The Day Before

I will run my first marathon tomorrow. I've thought all day about what I should write for this post. Last minute soul searching? Countdown anxiety? I'm not sure how specific I can be as to how or what I'm feeling, so I figure I'll just detail this day for posterity's sake.

I finally fell asleep last night a little after midnight, woke up around 9am. A solid sleep, despite my inability to calm down last night. I picked up my race packet yesterday and spent much of the evening reading and rereading the participant materials, trying on my race day clothes, debating how cold 45 degrees would feel midrun. I settled on the same concoction of clothing I'd chosen pre-debate (typical), grey knee-length pants, dad's 1985 marathon tshirt, red long sleeve technical shirt with world's greatest pocket, smartwool socks, blue sweatshirt for warming up.

After breakfast (oatmeal, baked apple, 2 eggs) I went to Running Room for spectator books, Target for new earphones, and Trader Joe's for bananas and milk (two things I will need tomorrow morning). I got a call from a friend and so stopped by her home where she gave me celebratory flowers and I spastically described my race day plans. I might have qualified as hyper at that point. Came home and cut the flowers too short so now they look a little weird in my one and only vase (I need a tall vase). But they're bright and happy and remind me of supportive friends so a sloppy arrangement (wholly my fault) is easily ignored.

I've been downloading new songs for iPod, some suggestions from fellow runners, some just homey songs that will remind me of the people that helped me get here. Alabama and Creedence Clearwater Revival for my Dad. Guns n' Roses for Jason. Garth Brooks and bad euro dance music for Christina. U2 for Megan. 80s randomness and Rogue Wave for Juice. Decemberists and Dan Auerbach for Chris. Richard Marx (no joke) and Wynton Marsalis for Stephanie. It's an eclectic mix, to say nothing else. There's always a purpose to my music, and at mile 21 I know I'll need constant reminding of the people who high fived me the first time I ran 3 miles, much less 26.

I bought a tshirt yesterday at the expo. It says, "The miracle isn't that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start." I won't wear it until tomorrow afternoon but the quote is dead-on. If someone had told me 4 years ago, at my heaviest (230+ lbs), newly evacuated from New Orleans and feeling completely uninspired by my life, that in 4 years I'd weigh 80+ lbs less (roughly, I'm a girl, I'm not stating my EXACT weight), a half-marathon and 20-mile race under my belt and a marathon on the horizon...well. I don't think I would have had any choice but laugh at that idea. It still seems mildly ludicrous to me, so I can't imagine how I would have reacted back then.

I can't say that I was miserable back then, at that size. I knew I was unhealthy and that I could be healthier. But I have always adapted to my world and my circumstances very easily. I was (and am) a naturally happy person. But after evacuating I was overcome with a sense that such a disaster would be easier somehow if I had control over something, if I could at least depend on my own body to survive such a thing. I felt that I was making my life more difficult by the choices I was making and that seemed illogical. With better choices, healthier decisions, I could fight whatever disasters rolled my way with less heartache (perhaps) and I could, when things got really bad, always know that I'd done everything in my power to make sure I was physically capable of conquering whatever needed conquering. I simply felt weak. And that stopped being okay.

That was 4 years ago so the road was long. But I suppose the road usually is when it's something worthwhile. And 4 years ago I didn't set out to one day run a marathon. I just wanted to be stronger. Better. At that point I had no concept of what that looked like, I only knew I had a long way to go. So tomorrow's event was never my goal, it couldn't have been. I don't typically shoot for impossible things and that's exactly what a marathon would have been at that point.

Goals shift. At the marathon expo yesterday I was wandering around taste testing clif bars and juices, looking at newfangled socks and visors. I chatted with a couple other runners, some doing the 10 mile race, others doing the marathon. Someone came on the loudspeaker and made some announcement, "Runners, don't forget..." "Runners, make sure you stop by..." "Runners, welcome and please bring..."

Runners.

If I had had some faraway, wildly unattainable goal 4 years ago, if I'd admitted as much to myself, it would have been to be part of such a collective. To be a "runner" maybe. Or just a "healthy" person. Part of some easily defined group of persons pursuing a physical goal. It would have been a vague dream at that point 4 years ago. But if I'd had the courage to name it, that would have been it. I wanted to be an athlete, however that was defined for the body God gave me.

Today I ran errands. I figured out my running clothes. I mapped things, emailed my race number to people. Made plans and preparations to meet friends and family along the route. Because it may be hard to find me tomorrow, one of 11,000. I will be part of a collective. A big, sweaty, happy, healthy collective.

I will be one of the Runners.

The Little Engine That Could

I will attempt to run my first marathon on Sunday.

Nope.

I will run my first marathon on Sunday.

That's better.

Bringing Up The Rear

I have never had any intentions of being speedy. I run for three reasons: solitude, sweat, and survival. I didn't mean for all of those to start with "s" but I'm going to embrace alliteration today. I value the loneliness of runs, especially long runs. I value how exhausted it makes me, how I can manage to push one more mile out of a body that long since begged mercy. And I value how it ties me more firmly to the earth, to my life and living it, makes me prioritize what I need and what I do not, the people I want and the people I do not, makes me carve time to ensure my own happiness, the survival of my own well-being.

On Saturday I ran the White Bear Lake 20-miler. Twenty miles. This was my longest training run so I thought a race would make it moderately more passable. Races are more energetic. There's a requisite bounce when you have a number pinned to your chest, water belt strapped to your hips, gels tucked neatly in a cunning little pocket. Before a race, I always feel strong. I feel small, pretty, and tough, despite the crust of sleep in my eyes. The light is warm and lovely at 7:30 a.m. on a summer Saturday.

However, racing niceties aside, this one was tricky. Ten minutes or so after arrival I knew where I fell in the grand scheme of things. Slim, sinewy runners surrounded me talking about 3:40 marathon times being such a bummer (I wouldn't finish 20 miles in 3:40, much less 26.2). They didn't stretch, they floated from one limber, muscled pose to another, leaning on car bumpers or boyfriends, sliding their heels down a curb to ease the tension in some Achilles. All the sudden, looking around, I realized that there was a very good chance I would be the last one to cross the finish line.

I've never been last before. I've always been somewhere near the back of the middle 50%. And I'm okay with that. Speed isn't my goal, after all. But there is something terrifying about being dead last. What if they're packing up when I curve around the bend? What if they've torn down the "Finish" sign before I pass? How embarassing. They promised peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at the finish line, what if those are all gone by the time I get there (I was really concerned about the pb & j)? How disappointing.

As I thought it would be better to start off at the back, as opposed to enjoying the breeze as each and every runner rushed past me, I took my spot at the very back of the group. I told myself that this race, this 20-miler, was the same as the marathon. My only opponent, my only competition, was the voice in my head that occassionally told me I could not do this. Just me. I only had to beat me. And the only way to beat me was to finish. Just finish.

The course wasn't bad, mostly flat, with two long laps around Bald Lake (a 7 mile circumference) following a windy jaunt down neighborhood streets. The laps were the painful part, of course. To be at mile 10 and have somebody speed past you, knowing they were on mile 17...that hurts. But slowly, over the course of the first hour, I passed a handful of people. I saw another handful quit around mile 12, one ambulance called. I don't feel like a better runner than these people. I just had a better day. I drank my water better. Slept better the night before. Had lots of "good luck"s from friends and family beforehand. Just a better day for me. And around that midway point I acknowledged that I would, in fact, not be last, which gave me some small comfort. And such small comfort was quickly replaced by the new anxiety: now there were 12 people behind me who would witness my defeat if I quit.

Despite passing a few people, the bulk of my time was spent alone. I never rejoined the main herd, although I saw a glimpse of a group curving around mile 13. The majority of the race was just me, winding and plodding around the lake, bribing myself with energy gels (miles 6, 12, and 18 got gels), forcing my eyes to the ground, squinting almost, when that voice started to tell me I could just quit now. The weather was bad Saturday. Perfect, perhaps, for a day on the beach, but way too warm and humid for 20 miles in the sun. A couple of times I was momentarily blinded by a bead of sweat falling slowly from a right eyelash into an innocent contact lens. I could feel prickly heat creeping up my neck, itching and promising to annoy the tar out of me later. It's in those tiny moments of annoyance, however, that I usually get my gumption back, my exhaustion lessens, my heartbeat calms, my knees agree to carry me just a bit further. I think I take such minor grievances as tiny attacks, little windows of opportunity for that part of me that doubts I am capable of this to slide in and cinch her hold (I sound schizophrenic). And so I gnash my teeth (metaphorically) and tip my head to the ground, make my peace with the road, and move on.

I finished in 3 hours, 54 minutes, which was 6 minutes less than what I envisioned as a great race. It got me thinking that maybe, just maybe, if the weather was cool the day of the Marathon, maybe I could finish just shy of 5 hours. But I'm not getting ahead of myself. I was proud of my overheated, largely solo, sub-4 hour 20-miler. I did, in fact, miss out on the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (if they ever really existed), but there were plenty of bananas and oranges to feed my carb-deprived state, and a great friend standing by with a hug after cheering me on. Bringing up the rear of the race was no embarassing feat, I clapped and smiled for those who came in after me, and they smiled the same exhausted, contented, pained smile I'm sure I displayed at my own finish. What is a spare 2 minutes? Or 2 hours? Different goals, different bodies, different battles. Each of us, at the simplest level, running against only one person, competing with the only opponent worth any attention: Doubt.

