tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216017722024-03-13T00:00:37.979-04:00The Negative SplitNathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08250132017455417022noreply@blogger.comBlogger608125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21601772.post-44093799892088924132018-08-16T14:19:00.000-04:002018-08-16T14:19:22.146-04:00Go Fish<div dir="ltr">
The work is never done. The drive home the same. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
Listless dreams. Fabric gashes.</div>
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Dulled, weary, the suburban parade<span style="font-family: sans-serif;">,</span> </div>
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I wait for a break.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
Mini van, mini van, Camry sedan. Range Rover, Ford truck, Toyota Sequioa. </div>
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I wait, my turn. </div>
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Endless stream. Metallic flashes. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
I see you.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
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Shouldering sloppy backpacks, grasping poles, youth-cheeked joy</div>
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Boys on a sidewalk. </div>
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This place.</div>
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Blinding winter sky, streaked with cloud, blue and orange.</div>
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Red, champagne, gray, black and white car by car by car. </div>
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All the colors of the world</div>
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Planning their grand escape.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
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The boys. They hold the blaze.</div>
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Unfettered.</div>
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Gobsmacked. </div>
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My heart.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
It's fishing. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Banking on forgiveness</div>
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Bemoan decaying sun</div>
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The toil</div>
<div dir="ltr">
This promise. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
This day possible. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
The longest day. </div>
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From notion to noon to the last eternal hour. </div>
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Tick, tick, tick, from wall to the bell, her ring. </div>
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I've known it. </div>
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The rod in hand. </div>
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It's everything.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
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The release.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
My heart. </div>
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Caught in a long cast back.</div>
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Rust of hook. Slimy finger tips. <br />Sinewy wrist. Bones, muscles, tendon. </div>
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Crook of arm. Fleck of sweat. Line of sight.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Wind. Reflection</div>
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Break the space.</div>
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Sound to silence.</div>
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Cast the horizon.</div>
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Air to water.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Immutable disturbances. </div>
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Broken space. <br />
Silver to fish. </div>
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Catch a fish. </div>
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Air to water.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Breath to bone. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
Back again.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
It isn't that I haven't </div>
<div dir="ltr">
It's that I forgot.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
To fish.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
We must never stop.<br />
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
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<br><a href="http://easyhitcounters.com/" target="_top"><font color="#666666">Hit Counters</font></a></div>Nathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08250132017455417022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21601772.post-10941514527652330122017-01-30T21:34:00.004-05:002018-07-16T22:34:37.250-04:00Fly Over Lethe<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">n the meeting there is a fly<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fresh from the chrysalis<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It stalks my coffee cup <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I wave it away <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It finds a refuge</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Gray white wall, its flatness, drywall</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am bothered by the fly</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I imagine that it is drowning in my coffee<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Overcome by the bitterness that is not Lethe</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I remember my first cup <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am Iraq<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On my left, Iran <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And next to me, Israel</span><br><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A girl</span><br>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was unkind to her in elementary school</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Her resolution has made the floor<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She reigns fury</span><br>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But if she recognizes me</span><br>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am grateful she pretends she doesn’t<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The storm her brown eyes are gathering will belie her retort<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I wonder how the Jewish girl got lucky</span><br>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Got Israel<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Private schools</span><br>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One day I will figure out</span><br>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nothing is left to chance when you have the money to pay for it</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is the human rights committee<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Even in 1990 it is ironic <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Saddam Hussein is fashioning the new Babylon<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hitler style, with a distinct Third Reich cut<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Kurds are not in, but gassing them is<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Weathered yellow ribbons linger like moss on oak trees<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A proper fascist, I can’t deign it<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My resolution won’t make the floor<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wrought with youthful liberalism and pseudo socialist glean<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I didn’t follow Iraqi script<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An American woman does not a good Iraqi make<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If the burqa doesn’t fit, you just can’t commit<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I see Turkey standing in the doorway <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Looking fly in a wide red bandanna <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">His mop of blond curls pulled tightly off his pretty face<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">His blue eyes shine as he ditches<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The environmental committee<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He rescues me because no one cares <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What Turkey has to say either<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are unsexy countries<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Other countries will know how to better solve our ugly problems</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our opinion is not necessary<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the wide corridor are break out groups of model American teenagers <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Resolving issues the way the Christian Science Monitor told us to<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I spy a silver coffee urn atop a table cloaked in red<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I decide I am going to start drinking coffee <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Black <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not wanting to ever be dependent on the crème or the sugar<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An executive order cools the coffee<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cold from the window to the wall<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Where have all the yellow ribbons gone <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fibers degraded by weather<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Time and the economy of oil<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The pretty fly, with the petulant buzz, I wave away<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I ascend the spiraling staircase<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To look closer at that gossamer web<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A fine pattern of longitude and latitude<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Meridians and time spanning backwards to tomorrow<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Distracted by the bleeding faces of Syrian children<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The maddening buzz of degenerated flies <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With their fancy mirrored crowns<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Parrot other men’s thinking</span><br>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cloaked in the velvet of green and purple robes<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Drink from the cup<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Filled with the sweet bourbon of Lethe<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br></span>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br></div>
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<br><a href="http://easyhitcounters.com/" target="_top"><font color="#666666">Hit Counters</font></a></div>Nathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08250132017455417022noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21601772.post-53643342188050563372016-04-07T19:00:00.000-04:002016-04-09T03:20:58.553-04:00The Northwind and The Sun; A Fable Nestled in a ThreadI have always liked stories; reading them, telling them, seeing them. It is fascinating to me how something as simple as letters, pictures that represent a sound, can be strung together in a specific way to represent an idea. Letters, like dots in a Seurat painting, find an order, a sound, a pattern that creates an image of some meaningful idea our mind divined.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TvnIp1AI-7s/Vwaag1Ut-MI/AAAAAAAAKj8/B7Qgnp_27gMf0a13K8XsG-f8X2CapPDJg/s1600/FB_IMG_1460033804374.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="166" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TvnIp1AI-7s/Vwaag1Ut-MI/AAAAAAAAKj8/B7Qgnp_27gMf0a13K8XsG-f8X2CapPDJg/s400/FB_IMG_1460033804374.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
My mother, my sister and my daughter are artists. They can take stories and make a picture without having to use any letters. They have the patience for the tiny dots. If I tried to do that so much would be left out of the picture. I am burdened by my lack of fine motor skills . I have to depend on letters to make the words that create my pictures. I admit, I rarely get it right. There is always either too much or not enough or the arrangement is all wrong. Left, always off-center of it, I call it. I'm a Cubist teller of tales. The ideas are all there but they are all cattywampus.<br />
<br />
I do try to center it, make sense of it but I struggle. I remind myself, often, of Hemingway's advice about the iceberg; that most of what you write about in a story you don't actually tell. Instead, you show. But then will I think about Faulkner and all the words he needed to use to tell a story. I greatly admire his generosity with words. If Hemingway's stories are an iceberg, then Faulkner's stories are oak trees. Live Oaks to be specific. His words hang as heavy branches, laden with the burden of Spanish moss and spread wide over a large gnarly trunk, casting shadows and creating unique patterns on the ground.<br />
<br />
In the end though I just put it all out there thinking maybe if I do, the pattern, however obtuse, will emerge because, and of this I am certain,--left off center or not-- it is all related.<br />
<br />
There is this poem by Robert Penn Warren called <i><a href="http://shenandoahliterary.org/blog/2012/01/tell-me-a-story-by-robert-penn-warren/" target="_blank"><span id="goog_103641682"></span>Tell Me A Story<span id="goog_103641683"></span></a>.</i> It is my most favorite poem. I relate to it initially because I like the picture the first part creates in my mind when I read it. I know that exact feeling he describes. But then I relate on a much more personal level in the second part where he commands you to tell him a story, "in this century, and in this moment, of mania." That speaks to me about every moment of every second of everyday where I try to make all sorts of sense of this world through a series of trying to connect both true and concocted stories.<br />
<br />
For example, I will see a stranger at the pool. I will be in my lane doing my workout and she in hers doing hers. I never speak to her and I will go about my workout but all the while I am forming stories about this woman while I count laps and the rest between sets. I might decide she is from England, no she is Welsh, though I have never met anyone from Wales. She is not married. She is widowed and I am certain she is a retired school teacher. And then I will decide she was a great swimmer when she was girl in Wales and once, on a dare she swam across the English Channel. And then I will remember when I was a child, I once said , when I was 10 that my goal was to swim across the English Channel and then I will go down a crazy rabbit hole imagining this and that and all the while I never say a word to this woman. But she told me a story.<br />
<br />
This need, Warren talks about in the poem, about needing to be told a story (and especially the first part where he tells a story from his childhood) expounds on my belief that memory is a thread. That <i>all </i>our memories weave themselves into a grand fabric-- grander than just me or you-- that tells the story of us, and by us I mean the collective us. Not just me, or you but <i>all of us</i>. A story--or a memory if you will, is a way we can relate this moment to that seemingly unrelated moment to you, to me, to each other and so on.<br />
<br />
What is funny to me is how those threads will, ever so randomly throughout your life, unwind themselves to you. Pretend for a moment that memories are colors and not personal stories. And the memory which you recall is the color brown. It becomes in that moment and maybe for awhile the brown thread with which you patch all these pieces of your day and the people you meet together. They become stitched together in your mind with this thin brown thread. After awhile there may become so much brown stitching that all those fabric pieces you tied together look, from a distance, sepia toned and after a time, they may even look cut from the same fabric.<br />
