In which we pack joy and sorrow in the same box

It's a gift to be annoyed with a squirrel who imagines himself a machine, a chipper, 

decimating pine cone after pine cone on the deck you just swept. 

It's a gift to sweep, and who am I kidding, to even have a broom 

and a place where the broom belongs, 

or used to belong.

It is a gift to leave a place where memories were made, where people will be missed, 

where you found shelter during long dark winters 

and respite from the midnight sun of short blinding summers.

It is a gift to say goodbye, through tear stained cheeks, 

with quads somehow trashed only by walking around an empty house 

and sticking blue tape on the random things that will stay after you go.

It is a gift to go, 

a gift to stay, 

a gift to start over, 

a gift to keep going.

I have lost and won and lost and won a thousand times. 

It's a gift to play the game, a gift to have a team that actually acts like one, 

a gift to struggle, to come out of hiding, a gift to be known,

a gift to raise synchronized fists against the neighborhood squirrel.

The village (and I'm counting the squirrel) is the gift, 

and the leaving of the village is a grievous terrible thing. 

But the leaving is what makes you realize the village is actually there, 

and for all the cliche about it taking one, it's true.

We will soon fly away, 

float off in a cloud of non-hazardous, non-flammable fumes 

(because we had to leave all of the hazardous, flammable stuff at the old place), 

and we will well up with tears and gratitude that could fill the ocean, 

(okay maybe just a really big pond--but still--it's a lot for a family of four).

We will grieve and celebrate in the same sentence, 

pack joy and sorrow in the same box.

We'll also lose all knowledge of where anything is packed, 

as well as, quite possibly, our collective cool.

And we will say thank you, 

chant it, 

shout it from the top of the bald neighborhood mountain, 

for the gift, for this place and these years, 

for the highs and lows, the village,

and yes, 

even for the damn squirrel.

All in, All out, On the Sidelines

I've been benched. No running for the better part of the summer. As usual, my timing is impeccable. And since I'm no longer running my angst and blues and words and time and ice cream away, it means I should probably start writing again. Quickly.

The onset of this particular stress fracture and running hiatus happens to coincide with my son's first major soccer tournament. Awesome.

I'd like to say I'm still totally zen on the sidelines, but at 9 am this morning my voice could be heard bellowing across the pitch at my son.

"When the goalie comes out of the box like that, RUN THROUGH HIM!"

Ummmmm. Sorry, opposing team goalie's mom. If it's any consolation, my son weighs all of 20 pounds soaking wet so he would mostly just waft across the keeper like a dandelion seed. But also, he'd score a goal. And that's really what I was going for in that little tidbit of advice I offered.

The boys lost that game. And you'd never know it from their faces. I love the half smile, tongue hanging out, crazy-eyed face my son makes when the ball is at his feet. I love watching him play.

But I miss having my own game to play. I miss the joy of running through a rain shower, the relief of nailing a final 800m rep, the satisfaction of sore legs, the high of a breakthrough race, even the low of a disappointing finish.

I don't want to live vicariously. I just want to live. To get out there and run things down and over and away. 

But I won't be benched forever. I'll be back in the game eventually. In the meantime, I'm determined to enjoy this season on the sidelines, cheering for the people I love. (I'm also determined to be a bit less obnoxious and refrain from promoting violence against innocent 10 year old goalies.)

I told my son tonight, as I tucked his tired little legs into bed, that losing teaches us so much more than winning ever could. And I'd say the same thing about struggle and injury and disappointment. Of course I want to skip right to the overcoming part, to the victorious part, to the happy clappy celebration part. Who doesn't? But as skipping is forbidden (literally) while I have this stress fracture, I'm going to have to settle for the long slow plod through this land of injury and frustration. It's a path that will make me stronger and the eventual victories sweeter.

(It might also turn me into a total head case on the soccer sidelines, but let's just focus on the "make us stronger" part right now, mmkay?)

Win, lose, draw, DNS or DNF, I know what matters. And it has nothing to do with the score or the time or the record. What matters is heart and grit, perseverance and optimism, grace and gratitude. And I can do and be and cultivate every one of those things from the bench. When it comes to pursuing what actually matters, I have no restrictions, no limitations, no excuses, and every reason to go all in and all out on the sidelines.

To the me at mile 19

To the me at mile 19,

My guess is you're not going to be particularly happy and comfortable. Your bum hip is likely to hurt from from the start, and who knows, by mile 19, you might be hurting symmetrically. Maybe you'll have just barely swallowed the last gel, or maybe you'll be re-tasting the first two.

Either way, my speculation about you not being particularly happy and comfortable isn't really speculation at all. More like a foregone conclusion. No maybes involved.

But there are some things I want to say to you, things you'll need to remember, things you'll need to hear in your head as you crest heartbreak hill in mile 20.

So I'll say them now.

To get ready for this race, you ran for 2.5 hours in sub zero temps and 3 inches of snow.
You ran hills that stretched for a mile, plodded out countless mind-numbing miles on a treadmill, and ran nearly 80 laps (20 miles!) around a track.
You battled a hip injury, winced through many a workout, did your PT exercises until your glutes disowned you.
You ran whether you felt like it or not.
You endured pool running when your hip needed a break.
You struggled against age and injury and fatigue and you emerged.
Still injured,
still older,
still tired.
But ready.
READY TO RUN BOSTON.

You've got this.

You deserve to be here.
You fought to be here.
Now fight to the finish.
And I mean FIGHT.