Guns, Beer, Bacon-On-A-Stick

I feel like I need to prove to my readers (yes, all 6 of you) that I have a life beyond training for the marathon. My blog has been a bit consumed by that endeavor, as has my life, so I think it's time to discuss something other than mileage and toe issues.

This week I shot my first gun. Yup. I should qualify that statement as my dad reminded me that I did pull the trigger on his shotgun when I was younger (I have somewhat vague memories of being in a field, not really aiming at anything, on some squirrel hunting trip...if it's the same trip/memory, I believe the people we were with shot a deer and I was somewhat traumatized by seeing it, dead and bloody, in the back of their truck). But this was definitely the first time I'd held, much less fired, a handgun.

I'm very anti-handgun, honestly. I think the Second Amendment, as currently interpreted, is a far cry from its original intentions. I don't question that the right to bear arms has been established to include the current ownership and usage of handguns, I just think that interpretation is wrong. I don't deny the right, I just wish it didn't exist in the way it does today. But I will concede that the "right", while irrevocably flawed, is also irrevocably established. It's not going anywhere. So, I wasn't a big fan of the idea of shooting my boyfriend's gun. I don't have a problem with him having one, I just don't really feel the need to be reminded of it. I decided to do it largely because he doesn't complain when I drag him to ethnic restaurants that require him to eat strange globs of food with his hands.

All that being said, I had a blast! I like to shoot guns. I especially like to shoot guns in places next to bars with bingo games. Who knew that bingo was fun?? For all my handgun hatred, I know I want to shoot one again. Possibly often. And next time I want to use a target that's shaped like a human instead of a bull's eye. Very, very odd.

In keeping with my lets-do-things-I-usually-don't-do theme, I celebrated an 18 mile run yesterday with a trip to the state fair and the requisite gorging on fried foods. I usually eat very clean, healthy, often organic foods. I go days without eating meat sometimes. I don't drink often. I'm a big fan of barley. Wheatberries. Fresh spinach. You get the picture. Last night I ate a corndog, a mini hamburger (on a stick), a couple bites of bacon (on a stick), half a deep fried Snickers (on a stick), potatoes with swiss cheese deep fried and covered in ranch, a couple jalapeno poppers, and some grape leaves (on a stick), all washed down with a bit of beer. I don't think there is room left in an artery today for any amount of fat. I plan on having lettuce, maybe an egg, for dinner. But it felt good to eat junk for a change. Makes me appreciate how much better I feel when I'm eating healthily. The human body simply runs better on cleaner fuel. Period. But, every once in awhile, it's good remind oneself of that fact by a respectable deep fried hurrah.

It all comes back to the running. This week was one of my best running-wise. I ran the farthest I ever have (18 miles!!) and enjoyed some longer mid-week jaunts. And I think part of that success was wrapped up in living a bit outside the mileage. It's easy for me to get wrapped up in the stress of training, working, fitting in runs, trying to be a decent friend/sister/daughter, etc. I feel very compressed for time on most days. It was nice to escape a bit and worry about shooting a gun (noisy! scary! I'm going to look stupid!), debate the merits of deep fried Snickers vs. deep fried Milky Way, and just enjoy hours not spent with my feet pounding the pavement. Makes the running feel doable, like a slice of my life, and not the stick by which my days are measured

So This is "Low"

I expected a low point somewhere along the way. Nobody can maintain enthusiasm forever. But, officially, I'm going to state right now that I think marathon training is ridiculous. I told someone today that I feel like I'm the most boring human on earth. I think it's worse than that. I feel like the antithesis of fun. I am a fun vacuum.

I run. I get hungry. I eat. I run. I sleep. I worry about my knees. I worry about my toes. I run. I get hungry. I eat. I weigh myself. I worry that I'm too slow. I run. I sleep. I can't sleep. I take Tylenol PM. I sleep. I run. I get hungry. I get hungry again. I run. I eat. I weigh myself. I get hungry. I sleep. I worry about my toes.

I don't know why ANYONE is hanging out with me right now. I'd like to give a high five to the following people: Dad, Mom, Caroline, Jason, Sharon, Julie, Chris. What exactly are you getting out of this relationship right now other than constant reminders that I am 1) tired 2) hungry 3) and/or unable to hang out with you because I have to go run?

My long run on Saturday went (objectively) fine. 17 miles, two of which were walked. I'm not chastising myself too sharply for those two walked miles because Saturday's weather was awful. Hot, humid. Awful. My pace was dismal but, again, I'm faulting the weather. This was really the first long run I had to force myself to finish. I've had very tough runs before (one resulting in a good cry under a bridge) but this one was the first one that actually made me somewhat angry. It was the first time I questioned the logic of my decision to sign up for a marathon. And it was the first time I had to call upon that old devil, Pride, to carry me through to the end. You see, too many people know about this race now. Too many people would have to be told about my failure, and the thought of that gives me hives. Too many people have said they'll be there, cheering me on. And if they're going to wait for my butt to cross the finish line at 5 hours and 30 minutes (fingers crossed), I better cross it alive, intact, at a stride that resembles "running".

Saturday was the first day I hated this. And I just need to say that outloud so I can walk away from it. The weather is supposed to perk up this weekend. Not quite so hot, not quite so humid. Pretty days. Gentle days to remind me, maybe, that my toes will probably not fall off (going to the doctor Friday to confirm that), that I will probably cross the line with time to spare, and that after all this is over, I will be grateful I stood at the bottom and looked up.

Flowers and Indian Food and Such

I bought myself flowers today at the farmer's market in downtown St. Paul. Flowers and fresh radishes and peppers (including a purple bell pepper...I did not know they come in purple). After work I raced home to trim the flowers, plop them in a too-short vase, change clothes, and hurry to meet a dear friend for Indian food a few blocks from my place.

I met this friend through this blog. He found my blog and noticed I was a transplant, originally from Arkansas, and having spent a good deal of time himself in Little Rock, was pleased to find an Arkansan braving a Minnesota winter. We eventually met for breakfast and have been friends ever since. He's my running coach/cheerleader, although I'm sure he doesn't think of himself as such. He reassures me that my toes won't actually fall off, running downhill sucks for everyone, and I can, in fact, do this. And all while being humble and kind and encouraging, despite my incessant insecurity and occassional whining.

I say all this because at dinner I was struck by how bizarre and serendipitous life can be. I find friends in such odd, spectacular ways, I can only attribute such blessings to God. How gentle and brilliant of God to know that running would be important, that training would be important, and that I'd need a new friend to hold my hand, so to speak, when mile 13 seemed impossible. I honestly don't know if I would have signed up for the half-marathon had I not met Chris. We actually talked about it the first time we met, I mentioned running, that I enjoyed it, and then, out of nowhere, I said I'd thought about a half-marathon in the spring. Really? I'd thought about that? When? Where on earth did that come from? But Chris jumped right in, encouraged me, and within weeks I was signing up for Stillwater. Which isn't to say that Chris hasn't been important in other ways, or that I value him only for his marathon training prowess and constant support, but pursuing this goal is very new, and sometimes scary, for me. Chris has made committing easier, made it seem less daunting.

I'm always impacted when people are not surprised. The last time I saw my Grandfather Welch alive he asked me what I wanted to do or be after college. I told him I wasn't sure, but maybe an actress, or a writer. He smiled and said, "that wouldn't surprise me." It sounds like nothing, I realize. But sometimes having someone support you and not be surprised by the challenges you place before you or the goals you set for yourself is a powerful, powerful thing. My Grandfather didn't say anything typical regarding how tough it is to be an actress or how being a writer really wouldn't be financially viable. He just smiled, loving and kind, and I knew he expected what I wanted to expect of myself. And that was a great gift. Chris has the same influence on my running, which has become a very important slice of my life. Despite my doubts and hesitance, Chris is not surprised by my goal, and his assurance that I'm capable of success fuels me well when mile 15 hurts.

There are many people who influence my training and who keep me going. My dad is incredibly important in this as his encouragement (beyond just your basic daddy-daughter stuff) is born of a similar drive to run, some similar struggles, similar obsession with competing more with oneself than with the World. My dad gets It, and that's key. My dad is the one who taught me to run by daily, diligent example.

But Chris was the first one that inspired me to race. Not against anyone or anything. Just race. And his lack of surprise at my progress makes me feel like maybe someday I won't be surprised either when I succeed.

Rain Running

Today I ran in the rain for the first time in my training. I've run in little sprinkles before, some snow flurries, but not all-out RAIN. It felt wonderful, honestly. I think it's probably a mood thing, sometimes I could see rain being a frustration. But today the humidity was disgusting and a brief downpour was welcome to cut the curtain of moisture in the air.

