Opening the road for other runners

Lately, I have been feeling my age, especially when running.  I have not been running very much or well lately.  My feet hurt from plantar fascitis that I think is compounded by wearing flipflops too much. I've had a sore shoulder for months - it may be a rotator cuff injury or tendinitis in my shoulder, as far as I can tell from an internet diagnosis.  I feel tired most of the time.  At age 43, I am well past the age for making PRs, but I thought I had more miles to run with grace; instead I feel like a creaky grandma in running shoes.

A running friend from Guam recently visited, and we rehashed some races, and  he recounted his own successes (he's at least 10 years older) and those of other running club members we knew. It made me miss competing in races and triathlons. Another Guam friend recently participated in a local half Ironman triathlon and did well. I received an invitation to join a team for a Ragnar relay. But I haven't felt good running for weeks, maybe months.

Running used to make me feel younger, freer, stronger.  But I haven't run painfree for a long time. Cramped, achey, and tired are better adjectives for the way I feeling during and after my long runs.

This slump will probably end with the right healing.  I've been making some changes and trying to do some strengthening and stretching exercises and to cross-train a little more. More weights, yoga, and swimming should help recalibrate my physical well-being after the busy schedule of the spring and summer took a mental and physical toll. And spiritual as well. Slumps usually apply across the board.

The good thing is with the return of our fall routine, we've had a return of a sense of well-being throughout the house. I'm only teaching one class, the kids' schedule is full but not hectic, and although or because we've had a lot of company lately, a sense of order has been maintained - at least I've stayed on top of the dishes and laundry.

Like the nagging aches of my physical injuries, I still have a fair share of things to fret about - the new math program at the kids' school (group work every day!), trying to balance the kids' social lives and family time without causing an insurrection, trying to prevent the toddler from becoming a tyrant. (Her latest tool of manipulation: to announce "But I LOVE it!" when something or someone is about to go away) But other conditions have brought peace and have lessened my summer anxieties - the college kids are busy and happy, the middle kids are happy, the youngest are mostly happy. Teaching CRE is keeping me mindful lately at Mass. Our cups are full.

So I'm hopeful that my physical aches will fade before too long without excessive reliance on ibuprofen. I'm hopeful that I can maintain, maybe not peak fitness, but a high level of endurance and speed, not because I want to compete for something, but because I like feeling fast and I like running far.

All of this background information is predicated on pointing out an article I just read about a women and running. A couple days ago I picked up an April issue of Runner's World someone left at the Little Free Library at the beach.  It was dedicated to the Boston Marathon. One of the feature articles was a profile of Roberta Gibb, the first woman to run in the Boston Marathon - albeit illegally.  At the time, 1966, the longest race for women was a mile and a half. I couldn't believe it when I read that. I do sometimes have to acknowledge a debt to the feminist movement.  But Gibb didn't run the marathon to make some righteous statement about women's liberation, but because she liked running far. She wanted to see if she could do it.

As she says about being turned down as an entrant to the marathon because of the limitation of women's races:  “At first I just laughed, it was just so ridiculous,” Gibb says. “I was running two or three hours a day, and it made me feel so wonderful. I thought, If only everyone else could feel as good as I feel when I’m running, it would probably solve most of the world’s problems."

Gibb was going on two and three hour runs in her nursing shoes.  She didn't even have running shoes, although she bought a pair for the marathon. She wore her brother's Bermuda shorts and a black bathing suit under a hoodie and ran without energy gels or performance drinks or compression gear. She didn't do it to prove a point or to make a statement but because when she watched runners, she wanted to run, too.

"...she stood on the sidewalk, mid-marathon, and watched the runners file past. Gibb didn’t know where they had started, or where they were going. But she was mesmerized. “I felt that I had witnessed an ancient yet civilized tribe that was in touch with the most primitive human traits,” she says. “They looked so natural. That afternoon, something inside me decided that I was going to run the Boston Marathon. It was an edict from my soul.” She began her training the next day."