You didn't get up at 5:30 am to run 80 laps around a track for grins and giggles.
You didn't don a dozen layers and brave an hour on the trail in -5 degree temps so you could fit into your skinny jeans.
You did all the hard stuff so you'd be ready for THESE minutes. All 210 (or more) of them.
So BE in each minute and STAY in each mile.
(Can you believe it? You're in mile 19 of BOSTON right now! How amazing is THAT? And ok, probably also painful. But mostly just amazing, right?)

I know you think you're a poser. (I have the distinct advantage of being in your head, so don't deny it.)
I know the sandbagging, crutch-wielding coward that lives within, the one you battle in every race, with every new goal. 
Yes, it's "just" a hobby.
Yes, you're "just" a mid-pack runner.
Yes, this is "just" a race, one you don't have to win to put food on the table.
But however silly you feel admitting it, I know how much it means to you.
You worked hard to get here, and now you're here.
It's okay if it feels like a big deal to you.
Because it IS a big deal.There's no "just"-ing the Boston Marathon. 

So finish this beast.

Open it up and unleash every last bit of what you have in that final 10k.
No saving, sandbagging, minimizing, hedging, or "just"-ing.
And definitely no stopping.

You've got this.
So go get it.

In my not quite blank journal {Just Write}

I haven't stopped writing because I've run out of things to say. It's the opposite, really. There's too much, a million layers of crystal white words, an avalanche gathering. If I begin, the words could bury me.

And there's no time, either. If I could scribble while I run, type while I drive, you'd be turning the pages of my book by now. But since that sort of multi-tasking is frowned upon, every page in my journal is clean. Well, except for the page where my daughter wrote.

She told me, "I like to use my imagination wildly," and then she invited me to her secret society. She wrote the invitation in my otherwise clean journal. It turns out her imaginary name is Hermione, and the society is all about freeing the house elves. Ok then, it's possible her imagination likes to borrow just a bit of wildness from Rowling's. As it turns out, the only words in my otherwise clean journal may be slightly plagiarized.

I'm glad she's supportive of freeing the house elves, particularly since whenever we play Harry Potter, I'm usually playing the part of Dobby while washing dishes or doing laundry. (This is the sort of multi-tasking I can actually pull off.) Sometimes I make her laugh by pretending to smash myself on the head with a pot. While my pretend-Hermione snorts with laughter, I shoot a look at her older brother (who sometimes interjects as Professor Snape when he wants to annoy us). My look says to him: See! I'm pretty funny! Not nearly as uncool as you make me out to be. Then I remember that I am playing the part of a house elf--doing it quite well in fact--and realize that perhaps I am exactly as uncool as he makes me out to be.


I can live with that. I can live with being uncool if it makes my daughter laugh. And I can live with almost-blank journals and dormant blogs and unwritten books. I can do it quite well, in fact.

How's your pain today?

Most of the stories that spin my head--the conflicts, the twists, the what-might-happen-nexts--they aren't mine to live or to tell. I'm a supporting character, sure. But most of what I do these days is stand beside the protagonist and say "I'm here in the absence of answers, through every if and when."

We breathe in, then out, then in again. On some days, it's the best we can do.

I try to inhale hope and exhale fear, but I usually screw up the timing just like I do in yoga. Wait, what, we're supposed to be inhaling up, exhaling down? Damn. It's a wonder my lungs fill up at all.

I am fragile, raw and vulnerable. So are you. And yet we're all so quick to disguise ourselves as resilient, unshakable, as fine, everything's fine, and you?...

When I'm at the store, the hospital, the gym, I look for the other pairs of tired eyes. I don't know their stories, but I know a smile from a stranger never makes anything worse. (Unless it's a creepy stranger and a creepy smile, but I'm careful not to be creepy.)

Anyway, my point is that we're all somewhere on the spectrum of pain, and in those moments when we're only a 1 or a 2 and life feels okay, we can maybe hold the hands or smile at the eyes of the 8 out of 10s. And when it's our turn to be a a 7, 8 or 9, maybe we can answer honestly when asked "how's your pain today?"

At the top

I keep thinking about last year, where we were in the day by day of moving from there to here. I remember eating sweet potato tots on a patio restaurant in South Dakota on the 3rd of July. I remember the sudden swoosh of a Montana road, the butterflies, the shock of color, cliffs and craned necks.

When we drove into Alaska for the very first time, I hadn't put a name to the face of the mountain that made me marvel, not even as we posed in front of it. Denali. McKinley.

I've seen it now a hundred times, maybe more. All it takes is a clear day, and there it is--white against blue--popping up in the second mile of my go-to running route.
Sometimes we take a day trip to get even closer, to skip rocks and peer across the river at 20,000 unfathomable feet.

When friends ask, I tell them we're happy here. We are. Though at times this Alaskan life feels like a caricature, like my husband bringing home salmon he pulled from a net in the Kenai is only playing to the stereotype. Now all that's left is to buy an RV and a husky named Nome. (I admit it--I do want a husky!)

But not interestingly enough, I still manage to be a cliched suburban soccer mom in the last frontier. My car is filthy from carpooling and cleats, and I am carting kids everywhere like my life depends on it. It doesn't. What would happen if I woke up and decided that we could skip soccer practice and medical release forms and gymnastics and school registration and all-women's road races and all the things that keep me driving and running to and fro?
Maybe we'd play a game of scrabble in the middle of the day or drink pink lemonade from the good china tea cups. Maybe we'd go camping, forget dinner and fill up on potato chips and s'mores. That wouldn't be the end of the world.
Maybe it'd be the start of it. 
(For the record, we did all that, and the only regret was not bringing more chips.)