For fear of shorting out my iPod, the rain also forced me to run musicless for much of my long run. I'm amazed at how much I can process and reprocess, obsess and regress over while I'm pushing through miles. I've been stressed over a few things recently and each got their moment of over-analyzation, each question and answer pounded home (emphatically) with footfalls.

The heaviest bit of the storm occurred while I was rounding Lake Calhoun, the Minneapolis skyline in the distance. The rain was heavy enough to blur the buildings, make the city a mirage with fuzzy sailboat gliding to and fro.

I'm running the Twin Cities Marathon 8 weeks from tomorrow. It's funny, the things that stick in your head, or rather, the things that upon experiencing them you know they will be stuck in your head. I was running and anxiously counting the number of weeks to the race, wondering if I was training hard enough, wondering if I should worry about the occassionally twinge in my left knee, wondering if my toenail is supposed to look like that, wondering if my friends and family would be disappointed in me if I failed, when the rain started to really, really pound. I looked out at Lake Calhoun right as it picked up, when the tiny pinpricks of rain on the water surface became huge, crowded splashes, like pebbles thrown from a million happy children. I'll remember that little moment, that pace and that hot, summer rain, that crescendo of Rain on Lake. I was running. I was soaked. I was happy. I am not worried.

Pride Before the Fall

This picture does not do justice to the damage I've done to my feet. The bandaids are hiding one toenail that is begging to fall off and one that just really loves to form blisters around the nailbed. I didn't want anyone to be too disturbed by my photography.

I've been getting cocky about my mileage.

Two weeks ago I did seventeen miles, the longest I'd ever done. At the end of the run I was exhausted, emotional, and hurting, but I also had the feeling there was more in me. I didn't feel defeated.

Yesterday I planned on an 18 mile run. I told my boyfriend I was shooting for 18. I told people at work I was shooting for 20. I really was psyching myself up for 18, and 20 if I had the wind behind me and enough juice to do an extra lap around Lake Harriet. At no point gearing up for the training run did I wonder if I could do it, if it was possible, if I was ready. Pshaw, I did 17 two weeks ago! I can totally do 18...

Hell. No. I hit the wall at the end of SIXTEEN. I don't know what happened. My shoes were too old. I ate too much the night before. I started too fast. The wind was against me. My right foot ached. I woke up with a weird ornery feeling in my left shoulder. I disintegrated under the bridge between Lake Calhoun and Lake of the Isles, with a measly 2 miles left in my minimum goal for the run. I burst into tears, in public, under that bridge, kinda like a sad, sweaty troll.

I walked the last two miles, very gingerly, and after pulling myself together I could pinpoint everything I did wrong. I'd done two-a-days (two runs in one day) twice that week, plus weight training, plus normal runs on two other days. I'd run hard two days after the 10 mile race, even though my shins were still screaming from those stupid downhills. I'd eaten poorly Thursday and Friday, lots of fats that I normally don't eat, and not enough healthy run-fueling carbohydrates. I slept poorly the night before. My body gave out because I gave it no choice.

I am no good at rest or asking for help. I could psychoanalyze myself and say that this is true in MANY situations but I'll keep that observation in the running context for now. I knew my shoes were old and probably ill-fitting but I didn't want to man up and go somewhere and ask someone to watch me walk and tell what I'd be doing wrong for the last year. Sure enough, I went today and the guy at The Running Room watched me walk for less than 3 minutes and was shocked to hear the shoe I'd been running in, given my tendency to overpronate and my flat-footedness. As soon as I slipped on my new Asics Gel Foundation 8s, the heavens opened and birds sang. That is a SHOE! The guy was very nice and gave me some ideas on where I can do hill training. I could have saved my feet some scars and myself some foot aches if I'd just asked someone these questions earlier.

So, note to self, 1) don't get arrogant about how far you've come, there's still a long way to go 2) stock up on bandaids 3) ask for help and 4) embrace that hot pink shoe.

Lumberjack Days 2009 (aka I Want A Dog That Will Do This)

Sappy, Yes

Two years ago this week I took the bar exam. I stayed in a very seedy hotel in St.Paul the evenings before the exam with the intention of having somewhere quiet to study, decompress, possibly swim. The hotel was a complete dive and a drunk guy woke me up the night before the first day of the exam by pounding on my door and yelling that he loved me.

The morning of the first day of the exam I woke up too early, as always, got ready too early, and headed to the exam too early. On my drive to downtown St.Paul I realized I did not have a watch. No way to keep track of my time in the exam. No way to gauge how anxious I needed to be at any given moment. I stopped at the CVS on Snelling, pictured above, and bought a huge and hideous men's watch as it had the clearest watch face and every hour was numbered (I knew that if I relied on fancy slashes or dots circling the watch face I would end up losing valuable milliseconds figuring out the time). The store clerk argued with me for several seconds that I surely did not want to buy a man's watch and he tried to point me in the direction of a tiny, hours-told-by-little-sparkly-things watch. I may have cussed.

I drove by that CVS tonight, coming home from a baseball game. It hadn't struck me until then that it has been two years since that awful, lonely, anxious summer. In those months, and many of the months that followed, I could not imagine what possessed me to move here. To be so far from friends and my carefully constructed life was insurmountably depressing, despite the enjoyment of living near my family again. I thought the people at my church were cold and unfriendly, I hated my job, the friends I made here seemed to be shadows of "real" relationships I'd had elsewhere. These Norwegian/Swedish/German folk are not easy people to get to know.

And now I'm home after a warm, brief trip to the ball park, peanut shell caught in my hair. My summer is full. Full of running and races, dinners, visits, coffees, games, concerts, dates, new restaurants, and lakes. And friends. Good ones.

I was anxious and terrified for so long, even after passing the bar, that Life would now be Ordinary. That the exciting decisions had already been made and now, only Mundane, Necessary, Unbeautiful decisions were left. Not long after passing the bar I started thinking of where I should take it next, where I should move, and not because I was violently unhappy, but because I could not figure out how to live in one place without the expectation of another on the horizon. I do not think I have ever in my life enjoyed or accepted where I am. I fret and fidget in a place, love it, leave it, and then ache for what is left behind.

It's just nice to have no preparation for departure. To plan for next summer. For the winter. To plan for races and new pizza joints. To grow cozy and comfortable. To pass places with memories attached to them, good and bad. To remember who I was, buying that watch two years ago, and how unhappy and unsatisfied I felt with my seemingly happenstance arrival in Minnesota. And to drive by that corner now, which probably still sells hideous watches, with peanut stuck in my teeth, sun setting over the skyline as I make my way home, and feel content.

Music-less

I usually run with my iPod shuffle firmly snapped to the collar of my shirt. The mix alternates between happy, poppy, perhaps country tunes and angry, I-will-set-myself-on-fire-before-I-give-up type stuff. Sometimes I forget that I have music, my mind wanders, I realize I've run a couple miles dreaming up recipes or organizing all the minor compartments of my life and have paid no mind to whatever song is supposed to be inspiring my pace.

Yesterday I forgot my iPod. I changed at work, per the usual routine, then found that my bag lacked the signature blue tangle of ear phone chords. I momentarily thought of driving home before heading to the lake, but decided that one afternoon alone with my thoughts wouldn't kill me. People trained for marathons before Walkmans, right? And it's only recently that earphones have been allowed on most courses. Proof, I assured myself, that humans can run without the aid of a step-synchronized, peppy beat.

I didn't have a long run planned. I'm tapering before my long run tomorrow. So yesterday the plan was a speedy (or, speedy for me) 3 miles, followed by another 3 miles at a brisk walk/jog. The first half mile sans musique was painful and slow. But after 5 minutes or so my dependence on a slightly spastic song choice faded and I grew comfortable with the sound of my own foot falls, the wind, the chatter of people I passed, the breathing of those passing me. Some of the merit of music on a run is that it helps me forget I'm running, helps me drift a bit when my thighs get tense or my neck aches. But there is a great deal of worth in the pseudo-silence of music-less running, too. I felt my body more acutely, was more conscious of the steps that landed hard, more aware of how stiff I let my shoulders become.

When I got my first car (a dear, beaten family treasure of a car, Spike, the gas-guzzling Pathfinder) and was driving it to college, my dad told me that every once in awhile I should turn the radio off, roll the windows down, and listen to the car as I drove. Listen for weird sounds, be aware of things that rattle or squeak or just sound off. I remembered that direction from Dad when I was running yesterday, listening to my footsteps, and the wind. Listening for a bad rattle, a loose wheel. I think I sounded like I was in good working order, ready for more.

My Time

My grandmother, my dad's mom (who has always been "Grandmother," not "Grandma" or "Granny" or "Mamaw"...always "Grandmother"), came to town this week. As work and running tend to take up much of the day for me, my visits with her have been mostly in the evening. Games are played, stories swapped, mild arguments on various offenses are traded, and all is settled and comfortable, the way a family should be. We sit around my parents' kitchen table, my Grandmother's coffee cup freshened, and play Chickenfoot or Take One or Scrabble or Mexican Dominoes or any game not involving cards. And as we circle the table, each player's turn approaching, my Grandmother will ask, almost rythmically, "my time?" It was never, "my turn?" or any other such phrase. My time? I've caught myself saying it, as well. Not so bizarre, really, but a slightly quirky turn of phrase I attach to my Grandmother, to our games, to her warmed coffee mug.

