The Impossibles

I began this year with a botched attempt at a New Year's Day half-marathon. The weather was awful, the road slippery, and my stomach was doing its own celebratory countdown before, I assumed, it was going to implode upon itself and leave a small black hole where my body used to be.  Note to self: do NOT eat your weight in 'lil smokies the night before a half-marathon, even if they are wrapped in sugared bacon and laced with crack. 

It wasn't a great start.  I quit at the halfway mark, sticking to the 10K distance and comforting myself with the knowledge that 99% of humanity was still snug in bed whilst I was out kicking off the New Year with a solid sweat (and stomach cramps). 

I remedied January's disastrous start with a half-marathon a few weeks later, and thus began the only New Year's Resolution I ever kept: run at least one half-marathon (or longer distance) race every month of 2012. 

February belonged to the aptly-named Hypothermic Half, a small race with noisy, exuberant supporters and a scenic two loops around a couple Eden Prairie lakes.

March, April, and May were easily checked off the list with races I'd done in prior years (the Get Lucky, the Trail Mix, and the Minnetonka). June was a loftier month as I wrestled through Grandma's full marathon a mere 3 days after returning from Europe.  While I'd like to say that I used my two weeks in Europe to taper as every good marathoner should, I really just used those two weeks as an excuse to carbload with an unholy number of croissants. Needless to say, Grandma's was the slowest of my three marathons and my most painful. 

July was home to the Afton Trail Race, my sister's first of the 15 mile distance, and her company made the agony of those hills a bit more palatable (even if the young one did smoke me by a good 20 minutes). My trail races only served to reinforce my preference for that medium.  I will always favor the company of trees over storm drains. 

August brought the Urban Wildlands Half, a race that I seem unable to participate in without it raining. I'm clearly bad luck for the other runners so I'll likely avoid this trek in the future.

September saw another trail race, the Surly Half in Theodore Wirth, which this year I managed to complete without running face first into a tree (my first attempt at this race two years ago resulted in a scraped nose).  Warm lefse at the start and cold beer at the finish made this race one of my favorites of the year, and one I will surely repeat for years to come. 

October was a busy month running-wise.  I ran/hiked my first trail marathon in Duluth with a dear friend, getting lost along the way and thus bringing our total mileage north of 28 miles. I've never eaten a burger with such abandon before, and never had that particular muscle in my ass make itself known quite so vociferously. As I like to really exhaust myself, apparently, and I'm a sucker for a cute running jacket, I ran the Monster Dash half for the third (fourth?) time this year, too, at the tail end of that month. A pretty day, but that's the best I can say for that one.

November is the month of my birth and as Minnesota was unwilling to organize a half-marathon ANYWHERE within its borders in my honor, I organized my own. Several intrepid friends ran all or a portion of the race with me, several others came armed with gummi worms and mulled wine along the route, and others happily toasted my finish with beers and burgers downtown.  It was, by far, my slowest half-marathon of all time, but also one of my happiest.

And this past weekend, I finally sealed this resolution with 13.1 miles around City Park and Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans at the Ole Man River Half-Marathon.  I carb-loaded with my favorite pizza at Reginelli's, got a high five at the start from a giggly, snuggly two-year old, and ate back every burned calorie with gusto in my favorite former home. It was a worthy end to a long, exhausting ride, a ride that started with giving up halfway through my first race of the year.

In 2009 I ran my first half-marathon, the Stillwater Half, in May of that year. Days after completion of that race, I signed up for the Twin Cities Marathon and ran that race for the first time, too. When I signed up for that first half-marathon three and a half years ago, I never would have dreamed that one day I'd be running this distance (and sometimes longer) on a monthly basis. I didn't know that was possible.  Had my disastrous January 1st race been my first attempt at a half-marathon, that experience would have surely chastened me, made me skittish to attempt another trek. But a few years of experience makes it easier to distinguish between Bad Day and Impossible. I'm not sure how many half-marathons I've completed, likely around 30. And I know that despite being tired, despite my calves being stiff, despite the exhaustion of 12 months of maintaining this level of training, I could run another 13 tomorrow if that was necessary (it's not). My definition of "impossible" shifted with that first half-marathon. It shifted again with my first marathon. Again with this year's 12 months of racing. 

So, impossible is relative. Relative to what I'm willing to sacrifice and how much effort I'm willing to expend. How many times I'm willing to start over. How many mistakes (lil smokies) I'm willing to forgive. 9 times out of 10, impossible is a choice not to test possibility. And I'm getting very good at assuming most of what I want to achieve is in the realm of possibility. Running gave me that in 2012. And now it's time to start pondering what running may give me in 2013. 

An overabundance of possibilities, to be sure.

Wandering Within The Favorite

I lived in New Orleans years ago. And as with most experiences, I failed to recognize how happy I was there until I made the conflicted decision to leave. I return when I can and imagine I always will, long after my best loved New Orleans inhabitants move away. And every time, every quick weekend, every lazy wandering, I remember what it feels like to fit into a place.

I am certainly not unhappy in Minneapolis. I've built a warm, connected circle of friends here, watched my sister grow up there, and treasured the novelty of living so close to my parents after years away. And after a few years of constant yearnings to get back South, I finally love it enough to be comfortable with the thought of making it my long term home.

But that feeling has been crafted out of necessity and as a result of great effort. I had to make myself love Minneapolis, something I never had to do with New Orleans. I loved her instantly. And more than loved, I felt at home within her streets from day one.

In New Orleans, I am not a noisy woman. I'm pretty boring, maybe quiet, by New Orleans standards. Comparatively, I feel (and have been deemed by some Minnesotans) boisterous, overly neon, a bit too giggly in certain situations. The difference, I think, is simply a matter of ambient noise (or lack thereof). Minneapolis is a quiet city compared to New Orleans jazz, jackhammers, hollers, and horns. I feel noisy in Minneapolis because there isn't enough sound to drown me out.

My first few years in Minneapolis I thought that it must be impossible to be happy in a place where one doesn't fit. And I'm not sure if the shift in my thinking is a reaction to knowing that a move back to New Orleans is likely not in the cards, or perhaps a result of having nestled into Minneapolis just enough to make "fitting" less important. My comfort level in Nola, if I'm honest, also made me physically and spiritually lazy.  So perhaps I'm better served in a city I have to force myself to embrace on occasion.  Perhaps I am a better version of myself when I live where I don't necessarily belong, but wander from time to time in a city that reminds me of the version of myself I found easiest to love.

Better Than Fine

I went to a concert alone last night.  My original intention was to attend with a friend but work responsibilities crept in, made the evening a difficult one for her.  I haphazardly threw out invites, to no avail.  I decided to go by myself, silly 8th grade don't-want-to-go-to-the-dance-without-a-date insecurities and all.

As an extrovert, I tend to be happiest in the company of friends, either of the long-established friendship variety or the nice-to-meet-ya sort.  I love people, the stories, the laughter, the inside jokes, the sharing of plates of french fries, the mutual hatred for That One Song, and the mutual love for That Other Song. But the older I get, the more I realize how capable I am of happiness outside such a throng.  The absence of friends may make me lonely for a period of time, but that period is always finite and brief.  I'm easily distracted by the joy of experiencing something new, something pretty, something soul-soothing, and the world is full of such things.

To listen to live music in the company of a friend, especially one with a like sense of what constitutes Good and Not Good music (with mild acceptance attached to deviations from those norms), is a precious thing. To have someone to smile at after a particularly rousing set or to help you pick out the flaws of an off-key songstress is a key component in establishing music-based friendships. And to find someone that doesn't require a constant discussion, someone that will just let you dance or bob your head or close your eyes, without a need to dissect the moment is equally important.  Perfect music friendships notwithstanding, in the company of a friend you're always subject to their whims, their exhaustion level, how many beers they want tonight, how desperate they are for a date, how annoyed they are by a tardy performer. Even in the best of scenarios, where you find a balance of musical personalities and like appreciation for concert-going decorum, you're still at the mercy of their happiness.  Or I am.

