A Poem To End 2011

*I started working on this poem in 2010, and as is my habit, I doubt it's actually finished. It is one of the only poems I've ever written whose backbone (in my mind) was a song.  I don't write lyrics, I'm not enough of a musician for that.  But this poem always felt like a country song.  No refrain really.  And while the music of it isn't obvious, there was a distinctive tune in my head when I wrote it.  Even if it doesn't feel complete, it's finished enough for today, the last day of this year, the day that always reminds you of the things you failed to finish.  Here's to new days and new trees and finishing more poems in 2012.


I need a tree



Great-Granddaddy bought that house just shy of the Depression
In a small town in East Tennessee.

Raised their children tucked into the mountains,

Tucked into the roots of oak trees.

Initials were carved into cement,

Promising sidewalks don’t die.

New trees were planted as kids moved away,

Slow and steady grew straight for the sky.



I rode a bike at my grandparents’ place,

Tree-covered South Carolina.

Sunday sermons and Sunday suppers,

Beneath trees that knew how to find ya.

Secret neighborhood kisses sitting in leaves,

Listening for Grandmother’s holler.

The cover of treetops hides all childhood sin,

As you pray to be older, a bit taller.



My folks bought a house at the top of a hill

On a street by the name of Old Pine.

They planted a willow in the front yard

And I thought that the shade was all mine.

The oak in the backyard was thick as a boxcar,

And my dog dug a hole near her base.

Hours were spent casting spells and pretending

That that tree was a castle, a spaceship, a library on cloudier days.



The homes of my childhood were littered with trees,

With the leaves and long branches of growth.

And I was a child looking up, touching heaven,

Tucked into daydreams below.

And now I wander, questions pinned to my brow,

Wondering who else I should be.

And in my tiny, poorly-shaded apartment,

I realize, I first need a tree.

A tree with a long, old, steady, hard trunk,

And leaves worth a raking, leaves to crunch under snow

I need a tree to point me to heaven,

So I know which direction to grow.

Filling the Fish Bowl

Several years ago, before I moved to New Orleans to begin law school, a dear girlfriend, Justin, gave me a beautiful greenish glass fish bowl.  The purpose of said bowl was to house my growing collection of corks, which I'd begun to gather while in Peace Corps.  When possible, I required those with me at the drinking of a bottle of wine to sign and date the cork.  That fish bowl traveled with me to law school and traveled again to Minneapolis and has enjoyed eight years of slow accumulation of corks.  It was getting a bit crowded in that bowl.

Last night I celebrated my 31st birthday in the company of my six dearest ladyfriends and my Marmee (who is, of course, more than a ladyfriend): Molly, Julie, Kim, Megan, Fiona, and Kristen. Molly, knowing my snug fishbowl situation, gifted me with a beautiful new (and huge) repository to continue my cork habit.

As I was transfering eight years of corks into their new home, it became apparent how appropriate it is that a dear girl gave me my first fish bowl and a dear girl gave me my second.  The contents of the bowl are, by and large, the work of girlfriends.  There are a few corks with the initials of ex-boyfriends, but those were likely acquired by begging on my part given my tendency to date staunch beer drinkers.  There's a signed Coke cap from a boy I kissed in Kansas City, and cork signed from a boy I cared about while in Peace Corps.  But those are the exceptions to the rule.  This is a decidedly female treasure.

There are a few non-corks in the bowl.  There's a shell from a bullet found in the neck of my shirt following my first (and only) trip to a shooting range (which I was appalled to learn that I loved). There's a garter that rested on the rim of a margarita I drank with the dear lady who gave me my first bowl.  There are a few matchbooks from the Columns, the Delachaise, and Muriel's, three of my favorite New Orleans haunts. There are a handful of doubloons, leftover from who knows how many parades in my old home. 

But it's the corks that tell the stories.  Dates I had to rack my brain about, wee messages scribbled on the side in faint pen, which I cannot recall the import of. And beautifully familiar initials.  SV, KP, MCM, Juice, KC, MW, JK, KS, SS, FF, CL, CE, MP, JR, MBL and on and on...the ladies who have loved me best in my life. 

The bowl sits on the edge of my window sill, framed by a triplicate of photos from Morocco, dried flowers from a boy and my best girl, and a bright orange fish painting by my kid sister. As I filled the bowl last night (so much room to fill!), I was struck by the testament of that ledge to the blessed fullness of my life.  When I've blown out candles in the past I've wished for large and small things.  I've wished to be skinnier, I've wished to find a husband, I've wished to be and find things that I hoped would make me happier.  But last night at dinner I wished that I would appreciate the overabundance of love I have tucked into my life, that joy would be my first instinct, instead of continually noting what I feel my life lacks. 

And joy found me quickly, struggling to read those initials, those dates, remembering in vague snapshots how each of those moments felt, the depth of happiness that comes from laughing and crying over bottles of red in the company of women who treasure you.

It's the fastest reciprocation of a birthday wish I've ever experienced, which tends to happen, I suppose, when the wish is a prayer of a thanksgiving.

Game 6

From as far back as I can remember being asked such a question, I've always known which team was mine. Growing up we rooted for the Cardinals, we rooted for them from afar and by proxy with the Arkansas Travelers, and when we moved to St.Louis, what was already an affection became a full-blown emotional investment in the successes and failures of that team.

I remember Ozzie Smith and Lee Smith, the players that most dominated my perception in the games I saw in person.  My brother likely remembers Mark McGuire.  There were others, of course, but there are always particular gloves that a fan watches avidly, bats that weigh heavier in our psyche.

The last time the Cardinals won the world series, I was in my last year of law school.  I watched the series-winner on a hand-me-down TV from my Uncle Frank that required the channels to be changed with a pair of pliers.  At that last out I got phone calls from my Dad and my brother, all of us cheering, all of us watching from various TV sets in our lives and linked at that moment only by the distant smell of a ballpark and a cellphone.

This series was infintely sweeter, due wholly to the Cardinals' hungry fight for a title nobody saw coming.  And it was Game 6 that inked its way into history, and into my warehouse of baseball-themed memories. 

Game 6 for the underdog is always about more than winning the series.  Game 6 is about proving, at the very least, that you will make your opponent bleed for that win. For a team that had been counted out so often and so fervently over the last season, Game 6 was, at first, an exercise in disaster.  It felt like proof that the Rangers should be the victor, that the team that nobody expected had gotten there on a fluke, a series of happy circumstances and minor miracles, and barely deserved a pennant, much less a ring.  The magic of Carpenter's arm against the Phillies, the 3-homer history-maker by Pujols, Molina's incessantly perfect from-the-knees missile to second, all were forgotten in those first seven innings, with the Cardinals looking sad, tired, and desperate.

But it's the power of that late-in-the-game desperation that made this Game 6 pure magic.  Pure baseball.  Two outs-two strikes saving graces from Freese seemed straight out of The Natural, perfect heat attached to a bat that would surely crack under the pressure of I-want-to-play-this-game-tomorrow.  Game 6 became exactly what it is supposed to be, an angry, defiant roar from a team that knows how to look presumed defeat in the face and say, "not yet."

And it's that two outs-two strikes, bottom of the ninth (or eleventh) inning feeling that weasels its way under the skin of my family, of any baseball family, of any fan who holds their breath on that last pitch.  Because whether we've played  the game or only watched it, we can all feel that hollow ache in the dugout.  We can feel the wire fence we gripped, watching our last batter swing that last bat, from a bench littered by Big League Chew, our helmet gripped sadly in one hand as we accept defeat.  Or we've been poised at shortstop, willing our pitcher to throw one more sneaky strike, one more hit-worthy ball, and we've watched that grounder peel to third, to first, and a 1-2-3 inning sends us home with a win. We've sat on bleachers and smelled hot dogs mingled with fear and sweat and potential, hoping that this is a good day, that this is a moment we'll want to remember forever.

It's the sound of leather and wood making contact on a chilly October evening, the wave of sound crying disbelief and I-knew-they-could-do-it bouncing off stadium metal, that remind any baseball-lover why this game is the game that raised you, the game that taught you to run through first base, to wait for the pitch, to always strike out swinging.

It was a game that any true lover of the sport could recognize as historic and inspiring.  And it's the game that every Cardinals fan will remember in every future moment when our boys are behind, when they're bruised and near-defeated and we're tempted to walk away, to turn off the game, to leave them alone in their shame.  It's the game that will remind us that they will bleed for the win, that they will fight the spectre of failure with every swing and dive and pitch left in their bodies.  It's the game that will always remind us why we love them so much.