After church and after lunch, Grandmother and I sat in the atrium on the wicker couch (which I think is incredibly uncomfortable) and chatted. I showed her the enchilada recipe I was going to try this evening (beef and jalapenos are currently simmering on my stove top) in a valiant attempt to impress my Mexican food-loving boyfriend. I asked her if I should cover the dish with foil the whole time or remove it midway? Should I mix the cheese inside or sprinkle most on top? Do beef and spinach go together?

I will never remember her answers to these questions. This recipe could be a dud (I'm not a huge fan of Mexican anyway) and this attempt will fall away in my memory as any one of the long list of near misses and shallow victories I place on my table. But sitting on that couch, sunlight shining through to tease the clock's reflection in the mirror, my Grandmother's singsong Tennessee voice instructing me in various methods of tortilla-heating...that I will always remember.

She gave me a dish this afternoon, a milk glass serving dish etched with grapes, that belonged to my Great-Grandmother. I have few things of my grandmother's parents, two quilts made by my great-grandmother and one lone sock and some coal receipts from my great-grandfather's sock shop next door to their house in Elizabethton. While I remember them vividly, I have little in the way of trinkets to remind me of that squeaky porch swing, that terrifying coal-burning heater in the cellar, that tiny bed we all slept on as children with the orange, itchy cover, that air vent that allowed for perfect child ears to eavesdrop on parents in the kitchen. To have one more small thing (perfect, according to Grandmother, for serving a roasted cauliflower with a cheese sauce) to prove the lineage of women in my mental kitchen means a great deal to me.

It is easy to forget how lucky I am sometimes. Easy to forget that not everyone grows up with Grandmothers and Grandfathers and Mamaws and Papaws and Great Aunts and Great Uncles and Great-Grandparents and Cousins-who-knows-how-many-times-removed. And it seems silly to me that certain conversations, purposeless ones about enchiladas, and tiny trinkets are the catalysts for such reflection. But sometimes it takes small, lively moments and old, time-worn things to remind me that I am only the most recent generation in a long line of men and women who have loved God well and tried to do as well by each other.

And now it is my time.

The New Digs

I've moved a lot since leaving home over a decade ago. Four times in college. Twice in my village in Peace Corps. Once in Kansas City. Twice in New Orleans if you count the Katrina hoopla. And now twice in Minneapolis.

I can honestly say, however, that this new apartment is the first one that feels wholly mine and wholly me.

The collegiate ones were picked largely for convenience and/or pricetag. Peace Corps-hmmm-I only moved in my village because my first landlord thought I was a spy. Hopefully that won't ever be an issue again. In Kansas City I lived in a dump, again, picked solely for cheapness. And the New Orleans apartment, though lovely in its way, was chosen due to its proximity to the law school, its oak-lined street, and the fact that my initial roommate (who later ditched me) liked the porch.

When I moved to my first apartment in the Cities, the choice was largely based on how quick a bus ride the apartment would be to downtown Minneapolis. Two months after signing the lease, however, I got my present job in downtown St. Paul. My commute tripled. And the location was just never that enjoyable. I'm not a fan of suburbia and St. Louis Park is suburbia. At some point in my life I may embrace the Americana that is the white picket fence, expertly trimmed hedge, and the ease of quiet streets. I am occassionally envious of my friends with homes in sweet, calm neighborhoods. But on most days, I much prefer a livelier environment. I appreciate the mohawks, tattoos, foreign languages, and the random guy who is always laying on the lawn next to my front stoop. I like the noise.

Every time I unpack in a new place different things take center stage on my bookshelf. I'm not sure if it's a processing of memory or a certain hunger for other time periods in my life, but the focus in this place is different from my last apartment. At my last apartment I peppered my shelves with pictures from everywhere I'd ever lived, every friend who had ever been important. Here, I'm much pickier. Pics of Morocco and New Orleans are the most prominent, with trinkets from Amsterdam and Dubai tucked into corners. Further evidence, I suppose, that while I can be content in one place, I will always wish to be elsewhere. Along my window ledge are pictures of family on The Mountain, more pics of Morocco, postcards from faraway places, and a picture I took from the top of Pinnacle Mountain in Arkansas about two weeks after Katrina. I hiked up alone, took a picture of a tree branch full of orange leaves.

Despite having lived in several states and a couple countries, and despite having visited many exciting cities both here and abroad, the globe on my bookshelf is always tilted in one direction. Always Africa.

A Slow Start

Not long after crossing the half-marathon finish line in Stillwater, I signed up for the October 4th Twin Cities Marathon. I was on a high. I had a blast at Stillwater. Thirteen miles wasn't easy but the once impossibility of it made me think that the completely ludicrous idea of running a marathon might actually be plausible...

I am having a really hard time regaining that momentum. It took me awhile to stop aching after the Half, and then life crept in and distracted me, and then I moved, and then it got warm (I do miss the days of running comfortably in a long-sleeved tshirt). Which isn't to say that I've abandoned running in the interim, but I have ignored it more than proper training would dictate.

Today I ran, perhaps, three miles. Four? I wasn't keeping a good count because I was so focused on not passing out in the 90 degree heat and the pretty-impressive-even-by-Southern-standards humidity. I'm quite happy to breathe in that heat while walking about, but running in it is completely miserable. I'm trying to comfort myself with the thought that I need to get used to running in the heat, the same way I had to learn how to run when it got below freezing. My body simply has to remember what this feels like, then the runs will improve. Right?

I'm also trying to remember how impossible a 5K once seemed, and a 10K, and a Half. I've been at that "this is insane and I was a moron to sign up for this" roadblock before. I don't quite remember how I got past it those other times, honestly, but it appears that I did. Or rather, I just kept running despite my quasi-expectation of failure. And so, for now, that is my only goal. To just keep running. The momentum will come back, the excitement will return, but for now the only fuel I have to get me to that point is blind pride.

I won't quit, dammit.

13.1

This is me pre-race, pre-how-did-I-not-know-this-course-was-so-hilly, pre-finish line hugs. I thought of putting my finish line pic on here instead but I think the pre-race pose is more appropriate for this post.

Part of me feels that I should say this race was one of the hardest things I've ever done, that it involved a lot of dig-deep moments of strength and resolve. But it didn't, so I won't lie. This race definitely hurt. The mile 4 hill? Definitely a blow to my ego. Realizing my pace was significantly slower thanks to said hills? Another moment of unhappiness. But, overall, this race was fun. I smiled a lot. I waved at spectators. I high-fived small children. I drank a lot of blue powerade.

Somewhere around the 6 mile point we were on a stretch of flat highway snaking through farmland, no cloud in the sky. I wondered if a friend would be tucked along the route somewhere to cheer me on and hoped it was at the mile 9 or 10 point. I thought, I know I can make it to 10 on my own, but it would be nice to have some cheerleading at that point. The race wasn't particularly spectator-friendly so I wasn't sure if my friends, Sharon and Jennea, would be able to find me in time for said rah-rah-Go-Rachels. But after a bit I stopped worrying about it because I realized what I'd just admitted to myself. I could get to 10 on my own. 10 miles, totally doable. 10 miles, tough but definitely not impossible. I, formerly fat Rachel, was completely unfazed by the thought of reaching 10 miles. The hard part, the get healthy part, the make-yourself-run part, was no longer something I needed handholding for. It was mine. 13.1 was a new stretch, a new distance, and cheerleading was definitely appreciated (I am blessed with dear ones), but I appreciated those hurrahs so much more knowing that they were unnecessary. They were beautifully extra. An undeserved, much loved, hug around my day.

I think this is what I love most about running. It is, by nature, wholly solitary. No advice from friends or seasoned marathoners or cheers from the side can negate the fact that it is my choice whether I stop or keep, keep, keep going. No amount of pre-race hugs can quiet the nerves, no number of encouraging text messages can determine my success. While the love and encouragment of friends and family is incredibly important, it is not what makes that decision. Support does not determine my outcome. Only me. Only I can convince myself that my quads don't hurt that bad and only I can push through mile 8 knowing I have 5 more to go.

And that's why the race was fun. Because I was blessed with cheerleaders I didn't have to depend on. Over the course of the race I realized I was no longer wondering if I would finish the race. The if had been decided in the months before. This race was my reward.

And 24 hours after completing my first half-marathon, I signed up for my first full. October 4th, here I come...

The Dress Rehearsal From Hell

My first half-marathon is this coming Sunday. Today was planned as the Last Push before the race, my last chance to beef up the confidence. Today did not work out as planned. Instead of ten miles I ran five, walked maybe three, as Minnesota was blessed with a random heat wave of 93 and sustained winds of 35 mph. As I made it back to the car, feeling awful about my chances for success this weekend, I decided that there is really only one way to think of my pathetic last run.

