nice man told him, “my seat is an aisle seat.  You’d be moving from this aisle seat to that one.”  The motionless man did not acknowledge the request.  Baffled, the would-be hero stood right in front of motionless-man, waiting, repeating his request.  Everyone within seven rows in either direction were staring, silent, watching the stand-off.  The hero stood his ground.  Not angry, just not sitting back down.  So crammed into the little aisle next to the motionless man was a screaming four year old, her breathless sweating mother, an anxious and fidgeting flight attendant, and a large red-haired hero.  If he could have played oblivious before, which was never entirely believable, he certainly could not keep up the act much longer.  Finally, the large motionless man heaved himself up and lumbered back a few rows to take a different aisle seat. 
The heroic man took his place in the middle seat next to the other expressionless large man, and I took the other middle seat, putting Gretchen between me and the aisle.  I buckled her in and talked soothingly to her until she lowered her objections to some sniffles.  Then I stood up to try to see how Adam was doing two rows ahead of me.  The very kind woman sitting next to him caught my eye and said that he was fine.  She had buckled him in and ended up spending a good portion of the flight bent over him and his workbook.   Bless her. 
And bless bless bless the hero on the plane who sacrificed his rightfully-earned paid-for aisle seat to help out a frazzled mother and her terrified four-year-old daughter.  I had thanked him profusely when the transfer took place, and again after the flight I thanked him.  He acted slightly embarrassed, as though the strength of my gratitude was out of all reason, but it was not.  I told him that I was adding him to my list of things for which I am thankful.  He chuckled and nodded his head and left the plane, walking off into the sunset that was Orlando International Airport, never to be seen again.  I didn’t tell him that I was going to be writing about him as one of the highlights of my trip to Disney World.   But he was.
The citizens of Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdom—the beautiful and friendly Princess Aurora, the conscientious Jiminy Cricket, the everyman Mickey Mouse—played their parts perfectly, and we dutifully photographed them hugging our children.  I, however, was more impressed by the kind of unscripted magic of the real-life hero on the plane, citizen of another kind of kingdom altogether.  It takes a lot of vision and a lot of money and time to transform thousands of acres of central Florida swampland into the land where dreams come true but only a little compassion and a bit of self-sacrifice to make wherever you happen to be the most blessed place on earth.

Friday, October 21, 2011

A Good Thing Going Bad

[Written Thursday, although not posted until Friday, in case the references to yesterday and this morning are confusing.]

I've run every day for the last 20 days in a row now.  In the world of running, this is called "streaking."  And yes, I wore clothes.

It's funny, fascinating, and frustrating how easy it is for something to become a god, of sorts, something to serve.  I guess there's a reason why the first commandment came first.  If you can keep that one, you're doing pretty well, and the rest of the commandments will be a lot easier.

I never meant to start a streak, in truth.  I just ran for the sake of running.  On the day that I usually take off, I needed a quick easy run to center my head, to start my day, to wake up my body.  It felt good, and I felt surprisingly good all day.  I felt rested and refreshed.  Plus, I'll admit, the mileage looked kind of good on my running log, even though that wasn't the original intent of the run.  So the next week when my usual day off came around, I remembered the week before.  I ran slow and short and easy, and it was, again, like resting.  It wasn't meant to even be a run, but it was a run, so I wrote it down.  And then I noticed that, huh, I'd run for 14 days in a row.  And as soon as I made note of that, as soon as I told a friend about it and it was named "a streak," it changed.

I've been running a good amount.  For about four weeks I held my running mileage in the mid-thirties.  Then I had a couple of weeks at 38.5.  Then I ran 46.5.  Then I ran 50.  You don't get to 50 miles a week just by adding in a little 2-3 mile run on your traditional rest day, but it doesn't hurt either.  So the numbers started to take over.

I started "the streak" just wanting to run because I love running.  I ran to improve my running, to relax my spirit, to enjoy the outdoors and the time alone.  I ran for the joy of being able to run.  Some runs I ran to spend time with other runners.  I ran because, to me, running is a great multi-sided gift.  I think these are all good reasons to run.  Running for numbers is not.

I've been doing the Jack Daniels' Blue Plan for advanced runners, and I'm currently half-way through.  [Note to non-runners: Jack Daniels is a running coach who has written a much-cited running book; he is not a form of adult beverage--at least not in this context.]  It's been going smoothly, and up until yesterday I felt like my body was handling it very well and improving gradually but steadily.  Most running coaches and experts and training plans demand at least one day of rest.  Daniels does not.  The blue plan requires five to seven days a week.  Yesterday was an optional run.  I always run on Wednesday evenings, but yesterday I had a meeting scheduled just after the usual Wednesday night run, so I planned to run in the morning.  I woke up at 5am yesterday morning to cold and impending bluster, but worse, a body that really really didn't want to run.  A body that was heavy and slow and really really wanted to go back to bed.  Upon checking my e-mail I saw that the evening group run had been moved up half an hour, so I could theoretically go back to bed and run in the evening and still make my meeting.  So that's what I did.

When evening came, it was still cold and damp and blustery, but I always run on Wednesdays.  And I had run 19 days in a row!  Yes, Jack Daniels would have allowed me to stay warm and dry and go to my meeting after a nice warm dinner, but my streak wouldn't allow it, so I went running anyway.  I'm not sorry I did.  Running outside is a good way to make peace with the kind of weather we had last night.  Walking from house to car, one gets cold.  Running six miles, if dressed appropriately, one can sweat.  The other people who showed up were men, and since I was conscious of time and my upcoming meeting, I ran a little faster than Jack Daniels would have wanted me to run.  And finally, after 20 days of running and not resting, of speedwork and tempo runs and long runs and just regular runs, my body told me to knock it off.

I started out tired, but after five of the six miles, my right leg went back to its old tricks and wasn't working.  I was trying very hard to make it work again and still keep up with the fast men I was running with, but I found myself working harder and harder and yet falling further and further behind.  When one leg is not-quite-responding to the neural impulses, no amount of guts or effort is going to produce an admirable pace.  And so I stopped.  I stopped with only a quarter mile to go and stretched and got the leg turned back on enough to run me back to the parking lot.

Once home after my meeting, I gritted my teeth and got down on the floor to do some of the exercises my physical therapist had prescribed when I was regularly losing control of my leg.  They have, over the past couple of years, become rather effortless.  Not last night.  Every muscle in my body begged to stop.

