Adventure tends to make a mess of things (Just Write)

My daughter is screaming "HOM-BRE!!!" at the computer. Over and over. Apparently Rosetta doesn't recognize her angry voice pronunciation. I tried to help, but I got the "be gone/ away with you, Mom!" snarl face. (How you say it?....muy enfadado?)

My son is watching the Kansas City V. Cleveland game.  I'll let you in on a little secret, Son. The Indians are always gonna lose to the Chiefs. That's just how it is. Also? Being a Cleveland sports fan of any kind is really only good for building character, learning how to deal with disappointment, that sort of thing. If you were hoping for the euphoria that accompanies a team you love actually winning, well....we might need to move back to New England for that.

Carnie high fives

Today I did things like (a) calling the new electric company and (b) donating the toddler-aged toys that I bribed my kids to get rid of by promising I'd take them to the seventh circle of hell also know as the local carnival, and (c) using the very last of the frozen chicken. I also bought (and consumed) some Denali Moose Tracks ice cream. It's all in the name of getting into the spirit of Alaska, folks.

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It feels like a hundred years ago now, but I ran a half marathon last month at a faster pace than I used to be able to run 800 meters. I reached mile 7 and then pretty much fought the urge to cry and/or heave the rest of the way. I took a solid five minutes to zombie-walk through the finishing area before reuniting myself with the good (and wicked fast) friend who had paced me. She pushed me to finish 13.1 miles at a 7:32 pace, and smiled the whole damn way.  And for the record, it's possible to want to punch and hug someone at the same time. (There are a handful of things I'm going to miss about Ohio, and she's one of them. )

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I haven't written here for a very long time. Perhaps you noticed? We are a week and days away from moving far, far away. So whenever my praying friends ask what it is I need, I tell them: patience and presence.

I stacked the past few weeks full with road trips and visits with loved ones, a graduation ceremony, a wedding, one-last time play dates and runs, the boy's last soccer game, the girl's last gymnastics practice, so many lasts as we make our way back to a new round of firsts.  I'm overdosing on bittersweet.

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I read a poem this morning by May Swenson that begins with these lines:

Distance
and a certain light
makes anything artistic—
it doesn't matter what.

I take that to mean a lot of things, but mostly it means that the disaster zone also known as my house might look like a gorgeous sheet of marble if you saw it from an airplane.  Adventure tends to make a mess of things, but in the most alluring ways.

So the next time I feel my resolve snapping under the weight of the moving chaos, I'll just take a step back, wait for a certain light to be cast. And if that doesn't work, perhaps someone has a hot air balloon I can borrow for a few hours.

Let's categorize this catching-up, rambling post as a chance to Just Write with my friend Heather (who knows exactly how it feels to move far, far away, and writes brilliantly about it.)

I will not waste them (Just Write)

I stare at the screen, a map of two countries and 4000 miles, trying to dissect it into drivable days. I open a new file, type "Itinerary." Then back to the screen with the map. The irony isn't lost on me--this getting nowhere in my attempt to plan a cross country trip.

When you first hear the news about a big move, that's when your heart pounds and you feel like you could skip a mile down the street and back. But soon all the talk of grand adventure turns into obsessively hitting refresh on Zillow while the kids log too many episodes of Scooby Doo. (You know it's bad when they protest your turning off the tube by calling you "that meddling mommy.")

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I typed those sentences weeks ago (or was it days?). I told myself I needed to write through the numbness, write until I felt alive with something other than anxiety. The running helps, and the praying helps; and the not forgetting to say thanks, that helps too. But I still chew through these hours too fast to savor them. The tasks and the details, I gulp them down indelicately, almost angrily. I'm a girl on a mission, googling now at top speed; and at night, I fall asleep before I have a chance to rest.

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I didn't feel like running this morning. I ran anyway. The same old route, the easy seven.
I didn't feel like eating this morning, either. I ate anyway. The same old bagel with peanut butter.
I can't believe I'm going to admit this, but I don't really want these last few months. I've lived something like them before, back when we were getting ready to move from Maine to Ohio. And these almost-but-not-yet months broke my heart. But I will live them anyway. I refuse to use the fast forward button, to shut my eyes or hold my breath. That's just not okay.

These stressful months leading up to Big Change, they matter as much as the months after, maybe even more. They are moments in my short life, moments in which I can model for my children how to be present, how to be grateful, how to be resilient. They are opportunities to smile and to hug and to cry and to be alive with wonder, to be alive with courage, to be alive with grace.

