Number Six

This picture was taken in 2010, the year after I ran my first marathon. I'd always assumed that I'd only run one race that distance, but as soon as I crossed the finish line I knew I'd do my best to do it forever. Maybe not every year, maybe never any faster than that first one, but forever. 

When I started running I was fat. Not chubby. Obese. Nobody would have ever looked at me and thought, "that girl is destined for marathons!" Over the course of running my first 5K, first 10K, first half, I dropped enough weight (80+ pounds) to no longer categorize myself as fat, at least not objectively. And on some level running continued to be the method by which I sought to escape ever being fat again. Running has continued to have that role in my life and I can't say that I expect that reason to disappear, but my need for a run shifted while training for that first marathon. At some point running stopped being just a means to an end, the end being a body I could accept. At some point running became the single fastest way to make me happy. And that's when I stopped feeling like a poser, some guest in the running world. It wasn't a fad or a quirk while I slimmed down. It was a visceral, emotional need. In my mind, that made me a Runner. Capital R.
Friends who'd known (and loved) me in my fat days voiced surprise and encouragement for my new love of distance running. I always struggled to respond adequately because the running-to-lose-weight thing had lost its luster. Running carried me through every season of doubt, every heartbreak, every disappointment, every joy. It reminds me every day that anxiety is wasted energy, energy better channeled into two feet and the pulse of pavement.

I say all this because my companion in training for my upcoming sixth marathon is Stephanie, pictured beside me. She knew and loved me in law school, when running was the last thing on my mind, and she encouraged me throughout my steady accumulation of race t-shirts. This will be Stephanie's first marathon, and she's flying up from New Orleans to experience Grandma's Marathon in Duluth with me. And she gets that current of joy, that happy easing of the shoulders, when she runs now, too. To be a person who doesn't run and then, over the course of months, to become a Runner (capital R), is a transformation that leaves you a bit breathless. It's like the world opens up, lets you in on a secret, that the agonies of the day are lessened by the quickening of your heart.

All of my marathons have been special.  They've felt important, each in some unique way.  But number six will be especially sweet, because this time a friend who knew and loved me when I wasn't a Runner, will run beside me, having since become a Runner herself. It's a reminder to me that the best friends are the ones who see the stuff buried deep, love the You beneath the flesh and beneath the veneer of accomplishment. The ones who loved you before you dreamed of running a marathon are the absolute best people to have at the finish line.

Hello

I'm no different than most in that a new year feels like a fresh start.  An easy place to brush off past failures and refocus on any and everything I want to be in the future. Stronger, thinner, faster, healthier, prettier, calmer, more devoted, more ambitious, smarter, kinder, a better cook. And while I have a few solid goals supporting those general hopes, the only true resolution I've made in this new year is to smile more at strangers. Seems odd, maybe. But my undergrad, Washington and Lee University, is well-known for its speaking tradition, a tradition of saying "hello" to everyone you pass on campus. It's done quite resolutely, deliberately. And I was thinking of it a few months ago after an alumni event here in town.

Over the past several months I've become aware of a habit of looking away, keeping my head down, ignoring those who have no immediate influence on my well-being. More often than not it's because I'm in a hurry, or I'm distracted, or I'm with a friend who deserves my attention. But I don't think any of those things is an excuse for ignoring those with whom we share space. What is it in us that makes us so resolutely insular? So quick to shield ourselves from those around us, in favor of those with whom we feel comfortable? It's a normal, human habit, I know. But it's not a habit I want to reinforce, being that it's such a natural tendency.  I don't think Christ looked away from anyone.  I don't think he ever pretended not to see someone.

It's a small, quiet thing, and an atypical resolution. But resolving for the umpteenth time to eat less carbs or do more crunches seems so self-involved.  Yes, health is important, but I resolve and give focus to myself every single day. I channel all my energy into bettering or amusing myself every single day. And in the rush to buy groceries or meet a friend for drinks or run a loop around the lake, I shut out every person who doesn't directly impact that self-centered purpose.

Over the last couple of weeks, I've tried to be more deliberate about smiling, acknowledging others. When I go for runs, I wave at everyone I pass. Sometimes they wave back, or nod their head, or smile, but I don't much care if they reciprocate.  I'm not smiling to garner attention, but to give it. At work, I try to say, "Good morning" more often, even to the crabby folks that speed by in a huff. And when I'm out and about, at the grocery store or church or the movies, I try to remember that every person needs acknowledgement, and a smile is the least I can do in providing that assurance.

It's funny, how exhausting this is, even to an extrovert like myself.  It tires me because I've accepted the fact that people wander by on the sidewalk and we're not socially required to acknowledge one another. That desire to lift one's head, smile, perhaps talk about the weather, is a muscle like any other. Without regular flexing, that desire will wither and weaken. And social contracts notwithstanding, I don't believe that inclination is spiritually sound, at least not for me.

I wonder sometimes what a sinless Earth would look like, how people would interact.  I don't think introversion is a sin, so I can't imagine that a perfect Earth would be one where everyone constantly sought out the company of strangers.  But I do think a perfect community would be one where every individual used their God-given personalities to glorious effect. And because I am extroverted and sociable, in my perfect state, I'd be a greeter, a welcomer, of all who crossed my path.