It's functionally impossible for me to enjoy myself if I sense that my companion is having a not-awesome time.  If they're unhappy (or if I can't tell one way or the other), I spend the evening trying to be exciting, trying to amuse them, trying to make them smile. I'm on a stage that I did not ask to be on.

Alone, I am invisible. There is no harm in my desire to move from the balcony to the floor and back again.  There is no risk in looking like a fool if I decide I want to dance. There is no barrier to conversation should I say hello to the nice-looking boy at the bar.  There are no hurdles if I tuck myself into a corner and jot a few notes for That Other Blog. I drink my Diet Coke. I chase it with a beer. I am the only one that needs to care, the only one that matters. And beneath it all is the pulse and twang of the music I came to hear.

I know that I will always prefer the company of a like-minded music buff.  I will always want to bemoan the amount of coffee ingested the next day with a friend who talked me into one more song the night before. I will always want the stories and laughter and side-by-side flailing that has blessed the majority of my concert experiences.

But on the rare occasions that I venture onto a out alone, move to the music in the company of strangers, I will be happily, unsurprisingly, better than fine.

Before You Were Born

This last month has not been my favorite.  I'd say, actually, that since the end of October I've been certifiably bummed out, low, exhausted. I'm not one to mope for extended periods of time, so I haven't been curled up in bed reading Anna Karenina or anything that dour.  But my generally incessant optimism has been a bit clouded of late, a bit less blind, a bit less sunny.

That this mood coincided with my birthday is, at first blush, unfortunate.  Nobody would want to greet the new year with a grey haze on the horizon. But I can recognize now, the day after my 32nd birthday, how much easier it is to overcome a season of disappointment when surrounded by every evidence of love.

In January I made a quasi-crazy decision to run at least a half-marathon every month of 2012. I signed up for races, most of the 13.1 mile variety but a few of greater distance, and found myself lacking in only one month, the month of my birth.  November/December are not prime half-marathon season up North. I took this as a divine sign that I needed to fly to  New Orleans in December for a half-marathon but that still left November race-less.

My dad gave me the idea of crafting my own race, and I sent out invites early in November detailing the proposed craziness.  13.1 miles (13.4, actually) around the lakes near my apartment, hopefully supported by a few friends here and there and culminating in beers and burgers at a bar downtown. When late October ended with the end of a relationship, appropriately enough right after my October half-marathon, I contemplated canceling the race.  I could run the distance on my own, no need for additional festivities, no need to highlight my depression with glaring requirements for jubilation. The support was really superfluous anyway, I ran longer on my own all the time.  I listed a lot of justifications internally for calling the whole thing off.

The reasons I felt I could not cancel came in the form of friendships. Text messages and the occasional tease about my silly race, questions about where the mulled wine station should be located, inquiries into my sanity, requests for where an intrepid bike rider might join the fray, what my preferred snack might be around mile 5. I didn't have the heart to be less than the bubbly woman most of my friends expect, and didn't want my 32nd birthday to be the one I remembered as "Canceled Due To Sadness."  So I faked enthusiasm for this race, and crossed my fingers that it would feel legitimate eventually.

A dear friend ran the length of the race with me and we chatted about work and church and general gossip, the way women do.  We were joined for 6-7 miles by two other dear friends, one on two wheels and the other my first and biggest cheerleader of this marathon nonsense. The run went quickly, not only because we chatted and laughed the whole way, but because I was greeted by friendly faces every few miles.

I don't think anyone ever outgrows the grin that accompanies clapping and cheering of one's name. My friends, Sharon and Amy, were the first pit stop, manned with gatorade and twizzlers and gummi bears and hugs.  Sharon cheered me on at my first half-marathon several years ago, and I was reminded of that when I heard her call my name. Still "Go Rachel", still running, still smiling, still one step in front of the other, still surrounded by friends, none of this has changed.

Other friends, along with my parents, peppered the rest of the route.  Mile 12 held the added bonus of girlfriends in brightly colored jackets and silly hats, offering a thermos of mulled wine to cushion that last mile. With each hug and high five and smile, I mirrored the same.  And my smiles were borne largely out of surprise. I just kept wondering why all of these folks showed up, why my friends ran and biked with me, why my mom brought those pretzels, why my dad would tell stories about me, why anyone would carve time out of their weekend to do something this ridiculous. The race was a purely self-serving endeavor. The goal was unimportant for everyone but me, and yet I was important enough to support on a Saturday morning. It seemed nuts. Are all of my friends nuts?

I have no expectation that broken hearts heal overnight, or that a string of happy moments adequately guard one's mind from venturing down darker paths on occasion.  But I think God takes care of people in ways fashioned purely for that individual.  I think He knows how to wrap us up and heal us in ways we don't even imagine as necessary.  When I crafted this race a couple months ago, I had no idea that I would need it.  It was a silly way to celebrate a birthday. But after that run, shoes removed, sitting on my couch and waiting for the sitting-on-the-couch-sadness to take over and make me feel small again, I instead was struck by how many people hugged me that day, who gave me flowers, who brought me cupcakes, who brought me a rosemary bush, who bought my lunch, who wished me a happy year, who signed a card.  And despite a month of feeling unimportant and easily discarded, I felt God hold me closely and whisper, "I made this day for you, before you were born."

God Bless Anap

I try not to berate myself for my anxieties too often.  Anxiety is a curious beast and the stressors that creep into my life on occasion are best dealt with in a loving way (because being anxious about being anxious is one of the most maddening exercises on the planet). And Love being what it is, the author of it (God) routinely reminds me of how big He is in comparison to my occasional bouts of I-have-too-many-student-loans-I-really-need-a-bigger-apartment-I-hate-paying-my-law-license-fees-when-I-don't-even-practice-money-is-stupid-I-wish-I-were-skinnier-how-the-hell-did-I-burn-the-eggs-twice-work-makes-me-feel-like-a-moron-sometimes anxieties.

Anap is one of the students I'm often paired with when I tutor on Monday evenings.  She's perhaps a decade my senior and she's slowly, painstakingly learning English.  Tonight we were working on a rewrite of a paragraph for a course she's taking, a paragraph she titled, "Why I Want to be a Doctor." Each sentence is a struggle. Her vocabulary stretches with each week, but crafting a fluid, cogent paragraph does not come naturally. And the substance of the paragraph, her desire to go to medical school, just makes the writing and rewriting of simple phrases that much more heartbreaking.  The rewrite was instigated in part due to her teacher's red ink comments of, "do you understand how much schooling you will need to be a doctor? Do you enjoy science and math? Is this a realistic goal?"

I can't blame her teacher for having these thoughts, I have them myself.  How can she go to medical school when I'm having to reteach adverbs each week? But the uber-American upbringing in me screams, "put your mind to it and you can do anything, Anap!" The hurdles facing such a dream are mind-boggling, and at present I'm only thinking of the educational hurdles.  The financial would make medical school seem somewhere just shy of miraculous.

After we'd worked for an hour, I offered to drive Anap home, which is a common occurrence. This time, however, she asked to be dropped at the hospital, where her aunt is currently recovering from lung surgery. And "recovering" may be painting too rosy a picture.  Anap has lost her mother and brother within the last year.  And this aunt came to her side in her mourning.  Anap now keeps vigil beside her, two women far from their birthplace, ensconced in a culture that must fascinate and terrify them in equal part. As she stepped out of the car I told Anap I would pray for her aunt and she smiled, thanked me, and said, "God bless you," before waving goodbye and walking briskly through the emergency room doors.  Anap always has the most beautiful head scarves, and the red and pink of tonight's variety matched the glow of the lettering above the hospital door.