<br />
My grandmother Adelaide, my father's mother, had a room in her house filled with books and horse things. It was my favorite room in her house. It was a dark room with paneled walls and high windows that didn't provide much sunlight. Light always seemed to filter in from above, bright on the ceiling, darker on the floor. There was a leather couch, a cracked leather chair and lots of horse accouterments-iron horse head lamps, a footstool that was once a saddle, pictures of horses doing horse things, horse shoes, and other horse-themed decorations. My grandmother loved horses.<br />
<br />
Three wood framed glass book cases lined one of the walls. Rows and rows of books peered out as if reading the room. Though kept behind glass, as if precious, I was allowed to pull them out and read them. Sometimes she let me take them back to Atlanta. These were musty, old books and these books were different than my school books and the other books we had at home. They were little treasures and I was fascinated by everything about them.<br />
<br />
A vast majority of them were grade school primers but almost all of the books had woven covers with faded print. And yes, some were of the Dick and Jane and Sally genre. The books were dated from 20's, 30's, 40's and 50's. Some books were in pristine condition and others worn so thin the covers were unraveling and pages had been torn out. The pages were thicker, wax like with bold fonts. Many had block print illustrations. Even the illustrations seemed old to me. They were in dull, matte colors and in some cases the color red was missing entirely. Often a yellowy-orange or a brown, a teal and black were the only colors used. They were primers with no primary colors.<br />
<br />
And it was the primers in particular that fascinated me the most. I liked seeing which aunt, uncle or cousin had scrawled their name in the front. Some had those book plates that said <b>This Book Belongs To </b>and I would marvel at my relatives handwriting. I thought even the stories in them were old fashioned even though some of them, like Aesop's Fables, I read in my newer, modern textbooks which were printed on thin slick pages and accompanied by glossy illustrations and questions for discussion.<br />
<br />
I hadn't thought about that room in my grandmothers house, the old books or the stories in them in years until last Saturday when I was sitting on the beach watching Ryan fish. I was sitting, staring across the waters of Calibogue Sound wanting to swim from Hilton Head to Daufuskie's shore. It was cool, windy and overcast but the weather was improving as the day wore on.<br />
<br />
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That morning I had taken a cold and windy, rain-soaked tour of the Island to satisfy the 2 hour base ride of my Ironman Training Plan.The ride turned into almost 3 hours because I got so turned around. Map reading is not my strength. The Island has only 41 square miles of land mass to claim and that is exactly what the distance of my ride turned out to be. If nothing else I was proud I found 41 miles of road and path even if some of it was from riding in circles and back tracking.<br />
<br />
I shouldn't have gotten lost. I've been to Hilton Head dozens of times over the last 20 years and have ridden my bike or run nearly the entire Island but every single time I end up all turned about because everything looks the same to me. I think this was the intention of the city designers, a low-country labyrinth. The area consists of pine laden twisty bike paths, azalea ringed roundabouts, brown wooden street signs a foot off the ground and all of the architecture is a variant shade of sand brown. But when you are tired and wet and cold after a few hours on the bike and everything looks almost the same and if the map you are looking at doesn't say "You are HERE!" it really is easy to get confused.<br />
<br />
The kids, Beau, Carmella and her friend Sophie, while Ryan and I sipped beer and fished, were off on their bikes doing their own exploring of Sea Pines, the plantation where we were staying for the next 4 days for Spring Break. I was half expecting a call from them saying they too had gotten lost in a roundabout but they seemed to manage fine, so maybe it is just me. My only instructions to them was: if you come to a gate, don't go out of it and we are staying at South Beach. If they had troubles, they never said.<br />
<br />
As I sat waiting on it to warm up the wind was blustery and the sun trying to make a go of it, I recalled the story of the Northwind and the Sun I had read as a child in one of those primers. As the fable goes, the Sun and the Northwind are bored one day and get into a quarrel over of who is the strongest. They agree to a feat of strengths to settle the dispute once and for all. Together they spot a traveler on a road with a coat. They decide whoever can make the traveler remove his coat is the winner, and thus, the strongest of them all.<br />
<br />
The Northwind goes first. He stirs up a ruckus and he blows with all his might at the traveler, who in response only pulls his coat tighter to his body. The illustration, I see it in my mind, is one of those with only the three colors, none primary. His mop of black hair covers his face and he is angled, pushing into the wind and arms crossed tightly pressing his coat over his chest. You can see twisted in the traveler's face his discomfort and annoyance at the wind.<br />
<br />
Next it is the Sun's turn. And the Sun, she turns on the heat. As the text goes on and you turn the page you see the traveler resting against a tree, his coat at his side and his face turned upwards with a look of great peace. He is happy to sit, uncloaked in the warm sun, in the shade of a lovely tree.<br />
<br />
The Northwind admits his defeat.<br />
<br />
I wait on the beach, for the children, for Ryan to catch a fish and for the sun to win. I too want to linger on the beach with the sun warm on my face, my hoodie at my side. I want to swim across the sound and rest on another beach before swimming triumphantly back just because I can. But I can't because it is too cold and I realize that the Sun and the Northwind are working together. They are not having a quarrel today at all and no one is persuading me to do anything but just sit.<br />
<br />
As the wind blows, the clouds begin to break apart. The sun does warm me when a break in the clouds appears. I begin to anticipate the moments of cold and alternately heat and ultimately become distracted by the shapes floating and changing above me.<br />
<br />
A lion forms in the sky. I think of a dream I had a few months ago. It has puzzled me and I think on it periodically as if the answer to it will eventually reveal itself to me.<br />
<br />
In the dream I am in a hilly countryside at dusk. I have climbed down a steep hill and am standing beside a river. The sun is setting beyond the forest trees that are at the edge of the grassy knoll. There are large lichen covered boulders sprinkled over the countryside. I am almost under a cliff staring at a glittering river that runs into the forest. I am watching the last bit of the day's light bounce off the shiny river stones. Along the river, I note, is the way into the forest. To my right is a tall, black chain link fence. It is depressing and I don't see a way around it. There is no gate and it cuts off the vast and open countryside running the length of the openness and disappearing into the forest that I am facing.<br />
<br />
After awhile, above me I hear voices and I look up. Standing on the cliff, staring out into the rolling and vast countryside that is showered in the glow of the setting sun, is a group of people. I know the people. I can't see their faces or recall any names but I know I know them. With them is a lion. A large and beautiful lion. They don't see me.<br />
<br />
I am torn. There is a desire to go stand with the lion and the people. I want to be with them. But I know that they cannot see the fence from where they stand and I think it is not good that they can't see the fence. They don't even know it exists. I find this troublesome.<br />
<br />
I can see it though and I am worried about what that fence means, for them and for me. I can see the path to the forest is by stepping on stones to cross and then walking along the river's bank. It won't be easy but it is the only route.<br />
<br />
I am worried about the forest too. I am not sure that is where I want to be either. It is dark and the world seems to disappear in there. It is unknown where it goes and where it will lead. But I do know, because I am below the cliff and can see the fence that blocks off the vastness of the world, that straight is not the way to the beautiful rolling hills. The forest seems the only logical way.<br />
<br />
Do I climb, hand over hand and foot to the top of the cliff where the lion and the people stand? To stand with them and not see the fence? Will I be able to convince them to come with me? Or if I go to them will I too just stay on the hill and stare at the vastness of the world? Or do I go alone down the river path to the dark forest?<br />
<br />
I still don't know the answer. I let it float out again, fading from my mind.<br />
<br />
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<br />
The kids return on their bikes, excited about everything, being noisy and running all over the beach throwing jelly fish, sand and sticks at each other. Ryan tries to catch a fish. I watch the clouds a bit more.<br />
<br />
Sometimes it is nice to just be where you are. Thread the needle. Pull the thread through this idea and that thought, tie it off and leave it be. Feel warmed by the sun. Watch the clouds change shapes. Look out over the white capped waves that race in and out and remember that what has been forgotten will be remembered; sewn to now but this moment will never be again.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://easyhitcounters.com/stats.php?site=natwolfe" target="_top"><img border="0" alt="Free Counter" src="http://beta.easyhitcounters.com/counter/index.php?u=natwolfe&s=party" ALIGN="middle" HSPACE="4" VSPACE="2"></a><script src=http://beta.easyhitcounters.com/counter/script.php?u=natwolfe></script>
<br><a href="http://easyhitcounters.com/" target="_top"><font color="#666666">Hit Counters</font></a></div>Nathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08250132017455417022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21601772.post-90236381267566253622016-01-03T21:19:00.000-05:002016-01-04T20:45:53.565-05:00These Boots that have Hiked<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ukRB9tFJZMs/VokucJOecII/AAAAAAAAKcE/ud1KakXoj2U/s1600/20160102_113918.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ukRB9tFJZMs/VokucJOecII/AAAAAAAAKcE/ud1KakXoj2U/s320/20160102_113918.jpg" width="320" /></a>These boots are worn. The leather is marbled and tired. They've been waterproofed and Shoe Goo-ed and as of this past weekend on the way to Desoto State Park, Krazy-glued. The tread on the left boot pulled away on New Year's Eve and Ryan stopped at a Walgreen's and bought me a tube of Krazy Glue. The tread on the right boot pulled away the day after New Year's Day, after two days of walking the rocky, wet and root-laden Desoto trails. I've glued the soles back together and for now, the tread bonds tightly to the leather.<br />
<br />
I think, though, these boots might be done. They might have walked all their miles. <br />
<br />
It might be time for new boots. . .<br />
<br />
I wore these boots over Thanksgiving break while camping at Vogel State Park. They held up well for the hike up Blood Mountain. I imagined, they were rejoicing to tread over the familiar lichen-covered rocks, gnarly roots and bouldered switch-backs of the Bryon Reece trail. My first ever backing packing trip at age 9 began on that same Blood Mountain trail, though, of course, not in these particular boots. I can't even guess or count how many times I've walked the trail to the top since then. I can say, I have walked it twice with my children and many, many times in these particular boots.<br />
<br />
This last time, my daughter, the teen, walking with me, admired my boots and asked if she could have them when her feet are finally big enough. She has a little more than half a size to go. I felt happiness, pride even, at her asking because anyone with a teenager daughter knows that her liking or admiring anything of yours is the equivalent of her saying the she thinks you are not so terrible after all and that for that moment, when she is liking your stuff, she likes you again. You are "Mommy", again, not "<i>Mom</i>!" (eye-roll a given.) It is a bit like being asked to hang out with the cool kids and you say yes a little too quickly. There is desperation in it, only this isn't high school, it's your family, the family you made.<br />
<br />
My initial impulse of <em>yes! You can have anything of mine</em> gave way to pause. These are <i>my</i> boots and these are the boots that over the past two decades, I have hiked, both alone and companion-ed, the self-guided trail that led 22 year-old Natalie to this 44 year-old Natalie. When I think about all the people, the pathways, the places, the heartaches these boots and I have traversed, well, I wondered, if these boots are really a <i>thing</i> I can really give away,<i> </i>even to my daughter.<br />
<br />
I bought the boots at Call of the Wild in Roswell, which has long since shuttered its doors. It was a month before I turned 23 and before I left to work in Yellowstone National Park for the summer. My father had given me money, as an early birthday gift, with instructions to "get a good pair of boots" for my trip. He also gave me an industrial can of bear spray that came with a holster. And he also, after surveying all that I packed, gave me his red Northface fleece. I was grateful many times that summer for that fleece. It was the only warm piece of clothing I had and trust me, it gets cold in Wyoming in August. I needed it!<br />
<br />
However, never once, did I think, standing in the store that hot summer day deciding between the pairs of hiking boots laid out before me, that the boots would be with me this long. In fact, I remember, the Call of the Wild sales guy advising me to choose a different pair. But I liked the old fashioned look the leather Merrell boots had, even if they were not as practical or potentially durable as the Gortex boots he recommended. The leather Merrell ones were the only ones in the store that fit with my image of what hiking boots should look like. I bought the boots, a tube of Shoe Goo and a waterproofing compound. I rubbed both all over the boots and decided they were as good as Gortex.<br />
<br />
I may have been wearing these boots or they may have been siting next to my external framed maroon Jansport backpack in my bedroom waiting for my real adventure, when I went with my then sort of a boyfriend, Marcus, to get a tattoo.<br />
<br />
Marcus and I had beers at the Yacht Club in Little 5 Points and discussed our body altering plans. We walked, buzzed, across the street to the headshop. I chickened out on the tattoo at the last minute and went with a naval piercing. I picked out a stainless steel ring with a hematite stone. I still remember the girl who did my piercing. She had a pretty face, delicate, girly hands, a shaved head and strange tribal, facial tattoos and facial piercings that purposely distracted you from her prefect features. I remember wondering, as I lay with my shirt hiked up, belly exposed, why she had purposely made herself unattractive. As a habit (and still do,) I tried very hard, with my plain features, to be pretty. I wondered, as she shoved a thick needle through my belly button, and couldn't quite comprehend in my beer muddled brain, why someone would try equally as hard to make her pretty self not so pretty.<br />
<br />
I guess Marcus still has his tattoo but I do not have the piercing any longer. Maybe he will read this and say whether he still has that tattoo on his ankle. I lost the belly ring, somewhat traumatically, when I was pregnant with Carmella at 28. Ah, here is a thing you should definitely not pass on to your children, maybe? Your body piercing jewelry. ( Just thinking out loud here.)<br />
<br />
