Nelly

Her name was derived from her provenance. She was a gift when I returned from Peace Corps in honor of my graduation from Washington and Lee University (W&L, or Dub-Yuh-NELL).  As a moderate hippie, I certainly couldn't call her Dubya.

I chose a Golf in large part because a Peace Corps friend spoke glowingly of her old Golf, a small but mighty car that just wouldn't die. Resilience seemed like a good trait in a car and so when I started test-driving options, the Golf was already high on my list.  I loved her immediately, her nifty interior lights, her smooth ride, her heated seats.  She seemed spunky and fun-loving, sassy but solid.  I will admit some hope that maybe I was all those things, too.

We bought her in St. Louis but she spent only a brief time there.  She had some hiccups in the beginning, a warped windshield was replaced, which damaged the windshield wipers.  She was sorted out just in time for a move to Kansas City, a year now affectionately referred to as my "lost year" since I lived in a hovel of an apartment that included a collapsing ceiling over the shower and a Craigslist-acquired roommate that lived off cheese. Only cheese. Nelly was the sole object of worth I could count as mine. I didn't have a computer. I was sleeping on an air mattress. And I was making $10/hour and could barely afford my phone bill. Nelly was a daily reminder that something in my life was just fine, even if everything else seemed tenuously stitched together.

She carried my best friend, Megan, and I safely through the worst ice storm of my life, when a 4 hour drive became 9 hours.  We rode in tank tops so that we could blast the heat against the windshield, the only way to keep the wipers from freezing.  After a few hours, my nerves were shot, and Megan drove Nelly back home to Kansas City, with a stop on the way to aid a driver whose SUV had flipped off the highway.

Once I was accepted to Tulane for law school, Nelly made the thrilling trek to New Orleans, stuffed to miniscule capacity with everything I owned. My furniture in New Orleans was either acquired from the side of the road, if small enough to fit in the trunk, or the assemble-yourself variety you find at Big Lots, because assembly required furniture comes in boxes that fit in a Golf.  You can find (or build) decent furniture with the constraints of a Golf for transport, so don't let her size fool you.

Nelly was my chariot for four evacuations, including Hurricane Katrina. She picked up my dear roommate, Stephanie, and drove south to Jackson and on to to New Orleans to survey the damage a couple of months after the storm.  She sat in the driveway and kept watch along a destroyed street while Stephanie and I cleaned out a rotted fridge, threw a couch over the balcony, and while I tried to rescue the masses of journal entries, poems, and law school notes I'd left sitting next to an open window. Nelly carried us out of the city, too, past homes with red "X"s and numbers, out of the reach of the massive Army vehicles I'd never expected to see patrolling my home.

She returned to New Orleans, too, and embraced a recovery that meant more potholes, two stolen hubcaps, and heat that curdled the milk from a spilled latte within hours. She drove out of New Orleans, bound for Minneapolis, with the trepidation of knowing the winters thus far had not been adequate practice for what lie ahead.

The first large snow at the first Minnesota apartment was tricky given that I didn't own a shovel.  Nelly was dug out of the snowplow-gifted snowbank with a frying pan until a neighbor laughingly came to our aid with a legit tool.  Having read a terrifying article about hypothermia and blizzards, I stocked Nelly's trunk that first winter with granola bars, chef boyardee (logical), candles, and at least 12 boxes of matches. The chef boyardee was eventually discarded but I still find matches back there...

I have cried in her driver seat so many times, most recently after the receipt of devastating news. I've called my mother crying after a breakup, sitting in a Walgreens parking lot.  I've gripped her steering wheel with frozen fingers after snow-caked trail runs.  I've dug her out of 6 winters' worth of snowstorms.  I've coaxed her engine to turn over at -19, knowing that the trick is to turn the key slowly backwards.

Nelly's last rites were read today.  Having driven her into a cement pillar at a decent enough clip to deploy the airbags and smash headlights, bumper, and who knows what else, her life ended keeping me safe and relatively unscathed. I'll take a trip to the body shop to clean her out, take a picture with her last remaining legit hubcap (the rest are knockoffs), and thank her for a decade of devoted service.  In a period of my life that often felt transient and unstable, she was a comfort.  And I will miss her.