The final dress rehearsal is supposed to be crap. I should go onstage with my costume inside out (To Kill a Mockingbird). I should trip over the couch and sprain my ankle (Lost in Yonkers). I should get the hiccups during my opening monologue (The Bald Soprano). I should be forced to repeat the death scene 9 times because the director feels I'm not crying adequately (Falstaff). My heel should get caught in my hoop skirt during the emotional final scene (Secret Service). My nose should randomly start bleeding (The Crucible). I should forget my first line (Approaching Lavendar). My dress should rip (Steel Magnolias). I should get punched in the stomach by my partner when I twirl onstage (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead). I should bite my tongue hard enough to draw blood (Spinning into Butter). I should drop my cigarette and burn a hole in my negligee (Biloxi Blues).

I have never been one for fantastic last hurrahs. I've always faltered before the Big Day, the Big Race, the Big Test, the Big Move, the Big Anything. Maybe it's nerves. Maybe it's some subconscious need to get the bad, self-deprecating vibes out while there's still time to rebuild my hope. Today's run was just my requisite shit final dress rehearsal.

Opening night can still be golden.

Mini-Confessions and the Forgiveness that Follows

This posting is inspired by the pattern of self-abuse and acceptance I have experienced of late, largely due to a schedule that has become a wee bit untenable. My blog postings are a victim of that crazy scheduling nonsense so I'll beg forgiveness from my handfull of regular readers and move on to the good stuff...

Training for a half-marathon is new to me. It's not something I've done before, nor something I ever expected myself to pursue. And one of the prices I have paid for this endeavor (ignoring the other prices, like the permanent scab where my iPod scratches my hip and the near daily tightness in my calves) is time. Precious time. Time that has grown more expensive as new adventures and people pop up in my life. I think my exhaustion is derived not from the physical exertion of 9 mile runs, but by the constant arranging and rearranging of my life so that I am both able to run and able to inconvenience as few people as possible as little as possible. And that isn't even mentioning the other responsibilities of life like work and prayer and church and family and grocery shopping and finding a new apartment within the next 26 days.

Needless to say, there are days when the running simply cannot happen. There are other things I have to do, and often there are simply people I want to see whose presence trumps the pavement. I can forgive myself for one day fairly easily. The body needs its rest. But two days? The self-loathing sets in fairly quickly at that point, with a dozen justifications and a dozen snarky rejoinders to make those justifications seem trite and slothful and cowardly. I have no doubt that in running, in racing, in reaching any kind of physical goal, my mind is my worst enemy. And unfortunately (fortunately?), that mind is also, short of God, the only ally I have on the road.

I have always been a punisher, someone who responds to failure with a list of things I did wrong and the unfortunate character traits that list surely proves. I have never been someone who could see roadblocks as simply pauses, changes in the plan, hiccups. They have always been a symbol of chaos to me; failure is the surest proof that I am doomed to mediocrity and even the smallest molehill feels like a mountain when its existence equals some Hamlet-esque tragic flaw.

But running has forced me to fix that about myself. It has not been easy, nor is the task complete. But I have realized that I have to stop running sometimes. There are days I simply cannot do it. There are days that it hurts too much. And there are days when it is more important to me to see my boyfriend or go out to dinner with a friend or read a book or buy groceries or hang out with my family. There are days when the sunshine does not inspire me to increase my mileage but only makes me want to wander somewhere slowly for beer on some patio by some body of water. I am no good at "laid back" and that is a term nobody will ever use to describe me, but there are days when my body needs to lay back, stretch, rest, restore. And those are days I should neither seek nor give forgiveness for.

This past week I went a couple days without running and another couple days my runs were short and slow and annoying. I hated myself for that lazyness, for the fact that there were other things in my world that took away my focus. But today I ran nine miles. The longest I have ever run. And at no point in that run did I feel like I couldn't go further, like I'd reached some sort of unpenetrable wall. I am tired now, but not unmanageably so. And it dawned on me that one of the reasons why I feel good now is because my body got a little window of a break this past week. I didn't push quite as hard as usual, I took a couple days off, and today my body was thrilled to run. It felt new and strong and powerful again, instead of bored and forced and exhausted. So while I have to be careful with my schedule, careful to maintain running as a priority, I have found that the self-flagellation that has been occurring due to occassional lapses in my training is unnecessary. I am doing very well. The mini breaks are not mini failures, but small respites on a path to success at my first half.

Perhaps this is some tiny, needling metaphor for other "failures" in my life. Perhaps such "failures" are nothing greater than slivers of breathing room, places where God is allowing me to pause and reassess. Or maybe there are such wonderful things ahead, God knows I need a moment to catch my breath before the next exciting thing begins.

I remember something my Dad said when I came back from Peace Corps. I was struggling with whether I should move to New York to give acting a whirl or apply to law school or apply to med school. I was whining at my Dad, possibly crying, bemoaning my luck at not knowing what on Earth I was supposed to do. And at one point I said, perhaps in reference to any of the three paths I'd chosen but I don't remember which specifically, that I was afraid to fail. My Dad was quick in his response. He said, "Yes, you might." He went on to say that failure was always a risk and that no matter what path I chose there would always be opportunities I missed. If I went to law school, I probably wouldn't end up with an Oscar. If I became an actress, the odds of me heading to med school were pretty slim. But at some point, I simply had to make a choice. Knowing failure was a risk, but not a promise, I had to step in some direction and decide to build my life. He never warned me that, inherently, failure is assured. It isn't a risk, it's a guarantee. But failure is simply part of the game, a step along the path, something to be dealt with in the same graceful way as success. He never said that outloud, but that's what I (eventually) heard. Failures, roadblocks: they are the price we pay in pursuit of dreams.

The running has forced me to be kinder to myself in those failures, to see them for what they are. Sometimes they are huge and surpassable only by prayer and a desire to come out on the other side in one piece. And sometimes, at mile 7 when I walk for a few steps to catch my breath, or on some Friday when I throw a ball for a certain dog instead of chase my own tail around Lake Calhoun, those aren't failures by any measure. They are rest. And happiness. I am stronger when I allow myself to rest. And I enjoy my world more when running is a facet of my days, but not the stick by which the worth of my days is measured. There are other things, more important things, to be measured, too.

And on the third day...

After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: 'He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.' Now I have told you."

So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. "Greetings," he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me."

Matthew 28: 1-10

Slow Saturdays

I am thawing frozen blueberries in the sink, listening to the drip of juice and the hum of cars passing out my open window. It's finally springtime, finally sunny and warm enough to open sliding glass doors and let a breeze wrap in. My hands are stained with blueberry juice, which I hope will be easily removed as my Easter dress will look significantly less pretty with stained purple fingernails. All for the sake of cobbler, a worthy price to pay.

I consider myself a social, story-telling person. I like finding new people to get to know, explore, learn about and from, laugh with, make laugh. I like parties and large groups, places that might merit a smiling center-of-attention lady like myself. But, the older I get, the more I value days where I am totally alone. I love afternoons of long, solitary runs (or walks) to the lake, walking to Starbucks for coffee I do not need, reading chapters of books I've read a thousand times before. I love evenings of baking, talking to myself, spilling flour everywhere, cursing the colander with the too-small holes, putting songs on repeat that would drive most people crazy. I love the ease of being by myself, entertaining no one, smiling only to myself, daydreaming about places and people and things without risking the faraway look (or absent-minded fish face) of such ponderings with company.

I would be miserable in such solitude if it were a daily occurrence. I need other voices to quiet my own. And I have found excellent, engaging friends here who make life out in the world happy and exciting. But balancing adventures with quiet is more important than it once was. While I am often anxious to explore new experiences, enjoy new people, I feel like I savor both with more vigor and intelligence when that anxiety is tempered with silence, sometimes alone and sometimes with quiet company.

I could talk the ear off a donkey. I could tell Peace Corps stories for hours. I could laugh at new jokes and discuss politics and debate the merit of blue high heels and the inadequacy of Northern salsa for an age.

And I could, happily, lay on my tiny blue couch next to my open window and listen to Johnny Cash, cars passing, blueberry juice dripping into a cracked ceramic bowl.

Melancholy in Minneapolis

Now that I am no longer a Louisiana resident but a Minnesotan who longingly looks out car windows searching for snoball stands and jazz brunches and beads, I find that my trips back to New Orleans have become increasingly bittersweet. The longer I spend away, the more permanent the move feels. And the more I accept that moving was right, but that "right" is not necessarily supposed to feel good.

When I moved here I thought I would go back. At least, I think I thought I would. Or, if I didn't think that I'd return, that wasn't something I allowed myself to admit. New Orleans became a city I could only survive by myself. I could love it, love living in it, but I would never thrive, never do anything but survive its myriad temptations. I'm not saying I had a drinking problem or anything anyone needs to raise their eyebrows at. But New Orleans was entirely too comfortable for me. It fit me the way only Heaven should fit a person. The only time I truly grew in that span of time was when school forced me to think and the city forced me to leave. I could spend hours, days, years, in the Quarter, doing nothing but eat and write poetry and listen to jazz. And I suppose there are many who happily embrace that life. But it would have drained me eventually, that level of ease. Ah, the Big Easy, I'd never thought of that until now...so, so incredibly true. An ease that sucks you in and, for some, keeps sucking until any individual drive just disappears. But I've never been good with middle ground, moderation. New Orleans was the BIG Easy for me, it could never be the Moderately Easy, so as to leave room for personal success, passion, growth.