On the wide spectrum between Surviving and Flourishing, wrapped up as I am in my own minor earthquakes and struggles, I so often forget that there are those around me whose lives lean heavily towards Survival in comparison to my inch-by-inch pursuit of a Flourish.  I lament budgeting for trips to DC, wishing I could spend money profligately on fancy drinks and new purses, when Anap is struggling to make sense of American History coursework and the often curt explanations from her aunt's doctor. I am in the process of paying for the dream I was privileged enough to pursue, and Anap will be lucky to pass a class where she's learning to write sentences about a dream that will, in all likelihood, never come to fruition. How am I owed any level of comfort beyond what Anap is given? I am a firm believer that God does not love me any more than Anap, or desire Anap's happiness any less than my own. We are equally loved by our Creator, and yet my struggles look like blessings beside her day-to-day life.

Comparison is a tricky thing.  And no one but the Almighty can explain why I was born in this country, to these parents, in those school districts, and why Anap is struggling in her late 30s to learn a new language, and losing family members left and right in a country that isn't even Home. But when Anap said, "God bless you," in the car, I simply wanted to scream my prayer.

No, not at all. I am already overly blessed. Blessed beyond my ability to recognize said gifts.  God bless you, Anap.  God bless you.

Epiphany #2: Superior Hiking Trail "Race"

Epiphany #2 was a bit more personal. Another gift, and also a recognition of what the rest of my life is lacking.

I've never been one to love my body.  I would say that the vast majority of my life, from age 10 or so, has been spent putting up with (that's putting it kindly) the body God decided should be mine.  The bulk of this ill will was wrapped up in the same errors in perspective that other women struggle with in that I always wanted to be smaller. Always thinner.  I prayed for the willpower to starve myself properly, which must be such a saddening prayer for God to hear from one of his children. Much akin to a drinker praying to be a better alcoholic.

This relationship worsened throughout my teens and 20s and then started to improve, ever so slightly, in my late 20s.  I would say now I coexist with this flesh in a sort of emotional detente, doing my best not to hate the only body I'll inhabit.  Part of that is likely exhaustion, part of it is maturity, and part of it, honestly, is running.

While I struggle sometimes, and imagine I always will, with feeling below average on most aesthetic scales (except for dressing, I do dress quite well), I escape that battle completely when I run. The battle evaporates. It simply doesn't exist and never did. And, more than that, I love every inch of the body I routinely tear apart. I don't want to sound depressive, because in most areas of my life I'm quite content, enthusiastic even.  But this is an ancient struggle as far as my psyche goes, and I'm realistic in my acknowledgment that it's not one that's likely to go away. It has its benefits, as I think it keeps me humble and also empathetic.  I know how consuming self-doubt and self-judgment can be, and so I can encourage and offer advice from the perspective of one that walks a similar road. But escaping the struggle, eliminating the temptation to base my self-worth on whether or not I had bread with dinner, is a constant desire.

People ask me often why I do the distance runs.  Why 26 miles? Why 10? Why not stick to 5Ks? Because every minute of those runs is a minute I do not judge the skin I'm in. In fact, I praise it.  I thank God for it, instead of asking him why he had to give me such ridiculously large calves. And the more I run and the longer I run the better I get at recognizing that the legs I think of as too big and the hips I think of as too wide form a body capable of amazing things. A 5K only gives me 33 minutes (roughly) of that feeling.  Distance runs give me hours of freedom.

Unfortunately, and this is the epiphany, I lack the ability to remember that gratefulness after the exertion has passed.  If I loved my skin half as much as I love it at mile 17 of a trail race, I'd be dangerously close to Pride. Trail running, especially, reminds me of how intricately stitched together this body is, and how perfectly it is formed for the task of adventuring into woods and up mountains, for stumbling over tree roots (ankles are amazing contraptions), for falling and rolling and grasping tree branches to steady next steps.  It's a body made to experience the Earth beneath my feet, whatever square of Earth I happen to be trekking through at a given time. And the body that leaps over creeks is the same body that puts on a suit and redlines a contract, the same body that tries on jeans at the mall, the same body that refuses to wear t-strap shoes for fear that they make her legs look fat, the same body that walks to the gas station for eggs, that wanders around the Lake with a friend, that claps her hands in church, that stands in front of the mirror and wills her thighs to shrink.

If I loved myself, or remembered that I have the capacity to love myself, in those moments to the same degree and with the same fervor as when I'm willing my right knee to press on for another mile or two, I'd have conquered a large army of demons in my lifelong struggle with physical acceptance.  And every race makes me better equipped to do so.  I become a better runner, yes, with each mile.  And every mile gives me a chance to embrace the runner God built me to be, with no caveats about losing 10 lbs or tightening my core. And that embrace is well worth the muscle tightness after 29 miles.

Epiphany #1: Superior Hiking Trail "Race"

Yesterday I traveled 29 miles (on foot) along the Superior Hiking Trail.  When I signed up for the experience months ago (and coaxed my dear friend, Kristen, into coming along), I assumed the trail would be much like other trail races I've run in the past. I assumed we'd end up running 60-70% of the trail and walking the remaining assumed steep slopes or last few marathon miles. I'd also assumed the race would be 27 miles. Lots of incorrect assumptions.

Due to the flooding this summer in Duluth, the race was pared down to a measly 24.5 miles just prior to our start. We managed to tack on an extra 4 miles due to a couple of wrong turns that left us being dubbed "those girls" by race organizers ("those girls" who keep getting lost and calling/asking for directions).  While we ran a sizeable percentage of the first 10 miles, the last 18 or so were strictly hiking due to a steep and rocky terrain I clearly knew nothing about going into the race. The organizers, in fact, didn't even refer to it as a race.  It was an "experience," not a competition.  I can appreciate that, especially since we came in dead last.

But the challenging of assumptions is not the epiphany referenced in this post.  And as the heading would imply, there was more than one epiphany to detail.  The first one, both temporally and in terms of importance, started with my forgetting my cell phone at home. Along the trail it didn't bother me, at least not much, that I couldn't text family and friends with updates as we trekked along.  But the first few miles, burdened as I was by stunning views that I could not capture via phone camera, I was saddened and honestly frustrated by my inability to share the images in front of me.  But the further we ran, the deeper we trekked into the woods, the more brilliant the sunrise, the more I realized how much of my frustration was at my own fears, less so any desire to share beauty with those not with me. "How will I ever remember this?" was the thought that dogged my steps. I was consumed by a need to document these moments for posterity's sake, when I should have been basking in them for the gift that they were.

I have no pictures of this trail. Kristen captured a few on her phone that may or may not turn out.  But they're her pictures, not mine. She stopped to take shots at points that I wouldn't have.  And she didn't stop to take the photos that would have stopped me.  That's indicative of personal perspective, what strikes each of us, and the moments that struck me remain solely in my head.

The colors were perfect.  I worried on the drive up that the winds around Duluth would have stripped all the ash trees of their leaves, but by some miracle we ran through woods of the deepest reds and brightest yellows.  We started in the dark, headlamps illuminating a shimmer of frost.  We ran for 30 or 45 minutes before the sunshine was sufficient.  And a sunrise in the woods surrounding Lake Superior is a sunrise no camera could capture.

Eventually my frustration with losing the chance to properly document the experience faded and was replaced by what should have been there in the first place: gratitude. Every inch of the forest floor was peppered with color.  The trees are dense enough to create a blanket of reds and oranges, but sparse enough to allow enough light to shine through for bright green grass to grow.  So the fall colors exploded next to shimmery, frost-touched, just-mowed-the-lawn green shades. And while I'll never be able to share with anyone what that particular slice of Earth looked like, I'm not sure God's purpose in crafting such moments had anything to do with what I could post to Facebook.

