Back on the Track

It’s an oval.  It does not change.  Unfortunately, I do.  400 meters round and round and the clock does not lie nor lie nor lay still.  Tick-tick-tick, what did the elliptical cycle do for you?  Keep up your endurance?  Preserve your sanity?  Speed is as fresh as poppies, you can’t substitute it or alternate or preserve or wait…is that opium?  Nevermind that Dorothy did not run fast through the brilliant fields.  Wait, where is this analogy going?

Track.  I am back on the track.  The numbers sounds easy.  The numbers run easy all except the quadriceps who are wondering what this foreign motion is.  This running, what is this running they wonder?  I feel a slight, benign pull in the left side of my shin as I turn left corners.  My mind rests on the feeling wondering over it and watching.  My heart leaps with the laps.  I allow myself to turn out a bit in the last few laps of the workout.  It feels great to open up, but it amplifies how much work I have to do.  Oh my.

Consequently, it does my focus no good to watch my once running-buddy rip the track to flames.  Who are you?  Mile 1 5:25, 2 5:16, 3 5:08.  Tim!???  It becomes abundantly clear that I will not be returning to his side.  He is all new.  He looks the same, but something different drums beneath the hood.

Unless, muhahaha, unless I strap hydraulic booster flames to my pink shoes and rocket launch myself shielded by a protective layer of raspberry jello.  Ah, or steroids.  Hmmmm, what is Tanya Harding up to these days?

Goals are Going Up

Over the river and through the woods, to Grandma’s I go…. a goal page is posted.  Look right.  Yep, to your right.   See it?

Sound Effects

I used to be a waitress before I used to be a nurse before I became a Mom.  An odd creature, I would walk around my tables and the busy kitchen making, shall we say, original sound effects, as I went about my work.  For example, if I was to close the bread oven door, it would be an audible “Swoosh” followed by a “Click.”  The coffee pot was a “Brrrrrip” and then “Dock.”  Naturally, there was the occasional airplane sound as I entered the kitchen with an empty tray and a beep-beep sound as I exited the kitchen loaded with fried potatoes and seafood platters.  Insane?  Albert Einstein once said that “Imagination is more important that knowledge.”  Or was it a hair brush?

For the first time in ten weeks, I showed up to Saturday practice.  It was really quiet.  I mean, hello?  Where was the confetti?  Does anyone else hear the whoop-whoop going on?  No?  Just me?  Very well.  The first warm up felt a bit like tempo.  My legs turned over with protest.  However, the first tempo effect felt just like old times, only slower, but good.  The second tempo effort felt great!  My quads screamed while my lungs huffed, but a rythm was back in my strike and Jeff and I ran a two and a half mile set at 6 minute pace.  Internally, I made all kind of sounds effects like plain old, “YES!” and “shhhroom, swwwwwshhhh, and oooooof.”

“What pace are we going?” Jeff asked in an oxygen deprived state that marvelled my own.

“I don’t know, but it hurts,” I said back smiling, “It hurts good!”  The good kind of hurt.  The lungs clawing at the chest against the angst of alveoli on strike.  The quads lifting and pushing against an immovable force while arms fling free wondering why every other body part is so upset.  Arms are having fun.  “Tick-tick-tick rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrroom.”

OK, so the cool down was a snail’s pace because my body was revolting against anything that my brain might be plotting.  “Um, Jeff,” I plead, “Can we go slower?”

“Sure.”

“No, no, I mean slooooooo-wer.”

I am happy with my first day back.  So happy that for a second I forget to compare myself to my old running buddy Tim who just ripped out a two and a half mile set at 5:30 pace finishing in 5:20.  Guh!  I thought we were friends!  I mean, great job Slim.

Somebody Call 911

In the moments of our move marathon, I pointed my car wayward to McConnell’s Ice Cream to power pint up on sugar that would wire me for the over night shift.  Returning to my task at hand, I drove back to the rental spooning sweet cream into my mouth.  Traveling up Alamar toward State Street, my passenger Chris noticed a man lying on the road.  Quickly it became apparent that he had gotten hit by a car.