And so this morning, when I could have run an easy two or three miles, I allowed myself to sleep in.  I could have run while my daughter was at preschool, but I did not.  I could have gone down to the treadmill while she was taking a nap, but I also curled up for a nap.  My legs are still tired, and I feel it every time I go up a flight stairs.  Today would have made my streak a nice even three weeks, and I'll admit it was hard to let that go, but it was the right thing to do.  I realized, just in time, that had I run, although neither my body nor my spirit were going to benefit from it, what started out to be a blessing and joy would have become, instead, my master.

So the streak is broken, and I am free from it.  Tomorrow, when I return to my training plan I will be back in charge of my running, not being required to pay homage to the numbers any more.  Free to remember that I run because I can, because I love to, because of all of the benefits I receive from running.  I will not be tempted to serve the numbers instead. 

Monday, October 17, 2011

Where to begin

I was going to write about fasting today, but now my covenant group has a new assignment.  (OK, full disclosure: I wasn't going to write today at all, but here I find myself with a quiet house and a few minutes before I have to start dinner and the floor already mopped.  Yeah, some days I feel more like writing than others.)  I actually do feel like writing about something Jen brought up: the idea of ministering to your own neighbors. 

It's been bugging me that I am, as someone trying to follow Jesus, supposed to be visiting, feeding, and clothing the poor.  I participate in Third Tuesday suppers to the extent possible given my other obligations.  I donated my cucumbers.  I've baked desserts.  On the rare non-band third Tuesday, I have really enjoyed volunteering.  I donate clothes to rummage sale twice a year.  (Hmm.  Somehow, I never run out of clothes.)  But the truth is (ugh, how stupid and immature this sounds) I don't know any truly poor people.  The truth also is that I don't do much to remedy that, so shame on me for that.  Leaving aside the fact that I ought to make it my business to associate with the poor, let's consider how I should minister to the rich, who happen to be my actual physical neighbors, not in the sense of the "Good Samaritan" parable, but in the sense of the people who I see and talk to on a regular basis.  Because here's something important: Jesus said that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven.  God has some miracles to work amongst us, and since I'm hanging around here not doing much ministering to the poor, I might as well give him a hand.

But how?  Is it harder to minister to a rich person than a poor one?  The rich people do not need me.  I have nothing that they do not have bigger and better and more stylish already.

I wonder if ministering to the rich can be accomplished by showing them life otherwise.  To use a secular example, I walk or bike my daughter to and from preschool.  When, a few years ago, I started doing this with my son, I was the only one.  I walked him to school when I was nine months pregnant.  I walked him to school two days before giving birth, and the only reason I didn't wallk him to school the day I gave birth was that there was no school.  And people looked at me funny.  I enjoyed the walks, but I did not enjoy being a spectacle.  I was that one who....  Then I walked my son to school with my newborn in a stroller, days after giving birth.  I had to switch to driving when the weather conditions were not suitable for a stroller or infant, but otherwise, we walked to and from every day.  Most days, I was the only one.  But I did have a few conversations with a few moms who said, "Hmm.  I should...."  And a couple of moms did a couple of times.  Often they were too rushed and the car was easier.  One woman, though, several times drove to her mom's house, which was between my house and the preschool and joined me, walking her daughter, her baby, and her dog.  It was quite a parade.  Yes, it was a hassle, but I think everyone liked it anyway.   And who knows but that we didn't make a little difference?  Three years later, here I am walking my daughter to preschool every day and biking to pick her up.  And, wondrously, most days, I'm not the only one.  Granted, the day we walked to school in the drizzle (it was not very cold and we really wanted to use the rarely-enjoyed umbrella anyway,) we were the only ones walking.  But I wonder: did some moms look out their car windows and think, "Oh, I could have...."  I suspect most were not tempted, but I also suspect that most, had they tried it, would have had a good time, as my daughter and I did. 

It's a silly example, but cannot anything we do mindfully become a witness to the Teacher who shapes our hearts?  If someone were to ask me why I walk my daughter to school in the rain or (I hope) snow, I could say, "I enjoy it," and that would be true.  But I could also say, "It's my way of enjoying the gift of the weather," or "It's one little way I take care of creation," or "I remember as I walk the people for whom walking is the only option."

I do this with being vegetarian.  Yes, I do believe that vegetarianism, done well, is a healthy lifestyle.  But that lifestyle probably doesn't include cookies.  Lean meat is probably more healthy, really, than some of the desserts I allow myself daily.  And so, when people ask about being vegetarian, which they always do, I try to explain that I do it as an acknowledgement that the way meat is produced and consumed in our society is just not fair.  It hurts the planet, it hurts the animals (which is worse than killing and eating them, in my opinion,) and most importantly, it distributes our resources in such a way that someone must starve for me to enjoy a barbecue.  If I were eating meat, I would be using grain that could feed people to feed my food and letting the people go hungry.  Does one person not eating meat solve that problem?  I'll admit that it probably does not.  But it's how I make a little difference in my own kitchen, which is where I spend a lot of my time.  And, I hope, it ministers to the rich just a little bit.  Or at least witnesses.  Yes, we may be fortunate, but remember, all you meat-eating, SUV-driving, smartphone-addicted rich people, that most of the world does not (because they cannot) live as you do. 