Her training was nothing like the sophisticated regimen many runners follow today. But she still clocked in at 3:21. That's just about 7:40 minute miles for 26 miles. She was running faster than than until late in the race - which gets hilly - when she developed blisters.

Gibb held steady through the Newton Hills, encouraged by Alton Chamberlin, an upstate New York runner. He told her they were on seven-minute pace. And Stalzer continued to tail Gibb as close as he could. “I was surprised at how strongly she took the hills,” he says. “I had to work very hard to stay close. She was a wonderful-looking runner.”

Instead of being shamed and harrassed, she was admired by most of the other runners.  The college students from Wellesley College broke into a roar when she ran into view and formed a tunnel for her to run through. She also had another moving encounter during the event:

"Beyond Wellesley, Gibb noticed a woman holding a child. As she passed, the woman chanted, “Ave Maria. Ave Maria.” The scene struck a chord, and Gibb felt her eyes dampen. “It was as if she knew I wanted children,” she says. “And that I consider motherhood among a woman’s highest callings.”

Gibb was met by photographers and journalists and the Massachusetts governor at the end of the race and featured making fudge and looking housewifely in a magazine article.  She ran the race the next two years without a race bib. The Boston Marathon wasn't opened to women until 1972, and it wasn't until 1996 that her achievements were recognized.

"In 1996, on the event’s centennial, Gibb was finally recognized for her three consecutive Boston wins. The BAA awarded both her and Sara Mae Berman—also a three-time winner, in 1969, ‘70, and ‘71—their long-overdue winner’s medals. “Next to the day my son was born, it was the happiest day of my life,” Gibb says. “I didn’t feel any anger or resentment at all [toward the BAA], just pure joy.”"

Gibb continued to run and race for years and ran her PR at age 39 in the NYC marathon. She practiced law for many years before retiring to become an artist. One year she was asked to carve statues for race trophies for the Olympic Marathon Trials in 1983. She continues to create sculptures and paintings and to practice the art of appreciation.

 “My father would take me to the beach and challenge me to figure out where the ripples in the sand came from. I felt transported by the beauty of everything I saw, and I’m still trying to piece together the miraculous patterns of life.”

"...Our stroll around Rockport meanders through a wooded preserve. I stoop to remove a turtle from the road; when I turn back to Gibb, she’s staring at a leaf in her hand. It’s mostly dead and brown, but with two spectacular veins of neon red and green. “I wonder what made this leaf produce these colors?” she asks. “Isn’t it amazing, the miracles around us, if only we take time to notice them?”"

She thought about running the marathon this year for the fiftieth anniversary of her race, but was parade marshal instead. She has nothing to prove. She's over 70 and still puts in hours on the road or trails.

"Gibb never sought recognition for what she did. Instead, she has embodied a lifestyle that will sound familiar to runners. She runs for the joy, challenge, personal exploration, and quiet fulfillment of it. She runs to commune with nature and connect with her own animalism. She runs because something stirs her, and that is enough."

 I have to admit I teared up a little bit as I read this article.

http://www.runnersworld.com/boston-marathon/first-lady-of-boston

Reading about identity

A couple nights ago I had my book club over for our discussion of Glennon Doyle Melton's Carry On, Warrior.  I was a little anxious about the meeting because Melton takes some unorthodox views towards some controversial issues, most notably abortion. She is very frank about having had an abortion in her youth.  She later gets pregnant out of wedlock again, but gets married and has the baby and gets clean after being addicted to alcohol and drugs and having an eating disorder, among other psychological and emotional dysfunctions. Some of the women in my book club loved this book because of her descriptive and funny presentation of the messiness of life, and some did not love it because of Melton's controversial views, not just of abortion, but of many of the hot button social issues.   I was a little worried about strong opinions being expressed and feelings being hurt.

