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.