The Garden Level

When I was looking for a new apartment over a year ago, I heard anti-garden level apartment shpiels from everyone.  The level most likely to be robbed.  The level with the least sunlight.  The level most likely to be burdened by backed up sinks, noisy upstairs neighbors, and crappy heating. 

I've never been robbed (and honestly, I think the bars on my windows are kinda pretty).  I get plenty of light.  My sinks have been fine (notsomuch the occassional toilet issue).  My next door neighbors are the noisy ones, courtesy of a boisterous toddler.  And my heating issues were copious until I called my landlord and said, "well, I'm cold. And the heater sounds like a cat stuck in a washing machine." 

I really love my little home. It's ridiculously small, yes.  But I'm only one person and have no need for large amounts of space.  I'm walking distance from my favorite brunch place, my favorite bluegrass place, my favorite coffee place, my favorite lake, my favorite spring roll place, my favorite ice cream place, my favorite place to buy milk and peanut butter, and my favorite place to buy and sell clothes.  In short, I could survive quite happily without ever getting in my car, which is ideal.

And now I've discovered a new benefit to garden level urban living in Minneapolis.  When we get a doozy of a snowstorm, I'm as cozy as can be thanks to the igloo-erific view of snow drifting up my window. 

A ribboned and tinseled silver-stemmed tree Perches on the edge of my 2nd hand desk
And the smell of butter and sugar and sugar and sugar
Warms the kitchen in its Christmas-themed mess

The warmth of my oven can't reach the window
Can't free the ice 'round some neighbor's squealing tire
But it toasts my insides, roasts them from within,
Replaces the snow drifts with a cushion of fire

My first near-blizzard, in my favorite nearly-Home
Builds bricks of winter against iron-graced glass
And as the wind whips it higher, encasing me in white
This sleigh-bells-ring-are-you-listening? oatmeal cookie heat must last.

Lipstick

On my thirtieth birthday I wore red:

red reminiscent of skinned knees

and four-eyed eyelids puckered by November allergies.

A red sweatshirt I wore in the third grade,

A yellow star in the center and rhinestoned clouds weeping rhinestone tears.

Thirty years and a sweatshirt still lingers.  And the smell of dirt beside a Southern jungle gym, red sweatshirt ripped at the shoulder by some ill-timed leap.

Red hair is less red against Red Diva lipliner.

The red I never wear crept into a plastic bag, clutched by my mother as she searched for her own mother's perfect shade.

Only grownups wear red lipstick.

Only daughters search for perfect reds for perfect mothers as they valiantly embrace age from hospital beds.

Not too orangey.

Not the pink-tinted one.

The Revlon with a touch of blood in it, of earth, of grownups and children and warm, Sunday mornings spent in churches without fans.

Reds with a touch of Texas in them, Arkansas, or Minnesota, or Tennessee, a splash of a few months toasting sisters in Times Square or South Korea or all-the-sisters-sound-the-same-on-the-phone

  Reds bought and lost and kept in a million handbags in a million places beside a million men, many of whom never matter at all.

Reds of childhood sweatshirts hanging from monkey bars too far apart, and of Mamaw's lips, soft and loveworn, pretty for the World,

Sticks to the wine glass

And the cup of sweet tea

Both sipped in loved company,

Both moments made perfect by their color.

Finishing Strong

I started off this racing season with a goal of running six half-marathons. I ran seven, and the seventh was, by far, by fastest and most fun. I figured I'd recap this quasi-crazy summer adventure before detailing why this last race was my best.

Minnetonka Half: Gorgeous course, beautiful day, lots of happy spectators, but it was way too early in my training. The race was early May and I'd initially leaned towards Fargo (late May) being my first of the season. I signed up for Minnetonka for a purely emotional reason. Recent breakup, heartbroken, I needed some sort of I-am-woman-hear-me-roar type endeavor to remind myself I was a tough, tough cookie. It served its purpose but man it hurt. Definitely on my list for next year as it's a lovely race, but this time I'll train better.

Fargo Half: My first trip to North Dakota! I ran it with a dear friend, Katrina, and it was an excellent course. We arrived at the start mere seconds before gun time due to traffic and it began to rain as soon as we arrived. Happily, the rain ended by mile 4, and the flat, sunshiney course with tons of awesome spectators made for my fastest half other than the one today.

Minneapolis Half: Miserable. Absolutely miserable. Too hot, too humid, and I walked a sizeable chunk because of some out-of-nowhere hip pain. I think I was partly dehydrated, too. This was the only race that I seriously considered just walking away from midway. The course was fine but it was just not a good running day for me.

Red, White, and Boom Half: This was enjoyable to an extent but largely because it was so retched. It was ludicrous how much rain poured down, by mile 3 my shoes were completely soaked and my festive red, white, and blue blinking light headband had fritzed out and was impossibly tangled in my hair. My ipod also bit the big one that day and just decided it didn't want to work in the rain. But by mile 7 or so I was so wet and everyone around me was so wet that we were just all kinda enjoying it. I started splashing in the puddles on purpose and just gave up any hopes of getting a decent time. My friend, Molly, was there to high five me at the end and it takes a TRUE friend to stand in the rain for that long.

Urban Wildlands Half: Another rainy one but not near as rainy as the July 4th race. It was humid so the rain actually helped cut the air a bit and cool me down. It was a decently paced race for me, which was great, and my parents came to cheer me on at the finish. My friend, Kristen, ran it as her first half so it's always nice to know a fellow crazy soul is slogging through the miles with you.

Salomon Trail Half: My only trail half-marathon and my slowest time. Second only to the Monster Dash for most fun. This race helped me discover that I loooooooove trail running. I ran into a tree at one point and also managed to acquire about 50 stickleburrs at one time (those are fun to pluck off while running). I also pretty severely injured a toe that bled like the dickens, I could feel the blood squishing in my sock, so this was also my most painful race. But I loved running up and down the hills, hiking the tall ones, checking out the gorgeous fall colors. I honestly think I hurt as much after this one as after the full marathon last year. I limped for a few days. My body had never done that amount of hill work and it's just a different leg muscle experience running trail versus road. I will definitely do this one again.

Monster Dash Half: My final race of the year, which I ran with my kid sister, Caroline to fundraise for the Epilepsy Foundation. It was Caroline's first half and despite having knee problems the last several weeks, she was a total trooper! She's younger and smaller than me so her pace is naturally faster but we stayed together the whole time and I think my slowing us down a bit probably saved her a bit of pain. We finished just shy of a 10:30 pace, which is definitely my fastest, and we had excellent cheering from Mom, Dad, and Caroline's boyfriend throughout the race. We celebrated with omelets the size of our heads and cinnamon rolls at Pannekoeken Huis.

My mom asked Caroline after the race if she would be "hooked" on races now. Caroline smiled and shrugged and said, "probably, just like Rachel." It is a feeling you can't describe to non-racers. There really is nothing like the feeling just beyond a finish line. Even if you're not fast, even if the race hurts, crossing that line makes for a good day. Because life throws us all sorts of impossible situations that never seem to really end. There are struggles that ebb and flow and weave and sleep and reawaken. But a race is a finite, powerful thing. There is a beginning, a middle, and an end. And getting through each mile is a minor victory, leading up to that moment of completion. It's a strong reminder of how deft the human body is at recognizing a challenge and rising to meet it. And on the days the world feels hard, it's a nice memory to return to, cling to maybe, as proof that what feels unlikely, even impossible, sometimes only requires one more mile.

Other Sets of Feet

I have never been one to run with other people. Running for me is primarily a solo event. I race against myself, disappoint myself, encourage myself, and high five myself for a job well done. I could say that this is indicative of my independent nature and I'm sure there is some truth to that assessment. But my solitary adventures can also be credited to that quiet voice I still hear occassionally that whispers, "you are not a runner." Other people are runners. Other people are athletic. Other people are fast. Other people are thin. Other people are graceful. Other people look better in lycra.

I went running tonight with my friend, Kristen. Kristen is lovely. She's taller than me, thinner than me, with cascades of curly brunette hair, and painfully pretty skin. She's just the sort of woman who manages to exude grace while wearing a tshirt, which I find rather amazing. I feel like a freckled, clumsy mess next to this sweet ladyfriend.