Chasing Caroline

I'm the eldest of three kids, five and a half years older than my brother, twelve years older than my sister.  The years between us yielded specific relationships when we were younger.  I thought my brother was annoying for the first 10 or so years of his life, but I was also fiercely protective of him, as big sisters tend to be. We pestered each other mercilessly and somewhere in his early teen years, in my first years away at college, we realized we genuinely liked each other's company.

My relationship with Caroline was very different.  She was the baby and idolized each of us, my brother and I, as the babies tend to do. And since I was so much older, babysat her so often, sang her to sleep so frequently, there was a maternal element there, too. I worried about her more than I worried about my brother, probably spoiled her more.  Little girls are easier for a teenage/college/young 20s woman to spoil. ice cream, painting nails, going shopping...infinitely easier than spoiling that smelly, football-playing brother.  But I do remember taking Rob out for many orders of Denny's seasoned fries, so I did my best by him, I think.

I don't know what it's like to be a younger sibling. I don't know what it's like to be the second or third kid to embark upon something.  The first kid who goes to college gets the benefit/anxiety of parental ignorance.  The second and third kid are beholden to wiser parents, for good or ill. As we've grown up, built lives, the "first" of things has shifted, as it should.  Age doesn't determine "first" anymore.  My brother beat me to the altar and I'm lucky to be in a family that doesn't see that as a failure on my part, or an expectation that I'll be next. Adult lives fall into their own frame, influenced by choices made, people met, a wing and a prayer.

And just as the timeline of our lives has begun to take shape without strict adherence to who was born first, so has my perspective on who looks up to whom. I imagine Caroline and Rob will always look up to me in some way, and I will always want to guide them, offer them advice, open my life to them in a way that lets them see what errors I could have avoided, what regrets I might have that they could be careful to not repeat. This guiding sentiment is more acute in my relationship with Caroline. I know what it's like to be a young woman in college far from home.  I know nothing of what it's like to be a spouse, own a home, etc.

Last summer Caroline and I ran the Afton Trail Run 25K together, where we took the picture above. Caroline smoked me by 17 minutes. She finished in 3 hours, 38 minutes, and I clocked in at 3 hours, 55 minutes. It's a brutal course, the hilliest available in this neck of the woods, with steep climbs making running a joke.  Caroline wasn't able to join me this year due to an ankle injury and her pending trip back to Texas for summer school. But I chased her the whole way.  I chased her 3 hours, 38 minutes. And when I was scrambling up a particularly rough incline, tempted to stop, I'd ask myself, "did Caroline stop here last year?"

I finished in 3 hours, 45 minutes this year, still seven minutes shy of Caroline's time, but ten minutes faster than what I accomplished last year, which is no small feat. And as I chased Caroline, or the thought of her, through the woods, I thought of how often she must have chased me, how often she may feel the inclination to still do so. I don't make it clear enough, frequently enough, how much I look up to both of my siblings, how much I respect Rob's humor, intelligence, and his loyal devotion to my sister-in-law. He's a good man, and a wonderful example to Caroline and I of what a good man looks like, should we find ourselves questioning what "good" might encompass. And I'm awed by Caroline's ability to push herself physically and mentally, to get excited about the beauty God placed in the world. I try to mold a bit more of my world into a world Caroline would like to inhabit. Because that's the world I want for myself, too, and her inspirations make me remember to get inspired myself.

I do not know what it is about me that my siblings might look up to, aside from the generic older sibling first-to-do-a-lot stuff.  I don't mean that to be self-deprecating, only that I don't understand what it might be that a younger sibling most latches onto, most strives toward. And I imagine their perspective has changed greatly over the last 27 and 20 years, respectively. I imagine they still chase me, still allow certain decisions to be influenced by things I've done, said, experienced. But they should know that I chase them, too. I watch and marvel at them, at their courage and their curiosities.  And just as I'll continue to chase Caroline in the woods at Afton, I hope we'll all continue to chase the best in each other.  Aside from love and loyalty, blessings that feel so much like luck sometimes, I think that chase, that recognition that those you love are capable of great things and that perhaps you should be, too...I think that's the most beautiful thing.