Happily, the discussion was very democratic and light hearted.  People mentioned some favorite parts and some parts that were troubling and shared favorite quotes.  A few people were honest about not liking it and why, but in a way that wasn't confrontational.  Melton might be a hard person to have as a friend, but she has a great talent for storytelling and a gift for bringing out a truth from a moment of reflection.   I like her take on the "golden coin" she would like to give her kids - one side confidence from knowing they are a child of God and the other side humility from knowing that everyone else is also.  Her comment on "letting love win" in an argument, instead of defending our ego was good. Another good marriage tip was the anecdote about how her husband leaves out a glass of wine for her each night and she makes his coffee in the morning, which is definitely a Mother Teresa do small things with great love act.

Other notable parts: her anti "carpe diem" post that went viral is about how parenting is like mountain climbing and writing and other difficult things - they are hard work, but moments of joy (Kairos moments she calls them) outweigh the suffering.  She also has a Catholic perspective on the "God shaped hole" that we all try to fill with something instead of God - a St. Augustine reference.  Another Catholic moment is when she references the rule of St. Benedict - "when thorns of contention arise, daily forgive, and be ready to accept forgiveness" and "listen with the ear of the heart."    Another "Catholic" moment is when she talks about focusing on the crucifixion - when suffering happens, remember the resurrection follows.

Finally, she is good at recognizing what lessons to impart to our kids: to learn that to be human is "to love and forgive." To be compassionate toward the lonely kids. And Robert Fulghum's message that "Peace is not the absences of conflict but the ability to cope."  And the idea that we all have gifts that are sometimes hard to identify but are our bridge to others' hearts if we use them well.

I liked the book because of these moments of insight, but I struggle with how I feel about writers like Melton, Anne Lamott, Kathleen Norris, etc. These are writers who are openly and devotedly Christian, but have unorthodox views on social issues and call God "she," among other theological quirks. On the one hand, these women are really good writers - engaging tones, vivid descriptions, heart tugging stories of recovery and redemption, and honest accountings of faults.  They draw people in and present a face to Christianity that is attractive to people who are otherwise repelled by the apparent hypocrisies of many Christians.

What is a turn off to me is when Melton uses cute phrases like "life is brutiful." She use strong language, which can be a put off to me also - for instance, the three prayers she tries to remember to pray are 'please, thank you, and wtf?" Why the last? It's memorable - but too cute. And I don't really think of myself as a warrior. Maybe I'm not fighting big enough battles. My addictions are all pretty minor compared to Melton's.  But some people find these metaphors memorable and real or authentic, which is a part of the attraction of these writers.

But this claim to "authenticity" is another part of what I struggle with. These are writers, I want to say. They specialize in storytelling - making stuff up.  Granted, writers fabricate and exaggerate and manipulate reality sometimes - a lot of the time - to get at something essential and true - but also some times that epiphany often isn't recognized until later, maybe even in the writing.  I can't help but feel a little skeptical of Melton's claim to be a truth teller.  She tells a good story, and most good stories have a big truth buried under a lot of fabrication and editing.  Melton shares some great insights, but how much does she filter what she shares based on keeping and expanding her audience?

Yesterday, I spent a good part of the day reading her second book, Love Warrior, which reveals a lot more than her first book or her blog. I actually liked this book better, mostly because it was a narrative and not a collection of edited blog posts, and it seemed more honest.  It focuses on her fall into bulimia, drug and alcohol abuse, followed by her sudden marriage, her recovery from bulimia and drug and alcohol abuse, (in which Mary plays a role), and then the failing of her marriage because of pornography, adultery, and an inability to communicate.  The book reveals what a wonderful sister and parents Melton has, along with describing some of the lessons she learned as she healed - the welcoming arms of Mary leading to Christ, the reassurance that she is loved by God as she is, the method of just focusing on doing the next right thing, the need to face pain and suffering instead of hiding from it, the ability to balance tension (developed in a yoga class), the desire to feel known, the difference between wanting to be full of beauty and beautiful and between wanting to be desired and being loved, the love and protectiveness she feels for her children, the pain and vulnerability that loving another person requires, the need to reconcile soul, mind, and body.

