Stu

One of my colleagues, Stu, is retiring tomorrow (we've hoped against hope that it was all an April Fools' Day joke but, alas, he seems determined).  I don't know that I've ever stated where I work so I won't break tradition now by speaking of it too closely, but I believe I've made mention before that I work for the State of Minnesota. 

Stu has been a public servant at the agency where I currently hang my hat for longer than I've been alive.  As he browses my blog fairly often, I won't belabor that point.  Suffice it to say, I was terrified by that level of experience when our boss first delivered me to my little grey cube.  I was told that my neighbor could answer any question I might have and that I should pester him accordingly.  Stu and I went to lunch that first week, just the two of us, and he proceeded to ask me what I knew of economics.  My blank stare probably unnerved him.  Beyond a layperson understanding of preferred stocks and enough recall of Keynes from college to be dangerous, my grasp of Econ was about as graceful as a pig in heels. I'm a lawyer, does that evoke any form of confidence? I could write well, I knew my way around a statute, and I was curious.  I'm not sure I sold him on my worth at that point but we at least established that we could talk about books.  Lots of books.

I pestered him often that first year and routinely in the year and a half since.  "Stu, I have a question..."  "Stu, do you have a minute?"  "Stu, I don't understand..." "Stu, does this make sense?"  "Stu, can you explain..."
While he left teaching to join the agency staff decades ago, in every answer he was a Teacher.  Never patronizing, never unkind, always happy to brighten the darkness around any number of issues that popped up during the day.

But it isn't the professional counsel that I'll miss most (although I am tempted to call him at home for a few choice dockets).  I'll miss the 8 a.m. meeting of the Quiz Crew to fuss over Isaac Asimov's daily quiz, followed by a reading of the same set of cartoons (nobody can do Sally Forth or Dilbert or Doonesbury like Stu).  I'll miss slow wanders to the Lobby Shop for my coffee and Stu's 60 cent milk.  I'll miss Stu's chivalry, always opening the door.  I'll miss his voice over the wall reading any number of quotes from various Red and Blue-affiliated interests.  I'll miss being teased for my quasi-love of Ayn Rand (but I'm a Liberal, Stu, I promise, just a conflicted one).  I'll miss his asking me how my races went, how my training runs went, how I liked this or that play/book. I'll miss his "good morning," as we both made our way to desks shortly before 7 each day.

I think the best type of colleague is the one that makes everyone around them better at what they do.  Everyone who worked with Stu was a better economist/analyst/lawyer/regulator for having known him.

And the best sort of friend makes you recognize the better person you could be.  It isn't a matter of judgment, but of displaying, without fanfare or expectance of praise, what Goodness and Integrity look like in a walking, talking, breathing human being.  I am a better person because I met and worked with Stu, and I will miss him for it.

Arms and the Man

In college I assistant stage managed (ASM) Shaw's Arms and the Man.  At the time, I was a theatre major, and ASMing was a requirement for that course of study.  I was loathe to forego an opportunity to be onstage for the stress of backstage turmoil but I swallowed my pride and hoped for the best.  A dear friend was the Stage Manager and, honestly, I'm rather surprised our friendship survived that experience.

Last night I attended the Guthrie's performance of Shaw's play in their proscenium.  And I was struck by how little of the story I remembered.  I remember cues, certain costumes, certain pieces of the set that rolled away during dress rehearsal (resulting in my sacrificing myself before the wrath of the Director), a line or two, and a long, long night of finishing the set mere hours before showtime.  I remember waking up on the floor of the theatre, curled up in a heap of velvety curtain, shaken awake just in time to shower before my first class.

I remember that show, not as a performance, but as the experience that made me hate the process just enough to drop the major.  I loved (still love?) being onstage.  And I was a very good actress.  I would hazard a guess (based on professorial comment) that I was also a pretty kickass ASM. I took the bullet when necessary and I sweat blood for that show.  But at the end of the run, I despised every inch of that set, the direct opposite of how I felt after acting.  It was an easy decision, dropping the major, as much a result of exhaustion as it was critical thinking.

But last night made me wonder if my life would have been different had I finished up the requirements, stage managed another show, graduated with the theatre degree.  Not a lucrative career path, to be sure.  I likely still would have done Peace Corps, but I might have been more likely to side with a trip to New York upon my return than I was to fill out law school applications. 