The Ritual

This poor, neglected blog.  I was so steadfast in my writings for so long, but I've lapsed of late.  I assume blogging is like anything, peaks and valleys, and my focus has been elsewhere.

As has been the case for a few of my last several summers, I'm filling a lot of my summertime with running.  I've signed up for the Twin Cities Marathon again and though I have yet to commit to a legit running schedule, I'm still putting in miles.  Still lining up at race starts.

Tomorrow I'm running the Afton Trail Race (15.5 miles) for the second time.  And as the pizza bakes in the oven, I'm contentedly reorganizing my ipod and putzing around with various other rituals as I tend to do the night before a race.  I love (and loathe) many aspects of running, but the element of ritual is one that I never expected to enjoy.  I don't think of myself as a person that thrives on ritual.  I prefer more spontaneous experiences, if I'm speaking generally, and don't like doing the same thing over and over.  But I suppose everyone is ritualistic in some regard.  I may prefer spontaneity but if I head to church too often without hearing some solid hymns, without mouthing the doxology, there's a part of me that feels empty.  And so it must be with running...

The night before a race I do the following, almost without fail:
1. Eat pizza (Pizza Luce is a favorite but tonight it's a frozen Amy's pizza with some sausage thrown on top).
2. Try on race outfits in response to borderline OCD checking of weather. Shorts? Running skirt? Tank? Tshirt?
3. Lay socks on top of shoes to avoid last minute sock mate searching.
4. Depending on race length, tuck 1-3 GU Orange flavored gels into water belt or pocket.
5. Google map route from home to race, obsess over when I should leave the house.
6. Make sure I have breakfast supplies, buy if necessary (bagel, preferably blueberry, peanut butter, banana, coffee)
7. Find both of my favorite hats: St. Louis Cardinals spring training hat, Tulane Law hat...I never know until race morning which one I'm going to want to wear
8. Charge Garmin.
9. Download a few new songs, load ipod.
10. Drink 2 glasses of water before bed.
11. Fill water bottle and put in fridge.
12. Put spare contacts in outfit pockets based on one experience where I lost BOTH contacts on a long run.

The morning of the race I do the following, almost without fail:
1. Wake up one hour before I need to leave the apartment.
2. Shower (I know! I shower before I get all sweaty, but it wakes me up)
3. Drink coffee, 1-2 cups.
4. Eat half a bagel with peanut butter and half a banana.
5. Throw other half of bagel or banana in purse for closer to race time.
6. Drink 1 glass of water (2 if it's especially warm/humid).
7. Put on outfit #1.
8. Reject outfit, put on outfit #2 because I worry about being too hot/cold.
9. Reject #2 and return to #1.
10. Choose between Tulane and Cardinals hat. 70% of the time, go with the Cardinals.
11. Drive to race with various doodahs (ipod, garmin, water bottle, hat, extra contacts, sunscreen), usually with some type of country or Southern rock on the radio. When in doubt, blast Johnny Cash CD.
12. Once I'm parked, attach race bib.
13. Find a curb for calf stretches.
14. Find a section of soft grass, sit, wait.

During a race:
1. Eat a GU every 6 miles.
2. Find at least one song on playlist that needs to be killed. Proceed to replay it 10-15 times so that I hate it for the rest of my life.
3. Play "Oklahoma" (yes, from the musical) at least 5 times, because that song never gets old.

The afternoon/evening after a race:
1. I procure a friend/loved one to accompany me to a restaurant that serves ketchup. We can eat hashbrowns, we can eat fries, I don't care.  But there needs to be a vehicle for ketchup consumption.

And now you know, without a lot of deviation, what my hours looks like before, during, and after a race, because I know you were dying of curiosity.  If you're game to cheer me on, cheerleaders get prime spots for helping me find ketchup.

Going Home

I struggle with the "where are you from?" question. It's not an emotional struggle, just a pause before I offer an answer, especially up here where it seems that everyone is from some nook or cranny of Minnesota/Wisconsin/North Dakota. Sometimes I say I'm originally from Arkansas.  Usually, if I feel I have time for a more robust reply, I answer that I grew up in fairly equal measure in Arkansas and St. Louis. But moved here from New Orleans.  And before that Kansas City.  And before that Morocco.  And before that Virginia...