Heaney and Definition

Earlier this week I had a double dose of Seamus Heaney, the Nobel Prize-winning poet, thanks to an In Conversation program at the Guthrie on Monday and a showing of his Antigone adaptation, The Burial at Thebes, on Tuesday. (Caveat: I'm vaguely aware of an FTC law that requires bloggers to note when they've received goods or been paid by an entity that they review, but I believe that only matters if the entity requires a review, which the Guthrie has not.  That being said, I submitted my blog address to the Guthrie when they invited bloggers to do so, I got a couple free tickets to Thebes, that was that. I bought the tickets to see Heaney myself. Feel free to read the following comments with all that unnecessary exposition in mind, or, kindly dispose of it given its superfluousness)

Heaney was introduced to me by a dear friend whose first role in my life was that of favorite professor, Dabney Stuart, who's a poet and letter-writer and sender of books.  I'm sure Dabney has become some romanticized image of Brilliance in my head, but he always counted me as a romantic so I won't apologize for that on his account.  We exchange letters sporadically, and occasionally when I'm stumbling over my own attempts at verses or when I just want to talk to someone about a book, I'll wonder if he thinks of me sometimes, aside from in those letters.

Dabney taught a poetry class at my alma mater and while I remember several of the poets and poems we went through, Heaney's "Digging" lodged in me soundly and never loosened.  Heaney's "Digging" and "Oysters", Yeats's "No Second Troy" and "An Irish Airmen Foresees His Death" together, sing to me better than any musician.  So to hear Heaney himself (who I'd always imagined as sort of an aloof, painful jerk) speaking of his boyhood, Belfast, death, and growing old, I felt like a mesh of all my poets, my favorites, were speaking to me from no less than 15 yards away.  When he was asked what poetry "meant," what good poetry's purpose must be, he just sighed and laughed and thought a minute.  He didn't have a polished answer, and in between other questions and thoughts, he'd come back to that one and try to tackle it again.  He settled on the subject with a comment that poetry should, simply, be more than what it is.  He worded it differently a dozen times.  It should be bigger.  Deeper.  More palpable.  Wiser.  Than what each single word alone could possibly mean if each were added together like an equation.  All of it, together, should be more.  And in the end, he was unsatisfied by that definition.

Antigone is one of those classic plays that I must imagine would be hell to be invited to adapt.  What can be done to make Antigone fresh?  Its import lies in how heavily universal its concepts of self-sacrifice and morality and government oppression are, its merit is pertinence despite age.  It has been told and retold and Antigone has been dragged out of her cave a million times as a feminist ideal and champion, so anyway, I wouldn't envy a poet/playwright for retelling such a myth.  How do you retell a story that is effectively its own metaphor?

But Heaney's struggle with defining the import and power of poetry echoed with me as I watched Thebes.  Because that struggle was perfect on stage, the way "Oysters" is perfect on paper.  Thebes works because it balances the heavy history of a play regurgitated for every power struggle, every argument of might vs. right, with the requirement of telling Antigone's sad, sad story in a way that feels important for the 90 minutes it lasts.  You can't watch 90 minutes of metaphor.  I don't care how cool an English major you are or were, 90 minutes of symbolism will suck the joy out of any soul.  So the story itself still has to feel like the characters are alive, aching, and their end is something the audience should care about.

The scene between Creon and Haemon has always haunted me but I think this production was the first time I had any heartache for Creon (and I almost feel guilty admitting it).  Haemon is beautifully done in this work, emphatic in his love for Antigone, and smooth in his attempt to cajole his father into freeing her, making Dad see reason.  There was a hint of "you will regret this moment" streaming from his lips in his final words to his father, and memories of that shouting match invariably resurface as Creon later crumbles over the body of his beloved son.  Heaney's adaptation allows a deeper vulnerability in the ironclad Creon of other productions.  While Antigone's demise lives the loudest in current vernacular, called up as a symbol for lost, valiant causes, in this production it is Creon's sorrow that is the scariest.  Antigone, after all, dies knowing she did what she must.  Creon lives on, knowing his blind governance and disregard for inherent morality (the morality of the gods), slaughtered innocents, including his son and his wife.  That continued life seems the most tragic.  Creon's burden wrecks me.  What "rules" do I insist on that are contrary to my faith or the tenets of my God? How often do I let blind ambition cloud my judgement, block my ears from reason? How dangerous is my pride? 

I think most people hope they would be Antigone.  But I think the power of Heaney's play rests in how often we tremble with worry that in a moment of truth we will be Creon.  And, like poetry, the last words, the individual moments, grow to mean more than the sum of their parts.  It isn't just an old Greek play with some new vocabulary.  It's the train wreck of pride we watch in ourselves, and the palatable fear that we will realize, too late, that pride will surely strip us of those we love most. 

Powerful stuff, poetry.

Marathon Deux: Sharing Post-Its

Yesterday I ran my second marathon.  22 miles of feeling-pretty-good, followed by 4.2 miles of I-would-like-to-die-please.  I suppose that's typical.  As this was not my first marathon, I didn't have the worries of whether or not I could finish, but I did worry that I wouldn't make my time goal (which I didn't), and after realizing that desired finish was impossible (around mile 23), I worried that I'd love this race less than the first one.

But I suppose marathons, like every other race, tend to take on the qualities of joy/sorrow that the time period of training and completion has inspired.  I have the first-half-marathon memory, the fastest-half-marathon (coupled with the half-marathon-with-the-kid-sister) memory, the half-marathon-the-day-after-the-breakup memory, the half-marathon-in-a-downpour memory, the first-full-marathon memory.  And now, I have the marathon-with-Kristen memory.

Kristen is one of my dearest friends.  It's a friendship that has only developed in the last couple of years, but it has been a huge, happy blessing in my life.  One of those friendships that after it's made, you can't quite remember how you lived without it.  She's a better, faster runner than I am, but she'd never done a marathon, so I was happy to weasel her into signing up for this one.  We didn't run together often, but we talked about it all the time.  We supported each other through injuries (this was not a good year for ankles) and various mental and physical hurdles, and we celebrated the milestones that build a training program (survival of the 20-miler is a big one).

But, more importantly, she is someone I could share my post-its with.  In 2009, for my first marathon, I wrote two verses on post-its.  One post-it had Isaiah 40:31, one had Hebrews 12:1.  They were always the verses that meant the most to me while running, and carrying them along lifted me at the moments I needed lifting. After the race, I stuck the smeared, ugly surviving scraps on my fridge, where they rested until yesterday.  I gave Kristen my Isaiah 40:31, and I kept Hebrews for myself, promising myself that if a poor, flimsy post-it could survive a marathon, I could surely survive another one, too.

I have been blessed by many wonderful female friendships, each of them dear to me, and a handful more lasting and powerful than others.  I cannot say that my friendships with practicing Christians are the more important ones, because that is completely untrue.  My best friends, Christian and non-Christian alike, have loved and carried me in ways that are counted as blessings in my life, regardless of whether I thank God for that and they don't. But it is a special, intimate joy to be able to share God with someone who means so much to you, for it to be an uncomplicated, easy thing, to pass a piece of paper with a bible verse written on it to a friend and know that she values the words and what they are capable of as much as I do.  I don't have to say, "this is why this is important to me." I could articulate it if I wanted to, but to have the explanation be unnecessary is a remarkable thing. 

So the marathon-with-Kristen memory is deeper than that.  This is the marathon-I-shared-my-post-its memory, which is infinitely more special.

The Things You Do The Day Before a Marathon

(Hopefully, if you're lucky, you have a dear friend to enjoy the day with, preferably one who will join you on the 26.2 mile journey)

1. You walk to the grocery store to buy andouille sausage (for the post-race meal), bananas (for the pre-race peanut butter and banana sandwich), and an InTouch magazine because it's a mild addiction you don't have the patience to shake.

2. You arrange the gels in your fuel belt so that the weight is evenly distributed on both hips.

3. You walk to Common Roots with above-referenced friend and buy everything bagel sandwiches with egg, tomato, and cheese.  You eat these bagels by the lake, in the sunshine.

4. You walk to the running store to buy a couple more gels that you probably don't need because you've become somewhat worried about the lower sodium content in the variety you currently own.  It's supposed to be warmer tomorrow, do I need more salt?

5. You walk to the wine and cheese store for cheese samples (for today) and beer (for tomorrow).

6. You head to the packet pick-up/expo and purchase a cheesey t-shirt, a 26.2 bumper sticker, and a bottle of gatorade.  You eat the free yogurt sample.  You take the free potato chip sample, knowing you'll never eat it.

7. You sit on the floor of your apartment with above-referenced friend and decorate tank tops with nicknames, Bible verses, and recommended shouts ("Run, Rachel, Run"...no commas on the shirt, sorry).

8. You go to Pizza Luce. For a moment you think about ordering something new, but are quickly supported in your general superstition that "new" is bad the day before a race.  Ruby Rae it is.  Ruby Rae it will always be.

9. You try on your race day gear, complete with new arm warmers, and think, "well, at least I LOOK like I can do this."

10. You decide to wear earrings to the race. Earrings you stole from your sister's jewelry box which you have now decided are good luck because they belong to her. 

11. You lace your shoes with the race chip.  Hello, Marathon Race Chip! Welcome to my shoe!

12. You tuck a post-it note from your 2009 race, smeared with what used to read all of Hebrews 12:1, into the pocket of the tank you'll wear.  There's 2009 sweat on that piece of paper, if it can survive, so can you.