Not to mention she is, indisputably, faster than me.

But I thoroughly enjoyed my first run with a fellow human. We talked about work, about stresses, about church, about running, about the weather. And we stopped midway for ice cream at Sebastien Joe's. We sweated a bit, but not much given my slowness and the beauty of a fallish day.

I like being proven wrong (within reason). While I do still hear that voice, teasing my assumption that I am now A Runner (one marathon and six half-marathons should be fair proof), I am getting better at ignoring its implications. I am not fast. And I'm not particularly graceful. I can't imagine that lycra will ever be my fabric of choice. But I am one of those other people. And running with those other runners, the ones that are faster and thinner and stronger than me, only reminds me of how far away from being beside them I was a couple years ago. And regardless of my speed or ability (or lack thereof), there is a communion of pavement pounding that everyone who does it understands. It doesn't take a 7 minute mile to recognize and appreciate the feel of legs and street and arms and hips and ankles and sidewalk cracks.

I'm a runner, are you?

Yes, I'm a runner, too.

For God's Sake

I spent last week in Barcelona with my family. On the flight home I thought about what I should write about, what was worth posting, worth trying to describe. It was a precious, happy time with my family, especially given how rarely the five of us are together. But the subject of this post is not my family, but rather a crazy, commanding structure that I explored with my family not long after we arrived.

The Sagrada Familia resembles a cathedral that has been microwaved (desciptor borrowed from a friend). Its rust-colored spires seem almost collapsed, like long balloons slowly deflating. A somewhat depressing description, but it's impossible to articulate it properly. Having seen Notre Dame de Paris and St. Paul's in London and various other cathedrals scattered around Europe, a glance at Sagrada Familia is rather violent. It is so different as to be somewhat otherworldly. And I suppose that is the point.


Gaudi (Sagrada's architect) was heavily influenced by nature and that's evident in the structure. Comparatively, Notre Dame de Paris feels un-natural, not-of-the-earth, elements that aid the feeling of transcendence anyone would experience walking through its nave. The light shines through Notre Dame and it feels like God himself is wrapping his fingers around the buttresses, lifting them heavenward.


Sagrada is different. There is transcendence to be sure. But it is rooted in Creation and crowned with Christ's story, told in the facades wrapping the exterior of the building. The interior columns' design was inspired by trees and Gaudi desired a vision of treetops, a celestial forest, within the walls of the church. The light shines in very specifically, as Gaudi felt that too much or too little light disturbed the spiritual experience. You need enough light to feel God's touch, not so much that you are blinded to what He shows you. Even being inside now, so stark and unfinished, the light pouring in seemed perfect and unobtrusive. It was that ideal level of shine and shimmer, with just enough shadow to calm.


Throughout the structure there are elements of Earth. Birds, lizards, turtles, water, leaves, flowers, vines, fruit. The other cathedrals I've visited (and loved) seemed distinctly unworldy, on purpose perhaps given the directive that we be in the world but not of the world. It's a powerful separation with such sacred places, sliding you safely into a place fit for worship, protected from the world's temptations and terrors. But I found the Sagrada's earth-inspired body to be significantly more powerful. To glorify God inspired by the Creation he gave seems so much more tangible and translatable. I can touch a tree, smell a flower, dig my fingers into dirt. I cannot build the Sagrada but I can sit at the foot of some trunk and look heavenward and sigh. The Sagrada, miraculously, creates a space of holiness and reverence while maintaining a connection to the dirt it covers.


Perhaps it moved me more because I love the Earth, too. Value it physically as well as spiritually. I do not take lightly God's order that we are the stewards of this planet, that it is a gift we are meant to treasure and cherish and use. Its resources are our own, but we are not meant to rape those resources with no eye toward the future. Our stewardship is meant to be intelligent. Prosperous but not ignorant of the ramifications of our actions. So a church reaching heavenward with tree-inspired columns, spires resting on carvings of turtles, it simply makes sense to me. We take so much of this planet for granted, assuming its resources are unremarkable or undiminishing. If we treasured those resources, that dirt, that water, that oil, that coal, that salt, those diamonds, those trees, those mountains, that river, those fisheries, with the same love and specificity gifted by the Creator, I imagine our relationship with the earth would be quite different today.


If we walked through the world the way we walk through the corridor of a cathedral, light pouring in and wrapping 'round tree trunks, we would, at the very least, hesitate before lifting the axe.

The Wheels on the Bus

I've recently started taking the bus to work again after spending a good year among the intrepid (crazy?) population who treks from Minneapolis to St. Paul and back every workday. The drive would be passable but for 1) bad weather and 2) construction. As winter and spring take up the first problem and summer and fall take up the second, that really leaves very few days to make the 25 mile roundtrip drive worthwhile. And, to quote a friend who will remain nameless, I'm a "hippie," and reducing my carbon footprint is really just part of my job.

I have two main bus drivers on the route I take, gentlemen of exceedingly different personalities who see me near 6 am on the trek into St. Paul, and 4 pm on the trek home. I don't know their names. The gentleman in the morning always says hello, he smiles and thanks me when I wish him a happy day upon his dropping me off downtown, and he welcomes me back when I miss a morning or two due to travel or oversleeping. He often gives a lift to a fellow driver who's headed home after his shift and they laugh and smile at one another as good friends do. He waves at other drivers on the road. I even saw him blow a kiss to another bus driver, a bubbly-looking woman with her hair in a ribboned ponytail, who we drove past at a light on Nicollet. He smiles the way some people do, the way you know that smiles are their most common facial movement.

The gentleman in the afternoon clearly hates his job. He stares straight ahead, never says hello. He's much younger than my morning driver, and wears sunglasses even on the cloudiest day. Everyday when he drops me off I wish him a good day. I thank him. He has never acknowledged me. But I may have found my "in" for getting an occasional hello from the man...

Evidently if you fall down the steps of his bus and land, hard, on the sidewalk with your farmer's market potatoes rolling out of your "Virginia is for Lovers" bag, he will not just drive away in his sunglassed, mopey world. He will jump down the stairs and exclaim, "Holy shit, lady, are you alright?" I really was fine and potatoes are totally edible when bruised, so it could have been worse. He actually gave me a smile and a "you have a nice day" when I stood up. Public embarrassment inspires kindness, I suppose. I do not plan on making a habit of falling off his bus so hopefully cordiality from here on out will not require injury. I'm all for reducing my carbon footprint but I hadn't factored in bruising as a possible result of that pursuit.

Baseball

There are few things more holy to a summer than a baseball game. I attended my first Twins game recently at the widely heralded (deservedly) brand spanking new Target Field. While I remain firm in my belief, rooted in a childhood dedicated to the Cardinals and their Arkansas farm team, that the National League is far superior to the "fake baseball" attempted by the AL, I can give credit where credit is due for a good game. I attended with a fellow baseball-lover (I should say "fake baseball"-lover since he's a Twins fan but since he provided the tickets, I'll overlook that flaw) and I don't think there's anything better on a sunny afternoon than a mild tshirt-shaped sunburn, good company, and a homerun to cheer for.

I bought a scorecard as soon as we entered and enjoyed relearning all the chickenscratches my Dad taught me as a girl. There's a certain satisfaction from that backwards K (called strikeout) and the filled in black diamond of a homerun. I also like the 6-4-3 of the double play. My favorite position in softball was shortstop, and I liked owning that "6."

On Saturday I'm headed to a Saints game, the minor league team in St. Paul that boasts $5 tickets, burn-your-ass metal bleachers, and a pig mascot that runs around the field at will. It's very different from the major league experience, but honestly, save a Cardinals game in my former hometown, I much prefer the minor league feel. It reminds me more of the first baseball games of growing up, the ones spent at Ray Winderfield Field (only a handful of people will notice that childish mistake), hot dogs and mosquitos, crowd cheering for Geronimoooooooo Pennnnnna. Those are the games that spell B-A-S-E-B-A-L-L in my heart. The Saints games remind me of those hot, Arkansas evenings, even if the Minnesota sun is significantly kinder than those Southern scorchers.