I went back to two former homes recently.  Brief stints in both Kansas City and St. Louis reminded me of how often I was "from" those places, how often they were my answer to inquiries as to where I lived, where I was from. Kansas City was brief, referred to as my "lost year" by my Dad on occasion, not with any hint of cruelty, but more so in recognition that the year I spent in Kansas City was a miserable one, a year in unexpected limbo. It was a city I was happy to leave but now am happy to revisit as my dearest friend has built a life there. The time I spend there now is joyful, relaxing, a break from a career I hadn't envisioned when I lived there nearly a decade ago.

The trip to St. Louis has been less frequent, though with my brother and sister-in-law settling there I expect the frequency to increase. Aside from his first 5 years in Arkansas and the 4 years away at college, my brother's life is rooted in that city, those roots now strengthened by a wife who also claims it as her and her family's hometown.  I envy that in some ways, which is odd.  Odd to have an experience so different from my nearest sibling, only 5 years my junior. Driving around the city where so much has changed and so much remains the same (cliches never hurt anybody), I remember how desperate I was to leave at 17, how constricting that big city felt.  And now to return feels equal parts comforting and disorienting. Comforting in the embrace of loved ones and the memories scattered around those western suburbs, and disorienting in how little I know of the city today.

I've lived in Minnesota for almost 6 years.  I lived in Arkansas for 10. St. Louis for 7 (with the added summers in college tacking on an additional year). Arkansas still feels like the strongest definition of home to me, not so much for the 10 years I spent there, but because its presence has been strong throughout my life, from birth to childhood to visits over holidays to evacuations from hurricanes. But St. Louis has a strong call, too, as high school angst, friendships, and heartbreaks tend to burn a place into your gut. And New Orleans, too.  It may have only taken up 3 years of my life, but there were huge chunks of life shoved into those years, and more so than any other place I've lived, I miss it.

I used to feel funny about answering the question, about defining where I came from. I used to hate saying I was from Minnesota when visiting elsewhere.  I felt the need to qualify it. "I live in Minnesota but I'm not originally from there."  This wasn't meant as a slight, but rather as a continual reminder to myself that I would leave. Just passing through, another state to accumulate along my way. But I don't think I'd hesitate now.  It's just another stop, perhaps, and maybe a longer one, but no less of a home. I was happy to walk the streets I stomped in the past, remember the girl and the woman I was in the years since I left.  But I was equally happy to land in Minneapolis afterwards, lace my shoes for a run around these lakes, watch a summer-is-coming sunset kiss the rooftops before bed.

Epilepsy Lessons

A couple of days ago I noted the ten year anniversary of my evacuation from Morocco.  That evacuation is notable not only for how acutely it impacted my life at that time, but as a reminder of a different sort.  My last seizure occurred around the same time, shortly before the war began.  The anxiety of waiting for the war in Iraq to begin, knowing that such an event would likely require my evacuation from Youssoufia, got to me in the end.  I didn't sleep for roughly 3 days. My seizure medication is no match for that level of exhaustion.

In some ways, the seizure was a blessing.  The physical exhaustion following the seizure robbed me of the anxiety that had kept me sleepless. I slept well for those next two days and by the time I was on a plane home I'd resolved to keep the seizure to myself.  I knew it was 100% tied to my exhaustion and sleeplessness. Lack of sleep is my strongest trigger for seizures and I'd really done a number on my body with those last few days of worry. I went home, I slept, the anxiety dissipated, and my life began its march down a path I hadn't expected, as is typical of life.

That was 10 years ago.  I'm on the same drugs today that I was on in that Moroccan apartment, though my dosage these days is smaller, and I'm intensely aware of how much sleep I'm getting.  Aside from this rabid attention to sleep details, my external life is no different from those who do not have this condition.  I'm blessed that my drugs allow me to lead a very normal life. But  having lived  18 years of my life with this threat, I wonder today how it has changed me.  What aspects of my nature are tied to this condition? What parts of my personality have been strengthened or dampened by it, if any? I've read about people with epilepsy also being more prone to anxiety disorders, and having dealt with my share of anxiety, I wonder how closely these conditions are tied.  Or perhaps I'm just another Type A Nervous Nelly and would be regardless of epilepsy.