These are things I do and things which take up a fair amount of my time, both in execution and in planning and preparation.  And yet they are small.  I am thinking, however, that there are more such things that could be done, or at least  named.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Hope Training

This morning, two days after the Chicago Marathon, I had the track to myself.  Truth be told, I wasn’t sure even I was going to show up.  Last week I ran 46.5 miles.  Between Sunday and Monday I ran 17.5 miles, biked ten miles, did about a thousand squats at my kettlebell class, and canoed for 12 miles.  And I was a mother and wife and daughter and friend.  I went to bed last night feeling tired.  I didn’t run a marathon this weekend, but surely I deserve a break too.  And yet this morning I woke up just after 5am.  I got my body functioning.  I ate a mini Clif bar and one Gu chomp, and then I headed out into the still-starry night, off to do 200s and 400s in the dark.  I wasn’t feeling particularly speedy, I’ll admit.  My first 200 was a second slow, as was my first 400, even though I felt like I was running as hard as I could.  Boo.  But I ran all four sets: a total of eight 200s and four 400s.  Some of the reps were faster than I needed to go; all of them at least met expectations once I pushed myself past the first set.
The question is (always is) why?  Why did I feel the need to get up and run sprints before dawn?  Why stick with them when they looked to be going unwell?  Why do a two-and-a-half-mile cooldown when one mile would have sufficed?  What am I training for?
Ah, there’s the question that hangs around a runner’s neck.  I am as guilty as anyone for asking it.  On Sunday I passed a woman twice, once on the way out, and then again on the way back.  I wanted to reach out to her, have a short conversation, so I asked, of course, if she is training for anything or just running.  She was just running while her son was at baseball practice.  And me?  Why was I out running 14 miles?  What am I training for?  I’m daydreaming about a marathon in Arizona in February, but, honestly, I don’t know if my injured foot can take that or if the impending blizzardy winter is going to allow adequate training.  So if I’m honest with myself, there’s a reason why I haven’t signed up.  There’s a good chance that it’s not going to happen.  I am planning to run a 10K in November, more to redeem this summer’s 47:01 10K (ugh) than because the course is particularly inspiring.  I’m not likely going to regain my former glory there, where I once set an age group record.  And so, last week, when there were two other people at the track doing 200s in preparation for Sunday’s marathon, and one of them asked what I was training for, I didn’t really have an answer.  I said, “Just to get back in shape.”  One might argue that I’ve been in decent shape for some time.  So “shape” for what?  I don’t know.
Today, while attending a study on Genesis, I decided that getting up at 5am and doing speedwork in the dark is as much about hope as it is about anything.  Near the end of class, someone made the comment that because of the stories of the Bible, even when we are in the midst of our own messes we know God will make everything come out for good eventually.  Yeah, good, but, as our pastor pointed out, that’s only comforting if you’re OK with the eventual good not happening during your own generation.  That message only applies to people who are willing to take the long view rather than the short view.  It’s for people who, like Abraham, are willing to live by promise rather than by having.   It seems, does it not?, that God wants us to live faithfully, to endure trials and wander in deserts and live and pray and work and witness and maybe martyred all for the sake of an unspecified someday, with no promises that our plans for ourselves will ever come to fruition.  In the new testament, Jesus promises to return: he warns us to keep our metaphorical lamps filled for that someday when he will—and it’s been 2000 years!  How many generations is that?  Evidently, we are always training for a race we may not even get to run.  We go to Bible studies and hash out what we think different stories might mean, and maybe we will be the ones who get to see it all worked out, but probably not. 
I don’t know, exactly, why I am running quite so much or quite so hard, but I have a vague general idea.  I am running so much because “getting in shape” is, for me, an act of hope.  Hope that my foot is going to be fine soon.  Hope that I will get to the starting line of some beautiful race someday.  But even if I still have a long journey to heal this foot problem, even if Arizona doesn’t work out, there is a bigger and more nebulous hope that gets me out of bed in the morning/very very late night.  This vague hope maybe more often gets called gratitude.  I get up and run speedwork because I can, because even though it’s hard, it’s also a privilege, a gift.  Even though my foot is still injured enough to make my future plans unknown, to call tomorrow’s run into question, it’s also well enough today to run on for eight miles, and hallelujah for that.  If I was given a body to run with, an hour to run in, and a track to run on, you better believe that I’m going to be running and grateful for every step.
In the end, I don’t know what will happen with my life or my running.  In the middle, though, I think I am called to live as though the things for which I hope are possible.  And I think, in the middle, that is the message of the Bible as well.  We are called do some silly things sometimes, even if they seem so small or so ridiculous or so far removed from the hope that inspired them that we can’t even say for sure what that hope will look like when we get to it.  Even if I do not get to see the Promised Land, walking (or running) towards it makes more sense than accepting death in the middle of the desert.  If, for me, hope means track repeats in the dark, then I will take my blessings and run with them.

Friday, October 7, 2011

Many happy returns


Oh, my foot.

On Monday I went back to the surgeon.  He had told me, some months ago, that at four months post-surgery, my foot would be feeling good.  At six months, it would feel great.  The reality, however, is that tomorrow is seven months, and my foot still hurts.  I was holding out hope that when I went in to see the doctor he would say some version of "Well, for some people it just takes a long time...."  Instead, he did another set of x-rays, found a spot where the bone is separated a bit, and came up with no conclusions.  The bone thing might not be it.  Some peoples' bones are just like that.  So... he doesn't know.  He says that by seven months he would expect me to be pain free.  I am not.   So he advised that I get another opinion.  Or another scan.  Or both.  Ugh.

But achy foot aside, the highlight of my week has certainly been running.  Oh, how I love running.

On Wednesday evening I bought a new pair of running shoes, a purchase that was well overdue.  Then I got to running club a bit early.  My club meets at a trailhead across the street from a local cross country course, which was all marked for cross country season.  I went over to the course for 15 minutes and ran through cool, rugged, wooded trails and sunny grassy mowed paths.  And time folded in on itself.  Trail running invites a certain loss of the sense of time, partly because one must concentrate more on not falling into ruts or holes or tripping over tree roots, partly because time is always obscured under a leafy canopy, and partly because of some magical quality that is less identifiable.  And so it didn't seem like 20 years had gone by since I first ran on that course.

Yes, twenty years.  I joined my high school cross country team in the fall of 1991, thinking it would help me to get in shape for the spring soccer season.  In those twenty years, I've had a fairly comprehensive array of running injuries: achilles tendonitis, plantar fasciitis, runner's knee, hamstring pull, shin splints, a floppy leg, IT band problems, broken foot, sprained ankles, and some less identifiable issues.  I've had a miscarriage and two live births.  I've run four marathons and many more shorter races.  I've had some long lay-offs.  But through all of those ups and downs, I have remained, at heart, a runner.

Finding running, back in 1991, was discovering myself and my home all at once.  My body loves to run.  My soul loves to run.  My self loves to be a runner.

So achy foot and all, I've run 42 miles so far this week (with one day left,) and loved every step of it.  I've done a two-hour run on crushed limestone, a track workout of 200s and 400s before sunrise, a group run, a short easy run at dawn, a tempo run that started under stars and ended in daylight.  My legs have felt strong, have felt fast, have felt tired.  Running has, without doubt or even any serious competition, been the highlight of every day this week and of the week itself.