I think, too, that a baseball fan is simply more my sort of human than other sports fans. Football can be fun to watch, and I admit to getting jazzed for New Orleans this past February. But my affection for football is fleeting, and only emotionally tied to the handful of my kid brother's games I caught while he was in high school. I've never cared about basketball (an apathy born of one miserable season spent "playing" basketball in middle school when I would sob for an hour before practice because I loathed it so much).

Baseball. Now that is a sport worth loving. A slow one at times, to be sure, steeped in decades and decades of history, generations of rivalries, old wounds, underdogs, and the smell of dirt and chalk and soft, sweaty leather. Baseball fans are fervent but they're also patient. Football is over in a blink, barely a dozen games to sink your teeth into. Baseball requires weeks, months of dedication. An exhaustion of sweeps and death spirals, records to break, pulled tendons, perfect games, rainouts, games ahead, games behind. I respect that slowness. And I respect the fan that settles in for the long haul in April, the promise of sun and a homerun peeking through springtime's clouds.

Mid-July is prime baseball season. Squinting against the glare, the near-scream of joy for the nearly-fair nearly-homerun, the smell of bug spray and beer and mustard. It's a specific slice of the year, before the smell of autumn creeps across the grass and forces the acknowledgment of other seasons. I love that slow creep of darkness, when the outfield lights buzz on, love the sugary promise of cotton candy, and the way my ponytail dissolves in a cascade of sweaty strings after I jump up too many times to cheer. I just love it.

Swing away!

Bummer

I suppose everyone has a crappy race now and again. I don't think I've ever finished a race where my time didn't improve, even just a tiny bit. Today my time wasn't even in the ballpark of prior best times, I was nearly one minute off my pace average per mile. But, a list of the things that might have contributed to the blehhhhhhhh-ness:

1. Hills in the second half, several
2. Didn't sleep well the night before
3. Tripped at mile 5, didn't fall, but did something wonky to my right hip
4. Should have worn a tank top instead of a tee
5. Off and on headache for the last few days...allergies? Dunno.

So I suppose I can chalk this morning's lackluster performance up to a series of minor errors and misfortunes that together simply made the race a bit of an annoyance. As always, it was a happy moment to cross the finish, grab my metal, rejoice in the end of another race started and officially completed. But I've recently gotten used to the feeling of that-was-the-best-I've-ever-done after each line crossing. Today was simply not that kind of race. But I checked off another race in my goal of running six half-marathons this summer. And given that the first 3 were in a mere 5 weeks, I should probably add "minor exhaustion" to the list of errors above. Spreading the races out a bit better would have been a good idea. But the rest of the races are better spread, just one a month in July, August, and September. I might toss in a 10K if something cool comes up.

Bummer of a race or not...

3 half-marathons down. 3 to go.

Two Hundred

This is my two hundredth blog posting on The Orange and The Fish. I began this blog as a lark, a way to decompress when the stress of Civil Procedure and Contracts II made me want to walk away from law school and pay off the debt by waiting tables in the Quarter. I would post sporadically the spring of 2005, encouraged by my intrepid little band of friends who read the posts while they were, themselves, ignoring class for sanity's sake. I mused on my new city, which I fell in love with immediately and blindly.

The blog soon found me in Little Rock, posting only to retain some sense of normalcy post-Katrina. I didn't post much that semester, and what I did post were sad little missives detailing how much I missed certain stretches of sidewalk, certain friends, certain taken-for-granted activities that seemed impossible to replicate in a city so battered by water, wind, gunfire.

My writing once I returned to New Orleans was equal parts evaluation of a city trying to rebuild and redeem itself and also a constant tearing apart of my own desire to both stay in New Orleans forever and to leave it behind. New Orleans is still the only city that has felt fully mine, built exclusively for my personality and my happy habit of romanticizing chronic disappointment. On a plane recently, flying back from a visit to my dear, now oily City, I overheard someone say New Orleans would be a hard city to love. Perhaps it's a distinction of personality. I have always loved old, broken things. Ideas in need of repair. Dreams deferred. New Orleans is a city where that propensity for damage exists side by side with breathtaking hope, a fire to continue, always.

Once I made the move North, half my writing was about this odd, cold place and my preference for the heat I ran away from, and the other half was wide-eyed training for my first half-marathon, first marathon. The running made Minneapolis an easier place to love. You make a city yours when you know the cracks in the pavement, the dips in the path around Lake Harriet, the roots around Lake Calhoun that call out for broken ankles. If New Orleans was the city that built a house for my heart, Minneapolis is the city that built my body and taught it to run. Equally important tasks, I believe.

The blogging comes in spurts. I blogged pretty routinely while training for the marathon, in part because it helped me articulate my frustrations and joys, and in part because I hoped my then-boyfriend would read the posts and recognize that my head was preoccupied by a worthy exercise. I haven't written as much this running season as it feels more familiar and there's less to articulate in the way of new experiences. I've had blood blisters before. Achey quads. Angry, rainy runs. But, more importantly, last summer I was in a relationship and shared much of those frustrations with him. I whined and had someone to whine to, someone to buy me a burger after a long run. This summer is different and the running feels more mine, more solidly part of my whole life, not just some season of experience that will disappear with a new face or new commitment or new stress. I talk about it less, maybe, because I am no longer surprised or daunted by the goals I set for myself. I am less in need of someone to tell me "you can do it!" because I now know I can. I needed that encouragement for awhile, but it's good to no longer be dependent on the whims of another's support.

And so, two hundred. Five years.

On my most recent trip to New Orleans I got a new tattoo (sorry, Dad), one I've been daydreaming about for months. It says, "ISAIAH 40:31" on my left foot. Its promise of renewed strength carried me through the latter half of the marathon, and after the miles I dedicated to these feet, I wanted a record of that promise. Two hundred. Five years. A Hurricane. A law degree. Two cities. And I have no doubt that the best parts of my life are in front me. "But those who Hope in the Lord..."

Kickin' Butt

I ran the Get in Gear 10K on Saturday in some pretty miserable weather. Mid 50s, unending rain, breezy, no hint of sunshine. To make the experience even worse, I discovered 9to my horror) while lining up at the start that I had failed to charge my iPod. I am not a runner in silence, I need my music. So the prospect of a miserably rainy, musicless 10K was daunting and annoying. But evidently, that's when I run my best...

Most runs over 5K (and less than 10 miles) my pace is roughly 10:30-10:45 min/mile. But on Saturday I ran a 10K (6.2 miles) at a 10:11 min/mile pace, a vast improvement over earlier runs. I think the rain kept me cool and the annoyance factor made me fairly desperate to get the race over. I rarely pick up speed near the end but my last mile was a less than 10 min average. I just remember wanting to finish, get back to my car, strip off the soggy shirts and throw on the warm fleece I'd stashed in my backseat. In my mind this fleece was newly out of the dryer and steaming hot, which was not what awaited me in the car. But daydreams get you fairly far in races.

I remember being 14 and running the requisite one-miler for phys ed. I was miserable and struggled to make a 14 minute mile. To have run 6.2 miles at a far faster pace makes one fact very clear to me: My 29 year-old self kicks my 14 year-old self's butt.

So, despite the rain, that's an excellent day.

This is My Station

I spent yesterday afternoon and this morning driving to and from Grand Rapids, Minnesota thanks to a public hearing requiring my attendance. I've only been to a few public hearings but each one has led me somewhere new, which I appreciate.

The drive to Grand Rapids, birthplace of Judy Garland, is easy from the Cities, at least once you make it out of the endless stoplights and fits and starts of general suburban sprawl. Past Rogers you can actually get a bit of speed, leave traffic lights behind, coast with open fields on either side. The weather was perfect, cloudless and bright blue, with enough sun to make the whole world cheerful but not enough to make me miss the sunglasses I forgot at home.

Some people are adverse to lengthy bouts in the car, especially when driving alone. But I have always favored a good, long solo road trip. Part of it is genetic (or some hybrid nature/nurture thing) as my Dad is of the particular genre of human that enjoys waking the family for a 4a.m. departure for every trip to Disneyworld, South Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, D.C., myriad fishing trips, etc. He's a drive-straight-through kind of guy, never balking at the prospect of 14 hour days in the car. I can't say my affinity for road trips is as strong as his, but there is a bit of him in my love of a long stretch of road. I think of him whenever I'm looking for a gas station, and his constant refrain of "never exit unless you can actually SEE the gas station from the highway, you don't want to pull off and then see the sign that points you 3 miles to the left." Good advice.