It is a fallen world, of course, and my extroversion can take sinful turns. It can be attention-seeking and deliberately exclusionary when I define who I spend time with and who I avoid. Those sins I recognize immediately.  I know when I'm boastful, proud, snobbish. But the banality of everyday exclusions, wandering by the old lady at the gas pump without saying hello, saying thank you to the store clerk without the courtesy of lifting my eyes to hers, those are the habitual sins I glance over and ignore.  They don't feel particularly sinful, they don't inflict any obvious wounds. Ignoring the woman next to me as we both poke the tomatoes doesn't seem harmful. But I don't want to acquire a habit of exclusion, of walking amongst others with blinders on, just because it's objectively harmless. Does tilting my head and smiling a silent greeting really cost me anything? What if that smile brightened someone's day by a tiny increment? Wouldn't it be worth the loss of a "harmless" habit?

I want to look the whole world in the eye and say, "Hello." The picture attached to this post is of that word, which hangs next to my front door. I've looked at it frequently over the last couple of months as I've tried to strengthen my resolve to greet the world, seeking nothing. The more I look at it, the more I feel like it encompasses everything I want my home to provide and everything I want to give the world. Hospitality, welcome, joy, grace, invitation, comfort, and warmth. A dense meaning for a simple word, and a weighty resolution.

Hello.

Tables

Breaking bread is a profound thing. It has always made sense to me that Jesus broke bread so often with those to whom he wished to show love, and that he chose supper as the foundation of his final demonstration of sacrifice before the crucifixion. Eating is primal, necessary. And eating communally, passing plates, noisily pulling chairs up to table corners, dropping silverware, slurping soup, pouring wine,...it feels no less necessary to me. Everybody eats mac and cheese solo over the sink at some point. But passing a dish down a table of loved ones feeds us more deeply, nourishing the connections that make life sweeter. 

In the process of planning a dinner party for tonight, I thumbed through some recently unpacked cookbooks. Inside Charleston Receipts, I'd tucked last year's Thanksgiving shopping list, written in my Uncle's handwriting, as he provided the shopping directions for a meal he'd shepherd from the couch, chemo exhaustion coming in waves. The bulk of the list is his, but there are small lists elsewhere on the page in my hand, my mother's, my dad's. Dad reminded me to get ice. I reminded myself to get squash. Mom covered everything we'd forgotten. 

We've made lots of grocery lists as a family. Dad makes an impressive one every year we go to Roan Mountain. And I remember a few Thanksgivings in Little Rock, barreling through Kroger for one forgotten item hours before the store closed.  But I kept this particular list because my uncle was sick, and because it was his handwriting, and because we both love to cook. And I'm sure I tucked it into Charleston Receipts because it was a gift from him.  It will be there forever, proof of one meal, one table, one happy mess in the midst of what still feels like a tenuous, if hopeful, battle. 

Tonight is just happiness. Just inviting my friends to see my new home, taste test three new soup recipes, drink too much wine, and wish me a happy birthday in the process. It's just warmth and the smell of butter and onions. Each of my friends are treasures, and of each I'm aware of large and small heartaches. Breakups, job shuffles, illness, family deaths, depression, anxiety, loneliness, boredom. And each of them, at some point, has known of the same for me. Tables seem to lessen the acuteness of those hurts, if momentarily. The lists in loving hands, the old cookbooks, the cake baked in a friend's kitchen, the help chopping potatoes,...it all feels like an echo of what Christ demonstrated to us. To carry each other however we are able, to feed whoever is hungry, to welcome all, to love in the simplest ways, to break bread and give thanks. 

Cabinets

Now that I've painted the cabinets Ultra White and the the walls varying shades of French Pastry, Pumpkin Cream, Porpoise, and Gentle Rain, I can fess up. While I'd debated buying a house for several months, I pulled the trigger for only one reason. My heart was hurting and I needed something new and big into which I could channel all my angst. I needed to do something on my own to remind myself that I could be happy doing such a thing, just in case that's what the rest of my life looks like.

I don't recommend Buying A House as a form of post-breakup retail therapy. It's mildly irresponsible (maybe super irresponsible but I'm cutting myself some slack) and a lot more work than buying, say, an inappropriately priced pair of heels. That being said, while the timing of my decision may have been inspired by heartache, the result has been invigorating.  The work has not eliminated the sadness, but it has put it into context. I have been sad before. This time, I get to be sad in a house with Things To Do.

I always read (and write, but nobody's seeing that!) poetry when I'm sad.  And there are a handful of poets that I reread in certain moods.  Emily Dickinson's A Not Admitting to the Wound is a pretty fantastic I'm-sad poem, in part because I get a bit Dickinson-esque in such moments. I want nothing better than to sit in some corner with my tea and my notebook, pencil scratches the only sound in my head. My extroverted, optimistic self turns inside out, all exposed nerves and skepticism. But this poem doesn't just feed the sadness, it builds a room for it, nails it in, reminds me that God sees it, loves it, and will, eventually, make use of the scar.

A not admitting of the wound (1188)

BY: EMILY DICKINSON

A not admitting of the wound

Until it grew so wide

That all my Life had entered it

And there were troughs beside -

A closing of the simple lid that opened to the sun

Until the tender Carpenter

Perpetual nail it down

I've read that poem a thousand times in my life. It sounds like a slow, steady heartbeat to me, in the midst of moments where my own heart feels shaky, prone to skips and jumps. And as I drilled holes in my wall to attach a bookcase, or reattached cabinet doors one painful screw at a time, I heard the "tender Carpenter" so often, encasing that heartache in a sturdy box, gently asking me to hand it over. And in so many small moments of joy, minor victories of home ownership, I wondered if maybe, irresponsible purchasing decision or not, this might have all been part of His plan. He knew about the heartache, and he knew I'd need a house, a hammer, some cabinets in need of attention. This house. These cabinets. Emily. And a tender Carpenter, always.