So much of life is shared these days.  I don't mean shared in the sense of emotionally bonded and burdened, but shared in the surface sense.  Pictures are posted on Facebook, faces tagged. Messages flood Twitter with restaurants labeled, places checked in, hashtags properly affixed.  In many ways it's a gift, because it means those who live far apart can experience, even superficially, the moments that mean something to distant loved ones.  And there are connections made and friendships created by these technologies that perhaps would not have occurred without their aid. But as my frustration with my inability to "share" faded into quiet contemplation of the beauty in front of my eyes, I wondered how many moments I have failed to fully sink my teeth into because I was too consumed by the need to capture them.

Deprived of the means to document this run, I was able to experience it for what it was.  It was a chance to be away from Life for a bit, in the company of a dear friend, with nothing but fall colors, the chill of autumn, and a steady supply of trail mix to support me. It was the distant sound of a train (I love trains!) when we ventured close to civilization, and the crunch of ash leaves, and the scrubbing of dirt-encrusted skin in a well-deserved shower. It was a hodgepodge of moments I could dig into without care or worry as to whether I'd take the right picture, post the right status, or text the right people with the right missive about my adventure.  It was just me embedded in the moments God gave me. And I loved all of those moments.

And Epiphany #2 will be posted shortly. :)

Ramadan

It has been a couple weeks since I went to the Ramadan meal hosted by the Minneapolis Council of Churches.  I've been mulling over in my head what I would write, sitting down a couple of different times with ideas in mind, only to get distracted or annoyed with whatever cloying phrase I'd stumbled over. This was simply a blog post that wanted to be written but I didn't quite have the smarts to set it down.

Which means this attempt may be written and rewritten a dozen times before I finally leave it alone for blog posterity.  But today, I will at least get the ball rolling.

The MN Council of Churches supports a dozen or so meals at area mosques during Ramadan.  It's a chance for non-Muslims to break bread with their Muslim neighbors during the holiest month of the Muslim year.  And as the vast majority of non-Muslims will never set foot inside a mosque, it's a chance to actively view their neighbors in prayer, in fasting, and in worship.  Simple things, really, but it's amazing the shapes that form in one's head when ignorance proliferates.  The inside of a mosque is painted not by reality, but by movies and daydreams, two mediums not known for their veracity.

I'm a Christian who has lived in a Muslim country.  I was loved and cared for by Muslims in Morocco.  They fed me, they made me drink nasty drinks when my tummy ached (verbena goat milk, anybody?), they laughed with me (and at me, I know, given how often I butchered Arabic), and they cried when I left. So, to me, disparate religions notwithstanding, the differences I note between us are not substantive.  If you live amongst a foreign population, you quickly take stock of what differs and what doesn't and I think in most instances, the latter outweighs the former. Love is the same. Family tensions are the same. Dreams are the same. And being hungry in Morocco feels the same as being hungry in Minnesota.

But I think sometimes that that experience in Morocco has saddened me a bit.  It has saddened me because I feel surrounded sometimes by people and media within my home country that seem desperate to cling to ignorance and hatred despite the best evidence of its opposite.  It is much easier, safer even, to hate and distrust what differs from one's self.  It's the natural tendency and we so often fail to fight it.  But that tendency disgusts and angers me, and so I find myself having saddened, perpetually lowered expectations of how mainstream America will treat Muslim citizens.

I believe in the Biblical God, believe in salvation through Jesus Christ, and I do not believe that my faith in Christ is supposed to alienate me from my Muslim brothers and sisters.  There is nothing in the Bible that calls us to be divisive.  There is nothing in the Bible that calls for us to segregate ourselves from non-believers and leave said non-believers to their own devices.  The Great Commission states the EXACT opposite.  It tells us to go out into the world and love one another with a love reminiscent of God's love for us.  Alienation, hatred, and divisiveness, though encouraged often in the media and political context, is not Biblical.

But I sometimes feel within certain pockets of my religion (I was raised Southern Baptist but would probably refer to myself, if prodded, as an evangelical non-denominational Christian), that alienation and distance from "those unlike ourselves" is somewhat encouraged. Or, at least, that the blurring of lines between certain pockets of my religion and political leanings, has caused me to attach such calls for divisiveness to the religion of my childhood as well as certain political groups. And this saddens me. Because there is a lot of goodness in the church I was raised in, and I hate to feel it clouded by an aura of mistrust and isolationism.

In the basement of the mosque in Northeast Minneapolis, there sat a crowd of about 40 non-Muslims, waiting to break the fast.  Before hearing an explanation of Ramadan, we went around the room introducing ourselves and most of those in attendance stated the congregation they belonged to. By the end of those 40 I was happily, rightfully astonished, and disabused of my somewhat cynical expectation that Christians (of which I realize I am one) would largely ignore any opportunity to engage this foreign religion.  I was the only Baptist that I noted, but there were several Methodists, several Church of Christ, one Quaker, a handful of priests, several members of different Catholic parishes, a few pastors of area congregations, a couple Orthodox Christians, many Lutherans, , a few non-denominationals, and a rabbi.

I believe God's heart aches for all that do not know him.  And my religion is one that calls on us to recognize God's ache within our own chests and use that to propel us into the world, in constant relationship with those who need to know God and his son. And if I believe in that ache, I must believe that to be divided or somehow alienated from those God calls on me to love is not only a tragedy but a sin. But even outside the evangelical perspective (and my "evangelical" is relational more than anything else), to be a Christian also calls on us to love (not "put up with" or "ignore") our neighbor.  And "neighbor," to me, is inclusive of every human being on the planet.  So to be surrounded by so many Christians with the same desire, to love the way that Christ loves, by engaging with neighbors in their home and on their turf, was a beautiful, encouraging thing.

The pastor at my church this past Sunday made a comment after we took the Lord's Supper.  He asked us who we had broken bread with recently.  Who had we sat down and communed with, the way God calls us? Who, of God's children, had we sat next to in the last week and simply given time to? I should be able to answer that question every week, and not just this once.

A New Blogging Adventure

I've decided to start a new blog! The new blog will focus solely on my adventures in the Twin Cities (music, theater, outdoorsy things, restaurants) and I'll transition away from posting anything of that ilk on this blog.  I plan on using this blog as more of a personal writing venue, where I can post my thoughts on travel, God, poetry, the superiority of the National League, my family, and running.  But please keep an eye on The Minneapolite for all my Cities-related adventuring.

Holiday

A mere 8 days after returning from my own trip abroad, I had the good fortune of reliving a shadow of my trip to Milan while watching the Guthrie’s production of Roman Holiday. While I can’t say that my trip included a lot of spontaneous musical numbers, I definitely appreciated the hustle and bustle of Italian street life, the penchant for good gelato, and the afternoon sips of wine (champagne in Holiday’s case) mirrored in the Cole Porter show.

The voices of all the actors were perfect and while the Joe Bradley character was a bit more selfish than I recall of Gregory Peck, the transformation from self-serving newsman to heartstring-tugged gentleman was touching and believable, a not-easy task (in my mind) when faced with the pace of the dialogue and the more saccharine of Porter’s songs.

Porter, of course, was a genius. He summated seemingly complicated emotions into the black and white (the Night and Day, as it were) of “I want to be with you, only you, forever” and gave it a lilt with a turn of phrase that kept the romance of that complication. All the tumbling, fussy emotions of new attachment were always tied up into lyrics that captured exactly the intensity of that messy, exhilarating feeling (without tripping over themselves the way we bloggers tend to do when trying to describe in words what Porter did in melody).  Night and Day has always been one of my favorites of Porter’s, for just that reason.  Because, at its simplest, love is about wanting to experience every inch of the day and night in the company of another, specific soul; finding someone to share the adventures and the disasters in equal part.

The story ends, of course, with a bittersweet tone.  No forever-type commitment.  No “I love you”s exchanged.  A final glance, a “thank you” for an adventure well-spent, and the continuation of separate lives.  As relationship endings go, however, that has to be one of the best. And despite the inability of these two lovers to fit snugly into one another’s lives, the audience does get the sense that each has been effectively shaken and inspired enough to demand some flavor of that adventure in future loves. And I think most people can relate to that moment of realization that love doesn’t work without being buddies. And gelato and trips to Rome help, too.