My son loves to skateboard, and I think he's nuts. My daughter loves to play dolls and dress up in frills, and I don't get it, not even a little bit. I love to run so fast it hurts like bloody hell, and no one in the family--not even me--gets that either. But we're all here, doing our thing.

Sometimes, I drag them on a hike to the top of a mountain, and the whole way up is torture. She whines about her legs hurting. And he whines about slowing down for her. And I whine about how much they're whining. And then we get to the top.

And at the top, we get amnesia. We have no idea how our legs got so tired. There's no record of the bickering/whining/dragging of grumpy arses up an unrelenting switchback.
At the top, we use every one of our five senses to taste smell feel hear see the view.
At the top, the trees look so tiny, and is that the forest?
At the top, I shed my status as a stereotype and target demographic. I'm just a person, with my people. And we are all the best kind of alive, at the top.

{Just writing today with Heather.}

When the wallflower gives way to the fool

I grew up believing trees were meant for climbing, however high the branches could hold, that falling wasn't the worst fate, that great heights outweighed the gravity of broken bones.

I'm not sure what age it was when fear grew like a layer of bark, a ring in the trunk--the kind you'd see if you cut me down and measured the length of my years. But there was a time, not too far past 14, when fear of falling, failing, overcame the fear of missing out, the thrill of swaying with the wind in the tip-top branch.

I lived afraid for a good many years, not so much of scraped knees, but of laughter and pointed fingers, of foolishness, of judgment.

I'm not back to climbing trees, no, not by a long shot. But I've started running full tilt against the wind. When it's age I want to defy, I turn to the track instead of the spa. It does no favors for my skin, adding years only to my heart. At 40, I'll be the fastest I've ever been. Maybe that's not saying much. (I wasn't terribly fast at 14.) But it speaks volumes to the part of me that used to be afraid.

See? I just said "used to be", like I'm not living in fear of what anyone thinks, like I'm not afraid to give my whole heart to beat loudly into the day and be made the fool of dramatic proportions. Finally, finally, I'd rather be the fool than the wallflower.

I see it in the way I live. I see it in the way I parent. I see it in the way I've stopped caring so much about the what ifs in favor of asking the why nots. Maybe this is what it means to grow up. Not to give up the climb, but to let go of the fear that I might fall.

In Which Not Everything Was Ruined

On Mother's Day, I wanted two things.
1. To sleep in.
2. An entire day of happy hearts.

It was more like this:
1. Dog wakes me up at 6 am and doesn't leave me alone until I let her outside and feed her.
2. Back to bed.
3. Daughter wakes me up at 7 am. She falls back asleep (in my bed!). I do not.
4. Son gets up at 8 am, just as I am sneaking my way out of bed in search of coffee (trapped between daughter, dog, and the husband who is still on the night shift schedule).
5. Son bursts into tears because the surprise he had planned is forever ruined by my presence. Son goes back into room to sulk.
6. I get my own coffee.
7. Daughter comes downstairs, cranky as heck, asks for a bagel. Not nicely.
8. Son comes downstairs, still sulking, tells sister she ruined the surprise by waking me up too early. And also, you're not supposed to demand breakfast on Mother's Day. At least not from Mom.
9. Daughter bursts into tears, highly offended by the accusation that she has ruined mom's special day.
10. Fighting, crying, and everything is apparently ruined.


But not everything was ruined. Not even close. Not even when you count the hour long nail polish mishap and dishonesty-induced drama with the girl that followed shortly afterward. Or that we missed church entirely. Or that the husband barely got any sleep before the 10 hour shift he was about to begin.

Not everything was ruined. For starters, my coffee was perfect. (If you want something done right....)
And the boy finally pulled off his surprise--at lunchtime, but still. The salad he made me was delicious. And no one yelled or screamed or demanded at lunch. So there was that.

But here's what I was thinking this afternoon as I held my daughter, pressing my nose into the strands of her hair, smelling the tears she'd collected on her cheeks. I was thinking that it's always going to be messy, and not just because the nail polish spills. I was thinking that there's never a day where you take a break from all the hard stuff, the misfiring of good intentions, the blocked goals, the cranky moods, the harsh words and rolled eyes, the disappointment. Sure, sometimes you get a day where it's a little less of that and little more of the sweet cards and surprise lunches. But usually, I mean almost always, it's really hard work to stay above the fray and to keep the kindness in your voice.

At one of our favorite Maine beaches, many moons and mother's days ago

If motherhood has taught me anything, it is this:
If there are people in your life that you love so much--so much that you'd rather be sleep-deprived and chronically frustrated and sometimes hurt and often annoyed and frequently worried and growing gray hairs at an alarming clip--if you'd rather deal with all that mess than to live without them, well, then you're a very lucky girl.

And I am. So very lucky.

Not everything was ruined. Not even close.

Gingerly

The (redheaded) wicked stepsister

I grew up back in the day when all the princesses were blond or brunette, when gingers were cast only as villains, wicked-stepsisters or--if they were lucky--orphans. It wasn't easy being a redhead in a pre-Ariel, pre-Merida world.

As a kid, I wished a million times to trade my red hair and blue eyes--the rarest color combo on the planet--for something a bit less flashy. A muted brown sounded dreamy. And don't even get me started on the freckles. I despised them, along with all the names I was called. I never personally smashed a tablet over Gilbert Bly's head, but I sure as heck understood why Anne would do it. (A temper to match her fiery hair, Rachel Lind might speculate.)