It sounds absurd that I should have been running for 20 years.  It makes me sound old.  But at the same time, it seems entirely right.  Running has been my refuge, my delight, my hobby, my sanity, my identity, my connection to the seasons, my social life, and my true friend for longer than almost anything or anyone else has been present in my life.  

Here we are at our 20 year anniversary, and I am, impossibly, even more in love with running than I was back in 1991 when I ran the regional cross country meet back in that same forest preserve.  Running has seen me through a lot of life, and I couldn't ask for a better companion.

Happy anniversary, my love.  Many many happy returns on the season. 

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Sticking it out for one more day

My writing lately is awfully  moany and complainy, and that's too bad.  But it's where I am.  Writing is an outlet and a safe-zone for me.  I've already snapped several times today and cried at least once, although I'm possibly repressing the memory of other cries, but as soon as I sat down here, I felt better.  Not good or optimistic, exactly, but better.  I'll take better.

So I validate my need to somehow express the way I am experiencing life right now.  I know from a conversation yesterday that others feel at least corners of what I am feeling, and I also know that suddenly learning that you are not the only mother in the world who seriously SERIOUSLY considers the logistics of running away (which are many and difficult) can make you feel less crazy, less guilty, less alone with your loneliness.

Nonetheless, I feel called to acknowledge that from the depths of my pit, I can still recognize that beauty exists.  I may not be in a place to be all silly and exuberant about it, but merely taking the step to see that it is there is helpful.  Knowing (because I've rather frantically tried to work it out) how hard it would be to disappear, it sometimes helps to think of the things that I would miss about this life.  It makes staying here for another day (that's all I can handle at the moment) seem a little more acceptable.  So I'm going to start a list of reasons to stay here on this planet, a list of things I appreciate and would miss.

*the color of a freshly roasted beet, right in the center.  I swear it is such a luminous color, it almost glows.
*yellow trees against a fall-blue sky
*the way a pile of leafs sounds under the wheels of a bicycle
*the weight of a four-year old on my lap
*chai, and then a little more chai (having a whole box of concentrate down in the fridge)
*sitting in the sunshine on an October afternoon
*running under the stars
*200m reps with 200m recovery: run fast, recover fully to do it again
*feeling the rhythm of the bass drum through the soles of my feet and the backs of my ribs
*apple cake
*"Pas de Deux" from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker
*a soft bed with clean sheets
*hot showers
*friends who knew me back when....
*friends who really know me now (and like my anyway)
*chocolate

I'm going to bike the girl over to soccer class.  

Later, I may still write about my quitting fantasies, since between the computer and the driveway I will have to walk through the house.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Falling short

Surely it must be a flaw in my soul, this prideful idea that I am meant to be something special.  But no, that sounds wrong.  Everyone is destined to be something special.  What beloved child is not something wonderful, amazing, and special in his or her own way?  I guess my problem is that I let myself compare my special with the special of others and pretty much always find myself not special enough.  I look around at the blessed life I lead, a life filled with remarkable friends, healthy family, abundant food and more than adequate clothing and shelter, and I think, "And this is it?  This is all I'm meant to be?"  Where does the notion come from that I should be always more and more and more?  When, at the end of every day I feel like I've completely used up all of my available resources, why do I still feel like I'm not doing anything?

It could be, of course, that I spend hours every day on stuff no one else respects or even notices, stuff that is undone as soon as I do it.  But let's leave that bit of bitterness alone for today.  Let's just say my house is never in order.

I have a friend, not a close one, but a friendly acquaintance from 20 years ago and still today, who last year didn't qualify for Boston.  She considers me the runner.  This year, she beat her BQ time by over ten minutes and got in.  This year, I am running short and slow.  I didn't get into Boston.  It's not like the Olympic trials or anything.  It's a silly marathon run at an inconvenient time of year that most of my running friends have already done.  Even so, I haven't made it there.  And really, I don't see why I care other than it seems to mark me as not-all-that-good at running.

I am barely adequate when it comes to music as well.  I am the weak link in my section.  Even after practicing the Barnes piece almost every day, I still couldn't keep up at rehearsal last night.  I didn't major in music.  I put my horn away for a decade.  I don't practice enough.  I'm pulling us all down.

Mostly, I suppose, I get down because I used to feel like my mind was something special.  I used to think I must be destined to do something interesting.  I have always always wanted to be a writer.  For a while I wanted to be a scientist.  For a few years I was a decent teacher.  And now.... Well, it turns out I don't have anything to say, I don't have any special knowledge to contribute, and I quit teaching.

Yes, go ahead and say that I am doing the most important and valuable job in the world.  Yes, I've heard that, and I don't necessarily have an argument against it.  A good mother is invaulable.  But let's be honest here, I'm not all that spectacular as a mother.  I'm sitting here bemoaning my uselessness while my daughter is watching Robinhood.  I don't do interesting crafts or field trips.  Most days, even the ones where one kid is at school all day and the other goes to preschool and nap, by the end of the day I can't even listen to them anymore.  I am impatient and uncreative and weary when it comes to parenting.  I do make really good food for my family, but they would rather have hot dogs or grilled cheese anyway.

My life is beautiful and perfect, and many days it feels like I'm trapped in a hole anyway.  A lovely hole, but one where I'll never accomplish anything of much worth, where I'm missing out on the bigger world I was meant to inhabit.  Some day they'll throw the dirt in over me, the grass will sprout, and I will have disappeared without having done anything worth remembering.

[P.S.  Mother Theresa smiles at me with pity and says, "We can do no great things, only small things with great love."  Another load of laundry, take Gretchen to soccer class, drive to the bread store for wheat-free bread.]

Friday, September 23, 2011

When Nothing Existed but Chaos....

In this week's Bible study class on Genesis 1, Pastor Bill mentioned that Frederick Buechner says that writing is really about just sitting down every day and doing it, regardless of the fact that most of what gets written does not feel or read as if it was divinely inspired.  (I don't have citation for this idea.  I'll have to look for it in all my spare time.  Ha ha.)  Julia Alvarez says the same thing.  Anne Lamott says the same thing.  Madeleine L'Engle says the same thing.  The first step is always always always sit your butt down and do it.  So there's the what.  As for the why, Genesis 1 promises us that we are made in the image of God and that God creates.  He uses words to put the world into order.