After my diagnosis at 14, I remember being incredibly anxious that my brain would eat itself, that this was the beginning of some slow mental decline.  I was so proud of my straight As, my self-worth so wrapped up in being a smart and generally impressive student, that the terror of seizures erasing some of that aptitude plagued me. If I forgot the answer to a question on a test, I'd worry that it was information the seizures must have deleted.  Even today, my dad will tell a story of my childhood and if my memory is hazy of the event I'll wonder if it was a chunk of life a seizure stole. While it's no longer a true fear, that itch of worry still pesters me on my weaker days.

While I wonder about epilepsy's influence on my anxious tendencies, overall, I am simply grateful. I've done enough volunteer work with the Epilepsy Foundation to know what could have been my experience. Who am I to deserve drugs that work well? How am I any more deserving than another patient whose seizures require brain surgery or triple cocktails of medications or any number of therapies? And even surgery and medication are no promise of a seizure-free life for many. To have such a well-controlled condition makes complaining of it feel truly ungrateful.  It has never altered my dreams or caused me to rethink a goal, and for that, I am thankful.

More than anything though, I think epilepsy has been key in shaping my empathy. There is something about a sudden diagnosis that makes life seem particularly delicate and precious.  And even though presently well-controlled, I'm aware of how little doctors know about the "short circuit" in my brain. I know that changes to my body, hormones, stress, accidents, exhaustion, can wreak havoc in new ways at any moment. I know that at any given time, my well-controlled brain could change.  That tenuousness does not halt my steps, but I do think it makes me more sensitive to others' difficulties. Welcoming the surprises of life, leaving what cannot be controlled in the hands of God, is a skill I've acquired out of necessity, as is always the case. Recognizing what can be changed, and what must be left to faith, is a gift I credit to my epilepsy experience. And it's a gift that translates to every pocket of my life. So I will not thank God for epilepsy, but I can thank Him for his provision of excellent health in the wake of that diagnosis, the love of God-fearing parents, and the personal gifts of serenity and empathy in the spirit of a continually-anxious woman.

Ten Years

Ten years ago the war in Iraq started.  I received a text message shortly thereafter in my Peace Corps site in Morocco telling me to travel to Marrakech to join my fellow volunteers in a hotel I've since forgotten.  I'd spent the 48 hours prior to this message writing letters in phonetic Arabic and French to various students and friends in my city.  I'd said a clumsy, ineffective goodbye to my classes, never really believing that I'd not return. Surely there wouldn't be a war. Surely, even if my country did go to war, it wouldn't reach its fingers to my dusty, ugly street in Central Morocco.  What use did I have for thinking about a war? There were lessons to plan. Maps to paint. Languages to learn.

I received the text and somehow word spread. Somehow my Moroccan friends ventured over, knocked on my door, asked if I needed help. Some of my students said they would stand by my door, just to be safe. Safe from what? All of the sudden I felt threatened by something larger, something full of shadows.

I walked to my adoptive family and told Leila the news.  She was brushing her teeth and her gums were bleeding.  She kissed me a dozen times, eyes full of tears.  I kept telling her I was sure I'd be back.  I told her not to worry.  And I told her that everything in my apartment was divided between her family and two others. Even now, I wonder how I had enough Arabic to communicate so many instructions, so much grief. Passion makes the brain move faster, I suppose. I left her my clothes, my jewelry, my scarves, my kitchen wares, just in case I was unable to come back for a long while.

And a long while has been ten years...

Again

I signed up for the Twin Cities Marathon.  This will be my third trek up Summit (while the race is 26.2 miles long, it's those last 6 in St. Paul that are burned into my psyche, as if all 26 happen on that last grinding hill) and as I paid my fee and picked my tshirt size, all the malaise of the last two months started to fall away. After last year's half-marathon-every-month (plus one road marathon and one trail marathon), I've struggled to find any joy in running.  And I didn't push it.  After December's half-marathon I just told myself running was no longer necessary.  I still went to the gym but rarely looked at, much less climbed on, the treadmill.