The Attempt

A few days following my return from Geneva, I ran Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota.  Ever since I ran the Twin Cities Marathon for the first time in 2009, I've wanted to try my hand at Grandma's as I'd heard it was a tougher course, but stunningly beautiful.

The course curves around Lake Superior between Two Harbors and Duluth, which makes for a pretty breathtaking first 15 miles.  After that, honestly, it's kind of a blur, but by then I was running through residential areas and eventually downtown Duluth, so the "breathtaking" element was probably substantially reduced.

This was not my greatest race, by a long shot.  Throughout my training I'd been pacing to beat my previous times (5:17 and 5:19 for 2009 and 2011, respectively).  I was shooting for anything below 5:15, hoping for something sub-5:10 (my goal is to eventually run a sub-5:00 marathon) and barely eeked out a sub-5:40 race. 5:36 hurts a bit, to be honest. I'm almost embarrassed.  Almost.

I was working with a couple of variables I hadn't dealt with before, sleeping in a dorm the night before, and, most glaringly, a 2 week trip to Geneva that landed me back in the States 4 days prior to the race.  That meant my training was not only thrown off but, more importantly at that point, my nutrition/hydration.  By the last two weeks before a race I've done all of the important training runs.  I'm not building mileage anymore, I'm tapering away from it to give my body time to rest after weeks of abuse.  But for me, those two weeks are crucial simply for getting my head/body in a state of (what feels like) tip top shape.  I sleep a lot more. I don't drink alcohol. I nurse a bottle of water all day. I load up on fruits and veggies and protein. And I keep my carbs at a low-ish level until a week before the race and then I start to ramp them up each day.  I'm deliberate about my diet, obsessive maybe.

That obsession, however, did not stand a chance when faced with evening business dinners and white martinis, rich sauces, chocolate croissants, and restaurants that charged more for water than for a glass of wine. It was definitely a gustatory playground that I thoroughly enjoyed, but I also knew I'd pay for that revelry.  And I did pay, from miles 17-26.2.

Geneva, however, was worth one bad race.  Grandma's was my third marathon and even before I started it I knew she wouldn't be my last.  I knew there were other races I had my eye on (New York, Marine Corps, Big Sur, Chicago, that-one-in-France-with-wine-at-every-mile). So a dismal showing this past weekend doesn't feel like failure, just a learning experience along the way. I enjoyed the first 15 miles, enjoyed spending time with my favorite cheerleader (my Marmee), and enjoyed the freedom of celebrating 26.2 miles with several beers, a burger, AND a corndog, at a concert later that day.

The more I run, the more I appreciate how it makes me feel.  I appreciate the effort, despite the frequent disappointments and frustrations with my slow little legs.  I appreciate the ache after a task attempted, even if that task didn't quite succeed as I had hoped.

There will be other races.

Wandering

I ventured to Milan for all of 30 hours over a weekend while in Geneva for work.  It's the type of thing, the venturing, that I always imagined I would do if given the opportunity, but aside from solo trips to Marrakech while in the Peace Corps, I have never traveled alone abroad.

I was nervous at first, but not excruciatingly so.  I bought my train ticket from Geneva to Milan days before the trip and picked up the ticket at the train station the evening before. There were a couple hiccups (you need your passport to pick up a train ticket? If I bat my eyelashes can I squeak by with a driver's license?) before leaving the station (I read French fairly well and I still can't figure out what the hell the ticket says about my train car and how that corresponds to the actual platform).  But I was snug in my seat with a sandwich and an old, oft-forgotten journal with ten minutes to spare.

The journey from Geneva to Milan is stunning.  You wrap around Lake Geneva, curving through Lausanne, rumbling past smaller towns and green fields with snow-capped mountains in the distance. I jotted nothing in my journal, there was too much to see to waste time trying to document it.  That feeling doesn't often strike me, that writing of something beautiful is meaningless with the beauty right there, but sitting next to a window with an almost-too-bright sun glancing off the waters, I had no desire to put my eyes to paper.

In Italy they speak Italian, which is, were you aware?, a completely different language.  It's funny how the brain works.  While in Geneva, I could function pretty well with my clumsy, dusty French.  In Italy, where I spoke nothing, my brain seemed to revert back to the last time I felt wholly overwhelmed by a foreign tongue: Morocco.  On more than one occasion, when needing to ask for directions or asking for help, the first words in my brain were Arabic, not French.  It's as if my brain recognized that feeling of linguistic helplessness and just reached for the words that last accompanied that anxiety.  French, not Arabic, came in handy a few times, but for the most part I spent the weekend pointing at things when I wanted them, smiling stupidly when people asked me questions, and simply not speaking to pretty much anyone.

I wandered around Milan for hours.  I got lost multiple times.  I'm not an excellent map-reader (as any friend who has watched me get lost after examining a map at the mall can attest). I can usually figure things out but not in a hurry.  This worked out alright as I was all alone, nobody to guide or frustrate as I fumbled with which direction might be North. I could stare at that map for half an hour and there was nobody around to care.  While that did take the pressure off, I'm not the most patient of people so if I couldn't figure it out quickly I tended to just start walking with the assumption that maybe I'd figure it out better if I was in a different spot (don't ask me how that logic works).

Mild frustrations while being lost in the park near Castello Sforenzco notwithstanding, the wandering was the best part.  Better than the gelato, better than the spires of the Duomo, better than the beep and whiz of motor scooters. I am not an introvert by any standard.  I thrive on people and being near them, talking to them, making them laugh, telling stories, hearing stories, exploring the insides of other's ideas, offering my own.  But that extroversion leaves room, and need, for time spent wholly wrapped within my own head, digesting my own environment and not deciphering how it fits into this or that relationship.  I make time for that often but it's rare that I have two straight days of wandering where I please, not only physically, but mentally, too. To be alone in a place full of inspirations, and to have the luxury of absorbing it in whatever way I saw fit, was a blessing beyond the immediate photo opportunity.

On the way back to Geneva I had an hour or so to kill at the Milan train station.  I tucked myself away on a bench and sipped an orange juice while watching the trains roll in and out.  I love orange juice, the fresh, pulpy kind, and that was the variety I held in my hand.  Trains, one of my favorite things on the planet, surrounded me, their engines muffling the sound of dashing high heels, crying babies, the roll of luggage wheels. It struck me that I was nestled in a moment full of many favorites, simple favorites, trains, orange juice, wandering, sitting still, watching.

It wasn't a moment I could take a picture of, not really, nor properly document with a poem or pretty paragraph.  It was just a simple, noisy blessing that felt built for me, crafted by God for my singular attention. I realized that God was the only one who fully (completely, utterly, everything-y) grasped how that moment felt for me, how the exterior (the trains, the juice, the map reading, the blisters of feet that don't want to stop walking, the mild humidity) and the interior (the peace, the calm, the pleasant ache of being alone and not lonely) wrapped around each other and formed a perfect nest of Happy. So I thanked Him for that, knowing He would be the only one who'd every recognize where the gratitude came from and the only one to whom such gratitude was owed.

Grammatical Nightmare

Hyperbole and a Half is one of my favorite blogs.  And this post in particular made my day.

I have a BA in English and a JD.  I understand that this combination of degrees requires a level of grammatical obsession that others would deem unnecessary (perhaps anal). But, degrees aside, I believe there is merit in communicating well and everyone should be concerned by the half-hearted attention to grammar bred by text messaging, emails, and facebook status messages.

Honestly, I can stomach the use of "u" instead of "you," in the context of informal messaging.  I can even stomach a their/they're/there error as I can give the writer the benefit of the doubt that they were 1) sleep-deprived 2) suffering from low blood sugar and 3) in the middle of a fistfight (yes, all three are required).