13. You make a cup of tea.

14. You blog.

15. You sleep.

Apologies

I'm days away (5) from running my second marathon.  I've trained all summer, logged an impressive number of miles, killed my poor left toenail, muscled through an ankle injury, and emerged ready and willing to slog through 26.2 miles on Sunday, October 2.  And yet, despite the training, and despite the fact that this is my SECOND marathon (lunacy), I still find myself apologizing for what I still feel must be grudging acceptance of myself as a Runner.

This coversation snippet has occured, verbatim, at least 20 times in the past month:

Person: You're running a marathon?
Me: Yup.
Person: Wow! That's amazing!
Me: Oh...I'm really slow... (bats away the "amazing" with a flick of the wrist and a quick change of subject)

Not once have I ever conceded that it is, in fact, kind of amazing.  Not once have I accepted that someone might be impressed by that endurance.  Instead, I apologize for my speed, I imply by tone and subtle shoulder shrugs that I am not actually a runner but the race people let me pretend. 

I'm not sure what it will take for me to think of myself as A Runner.  One marathon and too-many-half-marathons-to-remember-the-actual-number haven't done it. Long runs of 10-20 miles every Saturday for three months haven't done it.  The retiring of multiple pairs of running shoes and socks haven't done it.  But I have to believe that it's time, more than distance, more than races, that etch the Runner into your psyche. I was such a flagrant non-Runner (read: fat and unhealthy) for so long, I think it takes a while for the noun to stick.  I can run (verb) and acknowledge that I am running.  But to be a Runner, some finite, specific thing, may take a few more years.  Few more marathons, maybe.

What I aspire to:

Person: You're running a marathon?
Me: Yup
Person: Wow! That's amazing!
Me: I think so, too! (catches the "amazing" with a high five)

Ninja Turtle Cobbler

As a kid,when my mom was out of the house and my dad was left to fend for himself in feeding the munchkins, we ate a lot of pizza.  But occassionally, and I remember this mostly as an Arkansas occurrence and not in our later St. Louisan existence, my dad would cook.

Cooking usually meant substantial "help" from my brother and I, although I don't personally have any strong memories of cooking with my dad.  I do remember, however, one occasion when he and my brother created something in the kitchen that my brother named (highlighting his allegiance at that time), "Ninja Turtle Pie."  I believe it was some concoction of hamburger meat, corn, maybe some ketchup and various other unassuming vegetables.  Despite looking a bit gnarly, it tasted good.  And Ninja Turtle Pie remains a highlight in my memory of what can be accomplished in a kitchen.

This past weekend on The Mountain, I built a Ninja Tutle concotion of my own, a peach cobbler scraped together with what remained in our cabin on our last night.  Upon taking the attached picture, I assumed I'd place the cobbler on my food blog, but as I can't remember the measurements of what went into the creation, and as there were a few missteps I wouldn't repeat (note to self: instant grits do not cook as quickly as cornmeal), I thought the picture would simply fade into oblivion.

The cobbler ended up as a success, surprisingly.  The vast majority of the dessert was gobbled up quickly and the remaining edge piece was requested quietly by my Uncle NT, so it made its way into the fridge for what I assume was a midnight snack. I can claim no accolades on this creation, however, because the deliciousness was largely a product of excellent Carolina peaches, which made up for the somewhat overly crunchy top crust and the bottom layer made of crushed wheat thins and brown sugar.

As we were saying our goodbyes the next day, my Aunt Joyce commented on how amazing it was, our yearly gathering of 30+ family members.  We have our share of dysfunction, no doubt, as any family of our breadth and depth would.  But even those familial hiccups seem inconsequential in light of what happens each Labor Day weekend.  The descendants of one couple, wed in the first years of the 1900s, who lived a quiet, unassuming life tucked into East Tennessee, have gathered, and continue to gather, in those same mountains to eat, laugh, argue, pray, hold new babies, miss the missing, and look each other in the eye for long enough to recognize the blood that binds us.  The not-quite-right ingredients, the I-wish-I-hadn't-done-that element of every single day of every single life, matter a lot less when the fruit that binds the ingredients is strong and sweet and powerful.  I think that speaks volumes to the vehement, somewhat ornery love that flowed from my great-grandparents and into our cluster of cabins each year in the mountains they called home.

It was a pretty good cobbler.

The Race You Quit

I attempted and quit my first triathlon this morning.  It's also the first race I've ever quit.  Every race I've ever registered for, I've finished.  Counting only half and full marathons, that's fourteen (fifteen?) races entered and completed.  But midway through the swim, at the furthest point from the shore, I panicked.  I can blame part of the panic on poor preparation, and part on a gimp ankle that has been throbbing for three days now, but neither reason makes me comfortable with crawling into a sheriff boat, walking across a beach, sitting on the sidelines, shivering with failure.

I couldn't stand sitting there so I walked my bike back to a friend's car, sat inside with my triathlon numbers cruelly etched on my skin (I've taken two showers, these numbers are stuck), quasi-permanent reminders of what I didn't do.

I texted the friends who I knew were praying/rooting for me and all texted back with condolences, hugs, words of cheer, reminders that the marathon was my "real" race and this one didn't matter.  But they all matter.  All races matter.

My kid sister, in her first few days as a college freshman far, far from home, texted the only words that made sense to me.  I quit, I texted.  "Sometimes you gotta do that," she replied, followed by realistic words like "next time" and "heal" and "practice more," followed by the best words, "if you want to call now I have 20 min before I go to church."

This race hurts the most now because of how much I miss that dear, wonderful girl. I have spent 18 years trying to be kind and loving to her, hoping that I am strong and wise enough to benefit her in some way.  But in truth, she has always been the kind one.  Inherently, gloriously kind.  She has been enormously good to me in the seasons of my life when I could not fathom being kind to myself and to have that wealth of support living, now, so many miles away just makes me sad. 

But her text was everything it should be.  And the phone call was all I needed in that moment, to hear my sister happy, encouraging, hugging me with that voice that says "we all have bad races." 

This was my bad one.  The one I quit.  And that failure will pester me long after the ink is finally scrubbed from my calves.  But I will try to hear my sister's words in this:

Next time.

Heal.

Practice more.

Go to church.

An Easy Joy

My little brother, Rob, married his love, Laura, this past weekend in St. Louis.  They were surrounded by family and friends, burdened by some pretty gnarly humidity, and by all measures, deliriously happy. I wondered off and on throughout the weekend what I would write about that day or that weekend, how I would welcome my new sister, how I would gift my kid brother with a lingusitic kiss on the cheek as he scurried off to his new, grown-up life. 

I could write about the social oddity of being the elder sister (30 years old and single, the horror!) and witnessing the younger brother marry.  But the ridiculousness of that churns my stomach, as if social temporal expectations somehow trump the movement of God.  Marriage is promised to noone, so when its blessing occurs, especially for someone as dear and loving and devoted as my brother, the only viable option is Joy. 

As is usually the case with this blog, it's the small, forgettable moments that tend to impress me in the midst of change, adventure, turmoil, ecstasy, etc. Their wedding day was no different.  The wedding itself was beautiful, my first Catholic wedding, made familiar by echoes of my family's faith wrapped up in old hymns.  After the meal at the reception I danced, visited, hugged, did all the things one does in the company of both sides of the family for the first time.  Well into the evening, I sat at a back table with my sister and my best friend, Megan.  Megan and Caroline were chatting about Caroline's recent trip to Guatemala and her impending adventure as a freshman in college far, far from home (something Megan and I are quite familiar with).  I fleetingly thought of how often Megan and I babysat that future freshman, how wrapped up in my life and perspective both these women were, one by virtue of years and friendship, one by virtue of blood and sisterhood. From there my eye caught my dad, dancing (!!) with his cousin, Suzie, who once carried my sister on her back up a mountain in East Tennessee.  And to the right of them I saw my aunts and uncles lining a wall, watching them dance, laughing, occassionally tiptoeing onto the floor themselves.  I saw old neighbors with their arms draped around children I once tucked into bed in exchange for mall money.  I saw my brother shaking hands with our cousin, three years my junior and the wedding videographer, in a way that made him seem equal parts adult and 6 year-old.  A handshake born of blood and childhood backyard comraderie.

In some hodgepodge of love and limbs, music and movement, my whole heart took in every inch of my family.  Every single body in attendance, every single body who couldn't make it, every single soul who smiled from above.   I felt every inch of that flesh and blood as in one warm, unexpected hug, the kind that sneaks up from behind and envelopes a person, heartbeat to heartbeat.  And it took my breath away, that much love.  I felt how vehemently every aunt who'd kissed Rob's knees, every friend who'd found him a cab, every neighbor who'd watched him out the window play H-O-R-S-E with his dad, loved him.  I felt how powerfully and intentionally those prayers in that church had been directed on his behalf, that his life with his bride might be more than just happy, that it might be blessed.  I felt every single smile.

And that was the blessing to me, to witness how gifted we are, we children of Tom and Robin, we grandchildren of Tommy and Audrey, Bob and Betty, we cousins and neices and nephews and friends, to be surrounded for the entirety of our lives by those who find it easy to rejoice, to dance, in view of our happiness.