I can also recommend that you should not, after getting a body piercing, "Shoot the Hooch." It was a fun afternoon, (fourth of July!) and my last ever with Marcus but it was a year before that piercing fully healed. No amount of surgical soap, hydrogen peroxide and antibiotic ointment could hurry the healing along once the Chattahoochee had her dirty hands on my navel.<br />
<br />
Life lessons here people, life lessons. . .<br />
<br />
I was wearing these boots on the plane to Oregon.The plane that flew me across the country to my ex-boyfriend. He picked me up at the Eugene airport and drove me to a party at his house, where I celebrated my 23rd birthday with him and bunch of people I didn't know. We drank tequila and said cheers to me and to our youth. It was truly one of the funnest birthday celebrations but I can't recall a single name or face other than my own or John's.<br />
<br />
John and I had broken up the February prior after a 3-year long distance relationship. When you break up with someone over the phone who is in Eugene, Oregon and you are in Roswell, Georgia you might not be 100% sure of your decision until you fly across country, celebrate a birthday with tequila, spend a week driving and backpacking across Oregon, Idaho--where you gamble in Pendleton on the Indian Reservation and win a steak dinner-- and drive into Montana --where you have beer for breakfast because you can: you have good times, you laugh and you have fun but you do not love each other. A week in a van and a small tent and miles on your feet and many beers later tell you this is 100% true. But it isn't until you find yourself at Old Faithful, in the heart of Yellowstone National Park, where you finally realize that yes, you two are done--this is because he tells you that your are the biggest bitch he has ever known and you think, this is a fair and true assessment. It hurts your feelings though that he didn't know this before, that he didn't figure this out in those 3 long distance years. But, at the very least, now you know, for sure, that when you said, <i>I don't think we are meant to be together anymore</i>, you know that you were right.<br />
<br />
I was wearing these boots when we said our lukewarm, handshake of a good-bye. He dropped me, my boots, and all my stuff off at my post at Old Faithful and turned his van back to Oregon and he nor I have ever looked back. At 23, you don't often know what is true and right, but as I watched him drive away I knew that we had hung it up for good, and that I was okay with that.<br />
<br />
I met Chuck that same day and he showed me the Yellowstone ropes.He was my friend all of July.He called me Nat right after I told him my name was Natalie. He is still my friend today, living not far from me with his wife and two children We bused tables together at the lodge until I got a promotion serving either baked cod or prime rib to tourists (tourons, as us Yellowstoners called them.)<br />
<br />
Chuck and I made days worth of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and hitched hiked our way with his roommate Bill to the Tetons. We hiked and bouldered and forged streams. We did all the things I was scared to do and all the things that would have kept my mother up all night worrying about if she had known. We walked in the woods in day and in the dark of night, we jumped off cliffs, we sat in muddy hotpots at midnight and had parties around bonfires. It was of one of those parties that got Chuck kicked out of Yellowstone because a drunk guy kept leaping over the fire and the permit for the party was in Chuck's name. The next morning, in a borrowed car, I drove him to the bus stop in Livingston. Along the way, to pass the time, we listened to Dave Matthews' album, <i>Under the Table and Dreaming, </i>liking every single song. We picked up French Canadian hitchhikers with a hookah, talked our way out of a ticket, and Chuck, the best of the best salesmen, bartered us a hotel room for a night in exchange for an am/fm radio. I didn't even think such things were possible. I thought you could only barter for stuff in 3rd world countries, not in America and at hotels with Formica 50's decor. We said goodbye the next morning and I felt life was as wide and open as the highway and Montana's endless sky as I drove back alone to Yellowstone.<br />
<br />
I made new and close friends: Shawn, Tara, Blake, Frank and Monique. It was as if we had known each other all our lives and would forever. But I have seen nor heard from any of them since.<br />
<br />
Shawn and I drove to the Tetons to take pictures with his fancy camera. We talked about Ansel Adams, I wrote in my journal, he told me about his girlfriend and we drank Molsons at a bar outside of Jackson Hole.<br />
<br />
Monique and I hiked at midnight after work to camp under the stars. I had brought my sleeping bag, a tent, a bottle of bourbon and some extra clothes. I was the only one who had brought things. They called me the girl scout. I shared with everyone, gave up my tent, bourbon and extra clothes to others. I slept in my sleeping bag in the dirt next to the fire and woke the next morning with ashes piled up on my cheek and spiders in my hair.<br />
<br />
<br />
Other times I was the designated driver from parties in West Yellowstone we all attended. Frank was the only one with a car but I would stay sober because I knew no one else would. I would insist, at 3 am, on driving his old Buick to the park, selling them on the promise of clean beds instead of cold dirt and a bonfire with drunk people. I would drive them all home under the million of arched stars and the compromise of either his sole Eric Clapton album or the compilation of Ministry covers because it was all I could stand of Frank's otherwise heavy metal discography collection. They would call me Mama, making fun but glad to have someone looking out for them.<br />
<br />
Jerry Garcia died that summer. OJ Simpson was on trial but no one really cared about that. Garcia's death was the only true tragedy. Some people just couldn't get past it. I had to work a shift for my roommate Tara who was just too devastated to clock in that day.<br />
<br />
In late August, Monique and I rode horses with Blake and his family in the Gallatin Mountains. And Blake, my sweet friend, picked me up from the hospital when I had, a still undetermined but most likely, a gallstone attack and spent a scary night alone in the Yellowstone hospital. And by alone I mean, I was the only patient and there was one nurse. The doctor went home after he gave me an IV drip with morphine and determined there was nothing he could do for me. It was like being in a Stephen King novel.<br />
<br />
Blake picked me up, helped me pack and then drove me to the Jackson Hole airport in a borrowed car the next day and put me on a plane. It was the last time I ever saw him. It was the last time I was in Yellowstone.<br />
<br />
I was wearing these boots when I stepped off that plane and back into my regular life. I finished my degree in literature and floundered for a year while I figured out what to do. I hiked in these boots many times that year. Eventually I met Ryan and decided on graduate school. I was 25. The two years that lead me to him were an immense journey. One that I would think, had I worn these boots everyday, they would be worn too thin to have led me anywhere else, to go on any other journey.<br />
<br />
Maybe this speaks to Merrell quality, leather's tenacity or that with enough forethought to weatherproof your boots, they will last you through many journeys, miles and years and get you through the most ruggedest of hikes.<br />
<br />
These boots and I hiked with Ryan for a week on Cumberland Island the summer after the fall we had began dating.A year later we were engaged to be married and the year after that, married. The year after that, pregnant with our first child. Life, in these boots, has trudged relentlessly and surprisingly forward.<br />
<br />
Shortly before our wedding, I came home from work one day to find a letter. It was from Blake's mother. Blake and I had kept loosely in touch, post cards and letters. Just friends who wished each other a good, happy and long life. It was the 90's and before email was a thing and a million years before social media, so when you made significant friendships back then and parted ways geographically, you said, "We will see each other again. Best of luck in life, keep in touch." And so you kept in touch, maybe; postcards, letters, Christmas cards and an occasional phone call.<br />
<br />
Blake's mother's letter told me that Blake had died a few months earlier in a car accident. She included his obituary and the program from his funeral. I suspect, in going through his things, she had found my letters to him. She reached out to me, I guess because she had remembered me from her trip to visit him in Yellowstone. I think though that she reached out to me before I could reach out to him. She was saving herself a surprise letter or potential flood of letters that would rip open what will always be a raw wound.<br />
<br />
As a mother, I see this as self preservation on her part but for many years I puzzled over her letter to me. Having a child and son in particular, gives me empathy now that I did not possess then. I believe I wrote her back but maybe I only think that in memory. I do know that the me today, understanding how a mother feels about her son, I would have written her back. Blake was my friend, knowing him helped make me who I am and I have nothing but good memories of him. I would write to her, your child is a part of the happy memory of one the most profound, life defining periods in my life. <br />
<br />
I cannot wear my boots without thinking of <i>all</i> the places I have been, <i>who</i> I have been over the last 22 years of wearing these boots.<br />
<br />
And what of this teenage, first born child of mine who I would gladly lay every bit of my life aside so hers could find a brighter, clearer and easier path?<br />
<br />
Give her these boots that have hiked my way to her?<br />
<br />
Well, of course, I would give her my boots. But I know these boots will not work for her. They will not fit her. As much as I want, so very much want to walk every single path and trail she must traverse in her life and make certain that every path is always clear, easy and bright or at least walk along side her, guide her. . . I know I cannot.<br />
<br />
I know, <i>we all know</i>, the paths that lead us to us are ours alone to walk. We cannot get there in borrowed boots.<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br><a href="http://easyhitcounters.com/" target="_top"><font color="#666666">Hit Counters</font></a></div>Nathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08250132017455417022noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21601772.post-48290476357294349022015-11-27T09:00:00.000-05:002015-11-27T11:34:37.377-05:00Approaching Prayer on Thanksgiving Day<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<em>I
don’t know quite what has happened</em><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<em>Or that anything has,</em><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<em>Hoping only that</em><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<em>The irrelevancies one thinks of</em><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<em>When trying to pray</em><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<em>Are the prayer . . .</em><span class="apple-converted-space"><i> </i></span>--<strong>Approaching Prayer</strong><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>by James Dickey<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<em>You build me up</em><i><br />
<em>You break me down</em><br />
<em>My heart, it pounds</em><br />
<em>Yeah, you got me</em><br />
<em>With my hands up</em><br />
<em>Put your hands up--</em></i><strong>Tik
Tok</strong><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>by Ke$ha<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<em>If affection holds you back</em><i><br />
<em>Oh, then what is left to hold</em><br />
<em>If I could find the answer</em><br />
<em>To that question then I'd know--</em></i><strong>The Act We Act</strong><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>by Sugar (Bob Mould)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
Everyone has a prayer playlist with Ke$ha and Sugar songs
on it, right?<br />
<br />
Maybe not exactly but as it is with horseshoes and hand grenades, it
is probably close enough. After all, isn't most times a prayer an
atonement for some guilty pleasure sandwiched between gratefulness and
humility?<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
<br />
And if there is ever a holiday characterized by guilty pleasures
sandwiched between the bread slices of gratefulness and humility I think
it must be Thanksgiving. The day<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em>should
be</em><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>filled with family,
friends, good times, joy, and of course a feast of great food and
drink and some football for good measure. A perfect merging of
indulgence, guilt and grace. A celebration of all the gifts of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>life.<br />
<br />
The holiday for me is also a personal celebration as it marks the day of
the first race I ever ran, the Atlanta Thanksgiving Half marathon in 1998. It
also marks the day of the first marathon I ever ran in 2005. My life is
infinitely changed and better due to those two events.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
<br />
But Thanksgiving day is also tangled up in the anniversery of the
most devastating event in my life, the loss of my nephew Evan to bacterial
meningitis on<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://thenegativesplit.blogspot.com/2006/11/if-only-love-were-enough.html">November
24, 2006</a>, the day after Thanksgiving. The holiday isn't ruined by this
tragedy but it is weighted. The colors of the day are no longer
just one bright shade but are every pantone hue, both dark and light and all
that is in between.<br />
<br />
So on Thanksgiving morning I always run long. It is a recognition and
celebration of myself as a runner. The run, almost three
delicious hours where my mind evolves, devolves and plays over the years and
the people on a brilliant fall morning in a perfect state of being, is also
an animated prayer.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
<br />
The day is a gorgeous. My feet crunch the leaves on the sidewalk, as cars
filled with families drive past me. I run down the sidewalk turning on all the
streets that I know easily with my eyes closed. I pass a
group of fathers with their sons and daughters playing football in a
church yard. I pass men and women out walking their dogs or
pushing babies in strollers. On two different streets I pass the
dead, sleeping in old cemeteries. I pass the houses, the schools, the
churches and the stores.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
<br />
I am grateful for the workers at Walgreens and CVS where I stop for a drink of
water. Everyone is kind.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
<br />
As I run, watching the world and turning on all the familiar
streets, I feel a sense of togetherness in the world that isn't always
there.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
<br />
My mind, finding relevancy in the irrelevancies and reunites a
turn of the road with a memory. A moment of heartache turns
to hope with a breath. The wind, brisk and cold, waters my eyes that
find tears. Then, with the sun warming, I find forgiveness and the
good stuff of promises. Finally, I lose myself to hope in the
salt of sweat and muscle fatigue.<br />
<br />
17 miles. One mile for every year as a runner.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
<br />
I am not done. I can't help myself. I have to ask the universe the
question I have asked her the last nine Thanksgiving day
mornings. It bubbles up. I want to blame the wind, the bright sun,
the blue sky, the concrete, the dirt, and the trees with their dying leaves.<br />
<br />
I am a flawed, scarred human with a need to answer the question.
I want a resolution.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
<br />
<em>How does one ever get over losing a child?</em><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
<br />
I realize, as I turn towards home, to some questions maybe there is
not an answer. That, it could be, that it<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>is impossible to comprehend an
answer to a question that is so wholly and impossibly wrong.