I will not waste them.

A nearly 4 year old picture--my proof that the days are as precious as they are fleeting

Countdown {Just Write}

"Hey mom, look at this picture I drew. It's of you competing in Whisker Wars," he snickers. The facial hair jokes never get old to the eight year old. I hem and haw and protest in that over dramatic way that shows I think he's as silly and exasperating as he is adored and treasured.

She races down the stairs, breathless in her quest to tell her brother about an exciting connection. "You won't believe it, C. Did you know, did you know that Wose (Rose Wilder) had, had mah-nonia (pneumonia) just like YOU?"

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I pick up one of my daughter's friends after kindergarten. She hops in the back, and they're barely buckled in before the stories begin.  My brother this and my sister that. It's a holy, precious moment, far beyond the figurines, as I listen to their tiny R-less voices practicing the art of conversation, trading facts about where they were born and what they like to eat for lunch. "Well, my brother had Mrs. L. for third grade, but for fourth grade, he's going to have a teacher at our school in Alaska!"

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We sit eating cilantro-infested bean burritos, and the girl announces there are nine days left of school. "You mean nine weeks?" I ask. "Yes! That's what I said. Nine weeks!"

It's hard to believe. Only nine weeks. And today, an email came saying something to the effect of "90 more days until your move." I'm never ready for the countdown to begin. I feel like I'm always on eight when everyone else is saying five. Four. Three. Two....

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I'm in a hurry, but I linger in the aisles long enough to look at the expiration dates on the bagels, the milk, the sour cream. It needs to be fresh. It needs to last. I think back to when I was pregnant and I started to see expiration dates that were after my due date. I used to think about whether I would have a baby before we finished the last of the yogurt. Now I see the expiration dates and I think about packing. And goodbyes. And how my babies are 8 and 6 years old, born so many milk cartons ago. And how I'm never, ever ready for the countdown to begin.

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Just writing today with my fave free-writer, the lovely Heather of the EO.

In which I return to my happy pace

My neighbors must think I'm nuts. (They're right.) When most normal folk are putting an extra leaf in the table, recruiting chairs from every room to seat all the Easter guests and heaping ham and scalloped potatoes onto their plates, I left my kids inside with PB&Js and Mario Cart so I could run up and down the quarter mile long street. Back and forth for nearly an hour, hobbling along in my turquoise shorts, trying (and failing) not to sing audibly to The Fighter.

Give me scars. Give me pain. Then they'll say to me, say to me, say to me, there goes the fighter. (Insert triumphant visual of me crossing the marathon finish line sub-3:30, somehow still energetic and exuberant enough to jump and leap toward the crowd of adoring hometown fans. Hometown still TBD).


Or in my case, there goes the fighter crazy lady with the running form of an overgrown mid-tantrum toddler.

I chose to cut way back on the miles these past two weeks to nurse an IT band flare up. It was a perfect storm for going batshit crazy. No running. Family "vacation". Lots of driving. Lots of standing around at a overcrowded germ-infested playground disguised as a science center. Lots of listening to Born to Run on audiobook, all the while NOT running. Did I mention the part about not running?

I'm happy to say I survived the endorphin withdrawal without figuratively beheading any member of my dear family. And I really enjoyed Born to Run. It was entertaining, inspiring and thought-provoking. The book left me thinking a great deal about the joy found in running. So much so that I decided to incorporate smiling into my overgrown mid-tantrum toddler running form. Which brings me back to the reason my neighbors might have concluded I'm certifiable.

In other news, I played a super fun April Fool's joke on myself. I told myself since I had to scrap plans to race a half marathon next week (due to low mileage, a cranky quad/knee/hip, and a family vacation), I should just run a marathon in 8 weeks. Why the heck not, right? How hard can it be to squeeze in 16 weeks of training in half the time, while starting with a baseline of a not-quite-resolved overuse issue and two weeks of the lowest mileage I've logged in over a year?

Yeah, Self, that was a good one. You almost had me.

Happy Easter, happy April, and happy trails to you, my friends.

Sugar Snow

The dog whines, circles, taps S.O.S. with her too-long nails against the hardwoods in the hall. She doesn't understand Saturday. (What you mean "sleep in?" I no have dis word in my language.) Neither does my six year old, the one who's been flailing and kicking me since 5 a.m. She claimed her room was too scary to sleep in, but I'm no fool. And neither is she. She knows the odds of getting carried back to her own bed are low when Daddy's still at work. She knows I'm a softy on Saturdays.