God and Country

I recently had a "discussion" with a friend regarding the place (or, in my mind, the lack thereof) of American nationalism in the Church. 

This all came up as I stated my general frustration with having to sit through a rousing piano interlude of America the Beautiful at a local Baptist church, complete with stirring imagery of flags and people saluting, etc.  This viscerally offends me.  It is the reason I will probably never return to said church.  And now, as I have always been better equipped at defining my thoughts in written form, I will attempt to explain myself. 

God doesn't say much about Country in the Bible, not about loving it at least.  We are directed in Paul's Letter to Titus that we should obey authorities and the rule of law.  Jesus states in Mark, "Render to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's." And this is Caesar we're talking about.  Jesus directs his followers to respect the authority of a dictator.  And I don't think this should cause anyone any extreme heartburn.  The Bible often provides guidance that is, largely, practical in its significance.  Christ's message was one of Grace and Eternity, getting hung up on whether you had to pay Caesar's taxes had to have been at least mildly exasperating (although, Jesus was perfect and therefore patient...but still...that question deserved exasperation).  Regardless of whether we voted for our leader, we're supposed to respect his authority above us.  We don't have to like it, we don't have to agree with it, but respecting it is not too much to ask.  And as it was a direction from Christ, maybe we should refrain from discarding that direction just because we don't like who's in office.

God does not tell us to love our Country.  Nope. He tells us to love our Neighbor.  Period.  He tells us to go out into the world and share the Gospel with the world.  And the world is not limited to the 50 states of America. Nationalism bothers me in the spiritual context because it builds fences around the Great Commission.  It makes us feel that our salvation, our pains, are somehow worth more to God than those of every other child of His on this planet.  It's self-serving, it's prideful, and it's sinful.  I don't think there's anything wrong with loving one's country, both my grandfathers risked their lives for it and they also happen to be two of the most Godly men I've been blessed to know.  But I take issue when love of country becomes akin to worship.  I think it dances very close to idolatry and in God's house (and anywhere), God is the only authority we should ever worship.

To bring Country into Church simply lessens God, and that should offend every Christian.  It makes God small, makes God compete for the stirrings of our heart.  Our hearts should be directed to His glory, spreading His glory, loving His children (every. single. one. of. them.), and pursuing a life that makes His grace apparent in our lives. 

America is beautiful.  And that's a lovely song and a lovely sentiment.  But there is nothing, absolutely nothing, eternal about our country.  The Church would do well to answer the Great Commission with an anthem that provides no lines of demarcation, no territories, no barriers beyond belief.  Amazing Grace would do nicely.

The Lake Floor

Despite living in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes for over four years (longer than I have ever lived in one place since I was a teenager), I have never actually taken a swim in any of said lakes.  Until today.

I made the quasi-ridiculous decision earlier this spring to sign up for a sprint distance triathalon (.25 mile swim, 17 mile bike, 3.1 mile run).  While I keep thinking to myself, "oh, I have plenty of time...," the truth is, I no longer have "plenty," but border closer to "not enough" time for training purposes.  My bike is juiced up and finally ride-worthy, and I've marked Tuesday as The Day I Shall Ride My Bike To Work.  But the swimming factor has loomed over me for weeks.

Unlike most Fridays, I have no plans tonight.  I had a couple options creep in near the end of the week but the closer I got to Friday, the more I wanted to be alone.  I busy myself with so many things, I forget to just be by myself on occasion.  With the sunshine promising to hold, and the heat of the early week promising that Calhoun would be bathtub-warm, I figured now was as good a day as any to take my maiden voyage in the wholly unattractive but fully functional new swimming suit.

Lake swimming is my favorite, honestly. I love the ocean, love the waves, but they're foreign to me, more excitement than relaxation. A good lake plus a good breeze, that's perfection to me.

 I grew up spending summers at Lake Nixon in Arkansas, getting stung by horseflies the size of your fist and catching crawdads with leftover hot dogs. For the life of me, my camp counselors could never teach me to dive but I jumped off the dock with the gusto of a champion.  We'd race each other to the lake floor, where it was always colder and the run-ins with fish more likely, grabbing a handful of dirt to bring to the surface as proof that we swam all the way.  I remember seeing one of the Jaws movies during this time period and feeling especially creeped out by what I could only imagine was a freshwater version of the great white lurking beneath the farthest dock.

As I swam into Calhoun, I didn't really think of Lake Nixon until I got to the edge of the swimming area.  Just by the buoys, the water at my feet turned chilly, a marked contrast to the warmth of the upper water, and the mix of chill and the occasional bump of toe against lake sand, made me remember those childhood dives to the deep, dark floor of what seemed to me to be an abyss full of child-devouring lake creatures.

It was a happy end to a long week.  Sunshine on shoulders, the comfort of childhood memories, and the grown-up sensibility to reassure myself that Jaws was just a movie and sharks do not live in Lake Calhoun.

Tempted by the Fruit of Another

I'm a loyal girl.  While I like to think of myself as of the adventurous sort, I leave room within my penchant for experimentation for vehement(borderline obsessive?) commitment.  Case in point: my decades-long affiliation with the Asics running shoe.  Asics saw me through my first 5K, the loss of 80 lbs, my first 10K, my first half-marathon, and my first marathon.  It has been a noble, dependable shoe.

Unfortunately, it has also been butt ugly and boring. 

Therefore, after years of Asics attachment, my desire for a sexy, sassy, show-stopping shoe has finally defeated my guilt-laden loyalty to my former brand of choice.

The shoe above is called the Nike Lunarglide 3.  Huzzah! Doesn't that just SOUND fast?! And exciting?! And capable-of-getting-my-lazy-ass-out-bed-at-5am-on-a-Tuesday-even-though-I-don't-wanna inspiration?!  That's the plan, at least.  While I've stuck to my marathon training plan like clockwork thus far, my legs have been feeling heavy and I've decided that is because my shoes are both 1) old and 2) boooooring.  Thus, midnight black dynamos with hot pink soles and an electric blue tongue! That'll wake up these legs!  That'll inspire me to conquer 16 miles this coming Saturday!

Right?

Right! 

First Day of School, Redux

Tomorrow I start a new job.  As required by all First moments, this requires both a new outfit and a blog post.  I remember standing on the front steps in Arkansas, letting mom take my picture with my adored blue satchel before heading to my first day of kindergarten. This is my clumsy attempt at similar documentation, this time with the outfit sprawled across my bed, no jewelry chosen as of yet (probably just pearl studs), shoes overly shiny:

I'll be overdressed, I'm sure.  But I'm overdressed for the majority of things (parties, grocery shopping, cleaning the apartment, running) so that's really just par for the course. 

I was terrified when I started at the Commission.  I had a hunch I'd be good at the position for which I was hired but I had no real proof to support such an instinct.  Law degrees are nifty things but I don't know that they prove much aside from an ability to work tirelessly (often in pursuit of lost causes) and smile optimistically in the face of awe-inspiring debt. 

A large portion of my "hunch" was buried in genuine interest for the subject matter at issue, and overall geekiness over subject matter is probably attractive for most employers.  I spent the first several months googling terms, laws, and acronyms, and mispronouncing any number of parties/entities (I'm sorry, but an entity termed MISO should be pronounced like the soup, just to save a lot of people a lot of embarrassment).  But I do think after three years, I was decent at my job.  It, like most positions, would be a job one would get better at with time and experience, so I still had enormous amounts to learn from those who'd been there far longer than I.  But I felt like I was helpful, a benefit to my employer, which is really all you're working towards when you're young and inexperienced.

Of course, having only reached that point of feeling helpful maybe a year ago, I'm now right smack dab where I was three years ago. I am now looking square into the expected experience one has with a new job: weeks, possibly months, of feeling like a burden.  I think most employers hire for potential.  While I know that aspects of my experience thus far, in addition to my education, were what led my new employer to make the offer, I have to assume a good part of making those decisions is simply a hunch on their part that the person in question seems capable of learning the ropes quickly and being helpful sooner rather than later.

There are many, many things that I learned while serving the Commission.  Many of them were things that would provide no benefit to anyone outside utility regulation.  But some are broader, more general, not only about the energy sphere and all its eccentricities (that's the nice way of saying "craziness"), but about Work and what it means to be good at what one does.  I was surrounded by experts and those that were best at their chosen niche were those who readily admitted when they did not know something and immediately sought to remedy that deficit.  It seems like a simple skill, the admission of ignorance, but that balance with a determination to fill in the vacuum with knowledge, is a powerful tool.  And, really, the only method by which one excels at anything.

Abraham Lincoln (I think) said, "whatever you are, be a good one." I think that's my goal. "Great" would be awesome, one of these days, but for now I'm just looking to be good, helpful, someone without whom the day and the work would be a bit tougher. Until then, I'll just have to dress the part, and pray for teachers as brilliant as those I left behind.

It's What Dads Do

This post, initially, was going to be about our family dog, Rocko.  After over 16 years of companionship, Rocko died.