Usually I have music playing the whole time I drive but yesterday I was sick of my CDs and in radio no man's land so for awhile I road in almost silence, just the sound of a bumpy highway and the (I hope) normal squeaks and occassional hums and rattles of an aging car. That kind of quiet can be oppressive, especially when your brain has been on autopilot for several weeks. But the quiet was good for me, solemn and solid and sunshiney.

April 2010 will not go down in history as the best month of my life. Even March left a lot to be desired. It's common, of course, to have hiccups along the way, frustrations or disappointments or little heartaches. But it's uncommonly exhausting to fight a thousand minor battles at one time. Those periods of defensiveness make every day feel like a maze, some puzzle to be worked out and completed with a reward at the end of hot tea, pillow, and a book. Nothing is simple, and all the completely right (with no regrets) decisions I make still hurt.

But a drive is such a simple, perfect thing. There is a starting point and a destination. There is refueling, some stops along the way to look at interesting things (pretty lakes), but in the end there is only a straight line from A to B. An arrival feels like some sort of success, even if it's later than originally hoped, and a car is a solid companion that carries you forward without asking where the road will end.

On the drive back this morning I saw a gas station, closed by the looks of it, with the name, "This is My Station." I don't know how I missed it on the drive North. It was large and red with white pumps and there may have been some boards against a few windows. I loved that loud, brave, obnoxious sign. This is my station. This is simply where I am and what I do right now. This where I belong or where I'm stuck. This is it, for now. This is where you'll find me. This is how far I've come and how far I have yet to go. This is all of it, rolled up into this small, hardy place.

I know the shop was closed and I guess I could write something about that metaphor, too, but I like to think the owner moved on for some greater station, some better location, some sweeter place beyond that one he fashioned along Highway 169. Perhaps it was a product of recession bruises, or perhaps it was a result of new dreams and opportunities, or maybe it was a combination of the two. Regardless, I liked that at some point he/she stated, for what it was worth, exactly where they were and what they were.

In the middle of the puzzle that is my Spring 2010, it's a visual I needed on my trip home. Despite the many minor and not-so-minor heartaches and worries and prayers and hopes of this season, I do know where I am. I know whose road I am on. This is my station, and that is no small thing.

Training

I ran ten miles this morning, the first time since October I've hit a double digit. Usually I run the Greenway to the Lakes and then do laps til I've hit the mileage. But today I just decided to keep running along the Greenway to see how far five miles (and then return) would take me. I'm happy I did.

I have loved trains all my life. And if I'm being honest, I'm sure part of my somewhat misguided affection for Atlas Shrugged (sacrilege for a liberal?) is wrapped up in Dagney Taggart's profession. Trains have factored into my days in intermittent ways. In New Orleans I was often late for various social excursions thanks to being stuck counting railcars. New Orleans' favorite methods for making me late were slow-moving trains and slower-moving parades. The number of times I asked a friend on the phone, while stuck in traffic to allow the passage of a parade, "is today a holiday? Another parade...", cannot be counted on my fingers and toes. I miss those parades. But I miss the trains more, and the terrifying Huey Long Bridge, with its tressle defying gravity. Humans are amazing. The things they build...

The Greenway near me pounds out in spurts beside train tracks. And about 4 miles down the way I pass under a small bridge of tracks, my favorite thing. A string of spray-painted cars were lined up on one set of tracks and I spent a good mile daydreaming about tucking away between a couple cars, riding South.

The ten miles hurt, the way I would expect it to after months away from serious mileage. But running beside train tracks makes for a happier pounding, a reminder that the slow-moving conduit still gets from point A to point B. Slow and steady, mile after mile after mile.

I am a train. I am training.

Spring

As we're comfortably established in April, without a speck of snow throughout March, I think most Minnesotans feel secure in welcoming Spring. Colors other than brown, more brown, and a little more brown, are finally starting to emerge (though we could use a bit more rain to speed that along), and sunshiney days aren't as few and far between.

Spring, for me, means it's time to relace the running shoes and get going. This time last year I was gearing up for my very first half-marathon. It's hard for me to believe I accomplished even that one goal, much less the big beast of a hurdle in the full Marathon last October. It's hard to believe largely because they feel like eons ago, and my legs have gotten a bit lazy with their elliptical gym time and leisurely treadmilling.

As is usually the case with me when revving up for a goal or a challenge, I blast out of the gate too early. I pick up too much speed in new-found joy or freedom or ability or affection and then mid-run I start to wonder if my legs are going to fall off before or after my heart explodes. In true form, I signed up for a May 2 Half-Marathon. That is three weekends from now. And I'm thinking that is bordering on impossible. I haven't run further than 6 miles since October. I could, maybe (helpful if I was being chased), run 8 or 9 miles without actually dying. But 13.1 seems very large to me.

I've decided that the money is spent ($60) and nonrefundable. The date is set and unchangeable. All I can really do is try my best to get nearly there, and when I wake up on the 2nd I will just decide whether or not it's a racing day. Nobody but me will be disappointed if I don't race on that particular day. And I'm already signed up for four other half-marathons so far, with two more in the wings. (And a possible marathon??)

After beating myself up a bit over my a-bit-too-optimistic goal-setting habit, I just got rather tired of beating myself up about it. I'm not sure if that's complacency or maturity talking, perhaps a hybrid of the two. I know that shooting too fast or too far leads often to disappointment but I've gotten good at scaring my way into success by forcing a too-big or too-soon goal upon myself. Fear is a lovely motivator. And with a race looming, my feet just fall a little more deliberately.

A Big Hard Sun

...O, there's a big
A big hard sun
Beating on the big people
In a big hard world

When I go to cross that river
She is comfort by my side
When I try to understand,
She just opens up her hands

-Eddie Vedder, Big Hard Sun

Recently I serendipitously stumbled upon an old, scratched-beyond-recognition CD from Peace Corps days. In the Marrakech souk there are myriad stalls of pirated music. We frequented one in particular and fed our American need for newness after weeks or months of hitting repeat on CD players. For Christmas a fellow volunteer, David, gifted me with a CD of Beck's Sea Change. I was a moderate Beck fan at the time, but David said I'd like it and the power of a crush can make a woman believe anything.

There was nothing to talk me into with that CD. I was in love from the first play. One song in particular, Paper Tiger, just bought me and kept a hold of me throughout my Moroccan experience. I would lay for hours when the electricity would go out (often), leaving me in the dark and restless, listen to that haunting melody. Especially as the war inched closer, I played it more often. It wasn't until later in my life that I first experienced the agony of panic attacks, but I think some of those evenings waiting for news of attacks, news of evacuation, I think there were moments in those evenings that Beck and his Paper Tiger nursed my fetal positioned, journal-clutching, self into believing it would all be alright. I don't think I ever panicked in Morocco. But I think my heart broke often, and some evenings that song just felt like a blanket. A road somewhere pretty and warless, a road that led somewhere expected, no surprises.

I listened to the song again, perhaps the first time I've heard it all the way through since leaving Youssoufia. It's odd, I know I've given the CD to others, or burned that song in particular onto many a mix for ex-boyfriends or friends going through breakups. But I think it was habit, and subconscious acknowledgment that it was a song that comforted me once. I listened to it again and became reacquainted with the notion that the senses are time capsules. I could feel the hardness of concrete beneath my feet, the cold of it when I'd roll onto the floor from my inch-thick mattress. I could smell the cumin wafting from the family that lived above me, feel the condensation on the inside of my walls that dampened everything I owned. I could feel the heavy bruise in my stomach, the hopeful knot of anxiety that rose with every day--will we go to war with Iraq before Thanksgiving? Before Christmas? Before Easter? Should I tell my students now? Who should I leave my kitchen goods to? Does it matter? Does any of this matter at all? I could feel it all, and hear the happy, resigned sighs of my Moroccan self. The girl who wanted to stay but knew she would not be so lucky.