A House

I signed a bunch of papers tonight that evidently indicate my intention to own a home east of Lake Nokomis. I got a big, fat number at the bottom of a sheet with lots of other numbers, highlighted for my convenience, and that's the big, fat number I will write on a check in roughly 6 weeks. To say that it feels surreal would be an understatement.

I've fought the home-buying escapade with every fiber of my being. I don't think homes are near the worthwhile investment they're made out to be. I think renting is easier, and for many (most?) people, the better option. I think there are lots of other nifty things I could do with that big, fat number. I think it's exciting to be unencumbered by a commitment to a place, to a silly building, to four walls of (adorable) stucco and a chain-link fence.

And I've fought it because I kept wanting to leave. I kept looking for jobs in Houston. Kansas City. Calgary. Seattle. Charlotte. New Orleans. Seven years in Minneapolis is an eternity compared to how long I stayed in other locales. Surely seven years is enough. Some of those searches led to interviews, even offers. Sometimes I turned them down because the fit didn't feel right. Or I was dating someone who felt important. Or I had a day at work that made me feel rejuvenated, appreciated, hopeful for projects ahead.

But mostly I turned them down because I wanted to drive to my parents' house on Sunday after church. I wanted to run a lap around the lake before meeting a friend for coffee. I wanted to have a meeting downtown and meet my Dad for lunch. I wanted to have dinner with my sister when she was home from college. I wanted to sit on a friend's couch, her dog's paws digging into my thighs, and watch The Bachelor. I wanted to run the same race I ran five years ago and whine about the quality of the snacks. I wanted to stand on the asphalt of a sketchy music venue and get sweaty as I danced.

Somehow over the past seven years, I managed to root myself here. And despite never feeling quite "of" this place, I've still burrowed into spaces that make me feel like I belong. So several weeks ago a house seemed like the next logical step, the digging in of fingers into soft sod, the grasp, the okay-I-will-stay.

It felt a bit like defeat, honestly. A bit like a failure of my formerly adventurous self. A weakening of my proud, independent, city-conquering gumption. I was proud of the girl who went so far away for college. Proud of the girl that joined the Peace Corps. Proud of the woman that moved to Kansas City.  Proud of the woman who crafted a life in New Orleans, hurricanes be damned. I was the first born! I was the trailblazer! Thus, I was never particularly proud of coming to Minnesota. Just one more law school graduate feeling overwhelmed by their options. One more graduate who lands briefly in a parental basement because the rent is cheap and they feed you.

That feeling took a very long time to fade, and its scars still itch. I'd been so proud to be out in the world, watching from afar as my family moved to Minnesota, a state I had no intention of inhabiting. The shock of landing here was painful, and it took a very long time to admit that I was happy. It's hard to admit when you're wrong. And I was wrong in assuming my independence, my let-me-tell-you-a-story-about-my-life-far-away was what gave me joy. What gave me joy was the existence of people who listened to that story, who laughed when I laughed, cried when I cried. And living near those people made the storytelling sweeter, the terrors of life a bit less acute.

I doubt buying a house will make me crave newness less. I doubt I'll stop daydreaming about a life lived somewhere else, especially when I'm shoveling that corner lot of sidewalks. But there's a sweetness in being near one's parents, being the child that's nearby. There's comfort in finding friends that love the person that you've become, unencumbered by knowledge of who you were when you arrived. And there's joy in accepting happiness as God crafted it for you, happiness that, perhaps, includes stucco and a chain-link fence.

Aunthood Premonition

It has always been easier for me to picture myself as an aunt, as opposed to a mother. I've always known I'd hold my brother's child, a deep-rooted nugget of a feeling I first experienced when I was newly home from college and taking my kid brother out for late night seasoned fries at Denny's.

We sat in the smoking section because I was desperately trying to be cool enough to smoke (a habit that never took root, thank heavens) and Rob stared in awe at the Straight-A sister who was now chain smoking and struggling to maintain mediocrity at school. We talked about Dad. We talked about Mom. We talked about our communal high school and the teachers that ruined lives. We talked about music. And Rob, in his not-old-enough-to-drive wisdom, talked me off a ledge he didn't know existed.

I remember walking in the parking lot, smoking another cigarette by the door of a beloved Nissan, and thinking to myself, "he'll be a wonderful Dad." It wasn't a flippant feeling, not one of those "oh, you'll be great" remarks people throw around like confetti, and it wasn't something I said aloud. In that moment I just knew he'd be a Dad, and a great one.

I'm not someone who relies much on premonitions or dreams, visions of the future. My rational self discounts those hunches pretty quickly. But I've had a handful of moments where everything clears away and the image before me feels promised, indisputable. Just a snapshot and just a feeling, but I remember those moments vividly, even if the sensible side of me wants to brush them aside as wishful thinking.