So for the next hour I am sitting my butt down in the midst of mess that is verging dangerously close to chaos, squalor, or both, even though what I really want to be doing is eating a cookie, which would, of course, necessitate making cookies instead of writing.  Chocolate chip, I think, with walnuts.  Or maybe a nice apple cake with maple frosting....

So let's talk about the reign of chaos over our lives.  My life at least.  A blessedly close and honest friend of mine called me up last week to tell me she had a bad mommy day.  She had yelled at her daughter, mostly over her daughter's flippancy toward her part in the domestic chaos.  Oh, sister, I thought, I hear you.  But I can top you any day of the week.  I am nothing if not competitive at the sport of falling short.  My day that day had just happened to have begun with a visit to the elementary school principal's office so that one of the fruits of my loins could explain to the principal the incident that said fruit claimed to have forgotten when previously interrogated by said principal.  How did it go?  Fruit-of-my-loins, although he had made a full confession/explanation after several hours of sitting in his room and being periodically grilled by one parent and then another, claimed once again that he didn't remember the incident in question.  GAHHH!!  That same day I realized about 9:30am that, in spite of notes being sent home by the music teacher, the PTO, and the classroom teacher both in paper and electronic formats, I had failed to dress my forgetful fruit in red, white and blue for the ceremony about the anniversary of the National Anthem in which he was singing.  Furthermore, I had been invited to that ceremony, which had taken place at 9am.  Good mom.

The following day was my daughter's birthday.  I woke up feeling miserable with a cold.  Full body aches and fatigue, on top of the usual head, throat and nasal problems.  Determined to be a better mom, I got up early anyway to make two batches of pancakes: one without wheat or dairy, one with pink food coloring.  I made snacks for the preschool class and stayed at preschool the whole morning.  I came home and made lunch and strawberry layer cake.  I felt beyond awful, and when my daughter said she just wanted to lie down and take a nap, I said she could.  I didn't make her use the bathroom.  So, of course, later in the afternoon she came down to the family room, where I had just moments before fallen asleep, and told me she had to go potty.  I yelled with a scratchy voice for her to go to the bathroom, but I didn't follow her in there quickly enough, so she came back to the family room and had an accident on the carpeting.  Hearing me scream at her, she ran to the bathroom, emptying her bladder through the hallway and half of the bathroom.  Not the half with the toilet.  She was empty by then.  I screamed at her, on her birthday (oh, on her birthday on her birthday on her birthday,) but that took all of my remaining energy, so while she sat in the bathroom and sobbed (she was in the clean half), I was kneeling in puddles of urine, also sobbing, which made her sob all the harder.  I asked her, "When you have to go potty, what should you do?" over and over and over again, making her repeat the answer (go the toilet) over and over and over again, while trapped in the bathroom by ponds of urine and a sobbing mother.  On her birthday.  Incidentally, I found out today that I was supposed to have returned the picture order form to preschool on that day as well.  I just didn't know I had missed that due date until her teacher asked me about it today. 

In the mean time, my kitchen counters have been overtaken with vegetables and apples and pink cake and pans and items from the grocery store I haven't put away and napkins I haven't washed.  Apparently there's a picture order form somewhere in there as well.  The dining room is covered in sleeping bags my husband is "airing out" and the bags and camping equipment he doesn't even claim are there for any reason other than he didn't put them away.  The shower is covered in mildew.  The guest bed is covered in clean but unfolded clothes, and the rest of the clothes we own are still dirty.  Child number one wore to his picture day today a shirt that I pulled out of the dirty laundry, shook out, sniffed, and handed over.  Good enough.  The family room is unnavigable because it is covered in toys.  The pillows from the couches have joined the sleeping bags in the dining room to make a fort.  The apple tree in the back yard is so heavy with ripe fruit that some branches are nearly touching the ground, and the apples are getting eaten by worms and birds.

How did this happen?  How did I get so far behind when I don't even have a job?  I do not wish to live so frantically.  I want the water to separate from the dry land and the light from the dark.  That would be good.  But where to start?  How do other people have houses that are neat and clean?  I want that.  How do other people remember not only to dress their children in patriotic colors on the anniversary of the national anthem but also to have matching socks and hair bows for all of their daughters' outfits?  I should mention here that my daughter only has outfits because a kind relative in California sends us boxes of clothes periodically.

And yet.

I sit here writing this.  This evening I will take a child to soccer practice.  Later, I will go to band.  (I will feel guilty that I only practiced once--last night.)  I went running this morning at 5:30am.  I walked to preschool when I could have taken a car.  I biked there and back for the pick-up.  Tomorrow I will go do PTO work at the elementary school and then take child #2 to her soccer practice, and I'll probably do those errands by bike.  I will have my sister come over, if she happened not to read this and is therefore not too horrified by the mess to set foot in my house.  I will run with my running club.

The first Mary assignment in my Mary and Martha housekeeping book is to write down why I want a clean house.  It can be in poem form, or I can write it on a pretty sign and post it somewhere as decoration.  "Hurray!" I thought, when I read that first assignment.  My first housekeeping task is to write!  And I know why I want my house to be clean.  I feel better when my house is clean.  I breathe more easily.  I smile more.  I can relax (well, sort of) and play with my kids.  Perhaps more importantly, I feel that I can be more hospitable to others when my house is clean.  I want to be able to say to anyone who needs a place to meet or relax or eat or chat or spend the night: here!  Come here!  Stay here!  Sit here!  Eat my apples.  Taste one of these walnut chocolate chip cookies.  Talk to me.  Breathe and feel well and loved.

It's a good reason to spend my time cleaning and making order, is it not?

I suspect that my life is perhaps a bit too full to be completely orderly, and that is good too.  If I did not have children to feed and clothe and nurture, if they did not participate in sports or dance or music or scouts or school, if I did not have Bible study and church committees, if I didn’t chair a PTO committee, if I did not make music, if I did not read and write, if I did not have a garden, if I was not committed to ethical and healthful and joyful eating, well, then, I think I might have less mildew in my shower, and the laundry would be cleaned, folded and put away before it was needed on picture day or National Anthem day.  And while I'm sorry my house is a mess, I'm not sorry about why.
There is reason behind my chaos, if not full order.  Priorities.  Relationships.  Good.