Ah shit, my ice cream is gonna melt.  And so goes the nurse’s mind.  I got out and surveyed the scene.  Two non-english speaking people emerged from the car that hit the man and a perhaps 45 year old bearded caucasian man lying unresponsive in the road.  His long graying hair was kempt.  No alcohol on his breathe.  He wore glasses, an olive green jacket, and black sneakers.  Quickly people gathered.

“Roll him on his side,” one person instructed.  Um, no, we could have a spinal injury.

“I’m a life guard,” another girl said as she searched his neck for a pulse that she did not find.  “I’m a nurse,” I responded quickly, but then I had to think about it.  Ah, well, actually, I’m a mom now and well, uh, I really just want to go eat my ice cream.

Only seconds tick by.  911 is called and we start chest compressions and, hello bearded stranger, mouth to mouth.  I never thought I would be confronted with this situation.  My mind processed risk, I wanted a mask, and then I guess it all did not matter.  If I get hit by a car, somebody please kiss me!  So it begins, real on the scene CPR.  He sputters with my efforts.  His tongue seizes to the front of his mouth blocking his airway.

“Stick your finger in his mouth,” exclaims the lifeguard.  Um, no.  If the dude has a seizure from head trauma, I am not having my finger in his mouth.  Plus, since he is sputtering, he must have a pulse.  Sure enough, pulse.  Luckily EMT arrives and pushes me out of the way.  They open his shirt and throw some pads on to check for need to defibrillate.  I bleed into the back ground watching only for a moment.

I really want to brush my teeth…..with bleach.  Instead, I just go back to eating my ice cream.  Nothing takes away the taste of stranger saliva like oh, let’s say chocolate.  I later learn that the man spent time in the ICU and made a full recovery.  He is fine.

Okee dokee.

Neu

Congratulations homeowners!  Before you pop that champagne, here is your mission: move all your stuff, paint the rental walls white, steam clean carpets, clean, and oh yeah, you have 48 hours, GO!  A rental applicant came to view our old establishment.  “You’re going to be out by the weekend?” she said as she looked around, “But you haven’t packed anything?  I don’t see how you are going to do that.”

We have moved 9 times in 8 years and although it might not be fun, it will get done.  Furthermore, since friends of mine are moving into the rental, it has to be done well.  Oh and nothing says “attention to detail” like “you want your deposit back?”

The flurry of activity began all under the sweet jingle of our new house keys.  It still has not sunk in that we will be owning this home.  In other words, I could paint that wall hot pink and that one over there purple and only my husband would freak out, not a landlord.  I am the land lord.  I am Lord of this land!  Muhahaha!  OK, ok, I am co-landlord.

My husband and I entered our home with love sick stares.  Oh, hello home!  Acquiring this property was a mix of hard work, luck, and  a lot of blessings.  Our realtor, Elizabeth Wagner of Village Properties, was amazing as was the sell side realtor Terry Ryken.  Kindness exists in real estate!  Behold, tis true.  We bid on many homes before this one.  We lost a real musty, crusty, dump by being outbid by $3,000.  I was discouraged.  Now, I am “oh-thank-u-tank-tan-u for NOT selling me your piece of thing you call a house!”  Cuz, sistah, we got a house!  That would be what you call “move in condition.”

The moving and painting was completed not only because we did not sleep for two nights in a row, but because of the help of many friends.  I feel so blessed to be not only have a home in this wonderful paradise of a place, but that I am surrounded by loving people.  Friends ran paint rollers, lifted boxes, watched our children, and brought us food.  Thank you, thank you Juliana, Jim, Jim Kornell, Tim, Chris, Sylvie, Linnea, and Steph.  Thank you Peter!  Oh thank you again and again Peter.  Lastly, thank you very much Robert.

