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.

Running, etc.

I signed up for my first half-marathon (doomsday is late spring) and I'm trying to run pretty much every day to gear up for "real" training. I don't do much at this point, sometimes I do 4 miles, sometimes only 3, yesterday I did 2.5 and rode the bike for half an hour. I just tend to run until I 1) get bored or 2) get tired. And honestly, the former is usually the true culprit in finishing me off. I loathe running on a treadmill but that is the only way it's happening in this cold and with this ice. So I catch up on my Newsweek, listen to too much bad 80s dance music, and pound out whatever has tied my shoulders into knots during the course of the day.

The amazing thing to me is not that I run. What startled me the other day was that I didn't have to talk myself into it. I wasn't going to the gym because I have a date on Friday (ha! like running 3 miles on Wednesday would do anything to help a girl out on Friday...but I have told myself that lie MANY times). Or because I would beat myself up over not going. I didn't go because I know I'm going out to eat a couple times this weekend. I just go. I just want to run. I just feel less happy if I don't sweat at some point in the day. I enjoy wearing myself out. Sometimes I think the only time I'm not twisted tight as drum (damn my shoulders and their tension-vacuum) is the 10-15 minutes after I run. It's the only time I feel like every joint is where it's supposed to be, every vertebrae aligned, every muscle smoothed over every bone in exactly the right way.

I long ago accepted the fact that I am not a relaxed person. I used to try and do the "happy-go-lucky" thing and I think my personality is sunshiney enough to give that impression. But underneath, I'm a stressball. A worrier. A tangle of knots. I like to think I'm like one of those matchbox cars that you have to pull back in order to wind the wheels before it shoots off into oblivion.

Relaxation has always been something I have to work at, and that's not something I ever expected of myself. Some part of me has always wanted to be a little hippie, a little commune-loving, long hair-wearing, flower child that did yoga for the love of it and ate granola because it tasted good and hugged trees and lazily waltzed from one adventure to another. But, in all honesty, that life sounds incredibly boring. I crave structure, pockets of quiet in a day of noise, people, fast things, spicey things, unorganic things, and steel. Despite my love for the environment, I cannot help but love (and I mean LOVE) the sight of factories and mills and refineries. I used to drive by a refinery in Louisiana at night, just off the bayou, to watch that flicker of flame dance off the water.

Running is the closest thing to refinery fire I've found for my personal life. Running requires simple effort, not philosophy or overanalyzation. Sure, it's tough. And tiring. But it feels natural and unforced. It's just my body moving at the pace God intended (slowish), heart beating faster and hard, back straight but not tense, shoulders loose, fingers unclenched. It's something my body was built to do, the same as it was built to eat and laugh and dance poorly, maybe have babies. The same way, to me, those refineries and factories seem oddly organic. A natural mental evolution of human effort. The next step. Which isn't to say that those factories, that flame burning oil off the coast, can't be perfected and improved to protect the land and resources that make such effort possible. I love and marvel at wind turbines with the same reverence as that tiny Louisiana flame.

And sometimes, when I run, I think that man is simply amazing. What his body can do. What his mind can build. And with only sheer, simple, uncomplicated effort.