But I still signed up for races.  I signed up for the Get Lucky, a half-marathon in less than a month.  And I signed up for two trail 15 milers, one in April and one in May.  While my body was still rejecting any push to run, my brain had already decided that running would resume, whether my body liked it or not.  Some part of me, the part of me that has done 3 marathons, 1 trail marathon, 2 trail half-marathons, 3 trail 15 milers, and about 30 road half-marathons, knew that the running would come back.  I've been burned out before.  I've reached points before where the thought of running filled me with dread and I just couldn't love it anymore. But those are always relatively short seasons.  They always follow the completion of a goal (a marathon, a year of half-marathons).  And sometimes they coincide with other life events, work, relationships, particular stresses, whathaveyou.  It's as if my running self goes into hibernation, tucked into some corner preparing for a knee-pounding spring.

I signed up for the marathon last Friday and last weekend I started running.  Again. I slipped on the ice, bit a chunk out of my tongue, and spit blood back to my apartment.  I'll be treadmill-bound for another month, I imagine. But walking back to my apartment with blood pooling in my mouth, a bit banged up on the knees and elbows, I made my way with the bounce I've come to recognize.  Within a mile I'd managed to injure myself, but it was enough to remember what running feels like. Not the painful part, or the exhausting part, or the part that makes me hungry. Not the time-consuming part or the part that requires a lot of laundry trips. The part of running that makes everything else a little less daunting, a little less scary.  The part that reminds me that today is a gift and I will make my heart beat faster so as to enjoy it properly.  The part that holds discomfort like a specimen, turns it around, says, "that isn't so bad, you can push harder."  My body finally woke up, stretched, emerged from hibernation, and listened to the voice in my head that began planning said reemergence weeks ago. A little blood in the mouth, a little bruise on the elbow, the pavement has been christened, it's time to roll.

Oct 6th, here I come.

Lenten Days

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and thus begins the Lenten season. Raised Baptist, I didn't really hear about the "give up something for Lent" concept as a kid.  I'm sure the word "Lent" was used in my childhood churches but I didn't really grasp the idea of Christ's last days until I was much older. And while I would sometimes half-heartedly (and, more often than not, belatedly) give up a certain activity or food for a couple weeks, I'd usually mistakenly fall back into it at some point. Out to dinner with friends, I'd remember I'd given up dairy midway through cheese pizza slice number two.

I think I struggled with the sacrificial concept in the past because it just seemed like such a ridiculous comparison. Giving up cheese to mimic my Savior's pain on the cross?  Am I really comparing these two things? Or, I'd commit to doing a particularly grueling workout everyday for Lent, telling myself it was all for the glory of God, enduring something arduous, just like Jesus. Please. Jesus had zero to do with that. I wanted to lose 10 lbs before prom. I'd last maybe a week, chide myself for being a poor, ineffective Christian, and then console myself with the knowledge that Baptists don't really care if you give anything up anyway. Leave the sacrificing to the Catholics, I'll take my sola gratia, please.

I'll admit, it's a sloppy relationship with a legitimate concept.

But what makes it a legitimate idea, a potentially encouraging spiritual exercise, has nothing to do with comparisons. The beauty of "by Grace alone" rests on this idea that we have nothing to offer capable of echoing Christ's sacrifice.  What we do have, what we are capable of, is obedience. Not perfect obedience, hence the need for Grace, but we can look to Christ and do our best to emulate Him, do our best to follow his teachings, and do our best to remember Him in every moment.

And that's how Lenten changes began to work for me, began to make sense.  Not when they had anything to do with sacrifice, but when their purpose was  to remind me of Grace, remind me of how big Grace is and yet how specific it is in its embrace of me. And so I try to make changes that I must revisit and remember multiple times a day. The easiest way to do this for me is with food.  One of my most effective changes was when I made a rule that I would never read and/or watch TV and/or play on my computer while eating.  This seems like it would be easy.  But I live alone, and with nobody to talk to across the table for many meals, I found myself reading the paper, emailing, or watching TV during almost all meals.  At work, I ate at my desk, typing away between bites.  Forcing myself to just sit and eat was excruciating for the first couple of weeks. I broke down a couple times and "cheated" by allowing myself to call a friend and talk while I sipped my soup. But for the most part, I held fast. And every time I sat down, I remembered why I'd turned all that extra noise off, why the action was important. That change actually became a fairly solid habit so it's no longer something I'd consider for Lent. But food changes work for me so I'm sticking to that genre.