To say that he "died" is the kind way of saying he was "put down," the latter being both a recognition that at such an advanced age the death was likely welcome and necessary but equal acknowledgment that death is against the base nature of all creatures, even if it's for their own aged good. 

But instead of Rocko, this post will be about my Dad, who did the dirty work today.  My mom and sister are out of town, and I was in a hearing until late and could not join Dad at the vet.  I should be more honest about that.  It's true, the hearing ran late.  And it's true that the trek from downtown St. Paul to my parents' particular suburb in rush hour is especially harrowing.  But in all likelihood, had I wanted to watch Rocko die, I could have done so.  I could have been there. I just didn't want to go.

I imagine Dads get stuck with these tasks often, the painful jobs that make the rest of the family uncomfortable.  I'm sure it isn't strictly my family where this tends to be the case.  It's a bit stereotypical, I realize, but my Dad has always been the Rescuer and my Mom has always been the Healer.  The former gets far less praise than the latter as being Rescued, more often than not, does not feel particularly awesome.  It usually involves late night phone calls when the bills can't be paid, middle-of-the-work-day phone calls sobbing over car breakdowns (maybe this is just me), stressed out quasi-arguments over finances, life plans, big decisions, and stupid mistakes. Dad rescues.  He makes the plan.  He solves the problem.  He swoops in and makes everything okay.  But it's generally Mom's sweet "I love you"s and teardrop-drying that wins the smile.

Rocko is no exception.  Rocko has been a part of our family for sixteen years.  My sister, at 18, cannot remember a home without his once frenetic activity and more recent soft, elderly plodding. We've discussed Rocko's demise often over the last year.  His eyesight had failed him, he often seemed confused, it hurt him to move, and he was sleeping for longer and longer portions of the day.  Months ago we spoke about these things in a "we" voice, communal, a team.  But over the last few weeks as the decision grew closer, I'm sure Dad sensed the womenfolk's shying away from responsibility.  As Rocko is truly my brother's dog, I'm sure my little brother would have joined Dad.  But distance makes that difficult and so my Dad probably knew he'd be doing this alone.

I know that there have been a million moments in my thirty years on this planet in which my father has taken an arrow so that I avoided harm.  And I imagine the vast majority of those bruises were things I'd never know about.  Attendance at piano recitals after hours spent commuting between jobs, cheering me on at softball games despite who knows what plumbing disaster, helping me with homework on days he was exhausted.  And those are just the ones that I can fathom.  There were many, many more incremental sacrifices, small moments of which I have no knowledge where he chose my benefit and the benefit of my siblings over his comfort. 

So now, a few days before Father's Day, I am thankful for my Dad.  Not only for shepherding our family dog into death, but for all the other large and small rescues and sacrifices that he has accumulated over his 30 years of fatherdom.  There is no doubt in my mind that a large portion of my happiness today is owed to the man who has constantly worked to make sure my happiness was possible, achievable, and supported.  I don't say thank you enough and I imagine I don't know half of what I should be thanking him for.  So, thank you, Dad, for Rocko, for the sacrifices I know nothing about, and for all those rescues, large and small, literal and figurative, that made life infinitely sweeter. I love you!

Getting Serious

Marathon Training 2011 begins for me this Sunday, Father's Day.  In all likelihood, I won't do any actual training til Tuesday, the 21st, due to other obligations on my first running days.  But it's good to pinpoint a start date, good to count the weeks pre-Marathon, good to remember how hard this was two years ago and how hard it will be to best my last race time by nearly one minute per mile.  Shaving a half hour off my race time, even if just a laudable goal, is daunting. Yikes!

But part of what will make it doable is a more whole body approach this time.  In 2009 I was just terrified by the prospect of running for 5+ hours.  It seemed like such an impossible goal, I trained like clockwork and kept religiously to my little training schedule for fear that one falter on day four of week nine might somersault into a Marathon Nightmare of Doom.  This time around, whether I can finish is no longer a question.  But in order to get better, I can't just do exactly what I did last time and hope for some magical different result.

First off, I need to lose 10 lbs.  More would be good.  Less would not be the end of the world. But less weight to carry just means my legs can carry the rest of me a little further, a little faster.  I'm not sticking to any magic diet plan, I know this isn't rocket science.  I'll be tracking what I eat, how I exercise, and making sure I'm eating at least 90 grams of protein a day, preferably more. 

Second, my upper body/core strength is laughable.  And doing 26.2 miles on strong legs alone just doesn't cut it.  So I started the 100 push up training program today.  It's a six week program to get you to the point of being able to do 100 push ups consecutively.  Right now I can do 8 (yes, 8, REAL push ups, I could do more on my knees).  I think that will be a great addition to my runs 3 days a week and pushups are great for arms, shoulders, chest, and core strength, which is good.  Through that process, or maybe when the 100 push ups challenge is complete, I'll add some more specific abdominal work.  But as I tend to enjoy ab-specific exercises about as much as I love jell-o (ie. not at all), I'm going to admit to delaying that torture slightly.

Third, cross training.  I signed up for my first sprint triathalon (.25 mile swim, 17 mile bike, 5K) which scares the snot out of me. One of my projects for the brief interlude between Old Job and New Job next week is to purchase a bike rack, pick up the high school wheels from the parents' house, and take that hot pink puppy for a spin.  I may need some new tires or other gadgetry, but I think she'll do just fine for the race.  I'll also order a "real" swimsuit since all of mine are aesthetically pleasing but not really suits meant for swimming (lounging with big sunglasses, yes).  Part of the trick, and another thing I'll do next week on one of my free mornings, will be to lay out the marathon training schedule and pencil in cross-training for swimming and biking.  This will be tough, but doable, and could be helped by the fact that the new job is gloriously across the street from the Greenway.  So once I'm settled, I could potentially ride to work on pretty days, which would be a great way to enjoy the sunshine and rack up some mileage.

Fourth, get a handle on weekend indulgences.  This is just a creature of summertime frivolity, and not one I'll worry about too seriously quite yet.  By the beginning of August or so in 2009 I'd developed a rule while training that I'd have alcohol one night a week and by September and for the month leading up to the race, I never drank.  That was perfectly comfortable and I plan on doing that again.  I do love sitting on patios in the evenings with friends having a glass or two of wine.  But that could easily happen two, three, sometimes four nights a week in the summer.  It's okay to indulge a bit now, enjoy this early summer sunshine, but after 4th of July I'll start seriously paring down such indulgences.  They won't help me lose the weight, and they're just not necessary for my enjoyment of good company.

Fifth, and most important, it's time to get the game face on.  I've been running off and on recently, some pauses for injuries (neck, stupid stupid stupid Red Rover injury), some pauses for being out of town, lazy, whathaveyou.  Marathon training is always a priority.  It has to be, because otherwise you find yourself mid-August having never run more than 11 miles.  I love that required structure in my day and I also love that post-run, post-accomplishment feeling that makes a long dinner with friends or a stroll around the lake feel that much more decadent.  But if I'm serious about the race, serious about doing better than last time, I need to not only commit to myself that it's a priority, but I need to communicate that to friends.  It's always hard to feel like a wet blanket, to say you can't meet for brunch on Saturday because you need to run 15 miles, but my friends and family are lovely folks and they'll support what keeps me happy and healthy.  I just need to be articulate in my priorities and firm in my resolve to stick to the program.  It'll all be worth it when I get lots of hugs at the finish line.

And, the underline beneath it all, and the Truth destined for permanence on my right foot after the race: Hebrews 12:1.

Dumbest Injury Ever.

I brusied a rib playing Red Rover.  There's no way to talk your way out of that one, really.  No way to make it sound less embarassing as a 30 year-old woman.  I bruised a rib playing Red Rover and now it hurts to breathe and I can't sleep on my left side (my favorite) or my stomach (my second favorite).  To add insult to an already insulting injury, I burned my back like mad this weekend thanks to long runs, long walks, and outdoor art fairs.  So I can't sleep on my back either (my third favorite).

This leaves my right side (least favorite).  If I do anything to that part of my body I will have to sleep sitting up. 

Bruised ribs from childhood games-gone-wrong.  Sunburns creating the worst tan lines imaginable.  Return of the Freckle that Looks like a Piece of Dirt.

I love summer.  Even when it hurts.

Formerly Far-Flung

I did not expect to be the kid who lives near the parents (especially given how far North these parents live).  As the eldest of three, and thus the first to leave, I got quite adept at living several states (and the occasional ocean) away for roughly a decade.  For this reason and many others, I always expected to hit the trail sooner or later and land in some Southern state where people have no clue that curling is an actual sport and not what you do to your hair on Friday nights.

But my brother is firmly planted back in St. Louis and my kid sister is headed to Texas for college, which leaves me, the former far-flung child, as The Kid That Lives Nearby.   This role has solidified of late as I've accepted a new job that I can see being solid grounding for a career based in the Cities.  No more poking around looking at jobs in Virginia, Texas, Louisiana, where I kept expecting to end up.