At the end of the book it looks like the marriage is on the road to recovery because Melton and her husband learn to be more honest with each other, but just before the book released Melton revealed that she and her husband are separating.  The reason isn't revealed online, but Melton's book does illustrate how deeply wounded she was by her husband's infidelity. I would think that kind of injury to a marriage is difficult to heal, and the marriage began on rocky ground.

It's always sad when a marriage fails, for the family, for the couple, for the greater community that needs strong marriages to flourish.   Who knows what really is at the heart of their separation, but the reason given on the website was that though they had experienced healing, she had healed into a different person. I hope that is the reason, and not that the success she now has has made her want different things.  Something about claiming to be a new person doesn't sound authentic to me.  We all are changing all the time, becoming new people every day.  There is a part in Love Warrior about her search for her true self while she is sitting on the beach that leads me to wonder who is my true self? I don't think I would find her on the beach. The faces I present to my kids, to my husband, to my family, to my friends, to strangers are all a little different, but they are all me.  My mind changes daily. 

So the books left me uncomfortable.  Maybe I do need to be more self-aware.  More likely I need to be less. I sometimes think I should write a manifesto of what I believe - or a family mission statement, or some kind of identity statement - something that would remind me what we stand for when faced with difficult choices, but my mind changes too often for that.  

New routines

The days have been a lot quieter around here with two kids off to college and only five at home.  How did we come to this stage so quickly?  The sense that I am missing something or someone is constantly gnawing at me. Five seems like a small number, but I still can't quite keep track of everything. I was late to pick up the baby at the sitters after an appointment because I thought I had time to run a quick errand.  And I completely forgot to pick up the fifth grader on Tuesday. She got left in aftercare for an hour. An hour. I didn't remember I had to go pick her up until her brother asked where she was when he came home from practice. Bad mom moment. Granted she had only had one full day of school because last week she had a week of half days, but I was in la-la land organizing photographs on the computer and trying to figure out some of our new technology (a new printer and an old laptop left behind by one of the college kids who upgraded his device).

Despite those lapses, for the most part we are resuming order around here.  When we returned from summer vacation and dropping the college kids off at school, the youngers quickly rearranged the bedrooms to establish a new layout in which three of them now have their own rooms. Yes, we have five bedrooms, a luxury. When the college kids come home, they will get their spaces back, but despite the clouds of dust the moving around kicked up, I'm happy about the arrangement myself. Everyone filled at least one bag of give away clothes and toys. Piles of dust and hairballs from under the bed spaces were swept out for the first time in a long time. No one can blame someone else for the mess on the floor. I cleaned out some of my clothes that have been hanging around for fifteen years, and gave away some of the baby's things that she didn't really wear at all because she grew a lot all of a sudden, and now we are feeling all tidied up and ready for the fresh start that fall brings.

New school and activity schedules are posted on the calendar. New folders and binders are organized for assignments. My desk is cleaned out and a large stack of papers has been either filed (i.e. stashed in a box in the basement) or recycled. I even posted a couple of a change of address forms for some financial documents that I hadn't yet sent in even though we have been in this house for a year.

I have this feeling that I need to tidy up a lot more than desks and closets.  The busy busy summer resulted in short tempers, gray hairs, five extra pounds, and a constant gnawing sense of loss.  Time, time, I need more time! The baby talks in complete sentences. The second child is off to college. The fourth child is in high school. What happened to the long days of summer spent lolling around the neighborhood pool or some playground while pudgy kids splashed and climbed, and it seemed that all we had was time?