A colleague at work commented before I left that he thought it would take a good while longer before Minneapolis became more of a Home than New Orleans (here's your shout out, Stu). He's definitely right. While I can accept that New Orleans was never a Home for the long term, it was the first Home, after Morocco, that I made myself. And while there were elements of it that were emotionally and physically unhealthy, it was still a Home I was loathe to leave. I always felt remarkably understood in New Orleans, not only by the friends I found there, but by the city herself. So bright and battered and somewhat crazy and overly romanticized and silly and broken and gorgeous and terrifying and unbelievably strong. Not to put too cheesey a point on it, but She was all the adjectives I either attached or wished to attach to myself. So She was easy to love. Impossible to leave.

I will never feel in Minneapolis what I felt in New Orleans. Without a Jackson Square to curl my toes into and beignets to devour and perfect, perfect jazz floating down the river, Minneapolis has no hope in convincing me that she's a worthy replacement. But the longer I am away from New Orleans, the more I love to visit her, daydream about her, pretend she loved me back. The longer I'm away, the more anxious I am to love a city that pushes me and makes me slightly uncomfortable, a city that cocks its head at my accent. I don't have any immediate plans to leave Minneapolis. But if ever I were to leave this city, I want to love it enough to miss it.

It's a Big World. But Sometimes I Like to Pretend it's a Small One.

Sometimes life in a city-that-is-not-the-city-you-expected-to-find-yourself-in is somewhat surreal. On most days, after a period of adjustment, it feels fairly comfy, familiar, and happy. You've made friends, built a social life, have places to be on Friday nights, have laundry to pick up, rent to pay. Life in the Unexpected City isn't that different from the City you unfairly (routinely) compare the Unexpected City to.

But on those other days, the days you feel like a sore thumb, it's nice to have tiny moments of recognition with the occassional stranger who chances your way with, perhaps, similar feelings of semi-isolation. While in line to pay for my salad today, I spied a man wearing a William & Mary sweatshirt. As this is the school many of my relatives/friends thought I attended (I went to Washington & Lee) and it's a similarly history-laden Virginia school, I asked him if he was an Alum. When he said yes I told him I had attended W & L and you would have thought I'd just promised him a golden egg. In a short but happy exchange we established that neither of us are Minnesotans, both of us born in small, poor Southern states (Arkansas for me, Alabama for him), both disgusted with today's snow, and both stupidly smitten with the fact that we stumbled upon one another in a checkout line in St. Paul.

It's funny, really. I've had a couple moments of similar mirth recently, meeting folks from south of the Mason-Dixon, and for some manner of moments we forget that The South is a big ole place. All of the sudden Beaumont and New Orleans and Birmingham and Austin and Charlotte and "it's a small town outside Nashville" are all close enough to Home to merit a smile. I suppose when you're this far removed from Home you tend to expand the limits of Home, increasing the likelihood that someone from Home will find you tucked away in this cold, Swedish-y place.

As is to be expected, when these serendipitous meetings occur, someone has to mutter, "what a small world!" And you both smile and nod your heads, laugh a bit, and somebody mentions the time they drove through your hometown or the cousin they have who went to school there. But the world has never seemed small to me. It has always felt enormously, excitingly HUGE, and the more places I live, the bigger it becomes. Every place I visit, every home I have, just exacerbates my feeling that my life will be way too short to enjoy every place I could potentially love. I'll never be able to see it all. I'll never find all the people I could befriend. I'll miss the climbing of various mountains. There will be delicious foods I will never eat, much less learn to cook. There are worlds out there I will never find if I am constantly, comfortably back Home.

So the run-ins with my compatriots, my fellow Southerners, my people who say "y'all" and find my pronunciation of "New Orleans" to be correct not cute, my friends who know good barbeque when they smell the smoke, such run-ins and hellos make me happy. They bring Home here for a little while. But they also make me happy to be elsewhere, some corner of the world I never would have ventured to if not for a combination of natural disaster, mistake, coin flip, curiosity, and homesickness.

This Is All I Will Say On The Subject

I think taxing the bonuses of a select few Americans is unconstitutional. Bill of attainder, anybody? Equal Protection? Ring any small, important bells?

The tax would do little to nothing to the fat cats everyone is picturing at AIG. The only thing the bill does is rob thousands and thousands of hard-working American families of the small thank-you they received from their embattled employer after months of what can only be the worst possible period to work for these companies. The vast majority of these people aren't getting million dollar bonuses. They're getting a few grand. Maybe it's enough to pay a couple months on their own mortgage. Maybe it repairs a small amount of the damage done to bruised, if not shattered, retirement accounts. Maybe it buys a kid braces. Maybe it's donated to a church or a synagogue or a homeless shelter or any number of charities swamped with the burden of financial ruin. These aren't millionaires.

And if they were millionaires?!

Still. Just. As. Unconstitutional.

That is all.

Just a Wee Bit of Bragging

I ran my first 5K (3.1 miles) last May and finished with a time of 48 minutes. That's a 15 1/2 minute mile pace. I was quite proud of that as I was in the process of losing a lot of weight and it was the first time I'd run 3 miles without stopping.

Today I ran 5 miles in 53:13 minutes. That's less than an 11 minute mile pace, roughly 10:42 pace. So I ran two more miles at a time 5 minutes per mile faster than that first race.

I'm proud. Half-Marathon here I come. Some part of me likes the bookends of this experience, to run my first 5K in May 2008, and my first Half-Marathon in May 2009.

Marathon in May 2010?

Where to?

I've been living in my apartment for nearly a year. It has served me well, despite being entirely too far from my current job. I want to move soon and have yet to decide where in the Cities. Somewhere cute, somewhere convenient, somewhere old, somewhere with orange ceilings.

Invariably, when I start to think of changing apartments, I think of all the apartments I've had before, in all the cities I've loved (and loathed) before. And such thinking makes me start to wonder if maybe I should be exploring apartments in other cities, other countries, places to surprise or inspire myself. I'm not bored here, or unhappy. But some part of me feels the need to stomp around somewhere new. Moving every couple years became a habit and I suppose, seeing as I've lived here for two years come June, my body is simply feeling the itch.

I have wondered if that drive, that need to go "somewhere else" and do "something else," would go away or fade once I found some magic, happy place. But I think that's where the searching comes from, not out of any unhappiness, but out of finding comfort. I start to worry if, in becoming happy, I've also become lazy.

C.S. Lewis has a brilliant quote in 'Til We Have Faces, "It was when I was happiest that I longed most...The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing...to find the place where all the beauty came from." I don't like to think I suffer from a grass-is-greener problem, constantly seeking something "better" as compared to what I feel my experience currently lacks. Because I don't think my need for change and new perspective is a search for "better" as much as it is a search for something new, different, unexpected, beautiful.

I spoke with a friend about this once, a friend who is much less prone to uprooting herself (in the physical sense). When I worried aloud that perhaps there was something exciting out there that I was missing, some country I would love living in, some river I should fish in, some job I should attempt and probably fail at, she wondered back ,"Have you ever lived somewhere without an expiration date? Why can't that be an adventure, too?"

Every place I have lived since graduating from high school has had a deadline. Virginia ended after college. Morocco ended with the Iraq War. Kansas City was a hiccup, a time-killer while I applied to law school. New Orleans was never supposed to end but after Katrina, I'd be lying if I said I didn't have some idea in my mind that even that lovely city was not forever for me. When I moved to Minneapolis I expected to be here two, three years, tops. I could not imagine myself happy, long term, in a city that is not in the South. I just could not embrace the idea of investing in a city that could never feel like Home.

I still feel like that, honestly. I still can't picture living here for years. Can't imagine owning a home here. Raising a family here. But perhaps it is healthy and mature and becoming-an-adultish to experiment with not stamping an expiration date on a city that has done nothing but make me content. I love my job, love being near my family, love the Spring after months of cold, love my church, love some dear, new friends. And even if this is not a forever type of city, even if there is another city in the cards, perhaps it's okay to just let that come in its own time. Perhaps burrowing in, making a home here, doesn't have to be something I do while I wait for my Real life to begin, the one in the Real city, with the Real happiness.

This is real, too. Just new, different, unexpected, beautiful.

The First Batch, Or Two

I bake cookies. Often.

I have not always been a baker. I wasn't much of a cook in New Orleans, give or take a carrot cake or two. And I'm still intimidated by full meal preparation (how do you time the cornbread, the green beans, the mashed potato, AND the chicken to be ready simultaneously). But baking I'm growing happy and comfortable with and I'm getting to the point where I don't always need a recipe, I can generally eyeball what needs to go where and in what amount.

Because I am a recovering English major, I can make any life experience a metaphor for life itself. It's a skill that's hard to articulate on a resume.