I've been a vegetarian before, for several years actually.  And I can easily go a week without eating meat, although fish is almost always in the equation.  But I'm giving up meat (red and white) and fish this Lent because removing it as a possibility will require thought. I will have to think about it when I make my lunch each night.  I will have to see the meats in my freezer and remember that they are not an option.  When I try out new restaurants, something I love to do, I will have to review menus with an eye as to what my meatless self can eat.  This will rarely feel like sacrifice to me, but it will always require planning. And it's the planning and the thinking that I desperately need where God is concerned.

Because the sacrifice I can take for granted.  The Cross, the Grace, all of it.  If I do not force myself to remember what has been done for me, I will ignore that sacrifice because it is so easy to do so. I will go to work, I will see my friends, I will date, I will write, I will explore the world God gave me and I will never think of Him. This is how I am programmed, my easiest temptation, to wander away not because I'm angry or disappointed in God, but because I stopped caring enough to remember Him. And Lent is the season I try to reel my wandering self back in and remember several times a day, that God is in my life, in my heart, and on the Cross for me.

Happy Distraction

I've clearly been away from this blog for awhile.  I blame my enthusiasm over one of my other blogs, The Minneapolite, and how much time my dedication to its growth entails.  What began as a somewhat organizational inspiration (keep the recipes to the food blog, the cultural stuff to The Minneapolite, and let my oldest blog continue its use as a catch-all for anything else I want to say) has morphed into a genuine curiosity in social media, marketing, communications, and how all these things wrapped together influence public opinion. It's all quite magical to me.

I tweet now. Which is odd.  I try to keep my tweets limited to things that interest me in the area, restaurants, shows, museums, etc. I'm not tempted to expand my tweets into more personal territory.  I link to my blog when appropriate and watch my number of blog visits ratchet up little by little.  I follow people on Twitter who have crafted careers out of their blogs, developed a personal brand (so to speak), and rely on that brand to impress upon others the worth of their opinion.  I find that fascinating.  It isn't anything I'm trying to do, as I do have a wholly-unrelated career I enjoy.  But I am curious. I find it amazing when a restaurant I review references me as a "local blogger," and links to my not-fancy posting on their website. When did I get a title? Who is this "local blogger" and what else does she want to explore?

I'm an unabashed extrovert. We recently took the Meyers-Briggs test in a group at work and I remain a steadfast ENFJ, with little to no deviation on most indicators. And I think this new blog and my foray into Twitter reinforces those traits (strengths in some ways, faults in others) and feeds that flagrant people-person personality that other areas of my life lack. I've met new people thanks to my blogging, which is pretty much the equivalent of Christmas to someone like me who is constantly in need of new people to know, learn from, connect with, and cherish.

And it is not lost on me that this happy distraction also provides an opportunity for growth, developing skills in social media that may or may not be important in my career down the line. I think this must be the happiest of ways to develop new capacities, to simply fuss around with a new curiosity and watch it bloom, enjoying the frustrations as growth pains and the minor wins as unexpected triumphs.  So often "development" seems like the result of some trial, a forced change in the face of undesired circumstances. To be playing around with a new medium, learning from vastly more experienced bloggers, and pondering where it goes next...it's too fun to feel like development.

It's a good reminder for me, this adventure, not to ignore my own curiosity. I think wonderment is a beautiful, God-given thing, meant for some purpose. Which isn't to say that I think God cares a great deal about who has the best cheeseburger in town or whether or not I get a kick out of my first opera. But the curiosity is a result of the personality He built, and while only God knows what doors may open as a result of embracing a new endeavor, I trust that there is good in it.

The Impossibles

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An overabundance of possibilities, to be sure.

Wandering Within The Favorite

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

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

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

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

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

Better Than Fine

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Before You Were Born

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

God Bless Anap

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Epiphany #2: Superior Hiking Trail "Race"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Epiphany #1: Superior Hiking Trail "Race"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And Epiphany #2 will be posted shortly. :)

Ramadan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A New Blogging Adventure

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

Holiday

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

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

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

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

The Attempt

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There will be other races.