Thank you, Thank you!

15-20-30

The road to recovery, hu-hum hell, is paved with good intentions.  Hell?  Oh come on, my body likes to loaf around just as much as the next body.  The knees feel all rubbery and lubricated.  The hips feel non-there.  Is this the way a normal non-pavement-pounding person feels all the time?  Just kind of cozy in their skin?  For the past three years, something has been sore, tired, blistered, battered, fried, and in addition plain Jane tired.  That is the way I like it!  Your hell, just may be my heaven.  Bring it on!

Everything feels lazy Susan except that spot on my leg.  I think the knees paid the tibia off.  “Psst, tibia,” they conspire, “You take the fall this time, we did it last time!”  Only the soul never wants a break.  My eyes watch the road dreaming up frequent pounding.  I dream about running!  OK, usually I am being chased by some childhood imaginary creature or Ralph Fiennes, none the less, I run.

Finally, I am mending.  I think.  I test walked the leg 90 minutes.  I waited a week and test walked it again 90 minutes.  I mom-cored the double stroller with a mean roller blade session.  In flight service included PB&J, J-box, and just to buy ten more minutes a couple dum-dums.  It was time to test the trot.  Monday I ran 15 minutes.  Success!  Wednesday, I ran 20 minutes.  Carrying out my trek on dirt, I wore way too many clothes to make sure I kept to a slow pace and would surely overheat before I ran 21 minutes and not 20.  The leg felt strange.  Running felt so foreign.  My mind raced along the bluffs carrying me over mud puddles and uneven terrain, but my body just dragged as if it begged to (blasphemy) walk.  Guh.  Did I ever run fast?

Thursday, I ran 30 minutes.  My leg again carried a weird fuzzy feeling.  My feet felt strange striking the ground, but my arms remembered.  They pumped back and forth begging the lower body to hurry up.  I am so nervous.  I feel a weird aura surrounding my leg.  No pain, but no normal.  I want to be better, but the lack of complete ironwoman feeling is keeping me a good recovery pupil.  I obey.

I pray.

I move.  No, not my body, well, yes, that’s true, but this time my life.  One more time.  Finally, we are home owners!  I can’t buy rice, but dude, I got a house!  Suddenly EVERYTHING just got a lot more expensive.  When you see me doing laps at Trader Joe’s to sample up the coffee over and over, you will know why.

The Happy Writer

For the most part, I believe I put a some what positive spin on my writings.  My scribble comes out in smiles with only the occasional flat line or downward droop of a frown.  Rarely, although not never, do they stick out their tongue and go “phooooooooeeeeeeeee.”

Well, sit back and stick up a protective layer of Syrian wrap because here comes the slobber.  GUH!  My daughter starts the day with tears that birth tears because the milk is a hair the wrong temperature, the princess dress is not gathered right, the Cheerios are too round, the twentieth favorite stuffed dog is picked up by her brother, and because of course Mommy in her dazed stupor is not moving fast enough to fulfill the list full of blubbering tasks dripping from the big eyed madam.  6am.

I burn my tongue and burn my lip, but proceed to take another coffee rich sip, dam still hot.  I mean half a second went by is it not cooler?  A toy truck hits me in the ankle.  “It’s not enough cereal!” my son screams.  Eventually we are out the door.  A car cuts me off to stop at the red light.  The same red light that I am stopped at.  Kid’s music blares.  Must I listen to HAPPY NOODLE thrice pre-9am?  My daughter’s entourage of dogs and babies get sobbing goodbyes as we leave them in the car to go about our day.

I pick up dry cleaning and get a dirty up and down look from another woman.  What?  My spandex too tight?  Not Fonda my Honda?  The burns in my mouth hurt.  Itching for my fix, I want to elevate the heart rate.  I got the green light on a fifteen minute jog.  Fifteen, not sixteen, minutes.  I ran along wanting to rip, but felt scared of feeling that pain again.  That shearing pain that makes my teeth loosen to think of it.  I treaded lightly envisioning my leg breaking in half and my blunt tibia striking the ground while my ankle and foot rolled away.  Nasty.  Uh, drama queen?  Uh, Ya!