The cookies I baked tonight (www.edibleavocation.blogspot.com) were tricky little buggers. The first batch was beautiful to look at until you picked them off the parchment paper to spy their throughly blackened bottoms. My oven runs hot but even when lowering the temp and lessening the baking time, I still burned batch number two. This would have ruined my mood early on in my baking "career" (okay...not really a "career") as I'm easily frustrated when following directions results in disaster. But I've learned, through multiple mishaps, that recipes themselves are fickle creatures. They are built and loved by people other than myself with other ovens and other spatulas and other definitions of "level spoon dropfuls" and getting worked up over my cookies not being their cookies, I have slowly realized, is silly.

I think it's easy to get frustrated by the unpredictability of consequences outside the kitchen, too. I think most people "follow the directions" without remembering that the directions were written in general terms, without the specificity of personal dreams and strengths factored into the experience. This struck me today because yesterday my Dad, sister, and I went out to lunch and we started talking about college choices, life choices, mistakes kids and parents make (my sister is 16). I just remember being her age and feeling like the whole world was laden with directions and signs and magic potions of experience that I was supposed to obtain in order to acquire happiness. College, Marriage, 2.5 children, Successful Career, House (preferably with a picket fence and porch swing). And now, looking back, I wish someone had made me realize that the picture I had in my head of Happiness was a shadow of the Happiness that was possible if I wrote my own damn recipe.

I don't think God puts dreams or goals or curiosities in our hearts for his own twisted pleasure in crushing them. They're there for our exploration, maybe they'll feed us and bring financial gain, or maybe they're fodder for great memories and confidence in other pursuits. And maybe burning those first few batches of experience make us appreciate the perfect, fluffy, lemony morsels that emerge, unscathed, from an oven tempered by well-earned intelligence.

Modern Medicine is no Match for Me, Suckah

Alright, I don't actually use the word, "suckah", in everyday speech. Nor do I feel that modern medicine is a uniform crock or any such thing. In general, I'm a fan of medicine, modernity, and suckers (preferably chocolate flavored tootsie rolls). But of late I've become tired of "medicine" and anxious to return to the days when I had no need for it.

On the plane ride back from Amsterdam I started to feel a small tickle in my chest. Anyone who has had bronchitis knows what this feels like. It inspires a cough but you know from the beginning that said cough is purposeless. You start to cough whenever you lay down, whenever you yawn, whenever you laugh, whenever you swallow, whenever you breathe. And, at least for me, my bronchitis has never really responded to cough syrups, either over-the-counter or prescription. I just have to suffer, sweat it out.

This used to be annoying, of course, but not much beyond the typical sickness annoyance. I'd moan and complain, drug up, and wait the couple weeks it took to shake it out of my system, antibiotics in hand.

But now, see, I'm a runner. And the inability to breathe leads, inevitably, to an inability to run. And that is not an annoyance. That hurts me.

After nearly three weeks of this business, three weeks of no running, I returned to the doctor, hopeful. But unfortunately my doctor's answer to my breathlessness and inability to take a full lung of air without coughing is to slap an inhaler in my hand and laugh (yes, LAUGH) when I ask when I can start running again. I actually like my doctor, honestly, and were I my old self (an old self that certainly wouldn't have asked the running question), I wouldn't have been bothered by his diagnosis. But, to hear it now, no running for "awhile", said so flippantly, just pains me.

I went to the gym after the doctor's visit (I don't take "no" very well) and proceeded to walk as fast as one can walk on the highest incline possible on the treadmill. I'm positive I was actually breathing harder than I would normally have been had I been running. And, I admit, that was a stupid, juvenile move considering I'm only hurting myself. But there is something in me that is occassionally angered by the incessant drugging up of every ill. Where is the "shake it off" mantra instilled in me by my Dad at my softball practices? I think "shake it off" is a pretty viable, healthy mentality to balance out the "no running for awhile" practice.

I know that I asked for it. I don't feel 100% so I went back to the doctor. The doctor gave his honest, well-intentioned recommendation. I suppose I was hoping for a gold star, a slap on the back, and a magic, "you should definitely start running again, your bronchial tubes will LOVE it." So to hear that I'm just not kicking this thing as quickly as I wanted to, despite the fact that I am healthier now than I have ever been, just frustrates me.

At the gym I was sandwiched between two people my age, a man running at what would be a very respectable marathon pace, and a morbidly overweight woman walking at a snail's pace and failing to break a sweat. I wanted to plead with them both, because it was so clear that they each took their health for granted, their dear, strong, uninflamed bronchial tubes for granted. The man, clearly, took pride in his body and what it could do, but I'm sure, at that moment, he had no clue how blessed he was to be speeding merrily along. I wondered if he'd thanked God for those legs today. And the woman. Her sin I understand very, very well. She was reading The Economist, an article on China I read a couple weeks ago. To treasure and be grateful for only compartments of the gift God gives us is as great a sin as dismissing the whole package. To cultivate your mind and be proud of it, but to leave your body in a ditch and call it "genetics" or " big boned" is a tragedy I am sure God does not wish upon us. I wondered, and knew, that she had not thanked God for that brain or that belly today. Equally precious gifts, but easy to ignore one for the sake (we think) of the other.

I skipped the pharmacy on the way home. I'll give my lungs another day before I test out the inhaler idea. Perhaps they just need a bit more time, a bit less abuse (stupid treadmill), and some more orange juice. And I'll thank God for them anyway, despite their current ineptitude.

Oh my, Radio!

Oh my, Radio!
Wherefore art thou, Radio?
How much road rage have I avoided by the purrfect play of
Golden Age at opportune moments?


Ladies and Gents, it is time to pony up and support our dear friend, Minnesota Public Radio. Having moved to Minneapolis from New Orleans, where local music is poorly represented by local radio, it is awesome to finally experience a station that so happily, readily, and enthusiastically embraces its own. Times are tough but music is IMPORTANT! It's a calmness on the drive home, a grin on a Friday evening, a brand new musical obsession that sends you straight to iTunes, and awesome deejays that love music just as much as you do. It's the soundtrack for this transient woman's life in these snowy Cities. So just do it. Show some love. Donate what you can and give yourself a very hip high five. http://minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/services/the_current/

Adventures in Daughterhood

Traveling solo with a parent is bizarre. Perhaps it was a weird feeling, too, as a child, on random legs of roadtrips with just me and Dad (or me and Mom) in the car. Maybe when I was 7 or 8 it felt equally weird. But mainly I remember it feeling special and holy, those little pockets of time I had with one parent all to myself. I don't know what gave them the idea, but when I was little my parents created this familial tradition called The Day. Each kid got one day with each parent totally solo and we'd do something special. Mom and I would go shopping and out to lunch, probably to a movie, and one time in college we went to San Francisco. Dad and I went fishing a lot, visited colleges, roadtripped to the Laura Ingalls Wilder house (and saw the Dalton Gang muesum on the way). At some point you outgrow The Day. Sometime in college, most likely. It's just too hard to schedule, too expensive, too time consuming, and when you're hundreds of miles apart transportation is an issue. But on the way to the airport my dad said, "this probably counts as your Day."

My Dad and I had a lot of time to talk on this trip, on the plane, walking around Amsterdam, walking around Dubai and Abu Dhabi, breakfasting in a fancy hotel. We just chatted, nothing that stands out in my mind in particular. But I think that's what felt so nice to me. Parents are like miniature Hercules figures when you're a kid. They don't talk like normal people, every sentence is a parable. Every step and misstep resonates for years. So it's an awesome, weird, precious thing when your parent transforms into a human that you'd actually just like to hang out with. Which isn't to say that I haven't felt that way before with my Dad. I've enjoyed many a chit chat in fishing boats or at baseball games or at dinner or on the Roan or in the living room after church with my Dad. But it's different when it's long stretches of time, when it's days of pointing at new sights, sharing the paper, grabbing coffee, finding the Benadryl, laughing, and taking pictures and then retaking them because Dad sometimes takes them funny.

I'm my Dad's daughter. So there is part of me that will always, always want him to approve and be proud of me and the choices I make. But Dubai was important to me in that I felt that my Dad was more than the guy who taught me how to drive and ride a bike, do my taxes and my homework and believe in my brother and sister. He is also my friend. And that's just nice to figure out. It was the same feeling I used to get at the end of my Day, growing up, when Mom and I would pull into the driveway after a cheesey romantic comedy, or when Dad and I would be driving back to St. Louis in the convertible after a weekend on the White River. It was this quiet, happy moment when I knew my parents liked me. They loved me, sure, which I am grateful for. But it's equally powerful to know that your parents, biologically required to love you, also like you as a person, as someone they'd like to know, someone they'd like to know better. And the feeling is mutual.

That's Right, Dubai

I had a hard time picking a photo for this post. The pic of me in front of the mosque? Me with the camel? Me with the hookah? The indoor ski slope? Me with the head scarf? The row upon row of gold at the souk? The pic of my dad in front of the world's most expensive hotel (built on a manmade island shaped like a palm tree)? I settled on this one, a mild sandstorm forcing me to squint with the Burj Al Arab, marketed as the most luxurious hotel in the world, shining hazily in the distance.