But when I accepted the job, I was surprised to find how happy I was at the prospect of life here.  I have found true, sturdy, beautiful friends here, friends I'd hate to leave behind.   And after years of living far away, there is something wonderfully warm and secure about living near one's family.  Being able to stop over at the family house after church to play Scrabble, to be around for discussions on when we should put the family dog to sleep, to be a quick 20 minute drive from a spare washer/dryer and no judgment when I toss in muddy sneakers after a trail run...all small things, but important.

It is hard for me to imagine life here without my sister.  She is, perhaps moreso than my parents, the reason Minneapolis seemed like a good idea four years ago.  Having left for college when she was 5, I was easily tempted by the lure of teenage sisterly-ness. Funny, I came here in large part to be a part of the life she built, and in the process I accidentally built a life of my own.

Which happens to no longer be far-flung from the people who gave me life in the first place. 

Life is a funny, glorious thing.

Age

I spent this past weekend back in the Motherland, Arkansas, visting family and celebrating the pending nuptials of my brother and his fiancee with a small bridal shower.  The day before the shower I slept in a bit, curled up in the same room I occupied during my Hurricane Katrina semester, when I spent hours sitting on the floor of that bedroom wondering what was underwater. I stared at the ceiling for awhile that morning, the same way I did over five years ago, curious what my former self would think of Rachel Now.

After a deliciously humid run (I miss that sticky heat), my mom and I headed over to the assisted living facility where my Mamaw and Onis (my stepgrandad, alternate grandfather, pinch hitter gramps...I love him dearly, but he's not my Papaw) now live.  We sat on a couch and watched them do their quasi-aerobics (head turns and arm waving) and then returned to their room and chatted with them and their physical therapist as they continued their exercises.

The hills around my Mamaw's home provided a rougher run than I'm used to, and my quads were singing while I nestled in their overly warm room on a couch I've taken naps on since childhood.  As I watched Onis concentrate to maintain his balance while the therapist pushed him lightly from side to side, the ache in my thighs made a firm underline (not quite an exclamation point) beneath the image of progressing age.

Onis is 100. He struggles to maintain his energy. Headaches and stomach pains often leave him quiet and frustrated. He doesn't hear well but hates to be spoken to in a loud voice, so conversations are a delicate balance of louder-than-normal talking and repitition. But he smiles easily, he has a solid, endearing laugh, and he loves my Mamaw well. To be 100 and still be able to recognize and cherish so many family members, still eat a helping of fried chicken, still mutter his prayers with the same reverence of ten prior decades...it's a beautiful thing.

I watched him and my Mamaw, with my mother laughing and telling stories beside them, and recognized how quickly it all seems to move sometimes. Marriages, babies, graduations fall in line like dominoes, each child and grandchild checking off various social boxes, stumbling over proverbial hurdles, celebrating serendipity and love, as they march down the path God crafted for them.  And most of those milestones are easily shared, easily savored.  The physical ones are trickier.  Individual pains, difficulties, just become internal and I don't know that any family could handle the anxieties of all its members, the multiple heartaches and daydreams of growing up and aging.

I ran a mere seven miles that morning, burdened by heat I was unaccustomed to, and felt rather disappointed in myself that I did not push myself over more hills.  And a couple hours later I watched my Mamaw practice walking.  Walking. 

I take for granted the ease with which I can force my body to accomplish what I set before it.  More importantly, I take for granted the length of time set before me and those I love. I lived with my Mamaw and Onis for five months while my former home dug itself out from under Katrina.  And I took for granted the ease with which they could sit at the dinner table with me, watch Law and Order with me, play games, and give me hugs before bed.  I took for granted every "I love you," because despite having lost two grandfathers so far, there is some piece of my heart that feels grandparents are eternal.  Stones.  Diamonds.  Unshakable forces that cannot be brought down by bad lungs, bad knees, multiple decades.

I know that I took them for granted less this weekend.  Loved my Mamaw in her purple outfit, her purple silk scarf, her perfect lipstick and rouge, her smile watching her future granddaughter-in-law open boxes of napkins and rolling pins and gravy boats.  Loved Onis as he sauntered slowly down the hall, as he valiantly let Mamaw talk him into exercise class, as he smiled at stories of Scotland and told the same stories of Harrison, Arkansas we'd all heard a million times.

It makes me sad to think that they are old, that one day my parents will be old, that I will be old. But it also humbles me to know that God gave them all to me, that I should be born into such a family of which I am so unworthy, that He would surround me with love and stories and strong, beautiful, Godly women and men who cherish their children so well.  The genes of my parents gave me tough, sturdy knees, capable of climbing humidity-laced hills on a morning run.  But beyond flesh, I am simply grateful to have a family that, itself, is sturdy. Strong. 

Professional Running Cheerleader?

Today was the Moment of Truth for my Learn to Run Clinic.  We've been training together, little by little, over the past 10 weeks and this morning was the crew's first 5K.  A couple of girls sped up and went at their own pace, which was awesome to see, and I stayed with one runner, R, who reminds me a lot of myself when I was starting out. Her goal was to finish in under 45 minutes, and we did that with 5 minutes to spare.  She was ecstatic to cross the finish and I was thrilled to see her suckerpunch a personal hurdle.

I don't think I'm a great coach for a group.  I worry that I'm running too fast or too slow for individual clinic participants (and you are always running either too fast or too slow for somebody).  But I really enjoyed solo runs with the 1-3 ladies in the group who needed a bit more cheerleading.  I like the one-on-one.  I like telling funny running stories to help them pass the time between splits.  I like promising them that they will not, in fact, die, if they run another 4 minutes.  And I love watching that transformation from person-who-can't-run-one-minute-without-gasping to person-who-just-ran-three-miles. That's a marvelous leap in 10 weeks and I feel humbled that I got to be a part of it.

I do wonder sometimes what I would do if I wasn't nerdily in love with All Things Energy.  I'm genuinely challenged, inspired, and supported in my current job and energy regulation is something I find fascinating (I know, it's weird to be enthralled by administrative and utility law but somebody has to enjoy it, right?).  But I love other things, too, such as baking, writing, and running.  And the more I run with other people, especially those who are just starting out, the more I feel like I would be a good little professional running coach.  Not a coach for elites (hahahahahahahaha), but a coach for the "normals" out there.  People who, like me a few years ago, are frustrated by their lack of athleticism and decide that the only way to remedy the issue is to get moving.  I'm a good cheerleader for those who've forgotten how to cheerlead themselves.  I'm not sure how I'd describe that on a resume, but I think it's a skill worth developing.

Way to go, my intrepid crew of Runners!  I hope to see y'all rounding the corners of Lake of the Isles this summer!

I am a New Woman! (PG-13 for a bit of running-related gore)

After today's run (the first run of the year that would qualify as "warm"), I sat down on my living room floor to attend to what has become a post-run ritual: the rebandaging of my left next-to-the-big-toe toe.  Sometimes there's blood, sometimes it's ust impossibly sore, but after every run, I nurse that little guy back to some semblance of normalcy.  He's pinkish, angry, and I can feel my heartbeat in that tiny littly nub of flesh.

I'd begun to debate going to the doctor. Is it broken?  Can you "break" just the top part of a toe (images of bone chunks floating under my skin)?  Will they tell me not to run?  I kept putting it off because it never really stopped me form logging miles.  It would hurt badly at the beginning of a run but once I was warmed up, it faded to a dull wince.  And once you've got 10 miles under your belt, really, what's another ache?

Tonight, while bandaging, I also started trimming my nails, and then I settled on the painful duty of trimming The Toe That Hurts.  After one snip a HUMONGOUS flood of water (right?) gushed
 out of the top of my toe.  It made a small pool in the carpet.  Evidently, instead of breaking a toe, I'd been harboring the blister to end all blisters under my nail.  How does that happen?? And what is more amazing is that this little guy has been paining me off and on for over six months.  Half-marathon?  Trail 15 miler?  This guy was just killing me. 

I'm tempted to go running again tonight just to see how different my foot feels.  Glorious good-as-new toe!

Marking Progress by Freckle Accumulation

Today was my first run with a tank top, sunlight on bare shoulders.  Mind you, said sunlight disappeared after ten minutes behind a nice grey cloud, but there was sun for a brief, wonderful moment.  In honor of said event, I had my sister take the following picture of my very pale, mildly speckled (this would be my winter coat of freckles, I guess) shoulders:

My plan is to take another picture the day before I run the Marathon in October, after a summer's worth of 10, 15, and 20-milers (yikes!).  Maybe I'll even get someone to play connect-the-dots in some fun, celebratory way. 

One-Day-in-Ten

Last week I had some trouble getting enthused about my wardrobe.  Unfortunately, we were still in some sort of weird Minnesotan spring-winter (sprinter?) hybrid and I shivered the whole way to the busstop.  But I'm completely sick of all winterish clothing and have officially ruled out anything remotely reminiscent of the snowy season. 

(Note: for my handful of dedicated male readers, this blog post is going to be laden with accessory concerns and other general girlishness.  I recommend you check back soon for my next running or baseball or meaning-of-life-related post.  This is going to bore you silly.)