I don't regret where I am now and I don't regret the path I took to get here.  I do wonder how this life compares to the ones I might have known had I taken other bends in the road. There will be more bends, I'm sure. And George Bernard Shaw and his play will prove to be only one groove, one turn that led me to somewhere I haven't seen yet. 

And I like that.

 

The Leader of the Pack

I recently took up a part-time seasonal gig at a running store near my apartment as a running instructor for a Learn to Run course.  I have around six dedicated participants who agree to follow my lead and train for 10 weeks for a spring 5K.  Some used to run, some never ran, some hate the idea of running, and all agree that sunshine makes any run a bit happier.

As anyone who has kept up with the running elements of this blog would know, I am not fast.  I am comfortably mediocre when it comes to speed, averaging a 10:30 mile for runs less than 6 miles, and closer to 11:00 for most half-marathons.  So I was initially shy about applying for the instructor position due to my unshakeable feeling that All Runners Are Twig-Thin and Run 7 Minute Miles. How could a Human Who Likes to Run But Who Is Not Twig-Thin and Does Not Run 7 Minute Miles be so bold as to lead a course on running?  The audacity!

This is ludicrous, of course, given that I know many, many normal-sized humans who are excellent runners and I would never deem them anything LESS than a true blue runner.  But, alas, I haven't quite fixed the bug in my brain that tells me I am not, and will never be, a Runner (capital "R").  Marathons, half-marathons, I'm still just a fast walker in fancy Asics.

Self-doubt notwithstanding, I really wanted the job.  And now that we're in our third week, I can say that I enjoy it.  The natural cheerleader in me thrives on encouraging the downhearted so I'm drawn to the frustration that beginning runners feel.  A leader in such a course doesn't need to be fast, in fact, it's better if they're not.  They just need to love to run, love the process, love the practice, love the inch by inch sucesss of increasing mileage. A few of the girls are a little speedier than the others so I pace my time between the two groups, speeding up or dropping back to cheer as needed.  They ask me questions about blisters, food, carbs, stretching, socks, and shoes. And, generally, I have answers.  Not perfect answers, but answers born of a few years on the road, a few injuries, a few mistakes (do not, under any circumstances, eat a tuna salad sandwich before a half-marathon in 90 degree heat unless you want to throw up).   We talk about the day, the weather, work, trips, and training.  It's a brief respite on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Sundays, that reminds me why I run in the first place.

Not because I'm good or because I'm fast.  But because I've never met a mile I regretted running.

The Road Never Breaks Up With Me

I ran my first half-marathon of the year this morning, despite a complete failure to train adequately and a Friday evening spent crying in a Walgreens parking lot with my Mama on the line, listening to her tell me I am, indeed, a lovable person.

Breakups are never easy, but because this one was not initiated by me, it came as a bit of a shock. I suppose, upon reflection (13.1 miles allows for a lot of that), I saw it coming.  And I suppose it was necessary.  For all the happiness I felt in his presence, there was something missing he was more willing to name than I was.  He's older, perhaps he is actually wiser.  I can accept that.

I spent all of last summer, all of those races, single.  It wasn't a bad gig, but I missed, badly, having a boyfriend to cheer me on, or at least meet me for burgers after particularly long runs.  I missed looking for his hat in the crowd.  And I missed his texts wishing me good luck.  I was happy, looking forward to today's race, to know that that was back, that I had someone to meet for breakfast afterwards, someone to tease me a bit for the pained limp down the stairs.  To have lost it mere hours before race time was, in a word, difficult.

But races always make me feel strong, whether I'm having a particularly speedy day or if I'm slogging through with every ounce of Little Engine That Could-edness I can muster.  I thought of The Boy often, but I didn't think of him the whole time.  It seems like a simple thing but I will say that I'm impressed by my ability to focus on the task at hand when other other areas of my life simultaneously implode.  It has never been difficult for me to run hard and well after a breakup (done it before), just as it has never been hard for me to focus at work/school when disappointment was the undercurrent of my day.  My heart detaches from my brain nicely, I guess, in most instances.  I wasn't thinking of him when I crossed the finish.