Monday, September 19, 2011

Why it's OK to spend my Sunday afternoon writing this

I think I might be a discipline addict. Perhaps the reason I get to feeling so bogged sometimes is that my answer to everything is a new discipline. Training plans for running, Daily Guide to Prayer to recommend scripture passages, a promise to myself that I will write every day, and now, as if that was not enough, I started a new book called 31 Days to Clean: Having a Martha House the Mary Way. There are reasons that discipline is good though. It works for me with running. I need the help with the cleaning and the ordinances to keep it from getting overwhelming, and I believe that it is necessary with writing as well.

What I really want to write about today is running, so I'll get to that, but I need to take a quick side-trip to the world of writing. Or, more accurately, to being visible and vulnerable, and writing is one way I am doing that. I was going to write this today on a sheet of white paper and tuck it away somewhere that no one, not even I, would ever see it. But I am struggling struggling struggling (still, again, always) with calling. How am I to be making a difference on this planet given my particular circumstances and non-helpful array of gifts? How can I use the things I do and enjoy to be of service to others? Oh, I'd love to write some life-changing novel and become esteemed and called upon to give inspiring talks.... But here's the problem: I don't seem to have a novel in me just now. And who is that goal serving? Well, I do want to bless people as I have been blessed by some really touching novels. I do. But the esteemed part.... Yeah, that's about me, not you. (I intend to come back to that pride thing in regards to running.) The content I do have available to me is this kind of thing. I've been writing in my journal--sometimes daily, sometimes not quite--since early on in high school. Well over twenty years. Mostly, it's petty and personal and doesn't seem the least bit like service. Who needs to read what I write about my morning run or the trials of trying to clean up tar and bleach simultaneously? But lots of people have read "Why You Should Run," which is really just a spiffed-up journal entry. And some people far away and who I've never met have been inspired by it. And today at church a friend I didn't know read my blog or ran (although I should have remembered this) told me that she liked it. And it occurs to me that writing about running, and maybe sometimes about some other things, might be an act of service. A small, trivial one. A start. And maybe, sometimes, the conversation could include some more important stuff. At the least, it might let people know me enough to say hello, enough to call upon me when I am needed, enough to plant
a relationship seed.

Hopefully, that's what happened today. I've been working on some adult education stuff for church this weekend, and so I am reminded that we are supposed to be practicing talking the walk. Definitely we are called to act. We are called to feed the hungry and visit the sick and imprisoned. But we are also called to commune, to include, to form friendships, to be fishers of men, and--dare I say this?--I believe that words actually are as powerful as deeds when it comes to that sort of thing. It sounds too easy. But to some, it also sounds too hard. It's more comfortable for some of us to pitch in and do with a quiet smile and a friendly wave than to be still and reach that wave into a handshake and the do into a tell. It seems like a lot of vulnerability with no visible result. You can build a house for the homeless and see that it is done. You can cook a meal and watch the hungry eat it. Most of the time, when you send yourself out into the world, you have no idea if it has done any good. I believe, though, that if opening your doors and windows helps someone find a home in your presence, it is worth the risk.

After church today, not being burdened with a husband eager to get out of church, I got to spend some time in fellowship hall. I closed the place down, actually. My daughter had a piece of cake and some friends and some unnecessary bleachers to play on, so she was happy. I talked to some people I needed to touch base with about church stuff, and then I noticed a woman with small children who looked familiar, but I couldn't place her. She wasn't talking to anyone, but she was there in fellowship hall.

Back story: A few years ago I took a trip to the east coast to visit a good friend who had recently relocated there and was having a hard time finding a new community of friends. She is naturally far more outgoing and extroverted than I am. Not shy. Really friendly. And not finding friends. Huh. She commented that she didn't know her neighbors. I went out for a run one morning and was greeted by the woman who lived across the street. She apologized for not saying anything the past few months but now wanted to welcome me to the neighborhood. I thanked her and suggested she make an effort to say the same to my friend who actually lived there.  A day late and a euro short, lady.  I began to understand the problem.  On Sunday we went to church.  Afterwards, in an attempt to forge some connections, we went downstairs to coffee hour in the church basement.  There were donuts for sale (feeding not the hungry, necessarily, unless they came to church with cash,) and we bought a couple just to have a reason to stick around.  (A shout out here to the people who brought and served cake today in honor of their 60th wedding anniversary.  It kept the family I was about to meet in the fellowship hall long enough for me to meet them.)  All of the tables in that east coast church basement were either empty or filled to capacity (note to church: leave some empty seats at every table!), so my friend, her husband, and I decided to start a new table and hope that people would join us.  We thought it had worked when, only a few minutes later, someone came up to us and asked if the chairs next to us were taken.  We put on our happiest glowy faces, and my friend is master of the happy friendly face, and said, "No!! Please!!  They're yours!!"  At which point the questioner thanked us and took said chairs over to a crowded table that had run out of chairs, leaving us at our empty table without the possibility of being joined.  Ugh.  Don't worry: my friend is in a better place now with friends galore, but that visit made a huge impression on me.  How NOT to love your neighbor.

Emboldened by my recent committee efforts and my long-ago donut experience, I said to the woman, as she was bent over dealing with a small child, "You look familiar, but I cannot place you.  I'm Cara."  "Oh," she answered, "I heard you speak some time ago about learning how to do triathlons.  Maybe that's when you saw me.  I haven't made it here much lately."  I had, some time ago, agreed to be part of the message at the women's advent service.  It was slightly scary but surprisingly painless, and it meant that I was out there just enough to have a connection today.  And so we began a genuine conversation, sparked by questions about running and running injuries and ending with an e-mail address and an invitation to participate in a future gathering.  It may be working, this being out there thing, this sharing of trivial stories and silly details.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Time to dance on the table

This morning I watched, puzzled, as my mother-in-law dug around in the cabinet for my favorite mug and then poured juice into it. OK. Whatever. The next time I looked her way, she had found an old juice glass and filled it with cereal. And that was when I realized that I am way too uptight.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Why You Should Run

Because some night you will not sleep well, and morning will come both too soon and not soon enough. Later, you will not remember standing up, only finding yourself already up, noticing that although this time last week the days were in the 90s and the mornings were still hot and humid, today it is 44 degrees outside, and you do not remember how to dress for a run in cool weather. You will put on a fluorescent orange long-sleeved shirt, because it is still very dark out at 5:30am this time of year, and you will forget to bring gloves.