I rise, creaking, wincing. The dog, the girl, they spring. Yes, as in spring out of bed. That metaphor? Written just for these two.

I find the wall with my left hand, brace my hip with my right, pad gingerly down the stairs. You'd think I was the one aging in dog years.

I slide the door open to white-sleeved trees, flakes still falling. I want to pinch the sky for dressing the lawn in white on St. Patrick's weekend. Really, Winter, don't be that guy....

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Sugar Snow: A late snow, falling after the ground has thawed and the crocuses have gotten their hopes up. Called such because the late snow gets the sap going in the maple trees.

Sugar Snow: A boon to the syrup harvest. An excuse to eat more pancakes.

Sugar Snow: A great big pain in the glute for the middle-aged mother who can shake neither the lake-effect blahs nor the bursitis from yesterday's 15 miler.

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I'm prone to heavy-heartedness, to blink and find I'm buried under a weighty white snow on its way to slush. The melancholy stalks me, waiting for a run-less day when the endorphins aren't there to defend me. I wake up to snow when I was expecting a thaw. I struggle with a strong-willed screamer before my first sip of coffee. I look longingly (yes, I said longingly) at my running shoes. I want nothing more than to run away for an hour or two, to come back sweaty instead of shivering, to return energetic and hungry and smiling and like I accomplished one damn thing today.

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My son, the eight year old, he gets me. He drew me a picture this afternoon. He said, "It's raining and snowing, and she's dreaming about a sunny day."

Sugar Snow: When even the heaviness and chill, the hope deferred, the three steps back from spring show themselves to have a sweet edge, a sweet ending.

Fast Friends: How I stalked my way into a running tribe

I live in a world where it's perfectly acceptable both to stalk people and to wolf down your breakfast like a smelly, ravenous dog in front of the previously stalked people that you now call friends.

'Tis the world of lady distance running, my friends.

I met up with such a crowd yesterday morning for a group run. And I'll be honest--the introvert in me seriously considered ditching and running the 14 miles solo, just me, myself and iTunes. But I'm so glad I went.

I should probably explain the stalking reference. See, I was invited to this group run by a friend I met through stalking. She beat me in a 5k last May, like, by a lot, and did I mention she was pregnant at the time? I didn't get a chance to track her down right after the race, but when the results came out, I looked up her name, googled her running times, and discovered she had a fantastic running blog. I commented on one of her posts. She graciously responded. And then, a week or so later, she emailed to ask if I'd be interested in joining her for a long run.

My first thought was to say no. My second thought was a more articulate hayells no. I was completely intimidated. I had always done my long runs alone, and she was much, much faster than I was. But she claimed she was about to slow down considerably given her pregnancy, and I couldn't come up with any decent excuses that didn't make me sound like a total fraidy cat. So I took the leap.

One minute I'm shaking her hand to officially introduce myself. The next we're off and running 10 miles. We were fast friends. (ahem. bad pun alert.) We ran almost weekly for the remainder of her pregnancy, and it's hard for me to believe I've known her less than a year.

Anyway, as it turns out, now that her precious little girl is 3 months old, my friend has returned to her speedy ways. It took me about a mile into the 14 to realize that I wasn't going to be able to maintain her postpartum pace. So I slipped back into the next pack of runners. Never mind that I hadn't met any of them yet. We did a quick round of moving introductions, and settled into an hour and half long conversation. The whole thing was just way too easy. The miles flew by. The conversation was delightful. At the end of two hours, I had a handful of new friends and a voracious appetite.

So we all went out to breakfast, where I (as previously mentioned) ate like a smelly, ravenous animal and didn't feel even slightly self conscious.

Here we are, pre-run, pre-hungry and pre-smelly

So, just to review, if you're looking for a running community, stalking is a perfectly acceptable way to find it. Second, like so many other facets of life, running in community is far more enriching than training in a vacuum. Third, if you live in Alaska and you're a lady runner training for a BQ and you aren't prone to judging people for eating tremendous amounts of cheese, then we need to meet.

p.s. If you're looking for a practical running stalker tool, check out dailymile. It's a fun way to track your training and connect with other runners. I found another wonderful running partner/ fast friend this way (it was mutual stalking, right, Katie?), and my only regret is that I didn't connect with her sooner!