And so, since standing in a Denny's parking lot in my late teenage years, I've know you were on your way, Lilly.  I wasn't sure of when or whether you'd be a girl or whether you'd be born with a mad mop of hair. But I knew you were on our family's horizon, and I've been excited to meet you for roughly 15 years. I knew you'd be born to the greatest man I know, second to our father (your granddad), and after meeting your mom a few years ago, I knew you were hitting the jackpot on the Mama side, too. I knew, years ago, that you'd be lucky to be born into our family.  It isn't until now that I have a keener grasp of that blessing. Luck has nothing to do with it. God gave you a gift when he gave you your parents, just as much as He gifted you to them.  You'll figure that out on your own, bit by bit.

Meanwhile, welcome to the world, beloved girl!  It's a glorious place, and don't let anyone tell you differently. Scarred and fallen, yes, but there's proof of God in every step and breath, which you'll learn as you grow. We have family traditions to school you in (burning Red Sox hats in fireplaces, Steak night, climbing Pinnacle, license plate game rules, Christmas Eve Mass, our Redbirds) and you'll be the inspiration for new traditions, too. And while I have no intention of sitting in a smoking section with you, I'd be honored to share a plate of seasoned fries someday and tell you how much your Dad used to drive me crazy.  He'll drive you crazy, too, someday, as only the best Dads do. Cut him some slack.

When I was born our Uncle Rodney wrote an article for the paper and welcomed me, the first of his small brood of nieces and nephew. The yellowed article is tucked into my baby book and while I know I read it years ago, I don't quite recall what it said. Perhaps one of these days, little Lillian, when you're flying around on your hovercraft and watching baseball on the moon, you'll faintly recall your Aunt Rachel's blog post and smile. I hope they have a Denny's on the moon.

A List of Blessings

The last week has been difficult, to put things lightly. A relationship, a very important one, ended, and I've had a hard time regaining my footing since that dissolution.  I'm not an overly dramatic person, at least not when it comes to emotional transitions, endings, or failures.  But where my typical personality would be one of chatterbox and opinionated extrovert, my depressive self is insular, anti-social, and apathetic. I eat a lot of oatmeal, listen to a lot of Bon Iver.

I'm an adult, of course, and can function fine in context.  I can go to work and be as efficient as ever. I can make decisions about the future, cancel things that need to be canceled, inform who needs to be informed, reconfigure what needs to be reconfigured. And most importantly, I can decide what will eventually make me feel better.  Eventually, it will make me feel better to go house hunting, thus, I will now do all the things a person needs to do to prepare for that.  I can find a realtor.  I can gather my W2s and tax returns. Eventually, it will make me feel better to race.  I can research trail races and marathons.  I can weigh my options, the health of my right knee, the likelihood of a marathon in November vs. January vs. March. I can remove myself from what hurts today and set in place all the things that will eventually make me happy. I've always been somewhat impressed with that skill. It's a gift, maybe, to be able to be miserable now and in the same moment be able to plan for future happiness.  It's an optimism I'm grateful for, even if at the moment it just feels a bit like a split personality.

This time around (this breakup, this failure, this falling apart), I felt like I needed to be more specific in my thankfulness.  When the clouds are overwhelming it's easy to forget there's sunshine behind them. So I found an old journal, one I'd largely forgotten, and gave it a new task of detailing my blessings.  It's a beautiful journal, soft leather with a beautiful fleur-de-lis imprint on the cover.  A dear, dear friend bought it for me when I left New Orleans, and she inscribed her love for me and our friendship on the inside cover.  The journal has gathered dust for years, so to open it on a day I'd spent crying and to read her words was a blessing in and of itself, the first one I wrote down, Blessing Numero Uno.

Since that day I've detailed several more, aiming for three to four specific blessings a day.  And I try to be as pinpointed as possible, not blase in stating all of the blessings I'm supposed to be highlighting. I'm not just thankful for a good trail run.  I'm thankful for the give and tug of soft earth as I run up a well-worn path, bunnies scurrying away as I breathe heavily at each footfall. I'm not just thankful for sunshine.  I'm thankful for the warmth of sunshine hitting my bare thigh as I lean against my mother on a raft pulled behind the boat, thankful for the splash of cold lake water as dad speeds the boat around a corner.

I think the worst part of sadness for me is apathy. I hate the grey creeping of "I don't care" that slithers into every decision.  I don't care what I eat so I'll just eat oatmeal.  I don't care what I do tonight so I'll just stay home.  I don't care if my friends want to see me so I'll just ignore their invites. Apathy feels like a lack of God. It feels like an absence of all that is holy and good. And while my faith comforts me that even in those grey moments I am not alone, I can't help but feel forgotten when that thick blanket of I-don't-care consumes me. And that's where the blessings come in.

Even in my darkest moments I can force myself to do a few things.  There are a handful of things and people in my life that, even at my saddest points, I can rely on to tug at and restore me, proof of God in the doldrums. Anti-social I may be, but a lack of activity unnerves me.  And in the woods on a run, after I've warmed up, after I'm good and sweaty, when I'm running down a hill and the wind is whipping my ponytail against my ear, I forget that I'm sad. Momentary and fleeting, but it's enough of a reminder of what Happy feels like to continue running towards it.  And when my mother hugs me, when my dad kisses my cheek, when my sister squeals in delight beside me as we're pulled behind the boat, these are all moments that remind me I was happy before and will be happy again.