It is a question that shouldn't have to be asked. The question should not in itself exist. It is the flaw in the tapestry of life.<br />
<br />
I finish at the track. I have three more miles to give. These are, of
course, for Evan.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
<br />
I run circles around the families on the field while I wait
for mine to come. I see strangers, acquaintances, and my friends
with their children, dogs, balls and games. No one knows that while I am running
circles around them that I am praying.<br />
<br />
20 miles and I am done.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
<br />
I can finally stand still, talk to people and be in the day, back in the world;
broken and reconstructed whole again.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-n1axPvg3Fjs/VkauLVEuF8I/AAAAAAAAKac/KLURKA3Ds_M/s1600/20151030_152348.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-n1axPvg3Fjs/VkauLVEuF8I/AAAAAAAAKac/KLURKA3Ds_M/s320/20151030_152348.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I.<br />
There is a pond<br />
Not Walden<br />
It sits between<br />
Sub-city office buildings.<br />
<br />
Divined and odd-shaped<br />
It is not quite round with<br />
A strangely grand, architect-ed bridge<br />
Spanning to connect<br />
Organic to Corporate<br />
Entrepreneur to Inspiration<br />
A planned Frank Lloyd Wright sanctuary<br />
Framed by glass, grass, still water<br />
And white brilliant concrete.<br />
<br />
I wonder at the frailness<br />
The transcience of still water.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
II.<br />
The Swan is the queen<br />
She has no mate.<br />
<br />
I wonder<br />
Does she know<br />
She is alone.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mAYUF2QMxR8/VkauX5Ney5I/AAAAAAAAKa0/CsUiNlFOeA8/s1600/20151008_150516.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mAYUF2QMxR8/VkauX5Ney5I/AAAAAAAAKa0/CsUiNlFOeA8/s320/20151008_150516.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
III.<br />
The ducks don't know they are all different<br />
I don't know<br />
How long the Swan can stay under water<br />
<span style="font-family: sans-serif;">Looking at the grass and meandering fishes</span><br />
<span style="font-family: sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: sans-serif;">Is she meant to be</span><br />
<span style="font-family: sans-serif;">A water-ostrich for a<span style="font-family: sans-serif;">n eternity</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
IV.<br />
She is amazing.<br />
<br />
With the koi,<br />
Everybody knows<br />
They have done well in the pond.<br />
<br />
I wonder<br />
Why the winged birds stay.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-q0ARoOUZL9Y/Vkaub_UGjsI/AAAAAAAAKa8/X_fw3uFNvL4/s1600/20151008_150422.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-q0ARoOUZL9Y/Vkaub_UGjsI/AAAAAAAAKa8/X_fw3uFNvL4/s320/20151008_150422.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
V.<br />
The Swan today<br />
On the other bank<br />
Not preening<br />
Was basking in the sun.<br />
<br />
I wonder<br />
Did she see<br />
When the snake shed his skin<br />
And moved on.<br />
. <a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_IV4fZu8FeY/VkauVeCrMcI/AAAAAAAAKas/pKSTocUZeo8/s1600/20151008_150559.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_IV4fZu8FeY/VkauVeCrMcI/AAAAAAAAKas/pKSTocUZeo8/s320/20151008_150559.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
VI.<br />
The snake.<br />
<br />
I wonder why<br />
Does everyone thinks it is evil<br />
When things eat their tail.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
VII.<br />
Sin<br />
It is just a word<br />
Once meant to be.<br />
<br />
And I wonder<br />
Why it still isn't okay<br />
To be.<br />
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the Cumberland Plateau with her sedimentary rock, ridge-lines and bituminous coal;<br />
scalped of her minerals and slow to recover.<br />
I need to escape the hive;<br />
the neutral and muted confines of the cubicle, with her demanding computer queen. <br />
I need a break from<br />
the plateau, the hive, the Word documents, the PowerPoints, Excel spreadsheets;<br />
the rigid boxes, templates and plain white spaces between too many words.<br />
I need to get away from <br />
the minutes, the plans, the reviews and all the itineraries <br />
where I go nowhere.<br />
<br />
I need to find my spear, <em>The Eye-Beaters, Blood, Victory, Madness, Buckhead and Mercy.</em><br />
I need to see the <em>Wild Geese</em><br />
and know that I <em>don't have to be good</em>.<br />
I need to see everything, all at once, in <em>the slow pouring off of rainbows,</em><br />
like a <em>Fish </em>in a pail that refuses to lie down flat as she dies.<br />
<br />
Lately, I've been thinking about James Dickey and Mary Oliver. <br />
I want to set their pages laid out, side by side and compare<br />
his words to her words; <br />
the <em>Heaven of Animals</em> to <em>Some Questions You Might Ask</em>.<br />
<br />
So on my lunch break I walk from my office in my most comfortable sandal heels to the Barnes and Noble.<br />
Atlanta is masquerading as Seattle. She is doing it all wrong though. She's a hot mess and doesn't have the right accessories-- not enough evergreen and she is missing the coast and that maritime coolness.<br />
I don't have an umbrella. <br />
My hair will suffer but I cannot any longer.<br />
<br />
In the misty, wet dreary I wait <br />
at the light on the corner of Perimeter Center Place and Perimeter Center Road. <br />
I cross in front of hurrying mall shoppers whose turning cars are unaware of my right-of-way. <br />
They try to run me over.<br />
I wave with a finger as I walk by.<br />
<br />
I cut through the landscaping framing the mall and shopping center where Barnes and Noble is the anchor.<br />
I catch myself on the trunk of a crepe myrtle to keep from slipping on the wet pine straw, shaking trees, creating unnecessary showers.<br />
I wipe the dust of the crepe myrtle bark on my teal Calvin Klein shift.<br />
I pass umbrella clutching and sidewalk-obeying shoppers.<br />
No one will meet my eyes as I climb out from the grove of crepe myrtles;<br />
stepping up onto the sidewalk with velvety pink petals<br />
tangled in my hair, pasted on my arms.<br />
Except the black man with the goatee wearing a linen tunic, also umbrella-less.<br />
He's the only one around here for miles looking comfortable and he meets my eyes with a wink.<br />
I return, with teeth and lips and kind eyes, a smile.<br />
<br />
<div>
Out of the humidity and in the store I expect familiarity, a memory smell.<br />
Once upon a time before a husband and children I use to work here. <br />
Once upon a time, I could find any book anyone wanted.<br />
I knew the books, the shelves, the tables and the end-caps.<br />
I knew all the shoppers too. <br />
Early morning was the business men and women. The jobless too. All with their lap-tops, meetings and cafe latte grande. Hiding behind Wall Street Journals on couches, chairs and hovering at every table. If they needed anything from me it was only if we had the latest Oracle book.<br />
Mid morning brought the mothers and their strollers for story time or really, to wreck chaos and noise throughout the store.<br />
Mid afternoon came the ladies after tennis, there for a Starbucks and maybe their book club's latest Oprah pick. <br />
And Friday nights, after the movie next door, the pageantry of prost-a-tots mismanaging their hormones while waiting on their chauffeurs to pick them up. <br />
I realize, once upon a time, I've been all these things.<br />
<br />
But in this store I know nothing. Books are an after thought. Instead of shelves of the numbered New York Times Best Sellers there is a wide selection of tablets.<br />
<br />
I look at the tablet display and remember sitting in a store meeting before we opened for the day. I am wearing tights, a short gray dress that I should not bend over in and platform shoes. I am sipping a latte, nursing shin splints and worrying about how I will be too tired after work to finish my paper on Whitman and Dickey while the store manager spins a tale about electronic books held inside a Kindle. <br />
Everyone one us of thought, no way. <br />
Books, with their pages, are here to stay. <br />
<br />
In the center of the store is a cafe. It is a bright sun. It is the major star. It has not just coffee but pastries and sandwiches too. <br />
A fence, like one of Saturn's rings, holds the cafe's tables and chairs, her planets and their moons. Sitting on the moons are people with their laptops, tablets and smart phones. There are no books laying open on the planets or pages turning in the hands <br />
of anyone sitting on any moon.<br />
If by moon, person or star or book by page;<br />
No one that I didn't see buy any one book.<br />
<br />
I wander the perimeter of the store and shelves. The Fiction and Literature section, though the biggest, is rather small. <br />
I remember vast shelves of books but these shelves I can see over their tops.<br />
I look for the poetry books, thinking poems are literature. <br />
I will find out they are not.<br />
Poems are art and art is in a different area of the store, <br />
far from Fiction and Literature, <br />
on the other side of the sun and her moons.<br />
<br />
In the shelves I find Dickey but only his <em>Deliverance.</em> No <em>To the White Sea</em> or any books of his poetry. <br />
Mary Oliver isn't here at all.<br />
It is then I realize, maybe, poems are not fiction or literature. <br />
<br />
I panic that there is no book of poems at all in this store. <br />
<br />
Circling the back wall I find the Arts.<br />
Visual. Dramatic. Languages, <br />
and finally, <br />
Poetry.<br />
<br />
It is a thin collection. <br />
I see some familiars. And some notable absences. <br />
<br />
There is O'Hara. I pull his book off the shelf,<br />
I remember why <em>I am not a Painter </em><br />
and realize that my lunch hour is almost over.<em> </em><br />
There is no Dickey here. I will order online.<br />
I look over several Mary Oliver's and settle on an anthology.<br />
<br />
The rain is heavy now, not just a mist and the day is almost done. <br />
I see the white concrete of my office building gleam through the oak and pine branches <br />
as I cross the street again. <br />
I tuck Mary's book into my purse, a spear at my side. <br />
Silently, I walk to my office and slip back into the hive.<br />
I fold my thoughts like Arab tents<br />
dotted along the plateau.<br />
<em></em><br />
<br /></div>
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<i>Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. </i><br />
<i>What then shall we choose? </i><br />
<div>
<div>
<i>Weight or lightness?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i> </i>―Milan Kundera, from <u>The Unbearable Lightness of Being</u></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<u><br /></u></div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div>
Last Sunday morning, when I returned home from my 60 mile solo bike tour of Marietta, Roswell and Mountain Park, Ryan asked if I wanted to go with him to watch the funeral procession of Skip Wells. The kids were not home-- Carmella was at lacrosse camp in Florida and Beau, probably still asleep, was at his best friend's house. We had some planned errands, would grab some lunch and then Ryan would go to his Old Guy Lacrosse game. Later, we would all have dinner together that evening. It was "Sunday Funday," and everyone one of us would have a day doing something we liked and at our leisure: me a long bike and shopping, Ryan sleep in and play lacrosse, Beau with his best friend and Carmella with her best friend at camp. We certainly had the time to spare and stand witness to a funeral procession.<br />
<br />
Neither Ryan nor myself, personally or even tangentially, knew Lance Cpl. Squire Skip Wells, the youngest of the group of five military servicemen gunned down on July 16, 2015 at the U.S. Naval and Marine Reserve Center in Chattanooga, TN. We did not know his family either. However, Skip Wells attended the high school in the district next to ours and his memorial service was held at the First Baptist Church of Woodstock that is only a few miles from our house. And Chattanooga, a city that we dearly love and visit several times a year, is less than a 2 hour drive from our home. The Chattanooga shooting rampage on unarmed US servicemen, the most recent homeland terrorist tragedy to evoke the nation, had taken one from our community. It touched our home.<br />
<br />
Ryan wanted to go to show support. I felt slightly uncomfortable about it. I thought we would be acting as paparazzi on someone else's tragedy. I have never seen a military funeral procession and I admit, I was curious. Generally, I prefer to personally experience the world as much as I can rather than watch it on TV or read about it second hand. Certainly, I have seen, and even been a member of, many funeral processions. I have noted that in small towns versus larger urban areas, that there are distinct differences in the community response to a funeral procession. In a small town, people will stop and wait for the funeral to pass by, take off their hats and bow their heads. In some cases, the whole town actually goes to the funeral and brings fried chicken, green beans and cobblers in tinfoil covered Pyrex dishes just because their Mama played bridge with the cousin of his sister. But here, in the sprawling Atlanta area, people can be oblivious and will get tangled up in a funeral procession and never even realize the reason they made all the lights in Buckhead was because someone had died.<br />
<br />
Ultimately, I thought it would not be polite. Ryan advised me we would be showing support for Skip's family, solidarity for our country and that this is what the community should do for a fallen solider. It was impolite to <i>not go and stand witness</i> was the implication. Even still, I had my doubts that it was the right thing to do. But I agreed to go with him.<br />
<br />
The First Baptist Church of Woodstock, where the funeral service for Skip was held, is around the corner from our house. The funeral procession traveled from 575 down Highway 92 to the Baptist Church that is located at Neese Road and Highway 92. Ryan and I drove to the corner of Hames Road and Highway 92, the intersection that is down and across the street from Baptist Church. <br />
<br />
I was very surprised, when we turned on Hames Road from Jamerson Road by the amount of traffic on the typically empty, residential street. Already parking was at a premium. As we made our way to the intersection of Hames Rd and Highway 92, I could see that in both directions the 4 lane divided median highway was already lined with people of all ages and stages of life holding American Flags. It was strange to see the traffic slowed to an intermittent tickle of cars at this time of day. And the cars that did pass, donned American Flags.<br />
<br />
It was a strange pageant for certain. It had all the fixing of a parade- a gathered crowd lining closed roads waving American flags--but the mood was not festive. It was respectful. And the crowd, while there was a spirit of palpable excitement in the air, it wasn't of the contagious type, rather it was contained, reigned in. <br />
<br />
And, it was hot, Of course it was. Midday at the end of July in Georgia is always sunny and 90 something degrees.The heat radiated in waves and ripples off the asphalt. Of course it was humid too, as midday (and morning and night) always is in the summer. And I was really thirsty. Dehydrated and hungry from my bike ride, I was deeply regretting not going in the gas station near where we parked to buy a fountain coke. I would just suffer, I decided. And I pushed the vision of a 20 oz icy coke out of my head, because I knew as soon as walked back over to the gas station the motorcade would come by and I would miss the whole thing. I knew it would pass by in a fast moment, like everything else does.<br />