One of the things they say about gingers is that we're more sensitive to thermal pain--the extremes of hot and cold. We also require extra anesthesia (and I have a wisdom teeth removal story that will support this finding). I thought about the thermal pain theory this morning as I dunked my leg in an ice bath. I wondered if it feels like a trip to frozen hell for everyone, or if that's just another one of my redheaded privileges.

I'm icing and cutting back on my mileage and training intensity thanks to some newly flared tibial tendonitis. Tibial Tendonitis is a fancy phrase for "my ankle hurts like non-frozen hell". It also might be the name of an ancient Greek antagonist who is purported to have kicked the very first marathon runner in the shins at mile 22.

Anyway, I've been slowing down my runs, holding back, avoiding the pavement pounding, taking it "gingerly". I'm paying attention to the pain. This isn't my favorite. It's easier to swallow some motrin and go full speed ahead. Being careful messes with my head. I toggle between two screens of worry--one with me on crutches and the other with my hard-earned fitness slipping like sand through an hour glass. Do you know how hard it is to turn that hour glass over, to start from scratch? Definitely not the hardest thing ever, but pretty close to the definition of discouraging.

So I'm back to talking to myself, asking the no-right-answer questions. How hard do I push? When do I lay off, take a break, and for how long? I really have no freaking clue.

The other thing they say about redheads is that we have a reputation for being strong and determined, at least that's how it was back in the day of the Roman empire, nearer to the time when Tibial Tendonitis was going around acting like a chump, picking on poor innocent distance runners. I think it's pretty true, the determined thing. If you were going to be a jerkface about it, you might say we aren't so much strong and determined as we are ridiculously stubborn. And you would be correct. Mean. But correct.

At church this morning, there were four red-heads in a choir of maybe sixteen. All four were girls, none older than 17, and I wanted to hold up a sign--a secret sign that only redheads could see--to tell them that they are fabulous. And that Gilbert Bly can be an idiot sometimes, but he didn't mean it to be rude. And that red hair is a good thing, albeit awkwardly disguised, and that it's okay if sometimes the cold and the heat hurt a bit more, if it takes extra doses to dull the pain.

Because we can handle the pain even when it's sharp. And we can keep going, doggedly, stubbornly, even when we have to go gingerly.

In which the trying is the sweet spot

Call it denial. Call it optimism. It's probably both. But there's a place where, given enough sunlight, 37 seems warm and 39 feels young.

There's a sweet spot in every sport, at least that's the theory. In golf, you know it when you hear it, club to ball. It sounds like a hole-in-one. And in baseball, you know it when you see it, or maybe when you don't--because it's already out of the park. As for the sweet spot in road racing--the sport I'm supposed to know the most about-- I'm not totally sure. I'd guess it would be the finish line. Well, unless you puke in the chute. In that case, it's more of a delayed sweet spot, like later that afternoon when you're polishing off a cheeseburger and relishing in proving yourself to be faster and stronger than you were the day before, the year before, maybe than ever.

The thing about sweet spots is that they aren't very big, very often, or very easy to come by.  You have to work so hard to find them, and when you finally do, they're fleeting. You can't put them in a mason jar, poke some holes in the lid and hope they'll last until August.

This week I found myself in a contented striving, the sort of place where you're delighted just for the privilege to try. I ran on bare pavement in 37 degrees on 39 year old legs underneath the highest sun I've seen in months, and for maybe a quarter of a mile I felt strong. Top of the mountain strong. Bow of the ship, I'm flying, king of the world strong. Look me in the eye and tell me I can't, I dare you strong. Of course it didn't last. Of course. But those sweet spots--damn if they don't keep you going through the next one hundred shanked shots. (I'm back to golf again, if you haven't noticed).

I have a friend who's running a marathon tomorrow, and I keep thinking about her, hoping that tomorrow's her day, the day of the BQ. She's the bravest sort of lady, the kind who ignores all the really good excuses and only pays attention to the lofty goal, the kind who lets her heart publicly break in the almost-but-not-quite achievement of a huge PR and a barely-missed-Boston. The kind who duct tapes her heart back together and trains through the polar vortex and goes RIGHT BACK OUT THERE.

The sweet spot isn't always (necessarily) at the top. Sometimes it's in the climb and the burn.

You guys. This is how we stay young, and this is how we stay warm, and this is how we stay alive. We keep striving. We keep hunting the sweet spot. We tell the melancholy and the disappointment and the negativity to suck it. We chase the maybe-just-maybes and the almost-but-not-quites. And in the chase, we get warmer and stronger. We get faster, braver. And who knows if we'll ever catch whatever it is we're after. But we're sure as heck gonna bask in the privilege to try. And sometimes? The trying is the sweet spot.

In which glacial is the new epic {Just Write}

Environmental whiplash. No seriously, it's a thing. I had a severe case of it this weekend when I launched straight from a bouncy house birthday party to a glacier hike. One minute I'm surrounded by screaming banshees and smelly socks and headache-inducing inflatables. An hour later, I'm hiking a frozen lake en route to a glacier. Which, come to think of it, is the cure for just about everything, including environmental whiplash.

::

At first, she envied the toddler in the sled with the skate skiing dad. Then, the musher and his huskies. For the whole of two miles, she trudged, springless steps toward this wonder I'd promised at the halfway point. I was talking about the glacier, but she was thinking about the candy. And really, who cares what the carrot looks like as long as she kept walking?