In the past few months I've had Eddie Vedder's soundtrack to Into the Wild on steady repeat in my apartment. "A Big Hard Sun," especially, has been on the type of rotation that would probably drive anyone other than me insane. Much like my former Paper Tiger obsession, or Closing Time, or Hurricane, or Sunday Bloody Sunday, or La Marseillaise...

I am waiting for no war. I am happy in most of the ways that matter, and anxious only in ways and for reasons that I think are fairly healthy. I enjoy the world I've tucked away for myself. And so I wonder, years from now, when I stumble on Mr. Vedder and his Big Hard Sun, when I play it again for the first time in a decade, what will I remember of these months. What will reawaken in my gut, what dreams will I remember, and what will I recall as the underlying thesis of these moments?

In a couple months it will have been seven years since my unexpected and unappreciated evacuation from Morocco. Seven years and yet there are moments, songs, smells, that remain visceral in a way I cannot adequately describe. I wonder what moments will be the moments I cannot adequately describe 10 years from now. And if those moments are hard to pick out, perhaps it's time to start making them, make sure my Big Hard Sun era is easily, excitedly, happily recalled.

Cold, Interrupted

I'm typing with half-frozen fingers so I imagine this post will take me an annoyingly long time to write. I dived into Cold this weekend and spent a good deal more time outside than normal. As a certifiable cold wimp, this is a big step for me.

I ran outside for the first time in ages today. The sun was too pretty and the day windless enough to assume I would not keel over and die. I was correct. No death. But my Madonna-inspired hot pink fingerless gloves really have to go. They may be perfect for blustery fall days, but they do not cut it when it's freezing outside, sunshine or not.

I was fairly excited to run outside partly because I've been dying to test out the running capabilities of these Yak Trak contraptions, weird metal thingies that attach to my running shoes to (supposedly) make running on less-than-clear sidewalks a bit safer. For running purposes, I hate them. For walking, they are awesome, definitely better traction and no slipping around even on that solid, evil kind of ice that peppers the sidewalks around my apartment. But running is a whole other animal. The weird metal things throw the balance of each foot off just enough to make each step feel unstable. While I felt pretty sure I wouldn't slip on any ice, I was less confident that I wouldn't simply lose my balance. So I went for a brisk, long walk after 2 miles of "gonna break my ankle, gonna break my ankle" at a pace that wasn't much faster than a brisk walk anyway. Running outside did make me yearn for spring, for new races, clear sidewalks, sunlight for hours after work so I can drive to Calhoun and do 6 miles before dinner. I do miss sunlight.

But I feel like I've had a healthy dose of it this weekend, happily. I spent yesterday afternoon ice fishing with my dad. I've been wanting to go ever since I moved up here but there is something about weekends and timing and planning and parents and grown children that I think just presents an obstacle. But, luckily, this weekend I had time, my Dad had time, the weather was good, the ice was thick...the stars were aligned.

We stopped by Gander Mtn for minnows and mealwormy things (wax worms?) and then drove out onto Bryant Lake (driving out "onto" a lake still feels bizarre to me). Dad drilled the hole, we pitched the little hut, and he broke out "cute" (my word) ice fishing poles. Dad also brought some chicken breasts and canned biscuits to testdrive on his portable propane grill, which proved to be a yummy lunch on the ice, burnt pieces notwithstanding. Dad caught two fish, neither worth keeping, and I practiced my technique of bobbing the pole up and down while sipping coffee and eating a biscuit. True talent.

The cold up here is easier to take with company. And I think for an Outsider, it's nice when that company is of the not-from-here variety. My dad loves Minnesota, loves the cold weather activities, the snow, the novelty of driving across lakes, of hammering a nail with a frozen banana. I'm not entirely impressed by these things, but I enjoy them more in his company. Tucked into an ice fishing hut on the middle of a lake, it's nice to be next to someone who understands the "holy crap, can you believe we're in a little house with a heater going on top of a lake and we drilled a hole into a foot of ice to catch fish with tiny little poles?!" feeling that just kind of permeates many of my winter experiences here.

A shared adventure interrupts the cold. Breaks the chill. Warms the soul.

Walking on Water

I snowshoed for the first time this weekend, borrowing my mother's pair and traipsing down a hill, through a patch of trees, and across Staring Lake. I still can't accept this walking on water business. It seems unnatural to me, no matter how thick the ice appears, no matter how many people I see skiing across the surface, and (eventually) no matter how many trucks I see parked where I once rode in a boat. But I walked, trailing a taller, heavier-than-me fellow who I figured would fall through before me and give me some warning as to the precariousness of my situation.

Not sure if that makes me a survival-minded woman or a bad girlfriend. Perhaps a smidge of both.

As much as I like to deny any affection for my Northern home short of respect for its excellent summers, I will admit that there are aspects of winter that are lovely. The lack of sunlight, I think, makes the rare sunny afternoon a treasure, even at 3 degrees. The white of snow-laden lakes, the white caught in tree limbs yet to be shaken, the snow with ridges, like waves, where you can see the fingerprints of windy evenings; I will concede a beauty here that would not exist in my prior homes.

I have wondered lately if I could stay here longer than I originally intended. If I can tuck more sunny, snowshoeing afternoons into this 6-month doldrum they call winter, I would say it is a stronger possibility than I have maintained in the past. Louisiana still feels like a place I'd like to call home again. And Arkansas, too, sometimes. And other warm, Southern places. But perhaps that's just blood calling, and habits of homesickness. Not a habit I plan to break, but one I could set aside for awhile longer, perhaps allow myself to enjoy this Northern space and its bright, cold, quasi-miraculous, walk-on-water afternoons.

Resolutions

I tend to think of resolutions as an assurance of disappointment. Invariably, I commit to ideas that are just ridiculous, the breaking of habits that I know (deep down) I have no intention of breaking. So instead of figuring out all the stuff I'm going to stop doing, I figured I'd start 2010 with a proactive pursuit.

I've been debating what to do with my running goals. Post-marathon I've been running very little, sticking more to classes at the Y, logging maybe 10-15 miles a week. While I do feel like I have another marathon in me, I don't think 2010 is the year. Instead, I'm committing to six half-marathons, one for each month May through October. I'd like to be faster, with several races to look forward to instead of one GINORMOUS event that overwhelms my life for months on end. Half-marathons are also just easier to plan around, easier to fit into my world, and take far less time for recovery.

I will never be fast. But I can be faster.

A tentative schedule...the only one I've registered for is the July 4 Half as I was afraid it would fill up fast and there aren't many Half-Marathons in July. Maybe Minnesotans think it's hot here in July? Strange. The first and last entry are in parentheses because I'm not sure if I want my first in the series to be in April, when it could still be yucky outside. I did the Get-in-Gear 10K last year and it was pretty rainy when we started. Hmmm. But I could see myself getting jazzed for racing early in the season so maybe I'll embrace the potential chill. I'm also torn between the Lake Minnetonka race and Stillwater. I bet the Minnetonka race is very pretty, but since Stillwater was my first half-marathon I have a certain affection for it. Happy decisions to be made in the New Year...

(April 24: Get in Gear Half)
May: Either May 2 Lake Minnetonka Half OR May 30 Stillwater Half
June 12: Grampa Stays Home Half, Bald Eagle Lake
July 4: Red, White, and Boom Twin Cities Half
August 28: Rochester Half
September 25: Birkie Trail Half (Hayward, WI)
(October 10: Whistlestop Half (Ashland, WI))

River

My family makes a familiar drive this week to Arkansas. It's remarkable only in its sameness, its Americana-drenched stereotype of road trips and gas stations and kids ignoring Dads, noses buried in books.

But the drives I've made criss-crossing the Midwest and the Central South, remind me constantly of how tied my family is to this deep, darling trench carved by the Mississippi. I have lived in Arkansas, Missouri, Louisiana, and Minnesota, four states equally beholden to the might of that river. I felt it least, perhaps, in Arkansas, as I was a child and largely remember smaller rivers and streams.

In Missouri and Louisiana, however, it was a powerful, destructive, glorious force. Not long after moving to St. Louis, I remember volunteering with dad to sandbag areas threatened by the Great Flood. I remember that dark, gloomy water creeping up to the topmost steps of the Arch grounds, remember the newscasters and their shock at 100 year water levels. But in most instances the Mississippi in St. Louis was a sleeping giant. A river that loved the Cardinals, and lovingly reflected the blues and greens and reds of fireworks at the VP Fair.