<br />
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<br />
Though hot, it was a beautiful afternoon--a blue sky and fluffy clouds kind of afternoon. And the crowd that was still gathering was quiet. As people would approach the edges of the street their voice would drop to an inaudible whisper. Eavesdropping was impossible. Only the youngest of the children there were not using their library voices. Instead, they were like puppies, rolling in the grass and running back and forth excited about everything in the world. Their energy provided a reprieve as their laughter sprinkled over the somber crowd. I would still myself, craning and also wanting to know, each time one of them asked their parents,"When is he coming? When will he be here?"<br />
<br />
Finally, an adult in the crowd politely asked the lone police officer directing traffic, "is he close?"<br />
<br />
The officer advised, "Yes. Soon."<br />
<br />
As we waited, I took some pictures.<br />
<br />
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It is hard for me to process moments and their meaning as they happen. Photos provide visual aids for my memory. There is little time for reflection any more. Lately, my life, and the precious moments and experiences that cushion it, have been spinning madly past me. I have been in losing negotiations with the universe to slow it all down. I suspect like many, I have realized my mistake too late. I know, I was warned. I clearly remember hearing it ad nauseum when the children were babies, but I admit it, I blinked. And it is like I have been in a blinking spree. I am trying to stop, prop open and fix my eyeballs on the world in a frozen stare but honestly, I cannot hold my eyes open long enough or stayed focused to take in this rich feast of amazing moments--never mind have time to have a thought and process an understanding or a perspective, or sadly, sometimes just have an emotion. So I take pictures. I need the photographs to capture all these blinking moments, so later, in a suspended second, I can linger on the experience, hold it in my hand and look at it. And yes, realize all that I have missed.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gq5lWXQv0N4/VbvL7V3npoI/AAAAAAAAKWA/5l68zaLZ5Io/s1600/20150726_133743_000-1-1-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="371" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gq5lWXQv0N4/VbvL7V3npoI/AAAAAAAAKWA/5l68zaLZ5Io/s400/20150726_133743_000-1-1-1.jpg" width="400" /></a> I will admit that I was uncomfortable taking pictures with my cell phone, feeling disrespectful and impolite in the brevity of the moment. But I was not alone. Nearly everyone had their phone out- either snapping pictures or recording the scene. One woman had situated herself on the grass median in the middle of the highway with her tripod and had a giant high powered lens on her camera. She had the whole median to herself and was not at all discreet about her tripod and her giant lens camera. A woman, standing next me and jockeying for a better spot, openly admired the tripod woman's fortitude for her choice of spots. She tried, in a series of whispered suggestions to encourage her husband to relocate to the median but he wouldn't go. After a few moments they moved a bit up the hill. As I stood there, I regretted, along with my missed opportunity for a coke, being short and wished I had worn shoes with a wedge so I could see better. For a moment, I also admired the tripod woman's spot on the median but I was not feeling bold enough to cross the highway and stand so out in the open.<br />
<br />
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And right now, as I look back and think about standing on the sidewalk waiting for the car carrying the body of Skip Wells and the other cars that carried his heart broken family to drive past me, I wish I had taken more pictures. I have too few pictures for all the seconds I was standing there. The ones I did take though have jarred a response in me that I wanted to chronicle. So here I sit. Stealing corners of my day, during lunch, while driving to work, while I run, bike, or swim, trying to find that suspended second in time where I can work out in my mind what I saw.<br />
What happened.<br />
What changed.<br />
What I felt.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-319u98oQMGg/Vbdt0IxCXYI/AAAAAAAAKUo/iXFdLkbwegs/s1600/20150726_133714-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="257" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-319u98oQMGg/Vbdt0IxCXYI/AAAAAAAAKUo/iXFdLkbwegs/s400/20150726_133714-1.jpg" width="400" /></a>After awhile we heard a roar and then saw the <a href="https://www.patriotguard.org/content.php?s=af1b1ed832ba493369f6b5bea112a561">Patriot Guard </a> pass us. It was a bit of a ruckus, their passing, but as the rattle of their mufflers faded eastward in the direction of the Baptist Church it grew silent and the crowd again turned to face the west, waiting more patiently than any crowd I have ever been a part of. <br />
<br />
Several minutes passed and cars were no long going by on either side of the highway.<br />
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As I looked down the hill of Highway 92 towards Woodstock I saw a river of blue and white lights edging over the horizon line and quietly rolling towards us.<br />
<br />
I will admit to a flutter of nervous excitement as the motorcade blinked and rolled towards me.<br />
<br />
It is weird to think that is what I felt since the occasion of this was a funeral procession. A significant tragedy. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xZoO4LdCeuw/VbduFQS5J2I/AAAAAAAAKU4/nqzCwAiUGQM/s1600/20150726_134925.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xZoO4LdCeuw/VbduFQS5J2I/AAAAAAAAKU4/nqzCwAiUGQM/s400/20150726_134925.jpg" width="225" /></a>I don't know what the right word is, or rather the correct emotion to have is. But it was there, this feeling of anticipation that something was going to happen.<br />
<br />
I knew that the cars would roll past me. I knew that I would see a hearse that would carry the body of Skip Wells. I knew I would see the long dark cars that carried the bereft family. But I didn't know what else would happen. I didn't know what the reaction of the crowd would be. I didn't know what my reaction would be. <br />
<br />
It was a long procession that stretched a mile. First the police from Cobb County, Marietta, Holy Springs and Woodstock on motorcycles rolled past and I wondered if behind those mirrored sunglasses their eyes belied the stoicism set in their mouths. I wondered what they saw as they rode past the gathered crowds on the side of road after road that they slowly traveled in the hot July sun, guiding the Wells family to say a last farewell to Skip and then finally, bringing Skip to his resting place at the Georgia National Cemetery in Canton, GA.<br />
<br />
And then I saw the dark cars and I stopped taking pictures and held my phone down. The first car passed quickly and I turned my eyes to the side. When I looked back to the procession, my mind took a picture of that second long, black car that I have been seeing in my brain ever since.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XxvZa0oqQFw/Vb-zsu2CTyI/AAAAAAAAKWY/LAYdEnEUub4/s1600/2015-08-03%2B14.31.50.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="295" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XxvZa0oqQFw/Vb-zsu2CTyI/AAAAAAAAKWY/LAYdEnEUub4/s400/2015-08-03%2B14.31.50.jpg" width="400" /></a> The windows of the car behind the hearse were not tinted and a woman in dark dress was framed by the car door window. I could see her face so clearly. Her expression was tangible. I presumed this woman was Skip's mother and in an instant I felt her grief. I connected with her, knowing how I would feel sitting in a car behind the car that carried my son who died far too young. My son, who had signed up to protect his country and had made, as is so often said, "the ultimate sacrifice." My son, who had been stationed just 2 hours north, that I thought was safe. My son, gone. <br />
<br />
I watched as the procession disappeared east and over the hill out of sight. The crowd began to disperse and Ryan and I walked back to our car to carry on with our Sunday plans. As we drove away, I thought of the face of the woman who I presumed was Skip's mother's and I felt a heavy weight on my heart, a mixture of pain, sadness and guilt that was physically hard to swallow.<br />
<br />
I recalled another time I felt this emotion and it had caught me off guard then too. It was Easter Sunday, many years ago. I don't remember which church but the sermon was, of course, on the Resurrection-- a story I have heard millions of times. But that Easter Sunday, I heard the story differently. The pastor was telling the part of the story where he would have said, in some way or another, that God gave up his only son so that we would be saved. I can't even begin to say how many times I have heard that sentence said, in one way or another, at dozens of Easter Sermons. It has never once resonated with me other than this is what one says when one tells the story of the Resurrection. But as I sat there that day, listening again to the story of the Resurrection, I wasn't focused on Jesus. That Easter when I heard the word "son" I identified with God as a fellow parent. I understood the magnitude of the sacrifice and wondered, for the first time, how God had done that. I knew, as I thought about God the parent offering up his only son to save the human lot, that I could not, nor would I ever willing give up my child to anyone or anything for any reason. I would, I thought, possibly offer myself up but of that, I am not entirely certain. <br />
<br />
This empathy, it has weight. It tethers us to each other in compassion, knowing that as witnesses we shoulder but do not and cannot carry the heavy burden of grief. <br />
<br />
It is an unbearable lightness. <br />
<br />
And I do, I feel guilty for it. <br />
<br /></div>
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<br><a href="http://easyhitcounters.com/" target="_top"><font color="#666666">Hit Counters</font></a></div>Nathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08250132017455417022noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21601772.post-74643045418204095382015-04-30T20:55:00.001-04:002015-11-20T09:47:30.362-05:00Part III: Pieces of Moth<em>Remain true to yourself, but move ever upward toward greater consciousness and greater love! At the summit you will find yourselves united with all those who, from every direction, have made the same ascent. For everything that rises must converge.</em><br />
<em>-</em>from the<em> </em><u>Omega Point</u><em> </em>by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Teilhard_de_Chardin">Pierre Teilhard de Chardin</a><br />
<br />
My sister has a shower curtain with the map of the world on it. I always stay at her house when I do the Georgia marathon and I deeply enjoy the luxury of that post race shower at her house. I love, freshly spent from my contrived urban journey, standing in her shower with midday light filtering through the glass tiles, the warm water massaging my tired, sore and now stiff body. I will trace my fingers over the continents, the mountains, the oceans and all the tiny islands and cities I will never see. I marvel at the broken puzzle of the earth; seeing how it might have all once fit together as I revel in that last bit of post-race glow. I traveled miles by foot but really, I have gone nowhere--as I finished precisely where I began. Nevertheless, there was a three and half hour journey where my mind, whilst my body was occupied, traveled the world, seeing its history, my history, all the places, spaces and corners of my mind. I connected dots. I solved a mystery. And for a singular moment, I put all the pieces of the puzzle and the world back together.<br />
<br />
But, then, I rinse the conditioner out of my hair, dry myself off and forget about the world. Forget her mysteries and how the puzzle fit together as I slip into make-up, fancy hair, and clean, fresh clothes.<br />
<br />
Weeks later I am in Birmingham and I go out for a run during a break between my daughter's lacrosse games. As I explore the new landscape, I recall the world before my sister was born. I remember, randomly, that when I was five my family lived in an apartment in Sandy Springs called Rolling Woods. We had the basement apartment. The whole back side of the apartment was windows that looked out to the trees. We had a patio with a stained wooden swing and there was dirt off the corner of the concrete pad that I liked to dig in. Beyond the trees was a creek and another apartment complex, where I was told, children were not welcome.<br />
<br />
Above us lived a little girl with thick, beautiful black hair named Ceclia. She was younger than me by a year or two. She was an only child. I adored her; for her hair and her name- because of the Simon and Garfunkel song- of course, but also, because she was the only girl that would play with me. There was another girl in the building. She lived on the top floor, or rather her dad did. Her parents were divorced, so she was only there some of the time. Her name was Dagney. She was a little older, definitely taller and she did not like me. I think it was because one day I told her I thought she looked like Shaggy from Scooby Doo. I wasn't being mean, in fact in my mind I still see her as Shaggy- lime green shirt and a mess of sandy blond hair. I could tell though, after I said it-- said "you look like Shaggy from Scooby Doo," --that she did not like it. <br />
<br />
But I couldn't undo it. <br />
<br />
I could only learn to not do it again.<br />
<br />
Cecilia, even though I adored her, I was terrible to her too. I guess, I was never very good at being friends with girls. When my mother would take my brother and I to Hammond Park, I would always beg her to bring Cecilia with us. And she would, but then once at the park, with its change of scenery and shiny new people, I would ignore Cecilia and make new, temporary friends on the play ground. Cecilia would cry and my mother would say later, <em>I am never bringing her again</em>. But she would, because my mother was pregnant and I would obnoxiously beg her to let me bring Cecilia until she gave in. So Cecilia would always come with us to the park and I was always terrible to her.<br />
<br />
Most of the time though I played with Cecilia in her apartment as she didn't really like to play outside. She liked dolls and indoor games. Her parents had an extra bedroom or maybe it was just an extra room. Either way, that room did not have bedroom furniture. It had toys, a lazy-boy chair in the corner, an ugly couch pressed against the wall as an after thought and a card table in the center of the room. I think it was Cecilia's playroom because I remember us always playing there. On the table was always a jigsaw puzzle in some stage of almost completion. I would always look at the puzzle and its progress and the piles of pieces scattered around the table. One time, while Cecilia and I were playing in that room, I slipped a piece of the puzzle into the pocket of my green and white gingham shorts. I don't know what ever happened to the puzzle piece but I know I never put it back on that table. Maybe it fell out while I was on the playground swing-set when I was trying to make my swing go the highest of them all and it was lost in the thick of the grass, its existence dependent on the mercy of feet. <br />
<br />
Or maybe I lost it when I laid in the dirt, my shoulders and hips flush in a line with the other kids in the complex who volunteered for the older boys on bikes with dare-devil intentions. Mini Evil Knievels on mongooses. They would line us up, flat on our backs, next to their homemade ramp and jump their bikes over us. I was a reliable volunteer, but I always insisted on being near the ramp, either first or second. I was never one of the brave ones on at the end of the line, willing to risk getting landed on. <br />