The boys pressed forward faster, leaving us to linger in the long mountain shadow. I listened to her whine of a cold face and a bruised knee, neither of which are remote factors when she wants to ski just one more run. Hiking is all plod and no whoosh, or so she thinks.

I asked her to sing to pass the time, to leave less air space for the complain-plane. She sang her Alaska songs (Fur Rondezvous and Huskies), and corrected me after I messed up the refrain (you say mush TWO times, not THREE, silly mama). The sun found us again, and together we turned a corner in every sense.

There it was. We walked right up to the glacier and said hello. We pulled out the snacks and the camera and our sense of wonder. Perhaps they were tired of my remarks about how incredibly amazing it was to travel this hour in this place, but they didn't disagree. The girl perked up, in fact, started dancing on the ice, pointing out heart shapes, embracing the label I tried giving her earlier when pleading for a faster gait--my "tough Alaskan girl".

::

I could maybe name a few moments in the whole of two hours where there wasn't at least a hint of discomfort. Fingers too cold, bladders too full, stomachs too empty, legs too tired.

But the discomfort is never what we remember. We latch on instead to the handful of minutes when the sun highlighted our hair and the glacier towered above and the icebergs became seats and the four of us were together in this surreal, desolate, wild corner of the world. 

 

I am a day early in this "just write" deal, or six days late is probably more like it. But I think Heather will forgive me just this once.

Mahalo, etc.

I never know where to start, usually because I should've started years ago. Do you pretend the years never were and start fresh? Do you go back and wax chronological?

The kids are weaponizing their stuffed animals. There's an invention room and a testing room. They skip room to room. An F-18 bomber has been fashioned from a soccer pillow. It's raining in Hawaii, and we don't care. (Jimmy cracked corn as well. Still don't care.) They say mahalo for the best. vacation. ever. I say mahalo for having eyes that sparkle like everything is wild and new. Their pupils widen, pulses quicken like it's the easiest, most natural way to live. This is the glory of youth.

I live vicariously. I didn't know it wouldn't last forever. I should've, I mean, is anything more obvious? But I didn't. I was in such a hurry to be a responsible adult. Too bad. I would've liked to stay wide-eyed and wild beyond the age of 13. But, I'm still obsessed with whether there will be dessert, so, at least I have that in common with the children.

::

C brought home a school packet yesterday. He'd written, "An example of someone who shows the habit of amazement and wonder is my mom, because she loves nature and when we came to Alaska, she was amazed." He drew a picture of me with bulbous eyes and weird hair. It's not terribly flattering. But I'm not sure I can think of a compliment that would have made me happier. There was another worksheet about persistence. I was the example in that one too. He said it was because I run marathons. I'm glad there weren't any worksheets asking for examples of people who are impatient or yellers. I'm glad it was just about wonder and persistence.

::

We came home to sunshine. This is breakup season in Alaska. The ice begins to break, to melt, to disappear. The sun stays up later and later, until it is higher in the sky at 6 pm than it ever was for the whole of January. It's easier to be happy on the days when the sun lingers above the mountains until after dinner. It's easier to love where I live when we can go night skiing in the sunshine.

::

I never know where to start, but I can usually figure out an ending. Usually. Not today. Today, I'm content just to ramble and to elude to a vacation during which I was so sick I couldn't go 30 seconds without a tissue, a vacation in which rain didn't daunt us even in the slightest, mostly because it wasn't the freezing sort. The truth is today I don't care in the least bit about an ending. I'm happy to have finally just begun.

The Closest I Get To Miracles

I want to believe I can walk on water, but skating on thin ice (without falling in) is typically the closest I get to miracles.

It's been two weeks since my husband drove me to the airport in freezing rain and on ice rink roads. I breathed deep breaths and gulped down water and talked very good sense to myself, but my pounding pulse could not be tricked into slowing down.

There was something wildly unsettling about leaving my most precious people to fend for themselves in icy weather, to miss seeing their first ski meet, to risk that a long weekend with "just Dad" could turn into an entire childhood of the same.

I know that sounds melodramatic (and it totally is), but I'm not so naive as to think life carries always and perfectly on. And I was about to spend a good deal of time on the LA freeways, so the worrying was at least partially warranted.

But there was something triumphant about leaning into the anxiety, looking fear in the face, going out of my way to meet risk and discomfort  

I know. I must be a real piece of work to call myself courageous for leaving my family in Alaska to enjoy a girls weekend and run a marathon in California. I fly on a plane to flip-flop weather, and somehow this translates to me being brave?

But it does. In my pitiful, privileged way, it does. This is my vulnerability--that I love three people to the depths, the source of my wildest joy and most wrenching fear.

Tonight we scarfed pizza and devoured books. They're still reading as I type. The sun dipped behind the mountain, and we sat underneath the same roof while the moon rose. This is lovely and safe and comfortable and I could go on like this forever.

Except I couldn't. And neither could they. At least not without a heavy dose of antidepressants. That's why I left them for a weekend. That's why I set a goal I wasn't sure I could reach. That's why I took a risk.

Because this is what you do when you want a story to tell. You get off the couch and you go somewhere besides the carpool line or the cubicle. You stop picking stupid fights about where to store winter gear and start asking the hard questions, listening to the uncomfortable answers. You invest without guaranteed return. You give your whole heart to beat loudly into the day; and you don't damper-pedal dreams, yours or theirs.

I want to believe I can walk on water. Don't we all? And of course, we can't.