The river in New Orleans was more than a river. More than a highway. It was sister to an ocean that threatened us. Sister to a Lake that flooded us. In every request for directions, it was a landmark, a true North. "Drive toward the river. Drive toward the lake." By the time she reaches New Orleans, the river is so strictly corseted by levees, one can hardly fault her for impertinence. Her deadly, hurricane-laden anger. But in her peaceful moments, she was a beautiful silver thing. And when I watched her spill into the Gulf, watched that brown bleed into blue, it seemed like the world was made correctly, with no flaws, that God knew how to make water, knew how to build land with tiny, tiny, tiny pinpricks of sand, knew how to return it all to the sea.

I have lived away from this river and I have loved the years I spent away from her. But there is something haunting and tempting and simply home-like in driving through the farmland and cities she built. It is land she carried and created, like some happy alchemist, depositing promises of fertility in dark dirt. I feel at home in many places. In the mountains of East Tennessee. In Jackson Square in New Orleans. On top of the Sindi Sud in Marrakech. Climbing those blasted rocks on Pinnacle Mountain. But there is a familiarity and warmth in simply living and traveling and building a life in this cradle of the Mississippi. And that was a five paragraph title for the following poem:

I leave the river often, freedom knit to my brow
And I am strong and unkind to memories of her mud
Wrapped round my ankles, cushioning my falls
I leave and she is worthless in her beautiful flood.

Sometimes I run, breathless in my escape
Fingers stretched wide on the wheel, heel to the road
You are a bitch, you River, you destroyer of cities,
You burn, you break, and you carry me home.

Sometimes I wander, eyes cast on some distant parade
Of adventures and dreams and dark, riverless nights.
I forget the river, her slow, steady explosion
And weave ribbons instead of water into my riverless life.

But always I return, feet, heart, head
Glued to this open, cupped palm of a river
This open wound of a river, itching for new blood
Always I stray, and always I return
Into and away, beyond and beholden
To my sly, angry, precious Mississippi mud.

Twas the Night Before Turkey

I'm at my parents' house making pecan pie. I've mixed the dough for the crust and it's resting, wrapped in plastic wrap (I hate plastic wrap), butter properly melting into what will be the perfect base for a classic Southern mixture of karo syrup, pecans, and molasses.

My brother won't be here this year, which is more than sad. It is less of a home for the holidays when one of us is missing. All the food will be the same (with the addition of black-eyed peas) but without Rob's characteristic laugh and teasing of older and younger sister, it just won't be quite as warm a day as it could be.

It's odd, how relationships change. I remember my dad telling me once that I was "more related" to my brother and sister than I was to my parents. I am made up of half my mom, half my dad (simplifying the genetics, I know) so we are only half-related to either of them. But my siblings and I are all the same combo, the same starting point, the same raised voice when we came home too late, the same kiss on a skinned knee, the same "no, you cannot skip church" to the same impertinent teenage question.

But despite that sameness, I honestly loathed my brother when we were younger. I really did not understand the point of his existence. If he had a purpose beyond annoying the snot out of me, I could not figure it out. In my eyes, we had nothing in common, nothing to bond over, nothing to share. This anti-relationship continued until I was in high school, a couple years after my sister entered the world. My baby sister was impossibly easy to love. She was like my little doll and she loved me unconditionally, never yelled, never snatched the TV remote from me, never tattled. Not like my brother. At all.

My relationship with Rob shifted in high school. I remember realizing once that we liked the same band, which seemed odd to me. And I gave him a hug when he fought with dad. But I think we really grew closer in the summers after freshman and sophomore year of college, when I was waitressing the graveyard shift at Denny's, 10pm to 6am. On my off days, when my sleep pattern was totally messed up, I'd bring Rob into Denny's for cheap seasoned fries and we'd sit in the smoking section so I could be the bad influence and coolly smoke cigarettes and drink coffee and expound upon the life experiences of a college student. I still think cigarettes make a person look cool. Anti-smoking campaigns in the education systems of Arkansas and Missouri clearly failed me.

Shortly after getting his license, Rob drove with me back home after I graduated from college. Rob drove the majority of those miles, many of them in the winding mountain roads of West Virginia, as I sobbed over lost friends. And somewhere in Indiana we stopped at the worst excuse for a Denny's in America, whose lack of seasoned fries was the cap to an already surreal manic breakdown on the highway that left us both laughing so hard we had tears rolling down our faces. I have no idea what was so funny.

It's an odd, wonderful thing when your sibling becomes a person beyond your blood. When you realize you'd genuinely want to know them even if you didn't grow up in the same houses, with the same dogs. My brother and I are infinitely different. Conservative vs. liberal. Sports fan vs. theatre nerd. And the differences run deeper than those surface affiliations...

But I would not want to know the person I'd be without my brother. It is cliche to say, "I would not be who I am today..." but it is wholly accurate. And the people that truly fit that category, the people who have actually shaped the human you've become, are so precious and so few. To be surrounded on Thanksgiving Day by the other three people who have molded my life just makes it all the more striking that the fourth is not here.

I miss you, Rob. And we are due for seasoned fries.

So This Is Adulthood

I am a big fan of getting older. I've wanted to be 30 for at least a decade. 30 always sounded so grown-up, as if the world would suddenly crack open and make sense. I'm approaching 29 and I assume no life-shattering truths will be revealed on my birthday either this year or next. But I imagine quasi-adulthood (am I a full blown adulthood yet?) has its ebbs and flows like any other process. Moments of "Yes! I can do this!" coupled with moments of "My life is completely stupid!"

Tonight included one of the latter, tomorrow morning, I hope, will include one of the former.

I took the trash out tonight in slip-on shoes, sweatpants, and a tshirt. It's 30 degrees outside but the dumpster sits just behind my building and I was too lazy to grab my coat. I grabbed the trash and my keys (my building locks automatically when the door closes) and slipped down the hall, out the door, to the dumpster. I then tossed said trash into the dumpster as well as my keys. A string of curse words might have ensued. I had to climb into the dumpster (which is not an open dumpster, you have to hold open the lid while you climb in and this is really tricky) in my tiny, unhelpful shoes, in the dark and feel around for several minutes for my keys. After a couple minutes one of my neighbors came out to throw his trash away, only to find me cussing and shivering, digging through trash. He was kind enough to hold the lid open for me and was about to climb in to help me (bless him!) when I found the little buggers. He helped me climb out and I returned to my apartment smelling like pizza, laundry detergent, and diapers. This was a moment in which my life felt completely, ridiculously stupid.

But early tomorrow morning we're supposed to have a meteor shower. I always try to get up early to watch them when they're predicted, even though I live in a city and I know the chances of spotting even one are slim. I saw a falling star in Morocco once, on a night that I slept on a roof on the outskirts of the Sahara. It was Thanksgiving Day 2002, I had turned 22 and celebrated with a pseudo-carrot cake baked in an ornery butane oven. We slept on the roof overlooking date palms and I will never adequately describe that sky. The falling star was perfect, and so quick that when I asked my friends if they'd seen it, they said no. A blink or a nod of the head and you'd have lost it. I've always wanted to see another but never have. I don't mind if I don't see it tomorrow morning. I'm sure I'll find one eventually, probably, hopefully, when I least expect it. But I still get up to watch them if I can, if I learn of some shower making its presence known in the Northern Hemisphere. I'm practicing my falling star-spotting, I guess.

And that fits nicely in the "Yes! I can do this!" category.

Now What?

I ran my first marathon over a month ago. After a couple weeks hiatus from any kind of serious workout, I joined the YWCA and committed myself to giving a few new classes a whirl. I've found a couple I really enjoy, and I plan on making use of the pool one of these days. But I am not someone who can go to a gym without a goal. Or, rather, I can, but I know that working out "for the fun of it" lasts about 6 weeks for me and then the invariable, "now what?" begins. I don't always need a race or a time to train towards, but I need something, and classes in a gym rarely do that for me. Although I will admit to seeing a woman do a really wacky one-legged dancer-y pose in yoga class that I would not mind attempting someday...