The road does not break up with me.  It breaks my heart on occasion, it exhausts me, it frustrates me, but it is always a steady, stable presence.  Whether I'm counting miles or minutes, its solidness is something I crave on days that the rest of my world feels wobbly.  I like the dependability of pain, I like the ache as I climb out of my car and walk slowly to my apartment.  I like the silly hungers after a long run, my bizarre desire for anything as long as it includes ketchup, and the happy exhaustion that graces the rest of the day. I like the drumming of shoes on pavement, the pulse of swinging arms to the Florence + the Machine or the Queen or the Rolling Stones or the Mumford & Sons playing through my earphones.  I like watching people pause, watching them walk at mile 10 and then watching them pass me at 11.  I like the solitude and solidarity of running, and I needed it today.

It was a strong, well-paced run on a day I could have allowed myself to be sloppy.  It was a minor victory after what felt like defeat.  So I am grateful for those 13.1 miles, and all the heartache it allowed me to ignore for 2 hours and 28 minutes.

Singsong

A trip to Florida for spring training this past weekend found me sitting in the bleachers watching my family's team, the Cardinals, beat my current city's team, the Twins. Bleachers are my favorite place to sit as it's easier to smell the dirt and beer just tastes better in the bleachers. And while drinking said beer and listening to my boyfriend talk baseball trades with a Pittsburgh fan in front of us, there was that holy and distinct sound of bat* connecting with bound leather that reminded me of my own days of well-worn gloves and polyester sliding shorts. (*note: my Dad read this blog and emailed me to correct my use of "metal" in the prior sentence since aluminum bats have never been allowed in MLB baseball.  The crack of a bat sounds like metal to me, but I concede that my aluminum-based childhood bat usage likely colors my aural experience. Thanks, Dad.)

Softball took up a long chapter of my childhood.  I joined a T-ball team the summer after kindergarten and played slightly longer than a decade before hanging up my cleats in favor of the spotlights of high school theater. The majority of the girls on my various teams have been forgotten, as well as the majority of the wins and defeats.  A few coaches stick out (some fondly, some not-so-much), a few awesome plays, a couple injuries, but only one at-bat has survived in the half-life since I quit the game.

I wouldn't say I was ever a great ballplayer.  By the time I quit, I was a very good shortstop and a competent second base.  I was also never a powerhouse at bat.  I hit a handful of homeruns in my decade of play, and most of those were only homeruns due to errors on the other team's part.  Despite my slighty-better-than-mediocre mediocrity, I can be proud of how well I learned the game and how dedicated I was to a sport that, at first, seemed destined to destroy all childhood joy.

My first couple of years playing I remember having fun.  But I also remember being HORRIBLE at bat.  Once they took the T away and I had to swing at actual pitches, I was just a mess.  I'm sure I cried a good bit over it, although I don't remember doing so.  I just remember the burning knot of anxiety that formed in my stomach when I was on deck, my brother playing in the dirt on the other side of the backstop, my dad smiling and shouting support from those noisy, shiny metal bleachers. We were in Arkansas then and softball was a hot sport. The bats left too long in the sunshine would burn the skin, and I can remember the taste of hot, still Southern air when I would take my practice swings with that burning bat.

My dad would practice with me at home, tossing pitches that I could never hit.  I'd get frustrated and probably start to cry and he'd get frustrated and tell me to shake it off.  After a few too many minutes in that routine, we'd switch to playing catch, which I was infinitely better at.  Dad would hit grounders at me and I'd dive around in our backyard with my dog chasing my heels, or he'd stand at the top of the hill at the side of our house and toss monstrously high pop flys to my waiting glove below.  I was a good fielder, and it was definitely easier to strengthen my assets than force me into a skill I was loathe to master.  My bat and that ball were just not meant to be friends.

I suppose that's why I distinctly remember the game where I got my first "real" hit, the first time my bat hit the sweet spot on the ball and sent it in a solid, unforgiving line just above the head of the shortstop, grounding to the fence with a left fielder on its tail. I can remember the sound of that hit, coupled with that sharp, nearly painful vibration of metal traveling from palm to elbow to shoulder, like I'd just stepped out of that batter's box, bat tossed towards the dugout along first base (we were visitors that game). 

Before that at bat my dad had said often (usually after patting me on the back after another strikeout) that I just needed to keep practicing and if I kept my eye on the ball, one day I would make the two connect.  This is common, overly common advice.  Keep your eye on the ball.  Keep your eye on the ball.  It was some phrase in Swahili that never settled in my brain to make a formidable impression.  I can watch the ball all I want, Dad, and typically I watch it sail right over the plate because I'm too scared to swing.  What does "watching the ball" have to do with anything?