But you know what we can do? We can take a risk.

Sure, we could slip or sink, get soaked, start shivering. But we also might swim it, surf it, skate it, scale it. Water walking doesn't have a monopoly on the miracle market. It's not the only way to cross.

Most of the time, I think, the miracle just slips quietly into the back row while we're telling our stories--the stories of how we came up with the courage to cross, how we made it to the other side.

In the plod after plod {Just Write}

Sometimes the hours are rote, a plod after plod through daily dirt. Sometimes the miles are long, like manning the doily booth at the flea market. No one stops to examine the lace or ask for a price. And it's one thing when life is lonely, but when it's both tedious and lonely, all you can think is maybe you should give up on selling doilies. Or running 20 miles on the treadmill.

But even the rote hours deliver the surging moments. Ideas surface, endorphins rise, strides lengthen. (And doilies sell. Just maybe?) Somewhere in the plod after plod, you begin to feel strong where you once felt lame. Somewhere in these everyday hours, the dull staleness morphs into a brilliant stillness. And you cling to it like desert icicles. Who cares that it always melts away? It's magic while it lasts.

Every now and then in the plod after plod, the legs stop feeling like bricks. You look down to see a rushing ground. You sprint. You smile. You wonder--is this how it feels to float? The drudgery may be back tomorrow or maybe by mile seven, but for now, you are no longer lonely. You are no longer bored. You are as alive in your own life as a person gets to be. 

 

And this. This is why you keep running. Or selling doilies. Or mothering. Or doing whatever it is in life that you do. 

 

Because in every faceless desolate 

step-after-step minute, 

there is a chance to find a desert icicle, 

to be surprised by speed or 

astonished by stillness, 

and to feel 

so very much alive.

::

I have no idea where the doilies reference came from. The running, yes, because it's the only darn thing I seem to do these days. But doilies. Really? I have to blame the doilies on Heather, since she's the one who started this whole Just Write nonsense. (And I love her for it.)

Just Wait Until Winter

What winter looks like along the Turnagain Arm. Gorgeous, yes?

The rumors are true. I've been neglecting my family to spend a scandalous amount of time with Newman.

Calm down. Newman is just a treadmill. And it isn't really neglect if you feed the kids eventually, right? A few mornings ago, I stumbled my way into running shorts at 6:00 to run 20 miles with Newman. The night before I gave the kids strict instructions: 1) sleep in like you've never slept in before, and 2) get your own breakfast. 

And you know what? It worked. When I came upstairs a bit before 9:00, two puffy-eyed bed-headed children looked up from their cereal bowls and cartoons to say good morning. Well, it wasn't so much good morning as it was, can we watch another show before you make us do responsibilities. Translated: We wish you'd run a bit longer, Mom. 

So anyway, we are all surviving my winter marathon training. The timing isn't my favorite--with mileage peaking at the most wonderful (coldest, busiest) time of the year, while the kids are on break from school and my time to run is limited by our need to sled, ski, skate and have All The Fun. But all this winter training will be worth it, if not merely for the accomplishment of 26.2, then for the fact that I get to attempt a BQ wearing shorts.

::

I've been doing all my best writing with Newman too. Which is unfortunate, since neither of us can take notes, and my memory is only slightly more advanced than his. (He can calculate pace and calories like a math whiz, but his creative writing skills need some work.) You'd be amazed at the deep thoughts that are dredged up during 160 minutes of running, once I get beyond the usual cursing and self-loathing.

::

When we first moved to Alaska, many people warned me to "just wait until winter!" in response to my gushing about how much we loved it here.

Well, I waited.

And I still love it.

Where else can you go snow tubing at the break of dawn? Where else can you watch a bowl game before the sun comes up? (I know, I know, the break of dawn isn't until 10 o'clock, but still....).

We celebrated winter solstice by spending every second of daylight outside skiing. You can fill up on just five hours of daylight. You really can.

Last week, I referred to 20 degree temps as "warming up" and took the kids to a sledding hill with more vertical drop than our old Ohio ski slope.

Our sledding "hill"

This week, I glimpsed Denali on the way to the library. 

Last night I cooked the salmon our neighbors gave us for Christmas (the fish they pulled straight from a net in the Kenai).

This morning I laced up my spiked trainers and ran 16 miles on a trail of packed snow.

And this afternoon was spent skating and playing pick-up hockey with friends on an outdoor ice rink at a neighborhood school.

 

So yes, just wait until winter. Because after just one gorgeous and snowy and cold Alaskan winter, you might never want to leave.

On the swell and the crash {Just Write}

There's grass weaving a pattern through the pavement. And there's wind carrying a scented cocktail of sea and blossoms. And there's me, running with mountains to my left, waves to my right, looking but not seeing. I left sub zero temps to escape to this paradise with my husband, and I have no business being anything less than euphoric as I run without hat and gloves for the first time in months.

But I'm not anything close to euphoric. At best, I'm content. At worst, I'm disappointed. And somewhere in the middle, I'm trying to talk myself into gratitude, willing myself to stay in the moment, loathing the way I can't seem to outrun the anxiety.

I want to believe that I'm easily pleased, that I'm mostly a happy person. But there are moments adding up to hours and days and even weeks when I'm close enough to the edge to lose my footing, when the sturdy trail narrows into inches, when I'm one footfall away from a faceplant.