But since I've started thinking about the "now what?" I've also started thinking about other races. I decided less than a week after the Twin Cities Marathon that I wanted to run Grandma's, everyone says it's so beautiful, maybe shoot for a better time. If I was 10 lbs lighter I'm positive I could shave at least 10 minutes off my time. And I'd train better this time around, I know where I was a little fuzzy, where I could have buckled down a bit more.

But I also know how huge a time commitment that is and I'm not sure I'll have it in me come February, when I'd need to start training again (I run now occassionally but really just for fun or to warm up, I'm not tracking mileage or anything). I definitely want to keep doing races but I really think I may just be a half-marathon girl. I did my marathon. I crossed that line. But when I look at the pics of that day, those first 13 miles I am smiling the whole time. Those 13 were FUN. And 13 isn't anything to sneeze at! That's a good ole run! And training for half-marathons is much more manageable in terms of having a life. Plus, I'd really like to be a bit faster. I've started thinking that maybe I could focus on half-marathons instead, work on getting my speed up that way. And if eventually I feel like doing a marathon again, there's nothing stopping me. Right?

It's early days yet. Grandma's sign-up isn't until mid January. I may get a post-New Year's boost and feel the need to get geared up for another marathon. After all, if I ran Grandma's and not Twin Cities, I would have all summer to just ENJOY, and not be training with long runs every Saturday/Sunday while everybody else is out doing what people do in the summertime. I didn't go out on boats near enough this summer. And I can probably count on one hand how many beers I drank on a patio.

This isn't to say that the training wasn't worth it. Running that marathon was one of the best experiences of my life. Definitely one of my proudest. But, as with anything, you do make sacrifices for the sake of your goals. Less time with friends, staying away from the cheese fries, exhaustion. Mmmmm, cheese fries...

So I'm building a "what" in answer to the "now what" that's been popping in my head recently. It's a heady thing, to know you have a feasible, totally accomplishable choice. I know I can do a marathon, that's no longer the question.

Do I want to do it again?

What I Wish For A Sister

I was twelve when my sister was born. There is no era of her life that I don't remember. While there were large chunks of her growth that I learned of through emails and phone calls while I was in college and Peace Corps and Kansas City and law school, there is no year of her life that is not vividly etched in the experience of my own.

She's a junior in high school now. I am sure she has hazy but distinct memories of me at that age, she would have been four. She remembers me singing her to sleep maybe, or watching me line up for photos with friends in various poufy, poufy prom dresses. She doesn't remember the fights I had with Dad, or the exhaustion of too many honors classes and too many plays. She doesn't remember me as the often sullen, sulky, teenagery girl I'm sure my parents occassionally recall.

When she was younger, and I was younger, I often marveled at how alike we were. Both sunny and smart, dramatic, (overly) sensitive, curious. But as I got older parts of me became less of those things and more of others. And while I still feel like we are more alike than we are different, our differences are acute and powerful, which is exactly how it should be. She was never supposed to be a newer version of me, a cleaned up copy without my flaws. She was only supposed to be her.

I'm in Madison, WI this week for work. I've never been to this town before and I like it. And I like being here alone, with nobody but myself to entertain. I like walking down State Street and eating Afghani food (too salty) and browsing a dusty used bookstore for an hour. And as I walked around campus and into shops my sister would love, I remembered how caged I felt at 16. How desperate I would have been for a small window of time where I just got to wander, with nobody to report to, no papers to write, no boyfriends to break up with and cry over. Just wander, eat weird things, smile at strangers, buy books I don't need, and apologize to noone for my selfishness.

I look at my sister sometimes and I remember that caged feeling, when you know your parents mean well and love well, but you have a world to see. And I want to just hold her and tell her to survive another couple of years, to thrive in them and enjoy the occassional lack of responsibility. Because two years from now she will be tucked away in some college with more freedom than she can imagine, enough freedom to be terrifying and exhilirating all at once.

I do not feel old. While I am quickly approaching 29, I have never had that odd fear many women (including my friends) have regarding the 30th birthday. I have always felt that life must get exponentially better as time progresses, because the older one is, the more adventures one has had. You can't subtract the fun from years. So adding time just seems like adding opportunities for happiness you didn't know you had coming. But, young as I feel, and young as I am, I can look at my sister and be both envious of the years she has before her and worried, as I know I would not really wish to repeat them.

I wish many Afghani/Laotian/Tahitian/Moroccan/Catalan restaurants tucked in side streets for my sister. And tiny bookshops with winding iron stairs. And views from the tops of mountains and the sides of hills in cities and states and countries she hasn't thought about visiting yet. And teachers that inspire her. And classes that she thought she'd love that she discovers she hates. And vice versa. Friends that will go on road trips with her to illogical places. Lucky breaks. A pretty church. Music in parks with blankets tossed on cool, green grass. A million reasons to take a picture.

Memory

I was having trouble writing for work and so began to write for fun (how else do you get rid of a Block?). I initially emailed this to a friend but thought I'd post it here, too, for posterity's sake. Just a memory of a place I would occassionally rather be...

I didn't intend to be in Marrakech alone. I'd traveled there many times to join other volunteers, and that time was no different. I packed my small bag and walked to the taxi stand outside the village, the sand still angry and sharp after the previous day's storm. I called out for a cab to 'Maraksh' and half a dozen men started yelling their price, some exorbitantly high, and some suspiciously low. I picked the cab with mostly women, paid my fare, and climbed in, preparing myself for the requisite poking, questioning stares of strangers. Red hair always gave me away.

The cab ride was always two hours or so through dry, almost dead-looking countryside. I don't know if I will ever be able to adequately describe the color of Moroccan dirt. A pinkish, clay color that mixed with eons of Saharan sand and black, black crumbled rock. The red of carpets was a near camouflage to the ground the prayer rugs graced, and I remember aching for green, for leaves, for the cool of fresh grass. But in my slice of Morocco, red dirt was God's palate of choice.

The cab wound East from my village, ending at a huge cab stand on the outskirts of Maraksh, where I gathered my things and found a second cab to take me into the city. The discussion was always the same:

Rashida: Salam Ealaykom (blessings and peace)
Cab: Wa ealykom salam (blessings and peace to you)
R: Labas? (is everything well?)
C: Labas, hamdollah (everything is well, thanks be to God), ntee? (and you?)
R: Kolshi bekheer, hamdollah (everything is good, thanks be to God). Bgheet mshew Jma El Fna (I'd like to go to the main square)
C: Enchallah (if God wills it)
R: Enchallah (if God wills it), wash le magana kdhem? (does the meter work?)
C: Khdeem (it works)
R: Waxa, yalla (ok, lets go)

The cab ride to the main square was always different, never the same route, as we always had to dodge a donkey cart or a fruit stand surprisingly set up in the middle of a road. This time, midway through the ride, I received a text from the two friends I was meeting, one was ill (ah, parasites) and the other had missed the one bus out of her village for the day. I was officially in Marrakech alone. I left the cab with my requisite blessing and thanks, the smell of roasting nuts and the bang of drums drowning the tears that would have cropped up at the prospect of exploring my favorite, terrifying city alone for 3 days. I made my way through the twists and turns of an alley to the inn I always stayed in, the Sindi Sud, where for $2 a night I could unwind my sleeping bag on the roof and sleep under the stars, the sounds of the night market booming below me.

After storing my things and inquiring if any other Americans had stopped by (no luck, only a German), I emerged into the city I'd never explored on my own. I walked to the cafe overlooking the square for a late breakfast of eggs and bread and thick, black coffee with cream. The drums never ceased in the square. But their rhythm was never disturbing or overly loud, it was a drumming like heartbeats, with the peppering of shouts and price wrangling and the squeal of a stray cat under somebody's cart. After breakfast I wrapped a long shawl around my head to hide the shock of my red, Western hair, and ventured into the souk, the overwhelming market of cloth and food and trinkets that never ceased to swallow me whole. I wandered, shooing away most vendors with better Arabic than they expected from a blue-eyed tourist, and found myself lost near a pile of fermented olives being sold by a child no older than 7. I bought olives and bread and almonds from her, slid them into my bag for later, and set out to find a carpet seller.