My hope is that the list of blessings will not be cast aside when I perk up.  I'd like to build them up, list them one by one as a mighty arsenal of memories and thankfulness to fight the blues when they inevitably creep in. I'd like to read over them, remembering what it took to be grateful for four things on that Tuesday, remind myself of how wrapped in love I was then and am now, how cherished, despite frequently feeling the opposite. It's an armor of protection and love, a blessing in its own right, to be able to recognize the hints of God that surround me when the future feels sharp and heavy. That sadness and malaise and is not of God, I know, so I know that reminding myself of His presence, over time, will push the grey away. And in the interim, I will not only count my blessings.  I will record them for posterity.

A Few Different Windows

I've been a guest or confidante to a host of different families in the last few weeks. And given my Uncle Buck's recent trip to visit us, I can't help but view my own family through the lens of having recently examined the dynamics of others.  Perhaps it's comparative in some ways, but I mostly just come away shaking my head, a bit awestruck, that we humans manage to connect at all on this silly planet, even with those of our own blood.

I helped a dear friend with some catering at a party today.  I just provided some plating, dishwashing, filling of coffee cups, and was happy to pitch in to lessen the stress on her family. She discussed, briefly, the anxiety the day had created for her mother, some stresses with a sibling, the joy of a smiling, oblivious baby. She's an articulate woman, my friend, powerful in her ability to put words to ideas. And I was struck by how plainly she spoke of her mother's worries, her difficulties in communicating with or being understood by other members of her family. It made me thankful I could help and also gave me comfort that I am not the only well-spoken woman who stumbles her way through communicating with some of those she holds most dear.

Despite the ties of blood, we're not destined to be friends with our siblings. There is a shared history there, yes, and a common language with which we address life. We feel the weight of the same family secrets or weaknesses or tragedies. But there's no promise that upon adulthood we will sit down at a table and truly feel spoken and connected to, eyeball to eyeball, one fully formed life to another.

One of my dearest friends recently texted and asked for prayers for her family due to stresses with her own siblings, tensions and frustrations that have been building for awhile. This is a family I've known a very long time, so the tensions aren't new to me.  I tried to provide comfort the only way I knew how, by telling her that the best examples of familial harmony fall outside of our home.  No family avoids chaos or animosity every day. And in the seasons when your own family struggles, we can at least trust that the best image of what a father or mother or brother or sister should be remains steadfast. God hasn't stopped being God, even if your brother is being a punk. And even if the tension is miserable, the wounds deep, God still provides help in our trials with the support of friends, a patient ear, a laughing baby, a shared memory.

I've looked out of a few different windows the last few weeks.  I've looked out the glass door at my parents' home and watched my uncle and dad chatting by a fire, my sister curled up in a seat between them. I've looked out a kitchen window in Montana as my boyfriend played with his niece, far flung but well-loved. And today I looked out another kitchen window as my friend's mom held her grandson, grinning enthusiastically at his adoring crowd. Families seem like such delicate machines sometimes, so tricky to handle, so easy to misuse, so quick to weaken with distance or time, and yet they do seem to continue puttering on. The burdens build, the valleys deepen and darken, and still we press on, brothers and mothers and sisters and fathers and wives and nieces and nephews and uncles and grandmothers and grandfathers...

I'm grateful to be surrounded by people who ache when their family aches, who worry when their family worries. I'm grateful to have sat at a kitchen table this morning with my own family, praying for God's continued mercies on my Uncle's cancer fight, praying for continued blessings. And I'm grateful to have stood, a couple of hours later, praying with my friend and her mom, for anxiety-free revelry. The big and the not-quite-as-big, the long trial and the new anxiety, the ache and the burden, God gives us families that create and cushion every wound. And He gave us His example, in hopes that we might love each other better through it all.

Surprise

[reposting as I read blog posts to my Mamaw at the hospital]. A couple of weekends ago I spent a quick weekend in St. Louis, my teenage hometown and the city where my brother and sister-in-law have firmly planted their roots. They're expecting their first child and we traveled south to celebrate the baby shower, ooh and aah over tiny, pink baby clothes, and hug the soon-to-be-parents one more time before their world wonderfully rearranges.

After a long day in the car, we trekked to Busch Stadium, all three siblings cheering on the team we were raised to root for, knowing the next time we were all in those stands, we'd likely be rotating laps for a red-clad, chubby-cheeked little girl. We cheered for seven innings, leaving early, we thought, to satisfy my dad's sweet tooth and another family tradition of capping off happiness with a frozen custard indulgence.  While in line at Ted Drewes, a familiar voice sparkled in the darkness.  When I turned around, my brother was hugging our Uncle Buck, freshly flown in from North Carolina, grinning at the squeals of joy emitted by my sister and I as we realized we'd been gloriously duped.

To say my uncle has had a rough year would be putting it very mildly.  He has had the type of year that sucks the joy out of most people, the type of year to which I have no ability to relate.  To be forced into a season of weakness and dependence in a life characterized by the opposite of those adjectives has been difficult to hear of, to occasionally watch, but that's nothing compared to what it would mean to live through it.  But all that being said, he has never stopped being our Uncle Buck.  While he likely felt weakened to the point of being someone else entirely, he has remained the unconquerable, the smiling, the loving, the mountain-of-a-soul man we've grown up adoring.  So, to see him in his of-course-Uncle-Buck-is-surprising-us glory, my dad grinning beside him in brotherly hoodwinkery, makes my eyes fill to remember.