I think the difficulty itself explains a lot about my impression of Dubai. On the one hand, it is a phenomenal city, an experiment in marketing that seems to be working. On the other hand, it can feel quite cold and superficial. There is a difference in displaying exuberant wealth when the package is older. You can see ridiculous displays of money in New York and London, Paris and Moscow, anywhere really. But the cities that encompass that wealth have been growing and shrinking and growing again for generations. The wealth you see displayed in New York somehow makes sense because it is seen in juxtaposition to extreme poverty and a huge middle class. Some people succeed more than others, perhaps at the cost of others, it simply makes sense based on human nature, the marketplace, Darwin, or whathaveyou.

But Dubai is not encompassed by any history of innovation or growth. It was born, as it is known today, thirty years ago. It was nothing but a desert outpost until the discovery of oil (and not its own oil) and only in the last decade has it mindfully marketed itself as the playground for the Middle East, a hub of tourism and real estate shenanigans that would make your head swim. It has no foundation of historical fits and starts to prove that it has learned its lessons, experimented with a few models, test driven a few market ideas and arrived at a successful plan. To a certain extent I simply trust the wealth in other cities more because I know that it has survived longer. It has prehaps gained and lost twice its value in the past two years, but if it's still surviving? I respect that. Dubai just seems like a bubble begging to burst.

My only other comparison for an Arab culture is Morocco. And Morocco I knew very well, so I hesitate to compare them too harshly because I know I do not know the UAE so well. But there was very, very little in Dubai that reminded me of my village in Morocco. And the starkest comparison is religious. I am a Christian, not a Muslim, but there is a common root there that begs respect. Because I come from a faithful, religious family, I always took comfort in the devoutness of my village and the constant reminder of God in the prayer call. There was never any doubt that God ruled every moment, that every human plan was worthless without His guidance and approval, that there was Good and Bad to be done everyday. In Dubai I never heard the prayer call. My dad says he heard it, but I never did. Even our tour guide told us multiple times that the vast majority of Muslims in Dubai do not actively practice, their wearing of the scarf was more cultural than religious, the rules of Ramadan were routinely broken. Even if that were the case in Morocco, nobody would have ever said as much and they certainly wouldn't have said it as a point of pride, as if secularism was a goal they had in mind. I do find it sad that one of the richest (for now) chunks of the world has become so by somewhat turning its back on religious heritage. Belief in God and financial success are not mutually exclusive. There are, of course, elements of Islam that remain permeated in the culture, despite the secularist bent. Because 85% of the population is made up of expats, it's easy to allow alcohol at the hotels, etc., and to deny it elsewhere. But even that is somewhat disturbing to me, to profit from the sins of those outside your faith. That seems to be a sin itself.

I don't want it to sound like I hated Dubai because I honestly loved it! It is a conflicted, tumultuous, ugly, gorgeous city that is birthing itself in a sea of money and make-it-or-break-it expectations. I have never seen a place so determined to build itself exactly in the manner it sees fit, not bending to outside forces, but simply deciding what it will be and doggedly chasing that goal. The number of cranes littering the skyline is testament to that determination. I simply worry that that determination is a bit blinded and empty, a worry that will probably be proved or disproved in the current financial climate. Dubai is in debt and being rescused by its oil-soaked capital, Abu Dhabi. That doesn't spell disaster but it is a kink in Dubai's real estate-heavy armor. How big a kink remains to be seen.

The problem, or the power, behind Dubai's potential is that it is 100% self-made, which I find fascinating and inspiring. We should all be so sure of our success. I only hope that that assurance is justified. How fantastic if it is!

Coffeeshopping

Coffee shops are tricky beasts. Suburban or urban? Quiet or raucous? Bagels and scones or killer sandwiches? Free trade or bloodthirsty capitalist (and really, isn't the former just a sneaky version of the latter)? Strictly coffee or alcohol-friendly? Convenience or character? Bare bones or plugged in?

I am currently drinking a Summit oatmeal stout (alcohol-friendly) with a yummy, melty chicken and mushroom sandwich (killer sandwiches) plugged in at a cozy (character), urban, free trade (bloodthirsty capitalist), raucous coffee shop in Uptown. It's not as cold outside tonight, still hovering in the 20s, and I think everyone inside is happier for it. We're warmer, louder, hopeful for spring despite the fact that we all know we've got another 2 months of snow possibilities.

I wish I'd been a better coffeeshopper in New Orleans. They had some great ones tucked away in dirty corners of the Quarter. I did love one coffee shop in Uptown (all these Uptowns in my life), Rue de la Course, largely for its awesome green lamps. But for the most part I stuck to the library, holed up on the 6th floor against a couch, drinking too much Diet Coke and eating too many granola bars.

I've only recently begun to explore the coffee shops in my new town. And I am much more skilled at their perusal these days. I like the people watching, the melted cheese, the smell of burnt coffee, the workers with more peircings than one would think would be sanitary. I just like being around noise, I think. Warm, friendly noise. The noise of people eating cheesecake and drinking beer, trying chai for the first time, debating various statements of various presidents, starting the weekend with laughter.

What's In a Name?

I assume everyone has this experience. Everyone has childhood nicknames, familial nicknames, names they choose for themselves, names others choose for them. I am no different in this regard. I have been Rachel, Daisy, Jajel, Dachu, and Sabu, courtesy of my family. And I have been Rachel, Rae, Carrots, Innocent One, Rae-la, Rae-Rae, Rachy, and Red, courtesy of my friends. I was Rashida often in Morocco, courtesy of Hassan, and my Moroccan mama in Youssoufia concocted her own pronunciation that, by best spelling, was something like Rah-shett. As an adult, Rachel and Rae have been my key monikers, and as I have arrived, oddly, in a city where I'm addressed as both, I feel the need to differentiate the two.

It isn't to say that I prefer one over the other, that one is more "me" or more appropriate. But the impact of each is singular and to a certain degree the names describe different people (eh, I'm trying to avoid sounding schizophrenic right now), hence, a brief history.

Growing up, I was never thrilled with my name. Part of this was largely due to an unfortunate similarity with a certain aging movie star. I was also quite frustrated that my parents would name me after a character in the Bible that, by my estimation, has to have one of the most tragic stories around. Loved desperately by Jacob and yet denied marriage for years, and then, when she finally weds, she's barren for years and years. The image of Rachel throughout the Old Testament in the prophecies and in her own story is an image of a woman weeping for unborn children. Ouch. In the end, she is blessed with sons, but there was always one aspect of the story I found very upsetting, late blessing notwithstanding. At no point in the story does it say Rachel loved Jacob. Nowhere. She is well-loved. But did she love back? She is beautiful. But the only emotion the Bible grants her is despair. Sad stuff. So, while I'm happy to be named Biblically, I always wished I'd had a name with a happier story. Although, I'm having a hard time at the moment coming up with many "happy" female stories in the Bible. Esther? Sarah? Mary? I don't really feel like an "Esther"...

Rachel suited me fine and carried me through all of high school and college (with the occassional "Rachy" thrown in by one dear friend). But Peace Corps rearranged me. Rae started out as a practical compromise. There was another Rachel in my training group and it was easier for everyone involved if somebody went by a nickname. I don't know why I picked Rae, as nobody had ever called me that before. But there was something awesome and short and perky and powerful about it and the English major in me loved the pseudo play on "RAY of sunshine". Yeah, very nerdy. As soon as I introduced myself as Rae, it simply stuck. It felt good and right and like Rachel was the name I'd been born with, but Rae was the name I grew into. And I suppose, due to it beginnings in the desert and its eventual flourish in New Orleans, Rae will never sound quite right up here in the cold. It needs heat, humidity, and crawdads. Or a noisy, drum-laden souk during Ramadan.

"Rae" continued to be my name of choice throughout law school. I can't think of anyone in New Orleans who ever called me Rachel (unless they were mad at me). And for the first few months of life in Minneapolis, I continued to use it. But at some point in the transition, "Rachel" reemerged, restaked a claim. Much of it must be because of my proximity to my family. My parents have always called me Rachel and when my siblings aren't calling me a nickname, that's the default. I'd forgotten how nice my full name sounds, that the saying of it somehow completes a picture that "Rae" only shines a light on. I've gotten used to hearing my full name again, and I don't feel as annoyed by the sad Biblical connotations anymore either. A silly thing to be offended by, to be named after someone so "well loved".

And now, for the first time, I have friends who call me both. I don't take that to mean that Minneapolis is some sacred, special place where everyone "gets" me. Far from it. But I do think I've grown into being more of myself here, something that would have happened eventually elsewhere, too. Rachel no longer frustrates me in its old fashioned-ness or its likely comparison to a certain B-list actress (okay, the actress thing does tick me off sometimes). And Rae no longer feels like the uber-treehugger, peace corps-ish "other" me that was hard to reconcile with the bits of Rachel left behind.

I say all this because someone recently asked me if I preferred Rachel or Rae, as they'd heard me called both. And this is my answer. I have no preference.

They're both me.