After inquiring of several smiling, suspicious vendors, I found the carpet hovel of SiMohammad, who welcomed me in with a tray of mint tea and disgusting cookies. Moroccans are excellent cooks and I ate the most delicious foods of my life while living there, but the cookies were occassionally sawdust with sugar. He was a tiny man, wiry and dark, with clear hazel eyes and a long cream jelaba (robe). He was very religious and so would not touch me, when I offered my hand he sweetly placed his hand on his heart in greeting and I knew my unmarried touch was sinful to him. But his demeanor was warm and friendly, and he asked how I came to wander alone. We talked as much as we could in my broken Arabic and his broken French and after a half hour of laughter and his enjoyment of my pronunciation of several words that were probably offensive, he allowed me to wander his shop, pointing at the rugs I loved, asking their price. Soon he discovered my price range, my color choice, my length preference, and within minutes I bought a long, beautiful Berber rug, tucking it under my arm and promising blessing upon his house as I Ieft.

I sat down against a wall to eat my olives and almonds, watching women dye cloth in huge vats of dark, shimmering liquid. They pressed the huge strips with large wooden poles and, seeing me watch them, they waved and welcomed me and let me sit near a vat and listen to them sing. The sting of lye or vinegar in the dye made my eyes tear and the insides my nose burn in the first minutes, but over time the heat of the day, the cool of shared orange juice, and the laughter of children pushed the vinegar away and I layed down near an old woman knitting socks to sleep.

By the time I woke the sky was darkening, so I began to stumble my way out of the souk, moving always towards the sound of drums. When I emerged, night had arrived, dark in its way, but bursting with independently strewn lights across the square. Each light danced on skewers of meat, fresh fish, frying potato, hot bread stuffed with fat and spices. I sat at the first table I could find and ordered a dish of meat I, to this day, could not recognize. I ate and chatted with a French couple next to me who were shocked at my solo exploration, and impressed by my easy ordering skills. I recommended they stay away from the fish sold by the one-legged man unless they enjoyed the bathroom of their hotel quite fiercely.

I bought msimin, hot layered bread with pockets of olive oil and sage, and began to walk back to the inn, tired and ready for sleep. I climbed to the roof and unrolled by bed, tucking my new rug beneath my head as a hard, souk-smelling pillow. Cool desert air blew in from the Sahara and the shadow of Mount Toubkal was thrown in relief against a sky lit equally by stars and market lights. I fell asleep to the heartbeat of drums.

Renew

I ran (and finished) my first marathon yesterday.

It was chilly to start, low 40s. I had some gloves to begin but was able to toss those aside after two or three miles. I started chatting with another girl at the start and we ran together the first 5 miles. Unfortunately, her pace was faster than I usually start for long runs and I paid for that later in the race.

The first 8/9 miles went incredibly easy. Beautiful route around the lakes, sunshine, lots of crowds cheering everyone on and more boomboxes playing "Eye of the Tiger" than was really necessary.

I got lovely, supportive hugs twice from Sharon in that first leg, and again around 12 where I also saw my parents and sister. Julie was waiting for me around mile 14 and at 20 my parents and sister were on the sidelines again, cheering me on. My boyfriend, Jason, had the misfortune of missing me around mile 25, which was partly my fault as by that point I had stopped scanning the crowds and had my eyes firmly stitched to the pavement.

The race was not difficult until mile 18 or so. I suppose that's pretty typical. At 18 I was bored and frustrated by the pain in my left foot, aggravated that a pain I'd never had on any training run was choosing Marathon Day to introduce itself. Is that a muscle? A bone? Whatever it was, it ached for four miles straight and then disappeared (replaced by other pains, of course). At 20 I was exhausted and felt like if I stopped at all I would never get my engine started again. So when I saw my family just past the 20 mile mark, I couldn't stop for hugs. I did smile, I think.

Mile by mile, I can't differentiate much between the miles 21 to 26. But I did cry a bit at mile 23, stopping for powerade. A little old woman shook her fist at me goodnaturedly and said, "you can do it, sweetie." I felt like a wimp, crying in public like that. But I bucked up with the powerade. 23 and 24 were pure misery. The miles felt twice as long as I thought possible and the "you're almost there"s being screamed from the crowd started to annoy me. Because after running 24 miles, knowing I still have 2 more to go does not feel like "almost there" in the slightest. It feels like an eternity. I could tell the screams that were coming from former marathoners (or maybe they just had a better grasp of the pain involved) because their cheers were more specific. "8/10 of a mile more of this hill and then it's flat again" "less than half a mile until the next water stop"...those smaller milestones were much more reasonable in my head.

I carried two Bible verses with me, Isaiah 40:31 (but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength, they will rise up on eagles' wings, they will run and not grow weary, walk and not grow faint) and Hebrews 12:1 (therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that entangles and run with perseverance the race set before us). I have both memorized, generally, but carried post-its with me to read over while warming up at the Metrodome and just in case some emotional meltdown required some spiritual sustenance down the road. Mile 23/24 required such sustenance. I didn't break out the post-its (I think I forgot they were tucked in my pocket, actually). And I couldn't remember much of the verses at all. Hebrews altogether vanished. All I could remember of Isaiah was eagle wings and "renew their strength" so each beat on the pavement was accompagnied by an (I assume) intelligible-only-to-God prayer to give me wings and "renew" my strength. I remember praying something along the lines of, "I know you promise only to renew my strength, you don't promise that this will feel good. I know it will hurt. Just renew my strength enough to get me to the end. However that renewal works, just renew me enough to finish. Please. Amen."

And, as is so often with God, his answer was weird. For some reason the eagle wing thing got me thinking about birds which led to me thinking about this baby bird I found growing up in Arkansas, that my parents let me attempt to nurse to health from the comfort of a cardboard box in the garage. I spent at least 10 minutes trying to remember the name I gave that bird. And then what about that kitten I found once? Did I name that? Did we give him away or did he run away? I couldn't remember. Oh, and Rocky! The "flying" squirrel that fell on my head off our roof in St. Louis and we kept in an easter basket hung from a tree limb for a day before calling animal control. But what was the name of that bird I found? I remember it started with a T, I think. Or maybe an S. And what happened to him? I assume he died. Did I bury him? I remember burying some goldfish. And a couple hamsters, including Buster, who might have been inadvertently murdered. What was the name of that bird?

This mental detour carried me through 23 and midway into 24. By the time I realized I'd been running that entire time I could see the sign for mile 25. I felt lifted. Renewed?

I will admit that 25 felt good. Not physically good. My heart just felt tired, my lungs felt tired. I thought maybe that's what it feels like to die, or if not to die, to grow old. Sounds morbid, but the thoughts get a little wacky near the end. 25 felt physically awful. But mentally, it was the first time I'd thought, "you're actually going to pull this off."

Before 25 I was mainly going for mini-milestones. Mile 6, eat a gel. Mile 8, put the iPod on shuffle. Mile 12, eat a gel. Mile 19, get a banana. Mile 23, eat a gel. Intersperse some powerade stops in there. But at 25 it dawned on me that I was 1.2 miles from the finish. Even if I walked the rest (which I didn't), I would finish with time to spare. So 25 was a happy mile and knowing I'd done it helped me believe that mile 25 was not actually 7 miles long (although it felt that way). I thought that must be what "renewal" feels like, in any sense of the word. To feel completely exhausted and yet suddenly find some wellspring of energy or hope or passion that just makes you know that what felt over is not actually over. You still have work to do. And you have been blessed with the power to complete it.

At the top of the hill, with about .4 miles left to go, you can see the finish line. A huge American flag waving over a line at the foot of the Capital. I turned off my iPod then, wanting to remember the sound of finishing. And I told myself to remember what that felt like. Not to forget that feeling, too, and not just the feeling of leaden icepicks driving through my thighs. Remember that lump in your throat when the finish line was visible. A metaphor for everything. (And yes, only an English major would state to themselves--you're living through an actual metaphor right now, not a simile, a metaphor!)

Isaiah 40:31 doesn't waste its time on simile either. Upon renewal, you do not rise up on something like eagles wings. Those wings are actual and real. Wings that carry you when you recognize you can no longer carry yourself. Wings that give you a moment to catch your breath, renew. Then cross that line.

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.