Anyway, wardrobe concerns are stressful for me.  My office is professional in nature but on the days I'm not in hearings or meetings, the dress code is pretty comfy.  No jeans per se, but definitely nothing a person has to worry about.  Unless, of course, you are me.  I blame my mother. I don't think she has ever left the house not looking beautiful (which isn't difficult for her), she just always looks lovely and stylish and put-together.  I assume there is a Southern element to this, too, as I do think we Southern women tend to value our appearance to "society" (or, in my case, the high-steppin' crowd of downtown St. Paul, Minnesota) and just generally shudder at the thought of venturing outside without, gasp, mascara. Yes, I realize I sound ridiculous.

I settled on a black tunic and leggings and heels.  Nothing mindblowing.  But, as I mentioned earlier, my disgust for winter led me to dig around in all jewelry nooks and crannies for something that could liven up such a funereal get-up.  I settled on the necklace/earrings below, which I'd never worn before, and, as you can tell by the fish face that adjoins many of my head-tilted-to-the-side ponderings, I was rather half-hearted in my confidence over the choice:

Note the quizzical does-this-bloom-and-pearl-combo-look-ridiculous-and-kinda-Victorian-in-a-not-awesome-way expression.

My suspicions were confirmed when a coworker said, "wow, Rachel, you look so theatrical today!" Yikes.  I can't say I was looking to inject drama into the halls of state government with the chosen ensemble.  But I can work with the theatre theme.  I got a couple compliments in the skyway, mostly from women over 70 wearing bright jumpsuits, which further proved my coworker's point.  This was not a necklace for novices.  This was a necklace for women seeking to be centerstage.  Better to just embrace that than be encumbered by it.

I spent the rest of the day not thinking of or being bothered by my necklace. It began to grow on me, when I'd catch it in the mirror, and I rather liked it by the time I got home.  I hadn't really thought of it again until thumbing through my phone's photos, looking for something I snapped a couple weeks ago, and came across the picture above.  How silly my momentary obsessions!

Sometimes my appearance trips me up, as I'm sure it does all women.  And unlike most women, I have the added burden (benefit) of having lost a large amount of weight a few years ago and I'm still trying to figure out what beauty means to me.  I was smart, and not much else, for so long, it's hard for me to grapple with the somewhat shocking idea that I can also be pretty somedays.  Nothing traffic-stopping.  Just a typical "pretty," that doesn't get in the way of being labeled smart, funny, productive, whathaveyou. 

It struck me, while thinking about the necklace, of my literary reference for beauty, Anne from Anne of Green Gables.  At one point, Philippa describes Anne as a quiet beauty, someone who's just fairly average 9 days out of 10, nothing to get inspired by or worked up over.  But on that 10th day, she is fantastic.  Theatrical, maybe. I always thought that was the perfect kind of pretty, to have your appearance fail to register as anything beyond average for the bulk of one's life, but to have these special, deliberate, marvelous 1-day-out-of-10 moments when the sun hit you at an angle everyone appreciated. 

So, I've decided the necklace inspired one of those days.  It was a 1-day-in-10, because the little old ladies called me "precious" and my coworker said "wow." 

So the quizzical expression above will henceforth be replaced by a 1-day-in-10 smile.  I did always love the stage.

My Name is Rachel, and I am a Planner

I am a planner.  I plan things.  I plan most things. My Outlook calendar is intense. And I'm confused and inspired by non-planning types. I've always envied the easygoing people of the world.  The non-planners.  The go-with-the-flow-ers. The spontaneously-drive-to-Utah-because-it's-Utah people.  From my perspective they have an almost superpower ability to shut out the world's responsibilities and simply love what the world provides for entertainment.  I do find that rather amazing. 

I've always wanted to be easygoing.  And many of the adventures I've pursued and the avocations I've loved (Peace Corps, acting, traveling) have surrounded me with people whose laidback attitude gave me a glimpse of what a non-Type A person gets out of life.  But even as a Peace Corps volunteer (and all the hippie mojo that requires) I was rabid about my lesson-planning.  Diligent in my use of Arabic flashcards.   I even think I asked my mom to mail me American index cards because the Moroccan ones I found were a different (read: wrong) size than I preferred.  I, of course, had to tame my uber-planner tendencies to adapt to Third World timetables and over time I came to cherish how slow the world moved there.  But I was never really relaxed, always happy but always anxious.

 I used to be embarassed by my planning obsession.  Invites sent weeks in advance.  Reservations made with a keen eye to how long we'd want at dinner before making it to the theater with enough time for a cocktail and a few minutes to read our programs in undimmed seats.  Drives to new places with half an hour to spare, just in case there was traffic, just in case elephants escaped from the zoo and comandeered the bridge.  I brushed aside the importance of planning when casually talking about future activities to friends.  It's no big deal.  Come whenever you like. Just RSVP when you get an idea of your number. Sure, you can bring your brother, boyfriend, stepchild, dog, clown school instructor.  I'm totally easygoing.  Totally.

I don't apologize for it anymore, which I assume must be a sign of age, maturity, and/or acceptance that there's no fighting my base nature.  And now I love this side of me.  I've seen the anxiety in friends tasked with planning a shindig and I get great joy in relieving others of that stress and crafting things myself.  Just as it stresses some people to no end when they have to plan an event, it stresses me when I have no control over avoiding disaster, rearranging mistakes, smoothing wrinkles, and just making sure everyone is happy. 

And that's what it's always about.  Happiness.  I love to watch people smiling, laughing, relaxing because they know they have no responsibilities, nothing to do, nothing to contribute other than joy.  I like the noise of conversation, waves and hellos thrown across rooms, hugs.  Within the wide confines of planning, I am spontaneous and brave.  The structure I can bring to a day gives me great latitude to craft the experiences I want, unhampered by last demands on my time. 

Tonight I'm hosting 60+ people for a dessert function.  I have some cleaning to do, but also planned into my day: a run, lunch with a friend, errands, and a good chunk of time devoted to running the iPod on some bad 80s Roxette numbers and dancing around with the dog barking.  The trick, I think, in making a Type A life a happy one is the focus of The Plan.  Planning for the constant mitigation of disaster is exhausting and soul-crushing.  But planning for happiness, that can never end poorly.

Peace

The current non-spring in Minnesota has had me thinking of prior springs in warmer locales.  Most notably, of Morocco.

Morocco has been on my mind more often of late due to the recent bombing in Marrakech.  And that news, coupled with my perpetual chill up North, has made me lonely for a specific rooftop years ago.  I'd be curled up on a thin, floral mattress ( ponj) with a well-scribbled journal, listening to drums, eating sugared peanuts (cowcow hlloah).  I'd fall asleep that evening listening to a nearly-defunct CD player try to play Beck's Sea Change album and I'd awaken the next morning to meet friends for eggs (beeda), fried onions and tomatoes (bsla oo matesha), and hot, crusty bread (khobz).  It's strange the words that stay with you.  Loved foods, greetings, blessings, goodbyes, "does the taxi meter work?", "poor thing," God, family, thirsty.

When I first saw the photos from the bombing site, my thoughts were self-serving. I hope it's not Cafe Toubkal.  I loved that Cafe.  As if the specificity of my love should grant a certain handful of human beings grace over another handful.  Toubkal is safe, so I've learned.  The cafe that was bombed was a second story restaurant, Cafe Argana, which overlooked D'Jemaa al F'na.  I ate there once or twice when Cafe Toubkal was too busy (Toubkal was cheaper so it got the bulk of my Peace Corps "salary").  I have no endearing recollection of Argana, other than a particularly spicy mustard for the pommes frites, but I have memories of that square, the hubbub of all those cafes and that market and those taxis and those drums, that make Argana feel like a particular blow to my psyche.

At least 16 people are dead, courtesy of a supposed suicide bomber, perhaps Al Qaeda.  The cafe was targeted, I'm sure, due to its penchant for attracting tourists.  At any given time the likelihood of killing an American or a Nationality-friendly-to-Americans would be high.

I never thought the purpose of Peace Corps was to bring about any sort of enduring change in a volunteer's village/locale.  Build a well, maybe. Draw a world map. Teach some kids the lyrics to a lot of Cat Stevens songs. What exactly does that do? Essentially nothing.  But the "Peace" part of it, in my mind, has a lot more to do with forging friendships, telling jokes, breaking bread, helping and being helped. Especially in countries like Morocco, where the anti-American sentiment can run very high, I think the most peaceful thing I might have done involved simply convincing a few dozen people (more?) that I was, in fact, nice. Nice. Kind. With parents who worried about me. Aversion to dried goat meat. Disaster in the kitchen. Altogether harmless and normal.

It continues to break my heart that the part of the world I so fell in love with, that northwestern corner of Africa, must be torn apart by violence.  I say "must" because it does seem to be a foregone conclusion.  Morocco is the most westernized of the Arab countries, the country in the region with the strongest ties to Europe.  It struggles to balance that embrace of Europe (to the point of discussing EU membership every once in awhile) with a deeply-rooted, deeply felt pan-Arab brotherhood. In the midst of seeking to provide more rights to women, more freedoms to all in some minor contexts, it has also voiced disapproval of terrorism and Al Qaeda more vocally than other Arab regimes.  It has supported American efforts to pursue terrorists abroad and, for that, Morocco is punished.  The bombs in Casablanca in 2003, now the bombs in my favorite square in my favorite foreign city, they all seem to be a warning to a country desperately trying to move forward while maintaining cultural and religious authenticity. 