I remember the team I was playing for at the time was coached by a drunk, Billy, who yelled at us often.  The parents would step in when he got rowdy, and he didn't last many seasons coaching.  He was actually a very good, deliberate coach when he was sober.  And he genuinely wanted us to win.  But I remember his breath and that cup of tobacco spit as he'd wave me out of the dugout and tell me that "if you're going to strikeout, at least strike out swinging."  I wasn't his hitter and he knew it, so why waste effort on the girl that just watches the ball land in the catcher's mitt?

Our team that year had hideous maroon tshirts, I think sponsored by a garbage collection company, which I wore with either black sliders or an equally hideous pair of hawaiian shorts.  The Day of the Hit was a hawaiian shorts kind of day.  I walked past my parents and my brother, likely jumping off bleachers or killing bugs or inflicting injury on himself or others at that point. My dad likely yelled his encouraging phrase of the inning (that must get monotonous for parents of underachieving athletes) and I'm sure my gut was hollow and I was just hoping for minor embarassment, hopefully to be rectified by a good play or two in the infield later on.  I'm sure my mom said something along the lines of , "You can do it, honey!" and I just moped my way to the box.

Billy wasn't too drunk that day, but he was mean anyway.  I had three balls and one strike at the point when Billy yelled, loud, exasperated, and simple, "Swing!"  I remember looking at him, probably scornfully, and then looking over at my parents.  My dad was picking my brother out of the dirt and talking to him with a stern expression and my mom was watching me and smiling, blithely waving her hand as if I was doing an excellent job up there.  At that point I just figured swinging would be the fastest way to get the moment over with and so I settled in and leaned my weight against my right leg, hands grasping a good two inches above the end of the bat which I held at an angle slightly lower than normal since before the game my dad had mentioned sometimes I held it a little high.  Harder to swing it around that way.  

This time, this pitch, I saw the ball as it left the pitcher's hands.  I could see it, watch it, the way you watch an egg roll over a counter, fall, and splatter on the kitchen floor.  It was an easy, rolling egg, kind of pitch.  And for the first time I hooked my elbow a bit higher before bringing the bat around to twist at the waist, watched that egg, the sweet spot of that mud-crusted egg, crack at the thickest part of my bat.  I remember Billy's yelp of surprise and hearing my dad yell, "Go, Rachel!" and while I know I ran, know I got a double, know we lost the game, I don't remember much beyond that moment.  Only the arc of the pitch, Billy's "Swing!", my mom's sweet smile, and my dad's emphatic direction stick out on the periphery of what I felt.  It's what I felt that remains. 

It's the feel of diamond dirt beneath tennis shoes (I didn't get cleats until I played in St. Louis a few years later), the marking of that line with my right foot as I stepped into the box, the slow slow tense of the right shoulder as it lifts up, and the swift, strong twist of the hip as I pivoted towards the ball ("point your right hip right where you want to hit that ball," quoth Billy), that remains.  And the sound of that metal-on-leather choir, the singsong of the game, echoes through each tap and crack and minor hit and grand slam of baseball. Every spring.  Every year.

And maybe that's one reason why I love it so much.

From Here

My dad and I went to the Shakopee auction on Friday night.  We got there too early and left well before the normal three hour event wrapped up.  We came home with nothing, despite a couple of attempts at a food processor (for me) and some well-stocked tackle boxes (for dad). We shared a not-good pretzel (what is that cheese stuff made out of anyway? melted tonka trucks?) and largely sat and watched a small slice of Americana unfold.

Despite many differences and my penchant for bleeding-heartedness, my dad and I share a certain element of romanticized love for our country.  I say romanticized not because we're naive or silly but because I think each of us, in our way, recognizes how things should be long before we decide the proper path to that result.  We each recognize the goodness in simplicity and communal solidarity and the likelihood of corruption when things (government, church, restaurants) get too big to be handled effectively.  We may differ in the party we align our (both of us) tenuous allegiance to today, but I think our hopes and worries are probably painfully similar.  And both, at their core, stem from a hope that we are directing our path in a way that honors God first, country following far, far behind.