But I cannot handle the "alot" error.  I just can't do it.  There is no way to justify its usage. It isn't an accident. It's a linguistic bloodbath. I consider myself a kind person, generous in many ways.  But the "alot" mistake removes every ounce of said generosity and replaces it with a mixture of The White Witch and Voldemort.

So I appreciate Hyberbole and a Half's take on  how to address this issue in a way that may allow me to nix the patronizing, steam-out-of-the-ears reaction to "alot" and instead live complacently in a world full of grammatical nightmares.

My Music Friend

I've never really had a music friend before.  I've had friends who shared a mutual affection (read: obsession in the case of U2 and my bestie, Megan) for a band or singer.  And I've gone to concerts with boyfriends or boys-who-are-friends and had a few too many beers lounging on grassy lawns listening to who-knows-who do a sound check. I've managed to drag a host of people to Dulono's for bluegrass and a few actually agree to be dragged again.

But I've never had a buddy who loved pretty much everything I love about music.  Kim is the first. Now, we diverge in some ways.  Kim has not yet been schooled on the awesomeness that exists in much of country music, her experience having been tainted by some too-poppy quasi-country hacks. But she respects Tammy Wynette so she can't be a total lost cause.

And my tastes can run a bit more mellow than Kim's on occasion.  I can spend a good month of my life dedicated to the National and emerge without feeling too suicidal, and I think maybe that would drive Kim to madness.

But my best music memories in the Twin Cities have been with Kim, slightly divergent tastes notwithstanding.  The important aspect of our balance is that we both, quite simply, want to be THERE. The radio is nice, CDs are nice, iPods are nice.  But whenever possible, whenever tickets aren't exorbitantly expensive (and sometimes when they are), whenever we can justify a week night outing that will result in a painful weekday morning, we want to be there.

We joked last night that we're rather doomed by the weather.  Every show we've seen has been cursed by some facet of awfulness in that regard.  The first show we saw together, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, was one of the more disgusting concert experiences of my life.  It had to have been 95, 80% humidity, and the venue was packed.  We squeezed as close as we could to the front (Kim is a squeezer, moreso than I, but her habit has rubbed off on me and now I want to shimmy as close as I can to the stage).  The smell of pot and patchouli was enough to make the beers we were drinking somewhat superfluous, but drinking water would have been lame. I was wearing a short skirt and a thin tshirt and within 20 minutes both were soaked with sweat. All we did was dance, laugh, and comment on how amazingly unattractive we'd both become.  At the end of the set, when everyone was drunk and soaked in sweat, the lead singer, Alexander, had the brilliant idea that we should all sit down. This was not a soft, grassy field.  This was a beat-up, needed-to-be-repaved-30-years-ago lot full of bodies too bunched together for what would become a sit down.  But slowly everyone maneuvered.  I was standing next to some kid in his early 20s who was clearly enjoying some sort of herbal experience and he patted his knee and said, "don't worry, just sit on my lap."  So I half-sat on an infant's lap and half-sat on pavement that left tiny pieces of concrete on my thigh when I stood up.  By the time Kim and I wandered back to her car, we were exhausted, danced out, and in desperate need of a showers.  And I have never enjoyed a show so much.

We've seen other bands, too, many in equally hot and steamy environments (considering how rarely it gets like that up here it does seem odd that Kim and I manage to pick the concerts that boil), and some in the rain (Rock the Garden 2011), and some in both (Bastille Day block party). Sometimes the bands have been amazing, sometimes they've been okay, sometimes there have been surprises (I had no idea HarMar Superstar resembled Homer Simpson).  But what I love about Kim is that she's up for all of it, all of the imperfection of live performance, coupled with the excitement of hearing voices you love sing songs you love.

And I think mutual musical affection is a key connecting point for me, perhaps moreso as I get older.  There are seasons of your life that feel impossible to describe.  But if I tell Kim I have been listening to Bon Iver nonstop for a month, I know, in some small but not insignificant way, that she knows what the month feels like for me, what comfort I require, what music makes the days a bit more palatable.  And vice versa.  There's a communication possible in music choice and attachment that transcends "how was your day?" and gives a fuller picture of the answer than "it was okay."

I know, on her bad days, Kim needs to hear something with a beat worth dancing to, even if she isn't up to it.  And she needs music you can eat soup to, with her pup in her lap, that makes the stress feel less insurmountable and the question marks of everyday life a little less daunting.  And Kim knows that on my bad days, I just need some The National playing in the background, and I need a text message reminding me that David Bowie exists.

Dead Last

Yesterday I ran the Trail Mix 25K (15.5 miles), a race I ran the year before and loved (somewhat).  The weather last year was abysmal, incredibly muddy with a heavy snow the entire length of the race (3+ hours for me).  By the time I got back to my car last year, I had to blow on my hands for several minutes just to be able to safely grip the steering wheel.  I wondered, briefly, what frostbite might feel like.

This year the weather was infinitely better.  It was overcast and somewhat chilly to start but after an hour I'd removed my long sleeve tshirt and was comfortably running in a tank top and windbreaker.  No mud to speak of this time, so the towel I'd thrown in my car just in case I was a mud-caked mess went to no use.

This race felt a little different for another reason, too.  The day before the race I went to the race website to get directions, race start time, etc., and just happened to click on the link providing last year's finish times.  It was the first time I'd ever seen my name printed last. DEAD. LAST. It didn't bother me too much, honestly. I remembered how much fun I'd had and how intense a workout it had been, and it seemed silly to be frustrated at myself a year late.  Plus, I vaguely remembered that I'd signed up for the race a bit on a whim, without having trained up to 15 miles for any recent runs.  But still, I have enough pride to be mildly irked at the thought of coming in last, even if I knew there were those who 1) never showed due to the poor weather and 2) quit after the first lap. Last still doesn't feel awesome, no matter how many ways I manipulate the placement with niceties.

This year I knew a couple of other people running the race and having people to talk to for portions of the trek certainly helped.  But shortly after I began the second lap, my headphones completely died and I started to edge a little ahead of my running companions.

I don't run often without music, but every time I do so (usually due to technical malfunction) I'm amazed at how much better I run.  In ways, the movement is more relaxed as I'm not switching up my tempo due to a new upbeat song. But it can also prove more boring depending on how active an imagination I have at the time.  Luckily, yesterday I had enough mental fodder to keep myself occupied through 7+ more miles of hills and that belated wounded pride faded with each person I passed.

I know that it doesn't matter how fast I am or how many people I beat. I run because it makes me feel healthy and strong; it gives me mental and emotional balance on the days that lack both.  I've never been concerned about my times other than how they compare to my own average or goal speed.  Shaving 17 minutes off last year's time does feel good.  Beating 14 people (after beating nobody last year) feels pretty good, too.  But more than anything, I enjoy beating last year's Me.

Steve

I learned last night that I lost a friend last week.  His name was Steve and he'd been in my bible study for nearly two years.  We'd bonded over both having lived in Louisiana for a spell and swapped hurricane evacuation stories.  He was quiet, reticent even, and did not share much of his life.  But he showed up at 7pm most Tuesdays to share a bit of the Bible and our group prayed for him weekly.

I wish that I could say his death was a complete shock.  I'd feel better about that.  But he'd appeared ill for a long time, a subject I broached once or twice but didn't press as he always claimed to be fine, only tired.  I do not know how Steve died, but I know he'd intended to keep whatever battle he was fighting private and I suppose, even in death, he was successful.

The memorial today was very small.  His family drove from out-of-state, just the four of them, and expected to remember Steve alone.  Steve's mom called a friend from Steve's phone, however, and that friend called me.  So the four of Steve's family were joined by four of Steve's friends, still a quiet group but Steve would have appreciated the symmetry.  We prayed together, said the Lord's prayer, shook hands and gave hugs, told small stories. All what people do at such things.