14:59, 15:00 STOP.  My leg was OK.  I made it!  No blunt trauma.  And back to the tears.  We are too loud in the library and we get “shooshed.”  I want to shoosh back.  I bite my burned tongue.  At the grocery, I wrestled a cart and two stray kids running left and right.  “Don’t touch that, wait, follow me, stop, no, no, come here, this way, don’t touch that, no we can’t, no you don’t, no you won’t, leave it, let it be.  Put down the GUMMI BEARS.”  I meander with my herd down the cooled beverage isle and there it sits.  Like a sweet beacon calling me back to junk, Caffeine Free Diet Coke looms chilled in all her glory out dazzling the Smart Water.  I stop and stare at it.  A toy plastic frog hits me in the leg.  I pick up the cheaper than Smart water.  Bye-bye CFDC you evil temptress.

With only an arm basket in my hand I enter the 15 items or less check out.  No one is in the store.  My daughter dangles from the counter while my son throws a valentine stuffed gorilla in the air.  “Get off that, stop that, put that back.”

“Yeah, Ma’m,” says check out dude, “Try to respect the 15 item line.”  What?  I count my items eyeing them as they come down the belt.  17.  WTF pause L pause Tweet.  Chunk that gorilla over here son.  We are off.  Oh look, another tantrum.

On a previous tantrum my son had broke into tears that his leg hurt.  The good German girl that I am responded in the way that my own loving father nurtured me to address such nagging issues, “Well, let’s cut it off!”

My son burst into tears.  “Ahhh, you can’t cut it off, than I will only have one leg!”  Nothing wrong with his sense of logic.  “I will have to hop!”  My laughter tries to laugh with him and soothe him with a reassurance that I would never actually cut his sweet little leg off.  He eyes me nervously.  Now back to the grocery and the tantrum ensuing.  On the way out there is a gentleman begging for money.  He is seated on the ground with one leg and has his prosthesis set before him.  My son stops and stares.  “Why do you have your leg off?”  The gentleman smiles with no response and smiles at me.  “Mom,” my son asks, “What happened to his leg?”  I bite the burned tongue yet again and avoid the sarcasm that seems so obvious.  Rather a lengthy discussion of all the possibilities that could happen to ones leg follows by a million “Why’s.”

And what was my point?  I sit here now in a pleasant mood.  The house is quiet the children asleep in that angelic state with skin smooth as honey and soft raspy breathes that make you melt.  They cuddle their cozy blankets.  I drink a blueberry tea.  I obsess about whether or not I did or did not feel my leg all day.  I babble.

My mind races around and around.  And just like that, it was a rather lovely day.

The Cougar

The cougar.  Not the one with Bon Jovi bangs slamming Key Lime Pie martinis seated at the bar praying the dim lighting and cigarette filled air will hide what a morning after bedside light won’t.  I am talking about the real pussy cat of carefully planned attacks, the cougar.  Did you know that the cougar can jump over twenty feet, always attacks from behind, and goes for the throat?  Um, yes, I am still talking about the real animal.

A hamster possessed by dance music, I raged the cross ramp elliptical machine this morning.  The telly switched on to animal planet and I watched cats take down prey.  Often you hear the compliments in running, “Oh she’s a gazelle.”  Well, this morning I watched gazelle after gazelle go hooves to the sky while cheetahs struck with lightening speed.  Oooooh, kitty.  Graceful and full of endurance, the gazelle can go the miles, but what good are the miles if somebody gets you in the finishing kick?

Be the cheetah.  Be the cougar.  Ricky makes a good cougar.  Lemon Drop martini?

It is GOOD to be Snippy!