I am still feeling thankful for vacation, for the opportunity to reset and refocus. We at least had a few days of nothing to do. Trying to work, albeit from home online, and keep up with the kids left me wrung out and anxious from all that I was failing to do.

Now that the house is quiet for a moment (the baby - I should say toddler - is napping and the kids are at school), and my class load has shrunk from four to one course, I can hear thoughts rattling around again. I made it to morning Mass one day last week. The toddler looked at picture books, and I listened, instead of listing. I missed having our big kids at Sunday Mass, but I was full of gratitude and happiness for them to be in their world.  I was grateful to see the other kids happy to be heading back to school.  Things are good.  I can think of a million little ways to improve upon their school, their faith formation, our routines at home, etc, but things are good.  For the moment: relief.  Praise and thanksgiving are again in the routine.

In memoriam

On September 11, 2001, I got a call from my mother- in-law asking if everything was okay on base. We were living in northern Illinois at the time, and my husband was stationed at the Navy's only boot camp. I had no idea why she was asking me if we were okay. It reminded me of the call years before when my mom called to see if my husband's - then boyfriend's - mom and dad were okay - that was the day the Oklahoma City Federal Building was destroyed in April, 1995. Six years later I pulled our tv out of the closet where we stored it and turned on the news.

I am not alone in remembering the surreal feeling of watching what was happening in New York City and then hearing the reports of the Pentagon and Flight 93.

My mom called a little later to ask if my husband knew anything more. Of course not. He was a lieutenant on shore duty. During another call she asked if this would affect him - would he have to do anything or go anywhere?  No, I assured her. He's a lieutenant on shore duty.

Fifteen years later I've had to revise that answer.  He has spent time in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Not as long as many people, but enough for me.  And when I hear about what others have had to go through - deployment after deployment - I am grateful our time apart has been so minimal in comparison.  But the events of 9/11 changed my husband's commitment to the Navy from paying back for an ROTC scholarship to a career.  And while those events therefore also changed the way I imagined our life together, they didn't change it as drastically as they changed the lives of those who died and of their families.

In fifteen years there is no one whose life has not been touched in some way by this interminable war. On Sunday evening we went to our community's service to mark the fifteenth anniversary of 9/11.  The words of the speaker were moving, but not so much as the reports of a friend's son who died or a neighbor's fiance.  More moving was the playing of Taps, uninterrupted by another sound in the big park filled with hundreds of people, including a passel of kids to whom 15 years is as far away as the Vietnam War, and the Korean War, and the World Wars.

I was up early Saturday to run. I was a mile or so from the base when the National Anthem began to play over the base loudspeakers. They were raising the flags on the base.  I saw an older gentleman walking down the bike path stop and stand at attention.  Most people, myself included, don't always stop what they are doing when they aren't on base or in front of a flag for the playing of the National Anthem.  But this weekend, I did.

A Kate Chopin story

Here is a link to a Kate Chopin story I hadn't read that I came across looking for something for my class. It's a good one about a Creole woman suddenly put in charge of four children. It takes a different turn than many of Chopin's stories.

https://americanliterature.com/author/kate-chopin/short-story/regret

Positive interactions

The school year is underway! This week we have multiple information sessions and meet the teacher events to attend. I also have several other social events - meeting friends of a friend, having company for the long weekend, squeezing a couple last minute swim dates in our pool before it gets too cold.  I've signed up for some new committees, and I've been tossing out an idea for a high school youth group that will supplement the confirmation class with social events with a purpose to all the Catholic high school parents I run into.  Still sounding out other families who might be interested in getting together for something like this, but wanting something more for my older kids' faith formation.

What a contrast to this time last year! I was feeling sick to my stomach regretting the decision we'd made to rent this house with all the dangers - the pool, the busy street, the widely spaced banisters on the upstairs hallway. . .  And I was regretting public school, although even the Catholic schools have issues with friends, social media abuse, and also alcohol and cliques... But I do like the teachers and administrators at the public high school. And I have met some really nice potential new friends - or at least acquaintances that are good people who are also sending their high schoolers to the public school, too.