You should run because even if you went to bed anxious and grumpy, thinking about all of the things that need to get done in an inadequate amount of time in the coming week, you feel like you have a secret advantage, a stop-time machine, perhaps, when you are running through dark neighborhoods full of still-sleeping people. Or if the people in the houses are, in fact, awake, they are still lying in bed, waiting to hit the snooze button again, or standing blearily under the hot shower. Their lights are off. Their children are asleep. The peace of early morning is irresistible, and it seeps into the muscles between your shoulders and your neck, and more things are possible than were last night. Or, perhaps, fewer things really matter.  This moment is about nothing beyond the hypnotic rhythm of your own feet, the effortless strength of your thighs, the feel of cool air on your calf muscles.

You should run because you need a chance to let it all out every now and then. Because you really don't want to scream or punch things in front of your children. Because your husband really is a nice guy who is doing his best. Because no one, not even the people who already love you, really wants to deal with the full force you, but the track doesn't mind. You should run because 400 meters is just long enough to require both concentration and full effort. There isn't room in your head or your arms or you soul for anything else. You have to remind yourself at every footfall to push push push push. To be strong in your abdomen and light in your heels. Not to dig your nails into your palms, but to relax your grip, to fly through discomfort with as much peace as possible. You should run because your heart pounds in your ears and your lungs push on your stomach, but after you've crossed the line in precisely the second you wished to do so, you get a couple of minutes to calm down and look around, and you do.

You should run because some morning, three sandhill cranes might fly, croaking, just over your head and stalk around the infield while you run around them. They will pretend that you are not there, you crazy human running around and around before sunrise. They are nearly bigger than you are, anyway. Or maybe a hawk will swoop down and perch on the scoreboard, watching the field to your south for signs of snakes or rodents. He will squint at you, as if not sure whether or not to believe in you, not sure he recognizes your particular breed, but he will look it up later in his human-watching book. The killdeer will skitter across the track just ahead of you, not wanting to be trampled, but too silly to remember they can fly.

You should run because halfway through your workout, you will notice that the morning is light enough to show you your breath on the calm-down laps. When you are two repeats from finishing, the sun will have risen enough to blaze over the rooftops of the no-longer-sleeping neighborhood and blind you on the back straight so that you cannot see your watch to know if you are hitting your paces. You do not mind.

You should run because as you are running toward home across dew-soaked fields, the first middle school teachers will be arriving in the parking lot, and the high school kids will be peering out from their thick brushed-forward bangs, and you will know that for them, for you, this is another ordinary day, and thank God for that.

You should run because when you arrive home, sweaty and shaky-legged, your seven-year-old might not want his oatmeal and will dawdle instead of brushing his teeth and putting on his shoes, and as you gently shove him out the front door so he doesn't miss the bus, he will tell you that oh yeah, this weekend he had music homework he forgot about until now. You should run because your four year old's music class has been canceled and rescheduled for the same time as preschool. You should run because the kitchen is still a mess from last night's dinner and rabbits have eaten the delphinium you planted last week. But no matter what may not get done during the day or what may go wrong, you have already had an hour that was yours, and for that hour, all the world was as it should be.
Tomorrow, you should run again.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Summer ends


I did start to write about the triathlon I did a week and a half ago, but it's been very very hard to find time to write anything this summer.  Writing is a thing that I feel I ought to attempt to do with some sort of discipline, something like the way I run, but it also feels self-indulgent when there are children and a messy house and places to go.  But today is rainy, so no one is in a hurry to go anywhere.  I've let the kids watch TV for far too long.  It's the last day of summer, and I am feeling OK with being all manners of self-indulgent.  I've already had a slice of zucchini/carrot/ginger bread this morning.  Just because it was there.  And today I am looking ahead toward days of renewed structure and feel the need to mark the occassion and meditate upon it.

In the past, I've been excited for Adam as he starts a new year, but mostly I've been weepy and nostalgic that my baby is grown up and going off into the world without me, to learn how to be something other than mine.  He goes off and does and learns things that I am not at all a part of, both because I cannot be and because he would not choose me to be.  As the bus drives away with my boy, I miss him.  Our house feels funny.  The day feels sort of empty.

But this year, except for just now as I wrote that and started to tear up, I have been looking forward to school starting up again, even though it means that my boy will ride off on a bus and even my little girl will walk into a school building without me twice a week.  I haven't looked forward to the starting of school this much since I was a little kid.

I used to secretly disdain mothers who said things like that or who would say things like "how many days until school starts?"  I will now publicly apologize for my secret thoughts.  I see now that there might have been something more going on than just some lazy desire for someone else to take over the job of raising a child.  I do not believe myself to be lazy.  I do not want someone else to raise my child.  But I do want him to go off to school.

I think what's happening here is similar to how we as people deal with the change in the seasons: the first snow is beautiful and exciting, but by early March, we cannot wait for it to melt.  By August we are more irritable about the mosquitos and the need for a heat index.  We are ready to tun off the air conditioning and love the occassional whiff of autumn on the breeze; we are enchanted by the red appearing on the apples and think wearing a sweater would be lovely.  So too with family life.  We had a great time spending all day every day together: going to swimming lessons, camping, travelling, having picnics in the park, playing with toys for endless hours with no concern for the clock, but now it is time for something else.  The routine we needed a break from in June now seems like a break from the every-day-is-different chaos of summer.I look at our September calendar, already stuffed to bursting with the start-up of school (we have back-to-it events [all involving food: a corn boil and two ice cream socials] on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday) and park district classes and cub scouts and soccer and PTO stuff and Doug's high school stuff and church classes, and while a part of me inhales sharply, braces myself, and thinks, "here we go again," another part of me sort of grins: it's good stuff.  It will be fun.  We will learn and grow and be with our community.  It's energizing.  This craziness coming up is why we come back from vacation at all.  It is how we survive the decreasing hours of daylight and the eventual death of the over-abundant cucumber plants.  We are not busy against our wills but because there are just so many things worth doing.  School is one of them.  I loved school, and I want my children to have that same transformative experience.  I am happy for them.