Because I believe in God, a good, just, loving, full-of-Grace God, I have to also believe that the areas of the world rocked by religious and political violence can somehow, someday, move toward peace.  While it is impossible for me to picture a Morocco at this point that is immune from such attacks (is any country immune?) due to its precarious positioning between Allah, Peace, and Progress, I have to believe that my inability to imagine it does not make it truly impossible. 

I also have to believe if the world were simply more connected, not by facebook or iPhones or email or texting, but by physical connection, that the world would be capable of greater peace.  Hate comes so much easier when you can shape an enemy in your mind without any regard for truth.  But if you walked their roads, sat in their cafes and ordered their foods, watched their Mamas play with their babies, listened to their prayer calls or their hymns or the sound of their children skipping rocks in their rivers...

I just have to believe that bombs would be harder to throw. 

One of my favorite sayings in Moroccan Arabic was an exchange of "thank yous" that occurred fairly often.  Like any language, different types of "thank you" required different responses.  But there was one that particularly moved me.  After saying, "shukran" (thank you) for some good deed or help or assistance, sometimes the response I'd receive was "la shukran allah wajeeb."  I'm not sure how to directly translate it.  But it's essentially, "no, do not thank me, it is what Allah expects/requires."  I think God requires that response to all images of human suffering.  I think for every bomb, every flood, every tornado, every war, every rape, every murder, our ache for another human being, no less a child of God than ourselves, should require no thanks nor interpretation.  My hope is that over time, in tiny human-sized increments, we might connect with one another enough, Christian and Muslim, to recognize that God expects love of us.  Not bombs.

Mud and Mascara

I accepted the fact, long ago, that I am a prissy, squeal-at-the-spider-and-ask-the-boy-to-kill-it type girl. Despite a stint in Peace Corps, a decade of softball, and multiple hiking, fishing, and camping trips, the truth remains that I feel naked without mascara and I cannot fathom going to the grocery store in sweatpants. 

Running has been an interesting adventure for me in many ways, not the least of which is the gradual realization that my pursuit of the perfect shade of copper eyeshadow (it's out there, I can feel it) does not negate the worthiness of my sweat. Every race I run I line up at the start and do what every other runner does, I size up everybody around me.  I wonder if they're faster, slower, if this is their first race or their 50th. I debate how much more body fat I have than the girl-child standing next to me and I come to the conclusion that if we were stranded on a desert island, I would at least be the last to die. The vast majority of women at these races do not wear makeup to run.  I get that.  Totally legit.  You sweat, makeup can smear, clog the pores, and the race is often damn early and lipstick just doesn't seem that important (to some women) at 6 a.m.  I don't judge them for that, and if anything, on occasion I envy their nonchalance.  I, however, am different.

I wear mascara to every race (and every occasion whereby I am deemed "in public" because I have a hangup about my redheaded translucent eyelashes).  I'm quasi-addicted to lip gloss so that usually gets tacked on, too.  And for the sake of not scaring small children, I might sweep a bit of blush on my cheeks to help the freckles blend a bit better.

At no race has the juxtaposition of my perfect sweep of mascara and the activity upon which I'm to embark proven to be more opposed than at the Trail Mix 2011 25K, which I slogged through this morning. Trail running is messy regardless of the circumstances.  Today, however, was especially challenging because 1) it snowed and 2) the snow melted. What would have been a mildly soggy run, became a slow traverse over hill and dale punctuated by mile after mile (15.5 of them, to be exact) of black, sticky mud.

As would be no surprise given my affection for lip gloss and all things stereotypically feminine, I tried to be dainty about the mud at first.  I tried to figure out small sidesteps around the worst of it, losing seconds here and there with the mental geometry games of getting foot A and foot B to solid ground C without a tumble.  That lasted for the first 4 miles or so.  Coming down a hill after the second water stop, foot A made a solid landing in 3 inches of black slime that crept up my ankle and into my sock before I had the footing to wrench it free. Several nearby runners heard my horrifed, fiddle-dee-dee Southern groan of "Ewwwwwwwww." But once you've dipped a full foot in the mud, there's really very little purpose in being ladylike.

By the time the second lap stretched before me (the race was two laps of 7.75 miles of trail), I was reveling in the worst of the mud pits.  The occasional stretches of hard, dry ground felt tough on my knees after the softness of sludge, and the sick, thick splash of mud on my calves was a welcome distraction from the ache in my lower back.  My nose began to run in the cold, and sleeves became kleenex quickly, another girlish hint of propriety tossed casually aside out of necessity. 

By the time I rounded the last edge of trail and came in view of the Finish, my shoes were black and my calves were streaked with alternating streaks of dry and fresh mud.  I'd slipped at mile 12, catching myself with my right hand wrist-deep in gook, which was promptly wiped on my thigh, so a nice brown handprint greeted the casual observer. I was frozen and exhausted, calves twitching and stomach churning, by the time I made it to my car. 

I turned on the engine and waited for the seats to warm as I willed my fingers to lose their numbness. I flipped down the visor and peeked in the mirror, a habit borne of two decades of girlish primping. I could feel a layer of freeze-dried sweat at my hairline, hidden by my St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap, and was interested to find I'd managed to splash a wee spot of mud onto my right ear.

True to form, my mascara looked fantastic.

Last Gasp

The last half-mile of my run this evening was accompanied by a blustery last gasp of winter in the form of small spitwads of snow.  There was nothing flake-esque about these morsels.  They were snowballs valiantly fighting the urge to be a commonplace raindrop.  I cheer their effort, and I cheer their eminent failure.

Thin layers of snow-clay glaze the sidewalk cracks that guide me home,
wet, brown reminders of last week's ice.
Bashful hints of green tease a handful of tree limbs, tiny specks of promise amidst a sea of
dirt, salt, grime.
Not a pretty season.
But a welcome one.

The Stations of the Cross

Growing up Baptist, I never really heard the phrase, "Stations of the Cross" in the Lenten season.  I can recall seeing images of Christ in the Garden, his nearby disciples sleeping (that was always the image that struck me most as a child, Christ looking lonely), or of Joseph of Aramathea taking His body to a newly-carved grave, rolling a stone across its entrance.  I know that the Stations are in thousands of churches, carved in sequence along a thousand walls, keeping watch over a million pews.  But the Stations were not a part of my particular religious upbringing, so they were new to me.

My dear friend, Fiona, planned a hike in reverence to these stations and invited me along.  About a dozen of us showed up on what was, in my memory, the sunniest and warmest Saturday we've had since Autumn.  We traipsed around the Lebanon Hills area, walking 5-10 minutes, stopping to read one of the fourteen Stations, saying the Lord's Prayer, moving on.  I walked mostly with a friend, Matt, and in between our supplications to the Cross we talked about baseball and work and church and various mutual friends. I also spoke with a few people I'd never met before, going over the typical pleasantries of "where do you work?" and "where are you from?" before focusing on Jesus's betrayal by Judas or his taking up of the Cross.

It hasn't been the best couple of weeks.  I was tired as much from being sad as from being busy.  So the sunshine was lovely but a bit too much for my determined-to-be-grumpy mood.  My heart wasn't in the readings, even my insistence in muttering the final lines of the Lord's Prayer when everyone else ended with "deliver us from evil," (lots of Catholics in the bunch, whose shortened form of the prayer just seems unfinished to me) was born as much from habit as from annoyance. Not a great attitude for spiritual reflection.

But by the time we reached the final station, listened to the final reading where the tomb is closed up following Christ's death, my heart had softened a bit.  The last of the stations is dark and desperate, a glimpse of the world without Grace. The tomb sealed, pending Resurrection, and the promise of Easter still yet to be fulfilled.  How sad and unsteady a moment, how heavy must be the World's collective heart.  But, as Christians, we see the glimmer, the Hope, inherent in that rolled stone, because it will soon be rolled away.

I am not grateful enough on any given day for the blessings of Easter.  But I do try to remember those blessings, try to have them in mind, which is what the Lenten season requires of Christians.  I'm haphazard at giving up anything for the season (again, not something Baptists put much stock in), and I often find myself more wrapped up in the prospect of a new Easter dress than a new life in Christ. But with every misstep or failed priority I do try to remember what I should reflect on, the burden I should have had to carry had Grace not lifted it for me.  And at the final station I was moved by how lucky I must be.  I stand in a field on a sunny day with a dozen other believers who think walking around in the last of the snow reading Scripture sounds like a good way to spend an afternoon.  I talk about baseball in between stations and contemplate grocery lists for tomorrow's errands.  I have no wars to wage outside my door, have no fear that my faith will get me killed.  I look up at a Cross in the middle of a field with no anxiety save that for my soul. My heart is heavy for all those who lack that freedom.  And for those, like me, who fail to remember what it may cost.