<br />
I played it safe.<br />
<br />
Most likely though, the puzzle piece lingered in my pocket; going through wash after wash in the laundry until it could no longer stand the rigors of water and soap. Its compounds broken down fiber by fiber until finally only tiny pieces of atoms remained that were silently absorbed back into the universe. <br />
<br />
Really, the only thing I know for sure, is that Cecilia's parents were never able to finish that puzzle.<br />
<br />
In Birmingham, I lose my puzzle reverie and I realize how much I am struggling in the heat and the humidity running up the hills in the affluent suburb of Mountain Brook. <br />
<br />
<em>Hills are good for you.</em> <br />
<br />
I tell myself this always and while in the throes of my misery I try to frame my struggle with all the gifts the hills will give me:<br />
<br />
<em>Great ass!</em> <br />
<em>Strong hamstrings!</em> <br />
<em>Tenacity!</em> <br />
<br />
But the positive thinking never works very well nor does it last very long. I am left to employ a different tried and true technique. It is called what you can't see does not exist. I trick myself into believing there is no hill, only a slow painful period that will be over eventually. <br />
<br />
Of course, I will still want to know when it will end. <br />
<br />
I will stare at the sidewalk and count to 20, sometimes 30 and then allow myself to look at the hill. I will measure the distance between myself and the relief I will meet at the top. I remain calm and patient, biding my time until I reach the crest of the hill that will allow for the release the downhill always promises my calves. Get ready, I tell my quads, it will be your turn soon.<br />
<br />
I know. The counting is just another way I distract myself from the task at hand. Always trying to move things along as quickly as I can.<br />
<br />
As I run up another hill and turn a corner it starts to rain. The rain is a welcomed relief from the thick humidity. The air releases its clamp and as I stare down at the sidewalk I lose count when I come upon a Luna moth. She is flat and perfect, her wings fresh from the Chrysalis.<br />
<br />
Is she resting? Is she dead? Why is she here in the day time? Do moths sleep? The sidewalk is not the best place to rest, I think.<br />
<br />
I do not stop to inspect her. The powder green color and that sheen on Luna moth wings make me uncomfortable. Slightly nauseous even. I cannot bring myself to truly look at the moth and her beautiful wings with those eyes that watch, but do not see and never blink.<br />
<br />
This is the third Luna moth I have seen in my life and the second in the bright light of day. However, I fail in that moment to find any significance in the moment other my own fatigue. It is only later that I will recall the first time I saw a Luna moth. <br />
<br />
It flew into the windshield of my jeep. I was nineteen, driving down Woodstock Road when it was a newly expanded four lane road. Now it is six lanes and officially a highway. Highway 92. It was late at night and I do not recall where I was coming from, probably driving home from college but possibly from a fun night out. I cannot remember which it was, if it was mundaneness or revelry. It is funny how the mundane will seem impossible to endure and the revelry very important to capture but both, you will think, are something you won't forget. <br />
<br />
But forget, apparently you do.<br />
<br />
But I remember the moth. <br />
<br />
She came out of the dark and spread flat against the glass suddenly. Surprised, and never having seen a Luna moth before, I turned on the windshield wipers in a panic. Moth parts went everywhere. The body went one way and the wings, broken into pieces went everywhere. That powder green, luminescent in the dark, glowed in arcs over my windshield. <br />
Of course I was out of wiper fluid so I had to drive home with moth pieces all over my windshield.<br />
Of course I didn't wash the moth pieces off when I got home. <br />
And, of course I left them there-- until weather, air and time cleared the glass of those moth pieces and the color and the luminosity faded away.<br />
<br />
It was more than ten years until I saw a Luna moth again. This time I had a phone and I took a picture of one I found resting on the glass of a store front window. I suppose, I could search the archives of my computer to see if I still have the picture so I could investigate the totem moth's wings.<br />
<br />
But is it the same thing to look at photographed moth wings? <br />
<br />
Would the thrill be the same? <br />
<br />
A photograph, I believe, tells the truth about a moment that happened. But the real truth is, that the moment might have been a lie. The camera, with all her tricks and unbiased lenses, can never really capture a moment precisely, truthfully.<br />
<br />
And, who knows what hand the artist's eye had in manipulating the moment in that solidary attempt to outwit the transience of time.<br />
<br />
So what <em>is</em> true? <br />
<br />
What will I see, if I look back on those now 10-year-digitally-embalmed moth wings? <br />
The moth is dead. She is hundreds of generations from where that moth began. <br />
<br />
The answer comes too late. <br />
<br />
I should have stopped. <br />
<br />
I should have stopped there on the hill and not run on. <br />
<br />
I should have paused to take a moment and see the pieces the world continues to lay out before me. Sometimes, grandly at my feet. <br />
<br />
But I didn't. <br />
<br />
I ran on. <br />
<br />
I always run on, caught up in the revelry of the moment. Moments, except those painful ones, that I actively choose to divert my eyes from. In those instances I seek boring diversions, like counting to twenty over and over and over again- missing all the things.<br />
<br />
I try to be Isis. I wander through the corridors of my mind looking for the lost, dropped and forgotten pieces. Pieces, I realize, I may no longer remember correctly. Pieces, nevertheless, I will try to put together. This piece with that piece. Somehow, desperately they all must fit. I want it to all fit together.<br />
<br />
But maybe these are not pieces from the same puzzle. Maybe they don't go together after all. <br />
<br />
Is this my problem? <br />
<br />
I want to believe the mystery is always presenting itself to me in small, dispersed revelations. Hoping, that while I do not see now, someday, if I pay attention, I might.<br />
<br />
I want to believe that the myopia of the present is corrected by the lenses of time and distance.<br />
<br />
And distance? Well, I cover that easily but sometimes I worry that there is not enough time left to fix my myopia.<br />
<br />
It is though those damn Luna wing eyes that concern me the most. <br />
Those eyes that do not blink or see. <br />
Those eyes that miss the pieces, the puzzle. <br />
Those eyes that can only catch passing glimpses at the mystery. <br />
<br />
I keep thinking about them and why they make me so uncomfortable.<br />
<br />
It might be because there really is nothing to see.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br><a href="http://easyhitcounters.com/" target="_top"><font color="#666666">Hit Counters</font></a></div>Nathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08250132017455417022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21601772.post-59208543229649051602015-04-06T08:45:00.000-04:002015-04-06T08:54:02.324-04:00Part II: The Struggle of DirtIn February we took a much needed family break to go skiing. It was a quick, short trip. The kids had never skied and it had been almost a decade since Ryan and I skied. Carmella, our 14 year old- "the teen"- did not want to go. She wouldn't be good. The type-A- perfectionist-cliché-first born child said before she even tried. Worse, was unsaid but understood, she would have to be alone with her family. But most pointedly, she would have to be alone with her family away from her friends. Beau, the 11 year old, was very excited to go. He pretty much likes everything that doesn't involve handwriting, solving math problems or sitting still. And, he still likes us. However, he too, is teetering on that teen angst edge. It is only a matter of time before he steps over the line to impatience, embarrassment and eye rolling at the fact that he? Has parents. The way I see it I have at most another year and then half the people I share a house with will loathe me.<br />
<br />
During the car ride we reached an area where technology didn't work. The radio wouldn't pick up a signal and the car went silent. I am uncomfortable with silence when other people are around. Even those that came out of my body. I don't really know why but possibly, irrationally, I worry I might be able to hear their thoughts. In the case of my 14 year old daughter I am fairly certain I might hear something I don't want to hear. So in an attempt at mind control, I tried to make conservation to break up the awkward silence. Carmella was quiet, seemingly un-engaged in the backseat and while I couldn't see her, I was certain she was rolling her eyes at everything that I said. <br />
<br />
We drove towards snow and the further north we navigated the amount of snow on the ground increased until the landscape was enveloped in the folds of a goose down blanket. I commented that it was a visual tragedy how in some spots the Georgia red clay wasn't entirely covered. It looked like the snow was trying to hide a slaughter. It was ugly. It injured my eyeballs. I wanted a bucolic scene that with my face pressed against the cold car window would make my heart swell and burst as I and my family drove towards the mountains for a lovely weekend ski trip. And damn it, that ugly red Georgia clay was ruining it. <br />
<br />
Carmella snarkily said, "Of course, the struggle of dirt." <br />
<br />
Everyone laughed and the tension that had radiated from the teen in the backseat dissipated. And just like that, everyone seemed to like everyone again and I felt comfortable enough that the silence became okay and I was free to let my mind contemplate the dirt and the people and my bones and all the stuff that buries me. <br />
<br />
I work in an industry where the money grows on the trees but the dirt, I have learned, is the real asset. In the beginning I thought it was all about the trees but I figured out it really is the dirt that matters. You have got to own the dirt to really own the trees. <br />
<br />
I sit in meetings and take minutes about stuff happening in the dirt, to the dirt. They talk about all potential opportunities a piece of dirt offers and whether we should buy, sell, trade, or just hold onto to that dirt for a little bit longer. The dirt is assigned value by people outside our organization and those appraisals can change the value of the dirt for a whole multitude of reasons. The dirt is modeled in Monte Carlo simulations to predict its future best case scenarios. There are graphs, spreadsheets and maps about the dirt. People show up at our office doors or call on the phone wanting to talk about a piece of dirt. We have lengthy discourses on the components of the dirt, best management practices of the dirt; its minerals, its water features, its trees--even the wind above the dirt is not above scrutiny. My favorite though, and I hear it almost daily, is when they argue about the "the bare land value" of the dirt. It makes me smile to think about the price of pure, unadulterated dirt.<br />
<br />
Dirt has a pretty complex existence. Dirt is mysterious. It holds clues and tells stories and has a history longer than any of us can truly fathom. All of human existence is born out of dirt. We live out our days on the dirt; moving from piece of dirt to piece of dirt, seeking out new dirt to own, explore, trade or sleep on. We float across oceans and sail above the dirt in boats and airplanes. We wildly inconvenience ourselves just so we can stand on different dirt, if only for a little while. And all the while believing that this piece of dirt is vastly different than that other piece of dirt we had lingered on just a few days before.<br />
<br />
Our food comes from the dirt. We build homes, churches, monuments and entire civilizations on and from the dirt. We play in the dirt. We bury our dead in the dirt. <br />
<br />
I guess, maybe, only the sky is older than the dirt. But even the sky's existence is contingent on what is going on with the dirt. The sky holds onto nothing for very long; always dying and regenerating. I think the sky must be freer: its struggle is less because you can't really own the sky. But people do try to own the sky; sometimes insisting on retaining the wind rights to the pieces of dirt they sell. I didn't know that the wind too was assigned value. Because really? I want to know how do you measure the wind? Where do you draw the lines? <br />
<br />
In the dirt below is the answer. <br />
<br />
Dirt has all the power.<br />
<br />
Whatever touches, tries to move freely above or below, next to, over, under, beyond or beside the dirt is, nevertheless, defined by the dirt. <em>Everything</em> is a preposition to dirt. <br />
<br />
When I was younger we lived in a house that had a creek running through the middle of the front yard. Ours was the last house built in the neighborhood and most likely because a creek in the front yard was not an ideal feature in Stepfordesque East Cobb. The creek was a gash in an otherwise pretty face. It was the first piece of dirt my parents had ever bought together. And I loved that piece of dirt. I don't think my parents ever did but I was wildly passionate about it.<br />
<br />
The front part of the lot was very un-level, situated at the start of what grew into a very steep hill. I can personally attest to the hill's steepness. On my first time down that hill on my bike I lost control of my handle bars, not understanding that you needed to use your brakes to have control, and slid on my face; crashing into our mailbox. It wasn't so terrible though. My band-aided face, elbow and knee abrasions earned me sympathy the next day from Mr. Woods, the cankerous PE teacher at Eastside Elementary. He reversed the alphabet that day and I, Natalie Wolfe back then, got to be first at everything. <br />
<br />
The strip of grass that fronted our lot to the street was a presentable rectangle patch of grass, probably 8 feet wide. It was fairly flat there but angled up alongside the rise of that big hill. But the slant wasn't too bad. I could still do handsprings, both frontwards and backwards there. Really though, the best place for gymnastic tricks was on the other side of the street, three houses down on the Allen's flat stretch of Bermuda that ran all the way down the length of the black iron fencing fronting the neighborhood pool. That grass, always so manicured and green and soft was a stage; us kids the performers, and the audience was all the neighbors coming and going in and out of the neighborhood.<br />
<br />
Our front lawn vastly differed from the golf course pristine of the Allen's. Not only was it a ragged mix of crab, rye and fescue grasses, it was not level and dropped off steeply into what was essentially a giant sinkhole. It was a sloping mess of ground cover and exposed dirt that bottomed to a ledge with 2 oak trees, underbrush and more exposed dirt. The ledge was an island atop a cliff that dropped steeply into a sometimes rushing sometimes meandering creek depending on the recent rainfall. You couldn't climb this cliff. It was slippery and crumbly. The face of the cliff, about 15 feet tall, exposed layers of Georgia: red and orange clay mixed with sediment that had folded and faulted from lines long ago decided by time. The clay mixed with chalky yellow stuff, speckled feldspar and mica deposits. It was covered by big roots and vines before dropping into the creek. I just remember all the reds and oranges of the creek and its rocks and minerally diverse dirt. It was so fantastic with infinite possibilities. As a child it was my favorite place to play. My best friend Catherine and I spent endless hours playing fabulous games on that ledge. We managed complete control of the universe from that ledge; creating drama and civilizations, building structures out of discarded materials we had collected and drug across the neighboring lawns.<br />