I suppose it may also be possible that I have learned from experience.  One can always hope, right?  Yes, my son has a whole life away from me at school, but then he comes home in the early afternoon, and I get to be his mom still.  Someday he will go off and not come back.  Some day he will move out.  He might get married.  He might get a job far away.  He might just realize that his mom is a wacky and intense person.  But for now, he is just going to second grade, and he'll bring his homework back for me to force him to complete.  I'll still be the one who packs his lunch and who deals with his allergies.  I'll still be the one who takes him to soccer practice and to play dates.  I'll be the one to whom he will show his lego creations and read funny poems and jokes.  I'll be the one who sets bedtime.  And those hours while he's at school?  Well let's just say that he and his sister will not be bickering and whining, the mosquito equivalent in the domestic weather of August.

So this morning I sat here and wrote, and my kids watched PBS kids for over an hour (gasp) and are now happily playing in their rooms, one huming and one whistling, one of them still in pajamas as we approach lunchtime.  It's storming, so we are blowing off the errands we maybe ought to do because today we can still do that.  Tomorrow our busy lives resume, and I may feel a little weepy as my boy drives off on the bus.  But then we have a lot of things we need to get done and not many hours before we have to be here for when he gets back off the bus.
 

















Wednesday, July 20, 2011

The spirit is willing, but the flesh is dehydrated

There was a time, oh, a long long time ago before I had children, when I used to run several races per summer and with very little expectation.  I did them because they were there, because they were fun and challenging, because someone handed you water mid-run, and because other people were doing them.  If I did better than previous races, I was happy about that.  My ambitions were modest.

After I quit my paying gig and finished grad classes, running changed.  It became less of an incidental and more of something around which I centered my days.  I planned races in advance; I looked up or borrowed training schedules; I set goals and trained to meet them.  I used running to get me up in the morning, to get me through the day, the week, the season.  I am grateful to running for being that for me when I was in the otherwise landmark-barren wilderness of early motherhood.

The problem with false idols, though, is that eventually they fall over or crumble or get lost or stolen.  When it comes to athletic excellence, my spirit is willing, but my flesh is weak.  It gets pregnant.  It gets neuro-muscular dysfunctions.  Muscles get strained or pulled.  Joints swell up and get stiff.  It has limits far below what I am willing to endure.  And when injury happens, as it always does, it takes longer to recover than I expect, and I am sad and lost and isolated from the mists of early morning and the full force of the heat of mid-summer.   

Having just reemerged from the dark days of injury, uncertainty, surgery, and
rehabilitation, I intended for this summer to be one of rejoicing in my recovered ability to get out and go, to push, to be outside in and part of the elements: to run in the rain and the heat, to go fast or far.  To appreciate. 

But somewhere in the midst of appreciating it occurred to me that I spent a good half a year getting most of my exercise in the pool and in the saddle of a bike.  And, on top of that, my foot was recovering more slowly than I wanted.  I couldn’t just jump back into the mileage where I left off.  Hence, I supplement with some bike rides and swims.  Since I cannot get in shape for a marathon this fall, and since even the half marathon seems like it will be a long-shot, I thought I ought to
sign up for a triathlon.  For fun.  Because it's there and I think I can.  And because the goody bag includes a new bike shirt, and I need another one.  Why not earn it by doing something cool?  So I signed up for my third olympic-distance triathlon.

I signed up only a month before the event, which, even if I was going to be home and have tons of free time for the entire month, is just not enough to do a real training program.  Most plans take 8-16 weeks.  Plus, one of the weeks left to me will be
family vacation: no bike, no pool.  And one of those weeks should be taper.  Hmm.  That leaves me, oh, this week to train.  Suddenly, the "I'm just going to do this for fun" attitude became a little harder to maintain.  Panic lurks just beneath my one-day-at-a-time exterior.  I got up in the middle of the night to write down a training schedule for the next week.

I meant to do a long run and a long bike ride over the weekend, but I realized I had not been swimming much for the last two weeks.  So Saturday I swam.  It was a good workout.  I couldn't run that day anyway, having run the previous two, and my legs were truly tired.  Sunday I did a 51 mile bike ride, which was also good, but it was hot, and I didn't feel like doing a brick long-bike, long run in that heat.  I was pretty much finished after 51 miles.  (Sort of dampened any thoughts of half ironman I had been secretly harboring.)  Yesterday was my kettlebell class, so I only had time for five miles after that.  Which meant today had to be the long run.  But now I haven't been swimming for several days, so I was going to do that mid-morning.  I had it all worked out in my head so that I was getting at least a little of everything. 

Alas.  I woke up this morning to windows that had not only steamed up on the outside but were also dripping.  I had read, only two nights ago, about how/when to modify running workout goals based on dew point.  Anything over 74 degrees, it said, should be written off.  The heat is just going to be too oppressive.  The dew point this morning was 76 degrees.  I had put the long run off for so long and for so many different reasons that I decided I had to just go for it.  I vowed to go easy on the pace and to reassess when it still made sense to turn around early.

I ended up going 11.5 miles, a little over two and a half miles more than my longest run of the last nine months.  My surgery foot was fine: only a little stiff and sore after I stopped and was stretching.  I can live with that.  My hip occasionally felt a little uneven, but I concentrated on form and never lost control, so I can live with that too.  I didn't even feel like I was really being affected by the heat that much, other than being thoroughly drenched and having squishy shoes, until I was already on the way home, and there was nothing much to do but keep going.  Those last couple of miles, which were mostly uphill, I was lamenting that 11.5 miles would feel so hard when just last year I was in shape enough that 11.5 was common.  Endurance is so hard to win and so easy to lose. 

Upon arriving home, I took a cool shower, but I was still hot and sweaty and was apparently acting unwell enough that Doug, who has left me home alone with a stomach virus and a toddler, asked if he should stay home from work.  Although I didn't feel it happening at the time, apparently I gave myself something akin to heat exhaustion.  Boo.  I lost a little over three pounds of sweat, which is almost 3% of my body weight.  I just didn't have it in me to do another workout of any quality, even one in a pool.

Another plan to get it all in ruined.   Another occasion to accept that I am naught but fallible flesh.  Another reason why this triathlon should be done for fun, for the finish, and for the shirt.