I don't want you to see the ugliness. I don't want you to know how irritated I was with the rooster that kept waking me up at 3 am, or with the coffee maker that didn't have any filters, or with myself for leaving the camera charging cord at home, or with the way our plans were foiled by a road closure. Because for real. I'm in freaking Hawaii celebrating my wedding anniversary with my awesome husband. It's negative eleven degrees at home where my awesome children are being wonderfully cared for by my awesome parents. How the hell can I feel so crabby and disappointed with all that awesome floating around? What is WRONG with me?

Don't answer that.

Here's the thing. I know what's wrong. Imagine the ocean, the swell of the waves, the way they rise and fall. Imagine a mountain, the highest peak, the way it juts like the tip of a triangle into the horizon. I want to perch on that tip, that narrow, steep, impossible top. I want to float on that swell, that fleeting, porous, impossible top. But that's not how it works. How it works is that you crash into the sand. How it works is that you tumble down the mountain. (Jack and Jill will vouch for me on this). How it works is that the highs are never quite as high as we hope they'll be. And the lows are far too frequent.

I don't know what the answer is. Gratitude is a big part of it, I'm sure of that. Meditation and prayer. Hugging the awesome people in your life. Smiling more. Visualizing anxiety in the form of a person and then punching it in the face. These are all good ideas, but really, what do I know? I'm not the answer lady, not on this one.

But here's what I do know. It helps to know that we aren't alone. It helps to know that even people with picture perfect lives (guilty!) feel totally effed up at times. It helps to know that these valleys, these crashes, these crumbly-earthed trails, these are the rule, not the exception. No one gets to linger on that impossible top of the mountain. No one gets to float endlessly on the swells. I'm telling you this because I don't want to feel like something's wrong with me, and I don't want you to feel like something's wrong with you. If we must live mostly in the valley or in the climb or in the fall, let's at least give each other good, honest company along the way. Yes?


And speaking of good company, I'm just writing today, with Heather.

Hashtag Amazing

Different day, different place, same #amazing moon

I tried to take a picture of the moon as it rose above the mountains from my highly artistic perch in the grocery store parking lot. I wanted to show you. I wanted to say to the lady rifling through the too-yellow bananas in search of the green--I wanted to ask, "Did you see that moon? Isn't it amazing tonight?"

I wanted to post it on Instagram so all of us, all of us shopping for groceries under the same ridiculously bright moon, could agree on the beauty. So you could click the clear little heart for "like" while fiddling with your phone in the express line. All you needed were bananas and milk. So this picture of an amazing moon, well, that would be a bonus.

I live in a place that routinely takes my breath away, be it because it's zero degrees or because I caught a glimpse of Denali under the pink spell of a winter sunset. A mountain hundreds of miles away, and I can see it as I drive home from getting the eggs and returning the library books. How is this even for real? I think. And on I go, driving through postcards. Even if I could take a picture while driving, the picture wouldn't do it justice. Not to the moon, not to the mountain, not to the moment.

But beauty shared, eyes ahead, shoulders beside, is so much richer than a glimpse alone. There's something deep within my DNA, even as an introvert, that cannot see a beautiful thing without calling out to you to come see it too.

When we drove 4600 miles from Ohio to Alaska, we divided our lives and livestock into two cars. (I drove the children, and L got the dog. I'll let you decide who had the better end of that bargain.) We used two-way radios to communicate. We thought we'd just use them to decide on pit stops and clarify directions. But we could barely go 15 minutes without calling out. Did you see that? Gorgeous! Look to your right! Amazing!

By day four, we had a running road trip joke. Whenever we saw something beautiful, we'd ring to the other car and say in our best valley girl voices, "Hashtag aah-MAZE-ing!" It became a thing. The kids chimed in with their adorable little voices and a hundred times a day we were shaking our heads, saying can you believe this? Hashtag AMAZING.

The human condition is this: We need to see the beautiful things to keep from giving up, and we need to see them while standing next to each other, eyes lifted, not staring down at screens. So grab someone near. Tell them to look at the moon or the sunset or an open field or a two hundred year old building or whatever beautiful thing it is that you see with your own eyes. And I promise you, it will be doubly amazing without the hashtag.

In which I procrastinate on house stuff by signing up for a marathon

I should be hanging pictures right now. I should be making dinner. I started in on this project to finally hang my hallway pictures and then I got distracted by the urge to sign up for a marathon.

I've had the urge for about a year, maybe more, but I successfully ignored it (much like the hallway picture hanging chore), citing lack of time, the inability to commit, the impending transition to a then unknown destination.

But the transition is complete (all moved in, except for the hallway pictures). And I finally have the time to train. And I'm tired of waiting. I want to get this 26.2 mile long monkey off my back. For the record, 26.2 miles makes for a really heavy monkey, you guys.

And if I'm going to torture myself for three and a half hours, I should probably choose somewhere cushy to do it, somewhere not 5 degrees and snowing, somewhere that isn't dark all but 6 hours of the day. California, perhaps? In January, you say?

Sign. Me. Up.

So here's the plan. I'll bribe the family to come along with promises of Legoland and Sea World. Whenever they whine about how I forgot to feed them because I was busy running the whole damn day and then fell asleep on the foam roller, I will pleasantly remind them that if they ever want to see their precious Legoland, they will be nice to mommy at ALL times. (Insert Dr. Evil-esque selfie
pose.)

I will do this. (Run a marathon, Silly--not hang the pictures! Hanging the pictures requires way too much follow through.) I've been training for several weeks already, so I'll just keep going, knowing that's it's for real now.