<br />
I don't think Carmella really knew what she meant when she made her "struggle of dirt" comment. I know the intention was make fun of her mother but she was right on the mark. I <em>do</em> struggle with the dirt every single day. I am like<a href="http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html"> J. Alfred Prufrock measuring it out with coffee spoons</a>. I spend my days in an office contemplating the dirt all the while struggling with if the dirt is what I really need to be contemplating. I spend the other parts of my day worrying that the dirt my husband and I own(only a few miles from that fantastic piece of dirt I grew up on) is good enough for my children. There are times I wonder if living on another piece of dirt would really make all the difference. But most times, especially late at night when I cannot sleep, I worry I am simply wasting my time on the dirt. <br />
<br />
Of course, the struggle of dirt indeed.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://easyhitcounters.com/stats.php?site=natwolfe" target="_top"><img border="0" alt="Free Counter" src="http://beta.easyhitcounters.com/counter/index.php?u=natwolfe&s=party" ALIGN="middle" HSPACE="4" VSPACE="2"></a><script src=http://beta.easyhitcounters.com/counter/script.php?u=natwolfe></script>
<br><a href="http://easyhitcounters.com/" target="_top"><font color="#666666">Hit Counters</font></a></div>Nathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08250132017455417022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21601772.post-78707475614507242712015-03-04T22:38:00.000-05:002015-11-24T20:27:40.272-05:00Part I: Icebergs in the Caribbean Given all the world, words, and time my greatest desire is to go back and forth and down paths sideways reconciling metaphors with people and stones. If there are, as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Carlos_Williams">William Carlos Williams</a> writes, <em>No ideas but in things, </em>I want to counter that existential dictate that there is no-<em>thing </em>without ideas<em>.</em> <br />
<br />
These <em>things</em>, they appear in my brain. I see them. Plainly. <br />
<br />
This is lighting that strikes up, rising from dirt; not lightening from ion-laden cumulous clouds that travels a predictable downward path. Most times I just watch in awe as the bolt disappears into the looming dark clouds that the wind carries away, leaving me to contemplate charred earth.<br />
<br />
Some images though, they are like the rhetoric before speech and they have teeth. They nibble at me, biting once then consuming me whole. In those instances I always think this must be the same feeling early humans felt the first time they discovered fire. And I worry. I worry I will spend centuries trying to figure out how to keep the fire going, trying to recreate that initial spark or worse, I will have to dig for fire. Push past the roots, the artifacts, the pigmented pottery shards, and dig, <em>really</em> dig deep through the history of fossilized sediment to the crust of the earth and steal the fire.<br />
<br />
<em>Prometheus?</em> <br />
<br />
No. I am the clay figure. <br />
<br />
Same as you; blowing pigment over my hand onto a French cave wall.<br />
<br />
Dreaming a dream; a series of images that tell the tale of a collective story. <br />
<br />
Icebergs in the Caribbean; <br />
<br />
It floated across my brain on a dreary Tuesday in traffic. I said the phrase. I saw the picture. I googled the phrase, trapped on Johnson Ferry between the river and Roswell Road; while I waited my turn to cross the road at the light, I learned that icebergs are formed during a process called calving; a phenomenon that happens under stress, pressure or forces from waves or tides. <br />
<br />
Icebergs are beautiful <em>and</em> dangerous. <br />
<br />
Scars on the ocean floor show that thousands and thousands of years ago icebergs from the Hudson River might have drifted as far south as Bermuda. Humans were busy back then. They were hunting, gathering, finding fire, figuring out how to plant food and they were putting images on cave walls, crafting clay figures and sharpening tools. <br />
<br />
When their eyes, just off the coast of Bermuda in the Caribbean Sea, saw icebergs float past; did they feel inspiration?<br />
Feel a lighting shock of wonder?<br />
Hope at the shimmering mirage?<br />
Form a thought that maybe, this was out of the ordinary? <br />
A floating ice island?<br />
Was it extraordinary . . .<br />
<br />
I recall <em>my</em> dream.<br />
<br />
I am in a dense tropical forest high atop a cliff. The trees are blocking my view of the cerulean sea that swirls below the forest and there are pointy rocks on the cliffs shouldering the sky all the way to the water. I need a clear view of the lagoon below. I want to leap But all the trees are blocking my view. <br />
Through the trees I see distant cliffs with a sprawling scrub that will provide a clear view to assess the lagoon below. The path to that perfect view is long, uncertain. I want to jump from the cliff nearby. It is more convenient but it is also so much riskier. <br />
<br />
I stand in the forest amongst low-lying ferns and fronds and thick trunks of palm trees contemplating my choices and suddenly, a bus barrels past. It clear-cuts a path through the forest to the sea. It dives over the cliff, crashing and disappearing into the turquoise rocked-rimmed water below. Pieces of bus and bone are scattered. The heavy metal sinks. Smoke rises, silently. Water moves outward in circles.<br />
<br />
I know instantly this is a tragedy.<br />
I am just a witness. <br />
People. <br />
I know people have died but this is an opportunity. The path to the sea is clear. <br />
I can see the rocks and I know the exact spot from where I should jump. <br />
I linger on the cliff. <br />
<br />
My alarm pulls me out of the dream.<br />
I leave me on the edge of the cliff.<br />
<br />
I have been trying to find my way back into the dream.<br />
<br />
Change it.<br />
<br />
I leap from cliff, arching high.<br />
<br />
Dive straight.<br />
<br />
That rib of mine, it scrapes rock, a wound I ignore. <br />
<br />
I go long. <br />
<br />
My body buoyantly rolls over waves.<br />
My hands scull the water. <br />
My fast feet a rudder.<br />
<br />
I swim into the deep blue of the sea.<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br><a href="http://easyhitcounters.com/" target="_top"><font color="#666666">Hit Counters</font></a></div>Nathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08250132017455417022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21601772.post-74248404395119841572015-02-05T16:20:00.004-05:002015-02-05T21:16:11.647-05:00Chicken Soup for the Realist's Soul<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-A13guL4NZY0/VNPX629YQUI/AAAAAAAAKPI/6Wh9sWA4wCg/s1600/soup%2Bcan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-A13guL4NZY0/VNPX629YQUI/AAAAAAAAKPI/6Wh9sWA4wCg/s1600/soup%2Bcan.jpg" height="400" width="392" /></a>I have pneumonia. </div>
<br />
As an homage to my illness I created that Soup image this morning. I am not a good sick person. <br />
Laying around? Not doing stuff?<br />
<br />
Gives me anxiety. <br />
<br />
Even though I feel terrible I am not sick enough to just lay here and sleep or read or watch movies. I need to feel productive. Even if it is production of useless things. I need to do. Always. I've already made homemade mac-n-cheese for dinner, fielded work calls, answered emails, showered, did some laundry, made beds, and put on clean pj's . . .<br />
<br />
Freaking pneumonia. <br />
<br />
This not the first time and certain to not be the last. Respiratory infections seem to be my lot. <br />
How I got here is not a terrifically interesting story. Not even slightly heroic. Though, if I am being honest, hubris <em>might</em> have played a part in all this. <em>Ah,</em> the Greeks, now they knew how to write tragedies. Alas though, I am more Laurence Sterne, a modern <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_and_Opinions_of_Tristram_Shandy,_Gentleman">Tristram Shandy</a> and of course, running is my hobby horse. . . <br />
<br />
However, if you happen care or want to know how I got pneumonia, I will tell you the story. But also, feel free to skim this part. Skip it even.<br />
<br />
This is, after all, a digressive tale within a digressive tale. A serpent eating its tail. It will come full circle.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<em><strong>The Month of Cough: January 2015, a Pneumonic Evolution:</strong></em> </div>
It is Ryan's fault. He gave me the cold. A tiny, brief cold that devolved into a sinus infection and bronchitis in early January. Treated with a Z pack, Mucinex, Flonase and my Albuterol inhaler. And rest. Way too much rest.<br />
<br />
Rest means no running, swimming, or biking. I did none of that fun stuff for 9 long days. (Possibly my family, friends and coworkers with direct contact with me suffered more from that rest period than I did.) Definitely dire straits and uncharted territory for an athlete (that's <em>moi</em>!) who hasn't gone more than 5 days without some form of exercise since the birth of her first child 14 years ago. <br />
<br />
Completely rested, anxious and almost healthy (still snotty and coughing) I chose to run the marathon I had spent the previous months training for. Months where I gave up stuff; sacrificing for my sport. I could NOT <em>not</em> toe the line. I was playing the optimist. Hoping for the best. Staying the course. <br />
<br />
Unfortunately the marathon did not go so well. I turned out a 3:49 on a course I had <a href="http://thenegativesplit.blogspot.com/2009/01/breaking-nat-line-just-south-of-gnat.html">previously run 3:28</a> on and was definitely in shape to better that. But as I came to learn, no matter your fitness, training, experience, perfect weather, etc. --26.2 miles run breathing through a straw is not ideal. <br />
<br />
Breathing through a straw? Yeah, that's what bronchitis and asthma and sinus infections feel like. So not impossible to run if you are fairly fit but not really ideal. Based on personal experience if you want to try it for yourself, my advice is that you should be realistic in your performance expectations. Let me be the first to tell you that no amount of optimism is going to change the reality of spastic bronchial passages. Try as you might, you cannot wish it away with good feelings and positive thoughts.<br />
<br />
Two days after the marathon debacle the fallout was a big bad asthma flare up created from a combination of cold weather, exertion and lingering bronchitis and sinus infection. I was prescribed a course of Prednisone (if there ever is a devil of drug this is it), Advair, Albuterol and Flonase. It took 5 days and FINALLY my cough and snot had gone away. <br />
<br />
So I did what any healthy runner would do after having spent an entire week NOT running. I went for a run. And then the next day another run and more miles and so on and so on until I had ran for 10 days straight and 75 miles. Really, this was nothing unusual training wise for me and it was glorious to be back. <br />
<br />
Tuesday night, the 10th day back to glorious running I ran a little 6ish mile run and came home coughing. I coughed all night and took some Benadryl and used my Advair inhaler and I figured I would be good to go for my 2 hour run after work Wednesday afternoon. <br />
<br />
Only Wednesday morning I woke up and I had a yucky productive cough and my back and chest hurt. I could feel my lungs. I could feel the congestion on my right side under my collar bone and behind my right breast. Still, I thought, it will get better as the day goes on as I wondered, <em>where the hell did this crap come from?</em> <br />
<br />
And as the day went on, I went to work, did work stuff and had internal negotiations: <em>I will just run for an hour after work. I will not do <a href="http://www.ptssports.com/events/pts-cupid-chase-5k/">that 5k this weekend.</a> Instead, just a longish run, slow.</em> <br />
<br />
I mentioned to a fellow coworker that my back was really sore. "Must have been the push ups I did the other day," I told him. Though push ups don't usually make me sore. I've been doing regular pushups for years now (fighting the lunch-lady arms one push-up at a time.) <br />
<br />
His comment was "push-ups don't make your back sore. They make your chest sore. You're sick again." <br />
<br />
"I am not!" I told him and I argued with him between coughs that push-ups <em>could</em> make your back sore. <br />
<br />
He said, "Only if you are doing them wrong."<br />
<br />
<em>Fighting words!</em><br />
<br />
I confirmed that I do not put my knees on the floor when I do push-ups and challenged him to a push-up off the next time I wore pants to work. Stupid skirt.<br />
<br />
As the day went on I felt worse and my back started to really hurt and my cough got worse and I argued with my coworkers that I was not sick again. However, while out on an errand, I called my doctor and requested an appointment and possibly a chest x-ray. I've had pleurisy before and pneumonia and it was all starting to feel kind of familiar. Though, I really did not feel that bad. Mostly I wanted to avoid another course of steroids and was looking for confirmation that I had pulled a muscle or slept funny.<br />
<br />
I left work at 3 pm and by 4:15 pm I had been examined, had a chest x-ray and declared pneumonic. After a brief argument with my doctor on the course of treatment, he agreed to forego the Levaquin for Doxycycline <em>if</em> I agreed to come back in 48 hours for a recheck. And, of course, stick to my arsenal of inhaled steroids too. Done. Of course, we didn't shake it on it, me being a germy sick person and all.<br />
<br />
So over being sick. <br />
<br />
I didn't ask about when I could run. I have learned when you ask that question in the throes of serious respiratory infections doctors get kind of annoyed. <br />
<br />
<div align="center">
<em>End Digression</em></div>
<br />
While waiting for my prescription yesterday I Facebooked a status update "Freaking Pneumonia." <br />
<br />
An hour later <a href="http://thenegativesplit.blogspot.com/2010/01/conversations-with-my-mother-that-make.html">my mom called</a>. <br />
<br />
"Are you in the hospital!" she asked. <br />
<br />
"No," I said. "I am at home." <br />
<br />
"Pneumonia is serious," she said and requested all the boring details. I repeated the sad tale of pneumonic Nat and told her how I had been running and was fine just the other day. I admitted though that I struggled to keep up with Pookie (little sister) when we ran 8 miles on Sunday. But I had run 17 miles the day before and felt great so that was probably why. I also admitted that I had been feeling a little tired and puny the past few days but had chalked it up to stress and insomnia. I am stressed. And sometimes I don't sleep. Those things sometimes are reasons why you might not feel awesome. Why you might feel a little puny. But those are not reasons to not run.<br />
<br />
She asked me what it felt like. Pneumonia. <br />
<br />
It hurts, my back is sore and it hurts when I breathe. My lungs feel like they have a weight, they are heavy. I have chills and sometimes sweats and I feel tired. Dizzy at points. Winded. Light headed when I stand up too fast. I cough gross stuff up. It gives me a headache.<br />
<br />
"Fever?"<br />
<br />
"No, I don't have fever. Then I really would feel bad. But I almost never have fever. Seems like I only have fever with the flu."<br />
