Two Hundred

This is my two hundredth blog posting on The Orange and The Fish. I began this blog as a lark, a way to decompress when the stress of Civil Procedure and Contracts II made me want to walk away from law school and pay off the debt by waiting tables in the Quarter. I would post sporadically the spring of 2005, encouraged by my intrepid little band of friends who read the posts while they were, themselves, ignoring class for sanity's sake. I mused on my new city, which I fell in love with immediately and blindly.

The blog soon found me in Little Rock, posting only to retain some sense of normalcy post-Katrina. I didn't post much that semester, and what I did post were sad little missives detailing how much I missed certain stretches of sidewalk, certain friends, certain taken-for-granted activities that seemed impossible to replicate in a city so battered by water, wind, gunfire.

My writing once I returned to New Orleans was equal parts evaluation of a city trying to rebuild and redeem itself and also a constant tearing apart of my own desire to both stay in New Orleans forever and to leave it behind. New Orleans is still the only city that has felt fully mine, built exclusively for my personality and my happy habit of romanticizing chronic disappointment. On a plane recently, flying back from a visit to my dear, now oily City, I overheard someone say New Orleans would be a hard city to love. Perhaps it's a distinction of personality. I have always loved old, broken things. Ideas in need of repair. Dreams deferred. New Orleans is a city where that propensity for damage exists side by side with breathtaking hope, a fire to continue, always.

Once I made the move North, half my writing was about this odd, cold place and my preference for the heat I ran away from, and the other half was wide-eyed training for my first half-marathon, first marathon. The running made Minneapolis an easier place to love. You make a city yours when you know the cracks in the pavement, the dips in the path around Lake Harriet, the roots around Lake Calhoun that call out for broken ankles. If New Orleans was the city that built a house for my heart, Minneapolis is the city that built my body and taught it to run. Equally important tasks, I believe.

The blogging comes in spurts. I blogged pretty routinely while training for the marathon, in part because it helped me articulate my frustrations and joys, and in part because I hoped my then-boyfriend would read the posts and recognize that my head was preoccupied by a worthy exercise. I haven't written as much this running season as it feels more familiar and there's less to articulate in the way of new experiences. I've had blood blisters before. Achey quads. Angry, rainy runs. But, more importantly, last summer I was in a relationship and shared much of those frustrations with him. I whined and had someone to whine to, someone to buy me a burger after a long run. This summer is different and the running feels more mine, more solidly part of my whole life, not just some season of experience that will disappear with a new face or new commitment or new stress. I talk about it less, maybe, because I am no longer surprised or daunted by the goals I set for myself. I am less in need of someone to tell me "you can do it!" because I now know I can. I needed that encouragement for awhile, but it's good to no longer be dependent on the whims of another's support.

And so, two hundred. Five years.

On my most recent trip to New Orleans I got a new tattoo (sorry, Dad), one I've been daydreaming about for months. It says, "ISAIAH 40:31" on my left foot. Its promise of renewed strength carried me through the latter half of the marathon, and after the miles I dedicated to these feet, I wanted a record of that promise. Two hundred. Five years. A Hurricane. A law degree. Two cities. And I have no doubt that the best parts of my life are in front me. "But those who Hope in the Lord..."