But what struck me, and what always strikes me at funerals/memorials, is how impossible it is for me to fathom standing in a room like that, with those tears and that heartache, without God.  Steve hadn't told his parents about his bible study.  When his father met me he wondered, tearfully, if that was because Steve worried his parents would disapprove of his being involved in a non-Catholic group.  But his father just said how happy he was to know Steve had been reading the Bible, what a comfort it was to find a Bible in Steve's condo, how any father would just want to know their son was seeking God.

I cannot begin to imagine the loss of a child.  The only thing I can vaguely imagine would be if I lost my brother or my sister, the two people who, even moreso than my parents, understand every intricacy of my past and present.  And I would mirror Steve's dad's words on that point.  It would matter so little to me what roads and missteps and explorations led them to God, as long as I could trust that they got there, that they believed, that they recognized Truth.  The priest at the service today echoed that sentiment, knowing that Steve had begun attending a protestant church, focusing on the steps of Steve's journey (parents who baptized and raised him in the church, a personal exploration of God that led him to study other Christian beliefs) and stating that the joy of that journey is that it sought God. Not Catholicism.  Not Protestantism.  The God of the Bible. The God whose death and resurrection we just celebrated.

And it was not lost on me (nor on anyone in that room, I imagine) that at the time of that Easter celebration, when I was singing of a Wondrous Cross in a wooden pew 3 blocks from where I sit now, Steve was singing, too, next to his heavenly father.

On a Whim

Earlier this week I signed up for Grandma's Marathon.  The race is a famous sort, winding along Lake Superior in Duluth in mid-June (the 16th, to be exact), late enough for a warmish race but North enough (I hope) to avoid sweltering. There have been hot, hot races in the past but my fingers are crossed that this year will be a sunny, mild, humidity-free, high-of-65 kind of day. 

I've always been somewhat wary of June marathons because they require the bulk of training to occur in the fickle spring months, where you could luck out with a bunch of sunshine or be doomed to snow drifts and icy patches through the end of April.  Our weather this winter has been unseasonably warm and snow free, so I'm putting a lot of eggs in the continuingly-warm basket. 

But moreso than the weather, I haven't signed up for Grandma's in the past because when registration occurs, I tend to be in my winter exercise laziness.  Most winters I do make it to the gym often but my intensity wanes a great deal until I'm able to get my butt to a race starting line.  Thus, December-March tend to be fairly lazy months for me running-wise and that's simply not a good foundation for a June 26.2 miles.

This year, however, in part due to the snowlessness and in part due to my own quasi-obsession with gaining zero weight over the holidays (success!) and focusing on getting stronger with weights (scary...mildly successful), I've stayed very healthy and race-ready throughout the winter.  I felt strong enough even to sign up for two half-marathons, the Securian Frozen Half and the Eden Prairie Hypothermic Half, and those two races ended up being my fastest ever.  And signing up for them was purely on a whim! No real training beforehand.  My longest run before the Securian had been a 10K on New Year's Day.  I was simply strong enough to randomly run 13.1 miles, even if it was ill-planned.

More than any other hallmark of my health, I think the "on a whim" nature of those races is what makes me feel good and strong and proud and thankful.  Having been unhealthy for so long (years ago now, I realize), it still amazes me that I am capable of running 13.1 miles.  It amazes me that I signed up for my third full marathon. It amazes me that I poke around websites looking for other races in other places the way I used to poke around websites looking for diet fixes.  It amazes me how powerful and welcome a comfort the road has become.

I feel very lucky to inhabit this little body, with its strong (if slowish) legs, bounce-absorbing knees, and will-never-look-normal-again toenails. 

Today was Day #1 in my Grandma's training.  And I think Day #1 will always be my favorite.

It Upsets Me When It's a Liberal Bias, Too

I don't mind anyone knowing that I vote left of center.  In an ideal world, there'd be some middle ground, some moderate window of political affliation.  Until that happens, I'm a somewhat sheepish Democrat, throwing in the occassional comment that my liberalness is relative to the population I inhabit.  I've been The Commie Hippie to my conservative friends and I'm practically Newt Gingrich to some of my uber-liberal brethren.  The fact that I can float fairly comfortably in both camps speaks to how moderate I actually I am.  I understand both extremes, but see the danger in extreme anything.

I mention my moderate liberalism only because I want to make it clear that I recognize my own bias.  I know which perspective tends to speak clearest and truest to me.  And I do feel that my political leanings (or, rather, my political hopes and ideals) are supported by my faith.  But I do not marry my faith and my politics.  I do not equate them or even heavily commingle them.  I think there's danger there and that is the subject of this post.

I wrote this summer on attending a church whose political commentary offended me.  In that instance, the commentary swung right of center, swung in the direction I tend to vote against.  So I noted that some element of my offense could have been political sensitivity as much as my own general belief that politics should be left outside the sanctuary.  But today a brief comment by the preacher at my neighborhood church swung in the opposite direction and it offended me just as greatly.

We're studying the life of David.  And at some point the pastor mentioned the "least of these" and our Christian duty to provide for them, to love them as Christ loved them.  All good.  Agreed. But then he began to list the antithesis of this perspective, quoting from Ezekial the admonition against "shepherds" (kings) who fatten themselves on the sheep they're meant to guard and protect.  In paraphrasing this passage, the pastor commented, "I don't care about the poor."  There was a soft murmur in the pews.  Not everyone noted it.  It was a fairly quick quote, followed by other Ezekial-based admonitions.  For many, I'm sure it meant nothing.

He was quoting Romney.  It was deliberate and clear.  It was obvious to several of us, I know.  And it infuriated me.  I don't like Romney.  I won't vote for him.  But that quote was ripped so violently out of context and squashed into scripture so easily, I wanted to stand up and leave.  I have no doubt that this preacher's heart is in a good, Godly place.  I have no doubt that his political leanings, in his mind, are supported by Scripture in the best ways he can manage (political parties being inherently flawed, etc.).  But as a pastor, I think it's irresponsible to continue the political habit of taking sound bites and crafting them into individual and/or party ideology.  Not only that, but the greater risk in my mind is that there could have been someone in that audience who was searching for Truth (and I mean GOD Truth, the important kind) who heard that statement and assumed that those who vote for someone like Romney have no place in that congregation, have no place in church, have no place amongst God's children.

It's the exact same line of reasoning some Christians on the other side of the spectrum use against those of us who vote left.  How can we be Christian and vote for a politican/party that allows for abortion? Equating Christianity with Political Agenda, making the latter a prerequisite for the former, is offensive to me. It is 100% wrong. It's not Biblical.  It's not merciful.  It's not gracious.  And it's not Christ-like. Both parties fall short of anything resembling heaven.  Both parties fail.  Miserably.  To assert otherwise is to be blind.

Churches are flawed because they are inhabited by men.  I really love this small, warm, welcoming neighborhood church and I will continue to attend.  I think they are right to point out injustice, to ask "why?" in the face of inequality, and to invest time and effort into the immediate needs of an urban, often marginalized population.  But I refuse to equate my faith with any political expectation of my vote.  And I refuse to support any statement that my vote is indicative of either "good" or "failed" faith.  My vote is an exercise in doing my best to elect those who embody what I count as the most important tenets of God's directive to 1) love Him and 2) love my neighbor. It will always, always be an exercise in disappointment.  But it is a far greater disappointment to me to hear political commentary intermingled with the Word of God.

For Onis

I've had the honor of being loved by three grandfathers in my life, a rare and special gift for which I am very grateful.  My Papaw died when I was 11, my Grandfather when I was 18, and now Onis, technically my step-grandfather, when I am 31. Three very different men, but similar in their capacity to love their families deeply and the Lord moreso.  I want to whine that I did not have enough time with any of them, but I will give thanks instead for the years of my life they did fill and be comforted in the knowledge that I will see them, happily, again.