That kind of gut-busting joy, the kind born of prayers and phone calls, hopes and praises, is what awaits this new little wonder. She will be born into a family that often messes life up, often asks forgiveness, often argues about irrational things, often eats too much, often pushes too far too fast, often demands too much, often exhausts the Scrabble dictionary with pleas for word affirmation. But she'll also be born into a family that loves deeply, buys plane tickets to surprise unsuspecting loved ones, finds infant cheerleader outfits for family sports teams, prays before road trips, wipes away tears with phone calls after bad news, gives hugs that could crush weak ribs, stops for fireworks, builds a great fire, knows a good rocking chair, plants gardens, teaches every child how to fish, loves the Lord, and roots for the Cardinals.

She's a lucky little lady, my soon-to-be niece.

The Privilege of Disappointment

I ran my fifth marathon yesterday in Fargo, North Dakota. I'm nursing my usual wounds today of aching calves, stiff quads, and shoulders that swear they carried the weight of the world for 26.2 miles. The course wasn't my favorite, lots of cement, lots of twists and turns in not-particularly-interesting Fargo suburbs (no offense, suburban Fargoans), and a finish line that did not make it clear in which direction I needed to walk to find chocolate milk. But the small town support was impressive and, at times, raucous, and that goes a long way to paint my memory of those miles in a positive light.

As hinted by this post's title, this run was not my best. I came in a couple minutes slower than my previous best time despite being 7-8 pounds lighter than that previous race day, and despite feeling better prepared than I"ve ever felt for a marathon. I can't pinpoint the key hurdles.  There was an ache in my foot that came out of nowhere (although it is the foot that routinely gives me trouble).  There was the tightness in my calves at the start. There was the slight difference in fueling the day before since I was in a different town with different options. There was the Zyrtec I had to pop for days beforehand to battle the pollen onslaught. But none of these should have been disastrous. They were all surmountable, all annoyances I have dealt with myriad times before.

It just wasn't my best day. It wasn't my best run. It's still a marathon, of course. It's still an accomplishment. But the more I run, the more miles I trek on trails or roads around town, the more keenly I feel the privilege of disappointment. I know my body well enough to know when a run is as near perfect as my body can muster. And I know when the smoothness of that perfection is lacking. I can feel the "off"-ness of my gait, the not-quite-loose churning of joints and stretching of muscle. I can be proud of the effort involved without being happy with the result.

I think that's a distinction that comes with maturity, maybe with age, certainly with experience. It was easy, with my first long runs six years ago, to equate the worth of a run with how closely it came to my ideal.  If my expectation was 10 miles at a 10:30 pace and instead I found it hard to push below 11:00, I'd end a run disgusted with the time wasted on a failure. Even if I could tell myself it was practice, it was training, beneath a feigned acceptance of that reality was a thick layer of disapproval. The high fives and congratulations from friends on races that ended short of my expectations felt like mockery, felt like a highlight of what I could not achieve.

My dear friend, Katrina, also ran the Fargo Marathon. She finished after the official clock ran out, finished when the cones were being taken down on the side streets and the volunteers were packing up. She ran several miles all alone, a feat in-and-of itself that astounds me. But one of the things I learned that was most inspiring was that Katrina had already worked through the possibility of being last, months prior, when she signed up.  She knew the length of the race would be a challenge unlike anything else she'd sought to accomplish and she knew that if she was afraid of being last, she'd never be brave enough to train. So, in a testament to her strength, she trained with the acceptance of that solitude, acceptance that she might cross the finish after the crowds dispersed. It doesn't just take guts to press onward when you're trailing the pack, it takes guts to stand at the starting line and know that your battle will be harder than most. You should read her story, here.

The disappointment I felt with my own time eased as I waited for Katrina's own victory. The frustration tied to a rough run felt like a medal, heavy but shiny. The body is an amazing machine. The mind is even more powerful, capable of asking more from a body even after that body has begged for rest. My own disappointment didn't disappear, I was still saddened by my failure to attain a goal. But praying for a friend while she pressed through pain rearranged that sadness, made it feel less like a burden and more like a privilege. It's a gift to tax our bodies like this, to push them beyond the limits we imagine and the limits life creates for us. And with that gift comes the privilege of disappointment when our efforts fall short of our goals.

On the ride home from Fargo, Katrina and I discussed future goals, races we might run, times we'd like to beat, opportunities for more aching calves and sunburned shoulders. To struggle, emerge victorious, limp, and then ask, "what's next?"...that's a privilege, too.

The Leash

The analogy is messy, but I spend most days on a leash of moderate slack. On a tighter rein, when food and the anxieties I attach to it jerk me from despair to elation to exhaustion at each meal, I have a tendency to wallow in the brain/body God gave me. But these days, 80 lbs lighter than I once was, a runner, I've loosened that anxiety's grip on my days.  As long as I can run. As long as I control the majority of meals. As long as there aren't too many surprises. There are variables, of course, but that leash has lengthened in the last several years, and I'm grateful. All but my closest friends would likely dismiss the anxieties forever intertwined with the fork in my hand. The dearest ones understand when I say I can't handle a specific restaurant or need to cook for myself for a few days. They don't understand the leash but they respect its power.

I served a meal at a homeless shelter tonight.

My church houses a shelter in the winter. Fifty or so men and women knock on those church doors at 6 pm, eat a meal, and fall asleep tucked out of this bitter Minnesota winter. They bring only what they can carry, which is not much, and they can store nothing for the following day.  If it can't be slung over a shoulder or tucked in a pocket, it's too grand an object for ownership during this season of their lives. For some, the season is obviously long.  For others, they appear new to that floor pallet, shivering and quiet in their realization that this is their best option tonight.