If I lay all the hallway pics in the middle of the hallway, maybe it will force me to finally hang them up? #Don'tholdyourbreath #Justwatchyourstep

If you want to follow my training, I'll be chugging away on DailyMile. If you want to see how nice my hallway looks when after all the pictures are hung up, check back with me in February.

It's Monday, so of course {Just Write}

It's Monday, so of course. I start the morning by picking a fight with my husband about where to store the winter gear. It's the first fight we've had in months, and I'm listening to myself yelling about where to put the hats and gloves and shoes. I am excessively angry about mittens, and we are supposed to celebrate my husband's birthday today. Happy birthday to you, your wife is a shrew....

I'm walking back from the bus stop when my neighbor reminds me about the girl scout meeting at 5:15. Crap. Thought I'd have all the time in the world to make the birthday dinner, but apparently, not so much.

I hurriedly slice up the eggplant while my daughter asks me how to spell "have" and "does" and "what" and "fireweed". The timer beeps, and I grab the pot holder and run to the oven.

"It's a compound word. So first you spell fire, f-i-r-e, and then weed, w-e-e-d." I turn the bundt pan upside down, and out falls the birthday cake. And by fall, I mean fall apart. I try not to do the same.

My husband comes inside.
"The fence guy is finished...he just needs a check."
"Great. Ok. Can you take care of it? I'm busy ruining your birthday dinner."

I go back to the eggplant parmesan and the failed no-fail cake, tempted to spell another four letter word....s-h-i-...

"Jo, you told him we didn't need the back section done?"
My husband is back, and this is a question. A good one.

"No, he did the estimate before the neighbors put in the back fence, but I thought he was going to finish the part that theirs didn't cover. Oh my word, he didn't do the back?!"

We both race out the mudroom door to wave down the lumber-laden fence truck. On my way out, the door slams into my son's cheek as he is trying to get in. I return to find him in tears. Oh, buddy, I'm so sorry. Crap--is that another timer going off? What the hell did I set that timer for?

It's 5:15. Time for the meeting I forgot about. I take deep breath after deep breath on the walk to girl scouts. I tell myself that the intensity of my angst and frustration is in no way warranted by the circumstances. Nothing on my list of woes is a big deal. Not the stinky blue cheese spilled  all over the bread cutting board, not the useless 85% complete fence (that might not be rendered useful until next spring!), not the likely-mildewing laundry that I forgot to put in the dryer, not the ruined cake.

A few minutes into girl scouts, I listen to six of the cutest little first graders spontaneously break out into a chorus of "Down by the Bay." I take another deep breath, inhale the blessing of a healthy, happy (at least at the moment) child.

(I feel like I should leave out the part where I return to finish the dinner, mess up even more stuff, run out of pans in the drawers because they are all in the sink. And the part where my healthy, happy daughter throws such an egregious fit that she has to go to her room in the middle of dinner--screaming loud enough to make our ears bleed. Oh and the part where my husband's plate gets cold while he addresses the behavior with my daughter, the part where....)

Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes, I believe I was inhaling blessings or some other inspirational crap like that. But for real. If this is what my worst day looks like, then I can't conjure up one legit reason to complain. (Except maybe about the mittens. Those wet, stray, disorganized mittens really piss me off sometimes.)

::

I know I said it was Monday, but it's actually Tuesday. And on Tuesdays, we just write (in this case, about Mondays).

my monday moment of zen (borrowed from a view on a friday run)

In cloudy and in clear

When the notification popped up about the aurora borealis, I was peeling apples in the kitchen and the kids were racing scooters under a cloudless sky. It said to "expect a show come nightfall", that the northern light activity would be as high as it gets, that tonight was the night.

At dinner, as we discussed school bus seat assignments and the government shutdown and reading log prizes, my mind wandered hours ahead to how I'd catch the lights on my camera. As I scooped the potatoes onto plates and said yes to thirds on applesauce, I pictured what an epic Instagram the aurora borealis would make. Northern lights! With my own eyes! How lucky am I?

The clouds rolled in while I was washing the dishes, scrubbing the cinnamon sugar from the bottom of the applesauce pan. A half hour later, the sky reportedly lit up with green and pink. But I didn't see a speck of it.

I'm sitting now at the desk, typing, and the clouds have only grown thicker. This is the verge, the cusp, the almost but not quite. There's a metaphor here screaming to be crafted into a moving and inspirational essay about perspective. If someone could write it up all nice and pretty and goose-bump inducingly, and then send me the link on Facebook, that would be great. Until then, I'll just be here pouting about the clouds.

::

It was dangerously gorgeous on the way home from school today. And by dangerous, I mean, so pretty that I might possibly pay too much attention to the mountains and not enough to the driving. I want to capture it somehow, but I'm too tired to come up with words that do justice to the extraordinary beauty perched on either side of the road that loops between the ordinary places, from school to home, up the hill from the river valley.

It feels surreal to be in this vast and beautiful place, just driving my same old car, coming back home to my same old burgundy chair, the one I sat on in Virginia and Maine and Ohio and now, here in the last frontier.

See, this is why I can forgive Alaska for snowing on the first day of fall

There's a stage of moving when everything feels familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, when routine takes a solid four-walled shape within adventure's high-peaked circus tent, when life feels simultaneously risky and safe, when skin prickled hope mixes with bone deep contentment. I'm in that stage. We'll call it the honeymoon stage. It's also the can't-go-to-bed-angry stage, even when my beloved state promises lights and delivers clouds.

So good night, Alaska. I love you, for warmer, for colder, in cloudy and in clear.