The one child in Catholic school is the least happy about back to school days.  I almost pulled her out this spring.  But at the end of the school year, I sat in the all school Mass and felt grateful to be participating in the faith as a community, and paid the tuition deposit that day.  I am still unsure of the decision and occasionally contemplate home schooling her for a year or two, especially since my favorite teacher at the school pulled her kids out to home school them this year. Not a sign of a healthy school, right? Plus the fifth graders all just got ipads, which are already a distraction and malfunctioning. But inertia is difficult to overcome. And I was not the best teacher the last time I homeschooled. I looked forward too much to the time after lunch when my "teaching" was done for the day.

I was halfway hoping we would be moving next summer, but the whisper is that my husband will receive follow on orders.  I am happy for my high schooler. The kids love it here; they love their freedom and the ability to walk to playgrounds and to free movies on the base and to hang out with friends without recruiting a mom to drive. My emotions are mixed, and going back to the Midwest for a time with the extended family always amplifies these uncertainties. But we don't really have a choice or control over the matter right now. In five years we might have more say in where we go, if my husband doesn't think the next promotion will happen. Still a long way away, but becoming more real.

Over the weekend, I was talking to my mom on the phone and sirens started blaring. Emergency vehicles and police careened onto our street and stopped a few doors down. My nosy ten year old went out to see what she could see, but dinner was almost ready, and I was afraid it was a domestic dispute because of the number of police cars.

It turns out the emergency vehicles were tending a 51 year man, apparently supposed to be in great shape, who had just died of a heart attack.  They didn't make it in time to save him.  He had a high school aged son in boy scouts with my sons and a middle school daughter, but he was alone at the time and found by a real estate agent coming over to list his house for sale. I suspect the police were there in full force because his wife had worked for the police department here, part of a small cadre of officers. I didn't know them, but it is the kind of news that unsettles you, makes you realize the temporality of things. We also saw a bad accident on our road trip. There was the girl who was hit while riding her bike in front of our house. I received word that my track coaches' wife was killed by a car while she was riding her bike.  We can't live in fear of death, but it is coming.

I just finished Thornton Wilder's Bridge Over San Luis Rey, which is about the same idea - why do apparently good people- and some bad - die for no reason?  Wilder saves their stories and memorializes them. Quotes coming. Just not right now because it is time for bed.

Can you see the flecks of gold in the sand? 

Unknown flower at the park; photo taken by my child

Orchid show

Sand castle show

Bucket List item: Prince Edward Island

One of the pleasures of our summer vacation was visiting with my husband's sister and her family who currently live in Newfoundland, but came back to get warm and see family in OKC for a couple weeks. They love Newfoundland and love living abroad  - this is their 4th country. (They are not military.) They lived in Norway shortly after their first was born, then northern England, Spain, and now Newfoundland, where they had their sixth baby shortly after LCJ was born. We were blessed to be able to take a military space available flight to see them when they lived in Spain with the whole family, but I always regret not visiting them when they lived in England.  Their home base is in Houston, where they anticipate returning in a year or two - we've visited there, also, although not so exotic.  I was hoping that if we got sent to DC, our whole family could make a trek up the East Coast and visit them and other cousins in New York state, but recently we've heard whispers that we'll be staying in San Diego for our next tour (about which I have mixed feelings...).

That family history is prelude to sharing some links I just came across that set me thinking that perhaps a trip east might be in order -- one is a photo journal of a trip to Prince Edward Island to visit Lucy Maud Montgomery's home and the other is a notice about a new Anne of Green Gables miniseries coming to Netflix.  PEI was on my list of places to go on our honeymoon. I just googled flights and trips to Halifax aren't too, too expensive.  This IS our 20th anniversary year that we keep celebrating ...

I may have to reread some LCM just in case. Or just to dream. . .