We served a simple meal, taco salads with rice, beans, beef, and the requisite toppings of cheese and guacamole. The leash tightens. I see those spoonfuls and my brain automatically calculates the caloric damage of each choice. There are caveats, of course.  Guacamole is high fat but it's "good" fat.  Beef may be high calorie but it's high protein.  Chips are caloric bombs of no nutritional value.  Don't get me started on the brownies.

I have never been hungry in my life.  Not legitimately hungry.  My stomach has growled, I've grown light-headed, I've torn into a meal with the exclamation that I am starving. But at no point has that hunger been bone deep or anxious.  As an adult, any hunger has been by my own choice, my own timing.  And even in those periods of a gnawing stomach, I know exactly when the feeling will fade.  And the food involved?  It is always food I choose.  It's food I buy, cook, enjoy at a friend's house, or order at a restaurant. At no point have I ever looked at food before me and made my choice based on not knowing specifically what my choices will be tomorrow or if choices will exist.

My first impulse was to think of my attitude towards food as a luxury.  If hunger threatened me, real hunger, the calculation of fat grams in sour cream would be ridiculous.  If homelessness were my reality, my mind would be consumed with too many anxieties to allow fretting over tortilla chips. But perhaps that isn't wholly accurate.  It's less a luxury than a powerful proof that the easiest way to separate oneself from God is to look too keenly in the mirror.

It isn't narcissism. It's some hybrid of the opposite, some combination of self-pity and self-aggrandizement, a sort of self-obsession or fixation on everything that is wrong with me. There's no God in that. Only me. There's a great quote in C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce and over the last few years, as I've been a more deliberate fighter against that leash, I've reminded myself of its truth: "no natural feelings are high or low, holy or unholy, in themselves. They are all holy when God's hand is on the rein. They all go bad when they set up on their own and make themselves into false gods." Being careful and conscious of the decisions I make regarding food and exercise is neutral in and of itself.  But when it begins that slow and steady slide to self-judgment, when the slightest twinge of self-loathing kicks in, that's when that false god cracks a smile, tugs a bit tighter on my leash.

A leash that not only tugs me further from God, deeper into my own skin, but tugs me away from the world God deliberately placed me in, the people he deliberately placed in my path.

I felt the tug of that leash tonight, at a time when I should have been selflessly serving. I felt every inch of my skin, felt every calorie, and was thankful for none of it, despite being face to face with those who beamed gratitude in the midst of so much defeat. But the tug meets resistance in the best scenarios.  Perhaps it was because I was in the basement of a church, or because I chatted with Norm, who runs the shelter, about running another marathon, or because I sat next to another server who let a homeless man ramble in mind-clouded half-stories while her food grew cold. The tug loses its ability to derail me when I can remember that the moment is not about me. It's about the man weary of the cold. The pallet on the floor. The warm smile of those who serve day in, day out.

Most leashes fall apart over time.  A chink in the chain. And if tonight taught me anything, it's that the chink in my own leash, the weakness in the things of The World that separate me from God, is simple acknowledgment that the child of God across from me is hurting, too. And the moment is about them. About serving them in God's name. And not ever, ever, about me.

The Fifth

This week marked the beginning of training for my fifth marathon.  On Tuesday, shortly before a 4 mile run, I thought, for the fifth time, how exciting it is to embark on these attempts.  I'm always excited in the beginning, always energized by narrowing my focus, building my days around when/where I'm putting in miles. It provides a structure for all those heartbeats, and I appreciate that. As I kick things off, I thought this would be a good time to reflect on marathon #4, which I never really detailed for posterity.

Marathon #4 was the Twin Cities Marathon, for the third time.  I ran it in support of World Vision, the first time I've run for that organization and probably not the last.  I ran in my World Vision jersey, the route peppered with supporters of the cause who cheerfully clapped when I came into view.  I appreciated those added voices, especially in the later miles.

But the World Vision experience was not the defining characteristic of the race for me.

I was a bit weak going into the race.  I trained well but I'd screwed up my ankle (again) and that injury had led to some achy screams on occasion from my knee. Seemed manageable but on top of those pains I'd been down and out with a bad chest cold for a couple of the weeks leading up to the race, too.  So while I was healthy by race day, I was not 100%.  I don't think I've ever been 100% on marathon race day, honestly.  I'm always nursing some end-of-training injury, never so bad that I worry about needing to sit out the race, but bad enough to worry me as I line up at the start.

This was the first marathon where neither of my parents were there to cheer me on. And the reason for that, in part, specifically impacted my experience.  My dad was in North Carolina visiting my uncle, who'd recently begun chemo for an angry cancer to which people tend to attach poor expectations.  One of the more-bad-than-your-average-bad ones, understand. My uncle and dad kept track of me via the miracles of technology, even watching my eventual crossing of the finish line.  They've tracked me before, but this time I felt that presence more keenly, especially in the last miles.

It's cliche, I realize, to compare difficult life seasons to the running of marathons. Conserve your energy, prepare for that last kick across the line, pace yourself, enjoy the journey, take in the support, dig deep. All of that jazz. Not sure how the hell a person would "enjoy the journey" as it relates to cancer.  Not sure how you'd "pace yourself" either. Rather ridiculous comparison, in the grand scheme of things. So at no point did I mentally compare the pain of those last miles to something my loved one was experiencing.  But there was something about his fight that pressed into miles twenty-two to twenty-six.