I only mention this now because I imagine some of my father's attachment to our Friday activity was similar to my own. Some of that enjoyment was likely inspired by a good dose of patronizing people watching (who in heaven's name needs a box of dog costumes?!) but some of it was inspired by the good kind of people watching, the kind that makes you think, "yes, this is how it should be." 

Before the auction got rolling the announcer opened up with a sad and common story.  Fred (or Joe or Hank or Charlie, I forget), who'd lived in Shakopee all his life, who'd raised his kids in Shakopee, whose youngest went to the high school, went to the doctor because he wasn't feeling well and came home with a diagnosis of cancer.  There's going to be an auction in April, catered by our friends at Buca di Beppo, and we're selling tickets for $10 apiece, every cent to Fred and his family.  She spoke and encouraged sales for less than 3 minutes, probably sold half a dozen tickets right there.  No doubt she'll sell them every Friday for the next month, and they'll be pushing them at the cashier's window when everybody pays their night's tally. 

My first thought, upon hearing this announcement, was, "yes! this is how it should be! In a perfect world, this is how communities should act."  But Shakopee is not a perfect world.  So why limit perfection to Perfection? A perfect world, in tiny increments, can exist in auction houses on Friday nights selling bad pretzels and taco-in-a-bag. 

I'm co-leading a bible study right now on C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce.  It is one of the most gratifying spiritual exercises I've ever experienced, and one of the toughest mentally.  For those who don't know the story, Lewis explores Heaven and Hell by way of a busride between the two.  An ancient Catholic thought was that souls in Hell would be given a "day off" out of Hell, a sort of merciful respite from damnation.  Lewis used this concept to bring those souls to the outskirts of Heaven, to allow them to glimpse that side of eternity and, perhaps, realign their perspective in a way that got rid of self-involvement enough to contemplate Grace.  Each of the lost souls Lewis examines is self-absorbed in some way or another, it's the link that binds the lost together.  Whether it be shame, or pride, or addiction to recognition, or lust, all of the sins that make it impossible for the souls to visualize God are sins that place Self far above the Almighty.

In one especially powerful conversation between a lost soul and a "solid person" (Heaven's inhabitants), the Heavenly person says:

There have been men before now who got so interested in proving the existence of God that they came to care nothing for God Himself...as if the good Lord had nothing to do but exist!  There have been some who were so occupied in spreading Christianity that they never gave a thought to Christ...Did ye never know a lover of books that with all his first editions and signed copies had lost the power to read them? Or an organiser of charities that had lost all love for the poor? It is the subtlest of all the snares.

This passage has been resonating with me since I first read it, weeks ago, bouncing off the edges of my brain and resurfacing at seemingly odd moments, like when I'm debating the worth of a used food processor at a small town auction.  I think it struck me while the announcer was talking about this stricken townsmember because her plea for ticket sales and her description of the dilemma were in the same tone of voice.  They were of equal import.  The request for aid was a statement as much as it was an actual invitation. It is a plea but it is also a Truth, that we, as a community, should wrap around this man and do what we can.  So tonight, in this auction house, we will sell a few tickets, and then we will sell a few more.  Because that is what good people do, it's what a community should be, and it's what the struggling, the poor, are promised by the Lord, in the person of the Church.

Now we weren't in a church.  And I have no way of knowing whether the people who bought tickets were Christians.  I didn't buy one.  But it struck me that the Church fails, miserably and often, in addressing the needs of the poor, in doing exactly what God tells us to do when he tells us to take care of them.  And because the Church fails, the State steps in.  Poverty is a broad, terrifying thing, but the wealth and power of every Church in America, together, could eliminate it in this country.  We do not.  The Church fails.  There are great strides made, wonderful sacrifices, glorious dedication from men and women and children at various orphanages, soup kitchens, halfway houses, AA meetings, prisons, and wrong-sides-of-the-tracks.  But it will never be enough unless charity grows out of a love for the poor translated into a duty to serve, and not a duty worth nothing more than a tithe. 

 When the auction announcer began her ticket sale for Fred, she appealed to his roots.  He's from Here.  He grew up Here.  He raised his kids Here.  As a community we should rise up and serve him, honor him, bless him in every way we can.  It struck me, I suppose, of how powerful it would be to make the same statement about every single human being on the face of the planet.  If "here" is but a synonym of "God's child," then we are all guilty, everyday, of ignoring our brethren. 

If every single person is from Here, from Him, rather, then we should all be buying tickets.