My Mamaw married Onis when I was 18 and away at college.  I wasn't able to come to the wedding but I saw pictures of the grinning couple, saw Mamaw in her beautiful red dress, and looked forward to knowing this new member of the family.  But the speed of life in college and beyond, not to mention my habit of moving far, far away, kept me from spending much time with Onis.  I knew and loved him peripherally, the way one intrinsically loves a person that brings a loved one joy.  He made Mamaw happy, thus, I loved him.

It wasn't until August of 2005 that he became a grandfather, in the sense I'd come to associate with that word.  In August of that year I was living in New Orleans, attending law school, and I evacuated back home to Arkansas for what felt like the umpteenth time to once again kill a few days while the hurricane threat loomed.  Hurricane Katrina, in my mind, would be no different from every other evacuation.  I'd get a nice, long weekend with my Mamaw, and then I'd lug my little duffle bag back to New Orleans. 

Hurricane Katrina did not turn out the way I'd expected.  The long weekend became five months.  I cannot say they were a happy five months as I was consumed by anxiety over my degree, my friends, and what would be left of my life in New Orleans. Midway through my stay, I drove to New Orleans, best friend and law school roommate, Stephanie, in tow from her own evacuation story.  That trip is both a blur and a hodgepodge of images vividly burned into my skull.  But one of the most powerful memories I have from that trip was returning to my adopted home after hours on the road.  I remember Mamaw being in the kitchen and Onis coming to the door to help me with my bag.  And I remember his smile, that big, loving, nothing-can-ever-go-wrong smile as he said, "there's our girl!" and hugged me, patting my newly permed mess of hair, his hand getting tangled briefly.  Mamaw came in and said he'd been sitting in his chair by the window ever since I'd called from Memphis, intermittently napping and pacing, worrying about the rain, the traffic.

Looking back, I thank God for those five months.  To live with Mamaw and Onis as an adult, to play games with them, to watch TV, to talk early in the morning with Onis as he logged his two mile indoor laps around the living room, to sit at the dining table with a plate of crackers and peanut butter, to listen to him play the harmonica, to hear their prayers before we ate, to unpack their groceries, to kiss them both on the cheek when I went to bed, to love them the way you only learn to do when they sleep in the same house...those were gifts.

The ache of losing him is made easier, or will be made easier, by the memory of those moments, those smiles at the door, and the one thing he said to me over and over again in the five months I lived under his roof.

Almost every morning when I left for class, or sometimes when we were just sitting in the living room, silent, Onis would say to me, "you make yourself at home, honey.  This is your home.  You're home now." 

And now, I can say the same to him.

Snippets of the Thing

Twice this week I sat in a theater and watched a performance that made my mind wander.  It didn't wander  in the eye-rolling, bored way, but in the way I've grown accustomed to in the last several years, catching on snippets of things and fashioning them into never-to-be-written stories. And sometimes, in my less humble moments, I've wondered if that's how writers eventually write.  Is it always snippets of things, snowballing into flesh and action? Or should it be more organized ("more organized" being high on the wish list for every facet of my life and thus, quasi-impossible)?

I saw Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on Wednesday and Julius Caesar tonight, each with a dear friend in tow.  The Williams play set my mind on a leather briefcase, thanks to Gooper's obnoxious legal wrangling, and molasses got wrapped into the story in my head, too.  It's Williams so it's, unsurprisingly, Southern in its accent, but maybe it would have been Southern without Williams's influence, thanks to the region of my own birth.  I got home after the play and jotted a few things down, thought of a certain twist to a certain plot, got annoyed, tossed the scribbles away as I normally do, went to bed.

Tonight's Caesar was, I think, my favorite of the week. To restage Shakespeare with a modern voice, keeping the Shakespearean tongue, is not new.  It's so "not new" that it practically is new again, maybe? The Obama-esque Caesar and the modern warfare were played right, they felt easy, the way Shakespeare should feel, and it was Casca that set my mind adrift.  It was always the side players in Caesar that I wanted to know more about.  I never bought Brutus as a tragic figure, nor bought Antony's final declaration that he was the only noble voice amongst the conspirators.  I don't think any of them were noble, but I'm curious how the Cascas and Cinnas of the world got wrapped up in conspiracies so vile.  How do the normal (not heroic, not noble, not particularly intelligent) folk succumb to the whispers of envy and the shouts of mobs? It happens everyday, of course, but Casca was always the one I wanted to sit down and have a chat with.  "What exactly were you thinking? Did you really think this would work? Did you even really care?"

I'd write that dialogue, maybe, if I were to write anything. 

But I won't, because it seems like a lot of work and the idea itself is so lazy.  I just wonder sometimes, with all these half-stolen, half-inspired ideas snowballing from one side of my brain to the other, will I find something someday worth writing, really writing.  Or will I just write a lot of half-lovely paragraphs for the rest of my life?

Running Home

My New Year started quietly.  I was asleep when the clock struck midnight as I, somewhat idiotically, had signed up for a New Year's Day race.  Nobody should be running outside in January in Minnesota.  I put in my 6.2 miles, less than half of what I'd actually signed up for, and vowed to never again run in anything approaching 45 mph wind gusts again. Ice isn't cool, either.

That day was also Day #1 in my kinda nutty plan to run 1,000 miles in 2012.  I'm honestly not sure I can hack it.  I'm two weeks in and feeling fine, but keeping up an average of 3 miles a day when I don't really want to run everyday will be tricky.  It's a nice, round, solid goal though and likely a suitable companion to whatever marathon I decide to train for this year.

The weekend after the New Year, I flew to St. Louis, a former home where I've spent very little time in the last 7-8 years.  It's rather amazing to me that a place can be so important for so long and then all your ties can seemingly evaporate, parents move away, friends move away, and that city simply becomes a place on a map you used to call home. Used to. But now my brother and sister-in-law have settled there and it's cheaper to fly there than Kansas City, where my best friend lives, so all of the sudden St. Louis has resurfaced in my life.  Not just the home of my baseball team, but the home of people I love, worth a visit. Worth a plane ticket, worth the calories in a Ted Drewes frozen custard, worth the vacation days, worth all the standard units of measure by which I justify most decisions.

As I am committed to this kinda nutty 1,000 mile goal, I needed to run a couple times while in town.  I was staying at the home of my best friend's parents, the McDermotts, a home I graced as often as my own in high school.  I spent years in that back bedroom talking about boys, years in that basement watching movies and crushing on my best friend's older brother, years of summers during college spending every hour I wasn't waiting tables shopping and gossiping and daydreaming with my best friend.  Her home was always more of a home base for our friendship than mine. She is the baby of the family and we didn't have to worry about those bothersome younger siblings of mine when we were at her place.  Plus, she had a pool.

The first morning I ran in St. Louis, I took as familiar a trek as is possible.  I ran from her home to what used to be mine.  Round trip, it's a hilly four miles. I ran past our old high school, past the curve in the road where I got my one and only speeding ticket (mere weeks after getting my license), past the elementary school where I met the best friend who has remained my best friend.  I didn't spend any time in front of my old house.  What's there to do, really?  I ran to the end of the driveway, gave the house a good glance, then turned around and ran back. 

I thought for a moment what it would be like to be a child and capable of seeing snippets of the future.  If my 15 year old self, all chubbiness and zits and ugly glasses (but such a good student), could have looked out the window one January morning and seen a 31 year old version of herself (less chubby, less zits, contacts), would it have made her happy? Hopeful? I wonder now if I'd like to see some small inkling of my future self, in passing.  I think it would have been nice, at 15, to see a smiling, healthy, rosy-cheeked and running future Me.  Even if I knew nothing else, it would have been nice to see the happiness.  No sense telling Younger Me about the stress of student loans, the myriad heartaches coming her way, the anxiety of jobs and life in general. I think my younger self would have seen the simple, basic truth of that morning.  My best friend is still my best friend, the most important people in my life at 15 remain the most important people at 31, my life is good, my body is strong, and I'm happy.  It would have been inspiring knowledge for a girl at 15.

And it's good to know now, at 31.