By mile twenty-two I was on track to mirror my previous times.  No improvement, but reliably stable in my pacing.  And by mile twenty-two I really didn't care that I wasn't going to beat prior times, I was just content with knowing I'd finish, get my t-shirt and medal, eat my well-deserved burger and fries. But around that point I started picturing my uncle, flashes of him at various points in my life, and my desire to walk through water stops diminished.  More than that, I started running a bit faster. I won't say my legs stopped hurting, but the pain dulled, the exhaustion lost a bit of its power.

The images that popped into my head were of my uncle bending his head over crossword puzzles, of his hand as he handed the paper to me to battle through the bookish clues that an English major might be able to tackle, of his back as he closed the trunk after helping me haul collegiate crap into a college apartment, of his burned fingertips as he flipped steaks on a grill on our mountain, of the way all the men of our family walk and stand the same, easy and strong. And I won't say that the increase in my kick as I neared the finish line had much to do with a misplaced hope that such effort could somehow be added to whatever great cancerous scale decides whether someone wins or loses their battle.  I would have kicked harder, had that been the case.

But my feeling in those last few miles was that strength is sometimes communal. Without getting overly metaphysical, I do believe that there is a power, immeasurable and infinite, in shared effort.  Personal battles are just that, requiring the individual to face whatever has to be faced on their own terms and with only the comfort of God to guide them.  But when you know you are loved, know that your effort (whether it is understood or not) is recognized, that knowledge does provide some added momentum, an extra kick where the leg feels dead, a pick up in speed when the gut says, "quit."

So I credit my uncle with those last four miles.  I credit him for my personal record, shaving five minutes off my previous best time. And I credit him with showing me that there is often more in the tank than one would guess.  And the vast majority of what is left in the tank can be credited to a strength that is communal and mysterious. I pushed harder not because I thought doing so would change anything.  I pushed harder because I hoped, someday, when my uncle needed it, I might be able to return that favor, show him strength or joy in some quiet way that would make a rough day easier.

So as I start training for my fifth marathon, that reservoir of strength is well-fed, and I recognize that power is not fully my own.  It belongs to God, and to years of love from my family, and to whatever mysterious force pushes anyone to keep going in the face of challenge. Sometimes miles are small matters, and sometimes they feel impossible. But every one of my miles is lighter, knowing that certain people, very specific people, love me.

Quiet

This blog has been gathering dust recently, but not for want of things to write. And not for a lack of desire to sum up my world in neat little packages of blog posts and creative pieces.  After some difficult family news in early autumn, I thought often about things I wanted to write here, or somewhere.  I drafted a few posts that will never see the light of blog day.  I wrote some weepy prose that only I and God should have to suffer through reading (sorry, God).

After a wonderful friend-filled trip to England and Scotland I struggled again with the right moment to encapsulate, the day I wanted to enshrine for posterity.  I sketched a shaky poem on the back of an Edinburgh postcard while sitting alone on a rock, staring across town, and I thought perhaps I'd work on it when I got home.  The postcard is tucked away on my bookshelf, likely to get stuck between the pages of a book I won't crack open for years.

My blogging has been mostly experiential, housed on The Minneapolite, detailing restaurants and things. The more creative exercises have felt tired, and even when inspired, my posts to this particular blog (old and dear though it is) have felt like a chore.  To add insult to injury, my poetry muscle is weak these days, and teenage in its tendencies. I used to draft poems for no reason at all, just to capture something.  But now I've reverted to my teenage poetic self, scratching out verses only when I'm hurting, the only element missing is the Tori Amos soundtrack wailing in the background.  I at least have the decency now to let Bon Iver provide my depressive ambiance.

This isn't to say that I've been unhappy, only that for some reason my creative writing has been limited to poetry and that poetry has only flowed on the days he has chemo, or the days work bores and exhausts me, or the days I'm just tired of this specific moment in my life.  I rebound quickly and maybe the poetry helps, even if it is melancholy and not worth sharing. Maybe everyone has creative seasons where the creation is a means of comfort, not expression. I'm also going to take a moment here to blame the damn Minnesotan cold.

It seemed for awhile that my creative writing was moving in some sort of publishable direction. Stories. Poems. Essays. Fits and starts of interesting things, most of which I abandoned. I even sent a couple stories to a small press and their rejection didn't bother me, at least not much. I was writing often and well, excited by my own ideas and toying with the idea that maybe I should share them.  Maybe others would read this stuff. Maybe I could be a writer.

But sometime this fall that all just stopped and I cannot pinpoint the hurdle.

I remember in college I said something to a dear professor and friend, something about wanting to be a poet. He is a poet himself, and I know that he was kind in his encouragement, even though I shudder at the thought of the poems I shared with him. I penned them in a tiny journal with a tough, almost wooden, exterior that was secured with ribbon. There were little Shakespearean quotes on the corners of each page. He picked out phrases he liked, descriptions I'd made, or rhymes he thought particularly smooth or lovely. He was specific in his praise and gentle in his comment that time and practice would be beneficial.

So I'm chalking up these last few months of dull-as-dirt, self-indulgent poetic drivel to a season of "practice" that will yield something noisy and fruitful someday. My creative pen has never been silent for this long. But I like to think that exciting things may be developed in the quiet spaces, maybe there's a shy story in there somewhere that needs a bit of coaxing before she starts making her own tap-tap-tap on the keyboard. Maybe she likes Bon Iver.

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.