Snip, snip, snip, chop, local elite runner Bethany Nickless makes the cut.  Bethany recently cut off her long hair for the charity Locks of Love.  Hair, hair, oh what or as some would proclaim, where art thou?  Humans love hair.  Wait, rephrase with more details, humans value hair on heads.  OK, OK, bald is bold and beautiful, but when it comes to big bucks on body parts, hair gets more attention than any other little thing we like to pick at.  We wax it, shave it, dye it, highlight it, tease it, spray it, cut it, moose it, blow dry it, balm it, curl it, clip it, and sometimes wig it.

While wigs may be fun and games to the lot of us, hmmm, I do so love my bubble gum pink banged wig.  They are simple, but essential life savers to many.  It is hard for a woman to part with her hair.  OK, maybe not all of us.  How many times have I hacked mine off?  But, there were tears!  When a woman such as Bethany grows out a challenge for Rapunzel, it must be even more difficult to part.  Hair has long been a symbol of youth and beauty.  I mean, they don’t run with their hair down on Baywatch for nothing.  The slow motion head toss is not for loss of favor.  A bun is simply to be undone, shake-shake [pause] shake.

When we as women budget cut, we will give up a lot of things.  However, as any woman who has been deceptively wooed by the box of Revlon hair color stationed in aisle 9 will tell you, “We won’t give up our hair dresser!”  Therefore, I think it a wonderful sacrifice that Bethany has made in lopping off her lovely locks all for the charity of another.  Her mane will surely make someone very happy.

Nice work Bethany!  It is good to be snippy! 

The Before

The Snip

The Goods!

Hey, That Hair Still Looks Long!

Risking Love

Yesterday I drove down to the harbor to board a catamaran that would take a group of mourners to witness the release of a tiny baby’s ashes out to sea.  Under the grey, rainy skies, the air was heavy and cold.  The father related how the weather was appropriately like his tiny daughter’s life, stormy.

Due to complications, the child was born prematurely and struggled for her life over the course of ten weeks before she finally passed in her parents arms.  The child’s first name bears the meaning strength and her middle name peace or perhaps peaceful understanding.  With tears in her eyes, the mother asked her friends and family for strength.  This woman who continued to cuddle her other two children and smile through the rain is one of the most remarkably strong women that I know.  What comfort could I give to her?  A couple of cooked meals, my presence, and kind words?  I do not know her pain.  I pray that I never know her pain for I am certain that there is nothing more severe than the loss of a child.

Before her ashes were to drift into the Pacific, her father struck me with some remarkable words.  An adventure seeker and multi-talented athlete, he noted that he had always been known as a risk taker.  He said that the day his daughter died he released his anger in questioning whether having a family was worth it.  Was the love of a wife and children worth the uncertianity of betrayal, sickness, and even death.  He was not sure.  I cannot imagine the pain he was walking with.  Would he swear off anything and everything for some release?  Would I?  The next morning he awoke in his wife’s arms and his three year old daughter bounced on his chest covering him in hugs and kisses.  Yes it is worth it.  He stated that the nature of a risk taker is that the greatest rewards often come against the greatest risk.  The highest high shadows the lowest of lows.  His words, “There is nothing more risky and rewarding than having a family.”

I thought these were beautiful words.  To me they somewhat mirrored Tennyson’s, “Tis better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.”  Pain, grief, and suffering are all part of being human.  As we threw rose petals and flowers into the ocean, a brilliant variety of pink, red, yellow and white trailed the cold stone sea.  A few loons dove beneath the floating petals and against the horizon a dolphin jumped.  My mind wandered from this family off to the people of Haiti.  I hear the death toll numbers, the story after story of terrible grief, and I hear the sadness.  I cannot be sad enough for them.  I can send money.  Does that ease any of my guilt for not being them?

Petals float along drifting farther apart.  One tiny life touches the souls of so many.  I conclude that I can pray for strength and for peace for those that need it.

I do not believe that a life ends at death.  I believe it begins.