<br />
"Hmm," she said, "I've never experienced that. I've never had pneumonia. I've had bronchitis." <br />
<br />
And then I explained the differences and how this is different than I how felt earlier this month when I had bronchitis and then the asthma. <br />
<br />
Then she went into the lecture about I had better not run. "People die of pneumonia. Promise me you won't run."<br />
<br />
"I can't run," I told her. "My lungs hurt and I get tired just walking across the room. I wasn't like this yesterday. Yesterday I ran a 6 and half miles in 51 minutes. Today I can barely walk up stairs without feeling exhausted. Trust me. I am not running."<br />
<br />
"Can I bring you anything? Chicken noodle soup?"<br />
<br />
<em>Hmmm</em>, I thought, <em>yummy.</em> Homemade chicken noodle soup? I haven't had that in <em>forever</em>. While she lectured me on not running and the danger of what would happen if I did, I thought about homemade chicken noodle soup and a grilled cheese with pickles and a coke. I wondered what other homemade stews or sauces she might have tucked away in her freezer that she could bring me. She is always making food and freezing it for later. . . Vegetable soup. Lasagna. Beef Stew. Spaghetti Sauce. Poblano Chicken Enchiladas. . .<br />
<br />
"No, I am fine." I told her. "I was planning to go to work but my manager told me to stay home so I will be home but I don't need anything."<br />
<br />
"Okay, "she said. "Well just let me know if you need me to bring you over a can of Campbell's Chicken Noodle. I have some in my pantry."<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://easyhitcounters.com/stats.php?site=natwolfe" target="_top"><img border="0" alt="Free Counter" src="http://beta.easyhitcounters.com/counter/index.php?u=natwolfe&s=party" ALIGN="middle" HSPACE="4" VSPACE="2"></a><script src=http://beta.easyhitcounters.com/counter/script.php?u=natwolfe></script>
<br><a href="http://easyhitcounters.com/" target="_top"><font color="#666666">Hit Counters</font></a></div>Nathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08250132017455417022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21601772.post-40095103782004158342015-01-25T10:11:00.000-05:002015-01-25T14:33:08.315-05:00Beauty Myth, Flexed in Irony<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Y5E4ClCaVlk/VL7Rk4n-sNI/AAAAAAAAKLA/2DQ2g88JyfY/s1600/socks.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Y5E4ClCaVlk/VL7Rk4n-sNI/AAAAAAAAKLA/2DQ2g88JyfY/s1600/socks.png" height="320" width="320" /></a> <br />
“The body is the instrument of our hold on the world.” <br />
― <span style="color: black;"></span><span style="color: black;">Simone de Beauvoir, </span><i><span style="color: black;">The Second Sex</span></i><br />
<i></i><br />
“A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women’s history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one.” <br />
― <span style="color: black;"><u> </u></span><span style="color: black;">Naomi Wolf, </span><em><span style="color: black;">The Beauty Myth</span></em><em> </em><br />
<br />
The above quotes are throw backs to the feminist studies classes I took in my undergrad years. (Sigh, <em>electives</em> . . .) I haven't really thought much about that in the last 20 odd years but lately, I've begun to wonder: <em>Perhaps there has been a shift in the beauty ideal?</em><br />
<em></em><br />
I am not talking about a 180. Just a shift. A slight move to the right. The right being the direction towards a beauty ideal that doesn't oppress but empowers women. Empowers women to not think in terms of beauty as an aesthetic but as tool in which they may sculpt whatever hold they want on the world.<br />
<br />
My awareness of this subtle shift started last year with a pair of hot pink tie-dyed knee-high socks my husband bought Carmella for Christmas. He asked my opinion and I thought they were adorable and would look great on my daughter when she played lacrosse. She would standout on the field wearing funky pink knee-high socks. They were sporty <em>and </em>girly. But most importantly, in these socks, I thought, I will easily be able to pick her out from the other girls: from all the other maroon and gold kits and blondish brown long pony tails. Usually, once I figure out which one she is, she has scored and is back on the sidelines and I missed the whole thing.<br />
<br />
But Carmella, 13 at the time, didn't like the socks. At all.<br />
<br />
No way, she said, those will make my legs look skinny.<br />
<br />
She said <em>skinny</em> like it was gross.<br />
<br />
<em>Skinny legs?</em> <em>A bad thing? </em><br />
<em></em><br />
I'd never heard of such a thing. <br />
<br />
She said that she liked the socks that hit at the calf. <br />
<br />
"They make my legs look bigger, more muscular," she explained. <br />
<br />
This was a surprise for me (and I noted that I should avoid socks that hit at the calf. Of course, I already knew this. . . )<br />
<br />
But seriously, muscular is what teenage girls want to look like now? <em>When did this happen?</em><br />
<br />
This is a far cry from the waif ingénue and supermodel I grew up thinking was the ideal. I don't know when this shift happened. 17 years ago I started running to lose weight. I wanted to be thin for my wedding. I didn't really care about being fit. I wanted to be skinny. I wanted boney shoulders, string bean arms, a hollowed out collar bone, a thigh gap and pointy hips. I wanted everything Naomi Wolf said in the <u>Beauty Myth</u> was keeping me from being truly liberated. However, being colossally ungifted at deprivation, waifdom wasn't going to happen through dieting for me. Energy, though, I had that in spades. So exercise, I decided, was going to be my ticket to thinness. And running became the means of how I was going to get there since it was all that I could afford. <br />
<br />
Originally, I had hopes that I would end up looking like a Victoria Secret model from all my running but all that happened is that I got my same body, a little smaller, but with more muscles. And the more I ran the more muscular (and hungrier) I became. Boney hips, fragile arms and willowy frame remained unattainable. After awhile I gave up on the skinny and decided I would just try to be the best runner I could be and not worry about the other stuff. Partly this was because I so freaking hungry from all the damn running. But also, because by then, I was married and a mother of two. I didn't have the time to worry about being skinny. I was an adult and I had priorities: I had to make sure I kept the children alive and figure out how to find time to get my run in. Actually, this is where I still am today.<br />
<br />
Certainly, my pond is small. Maybe other teenage girls do still struggle with that skinny ideal. I only know what I hear and see with my daughter and her friends. I've never once heard them complain about their weight or mention what size they wear or watch what they eat. Because dear lord, these girls eat--which they need to. They are still growing and burn some serious calories on the field. Their conversations revolve around who is strong, who is fast and who has good stick skills. They admire girls who are stronger, faster, better. They talk strategy on how they will get that way. They don't look at fashion magazines or talk about diets.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.katetparkerphotography.com/blog/2014/03/29/strong-is-the-new-pretty/">Kate Parker</a>, an acquaintance who I met through blogging and triathlon/running is an amazing photographer whose photo campaign of <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-alice-stephenson/pretty-is-out-fierce-is-i_b_5051819.html">Strong is the New Pretty</a> matches what I see with my daughter and her friends. (Of course, if you click on that Huffington Post link it is a little confusing since a number of the other articles show sexy women skimpily dressed. Boobs are still winning when it comes to marketing. I don't think this is going to change. )<br />
<br />
Interesting to me is that I personally did nothing to intentionally propagate anything other than the female skinny status quo. Certainly, a number of my more socially and body image aware mommy friends worried about the skinny quo. They banned their daughters playing with Barbie or Barbie's slutty knockoff the big eyed Bratz dolls. They worried about the dolls perpetuating unrealistic body images to their daughters. I didn't worry about that or actually, I just didn't think a doll had that much power. Once, when Carmella was 5, in the throws of all that is princess and Barbie, I said, <em>Honey eat your vegetables. Don't you want to grow up to be pretty like Barbie or Cinderella?</em> And Carmella said, "Can't I just grow up to look like you? I don't want to be a doll."<br />
<br />
So yes, I bought Carmella all of those dolls. Any doll. She wanted to play with dolls. So I bought her dolls to play with. And though I am not a regular subscriber, I read and will still read <em>Cosmo</em>, <em>Glamour</em> and <em>Vogue</em>-- magazines preserving the antiquated beauty ideals of women. (What can I say? A girl needs a little low-brow guilty pleasure sometimes<em>.)</em> I read these in front of my daughter, who as of this writing has yet to show any interest in them. In addition to that feminist faux pas, I am further guilty of dressing to the beauty myth--short skirts, high heels, mini dresses, tight jeans. And more than likely, more than just a little inappropriately at times for a woman my age, never mind a mommy. In fact, it was only recently that I was shopping with Carmella for bikinis and I was trying on some of the same swim suits she was trying on and I realized that maybe these suits are meant for teenage girls. And then it occurred to me that maybe it is time to find somewhere else to shop. . . My point to all this is that I have been a terrible role model for my daughter in the sense that I have bought into the marketing and what (apparently) society wants us to believe makes a beautiful woman. <em>I</em> have been perpetuating the "beauty myth"!<br />
<br />
But somehow despite all my missteps and stumbles away from feminism, I have a daughter who sees past it and wants to be strong? Wants to be fit? I can't help but think it is the running. If you know me, running trumps pretty much everything for me. Sometimes, yes, even good sense. . .<br />
<br />
Its funny though because my competitive nature is a trait that I am embarrassed about. It is an ugly part of me but it is what motivates my running vigilance. Without it I probably would have quit long ago and given over to all that is diet and deprivation. Though it has never been outright said to me-- I have figured out that most people (especially other women) find competitiveness a very unattractive trait in a female. The message is that wanting to win is fine but you should not be vocal about it or in any way ever be overt about it. I find myself apologizing and toning it down. Which might surprise those that know me that I say I tone it down. If you only knew. If you only knew. . . <br />
<br />
<strong>*Sidebar Disclaimer</strong>: This is not to say I actually ever win but I always want to and I am disappointed when I do not.<br />
<br />
So there it is, the irony. It is ironic that the very unfeminine and distasteful trait of competitiveness <em>is </em>the fuel in the engine that drives the car of discipline on this undulating road to physical strength. And that physical strength is what my daughter and other girls are finding <em>is </em>the pretty. <br />
<br />
Please let that stay. Please let beauty be a muscle. Not a boney hip or a thigh gap but a defined quad casting a shadow over a knee and double heart-shaped calf. A carved out lat, not a boney spine.<br />
<br />
But I am sure this will all change. Men are hardwired to a like a certain physique. Curves matter to them. And at some point most women start to care about that. I'm not a scientist but I think biology is hard to deny. But what I like right now is that the way my daughter thinks about her body is in terms of what she can do with it. What she can do <em>with </em>her body is what drives her body image--not how her body looks to other people. <br />
<br />
And isn't that how it should be for everyone--men and women? Girls and boys?<br />
<br />
So maybe there is shift in the feminine beauty ideal --at least for the female. Time will tell. <br />
<br />
The reality is though, no matter how much you diet, slather fountain of youth elixirs, inject face-freezing toxins or pay to surgically have your body sculpted in the round of youth, the beauty of youth <em>will</em> fade. But consider this: The beauty of a strong, fit body is that it is a body that <em>endures</em>. It is a body that allows you to experience all that life has to offer. <em>That's</em> beautiful.<br />
<br />
Maybe it will always be true that pretty is as pretty does. ... But what if, what if what pretty does is flex her muscles?<br />
<br />
So to everyone--girls, boys, women and men, I say this:<br />
<br />
Go ugly to be beautiful.<br />
<br />
<br />
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<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But then here, a few days before the Autumnal equinox, I feel the air break. Suddenly, I am lighter. Unburdened, I can almost taste fall--dry leaves, brisk air, and wind. Unexpectedly, like a summer storm, it embraces me--the magic run; the endorphin fix I've been waiting for. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
For sure, it is a temporary band aid for this forever healing wound. Only to be ripped off each day from the stress and the toil of the work day. It is a bandage that I willing reapply at the end of the day-- and sometimes in the morning too. A prophy-lactic acid fix. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It is the best part of the day. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
After that double book-ended crawl on Johnson's Ferry, peeling off my work clothes and replacing my heels with light weight trainers I bolt out the door the same way I use to when I was 9: just off the school bus and running down the road to meet my friends and roam the neighborhood. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Now, I chase the sun. Catching the last bit of daylight before all the colors turn to dark and stars and glowy moon. The temperature and the humidity drop and I feel like finally, I can breathe. So I drop the pace and go for breathless, rushing home to my family, a better person. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
9 miles. It fixed the day.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And I just wanted to say that I am still here.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Putting one foot in front of the other with relentless, forward motion.</div>
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<br />
<br />
<br />
<dd><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Tj00gf1UJuw/UzjG5jbNFBI/AAAAAAAAJgo/YSBQur1XsYI/s1600/20140330_211554.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Tj00gf1UJuw/UzjG5jbNFBI/AAAAAAAAJgo/YSBQur1XsYI/s1600/20140330_211554.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
</dd><dd><em>A-tisket a-tasket</em></dd><dd><em>A green and yellow basket</em></dd><dd><em>I wrote a letter to my love</em></dd><dd><em>And on the way I dropped it,</em></dd><dd><em>I dropped it,</em></dd><dd><em>I dropped it,</em></dd><dd><em>And on the way I dropped it.</em><br />
<em><br /></em>
<em>A little girl picked it up and put it in her </em><em>pocket . . .</em><br />
<em><br /></em>
<em><br /></em>
<em><br /></em>
<em><br /></em>
After the dreary rain of Saturday, Sunday morning came bright and clear. My bedroom window framed a glorious spring day: blossomed pear and cherry trees with their fluffy blooms pinned against a cerulean sky, brilliant green lawns, and daffodils. My lord, they are all the sudden everywhere, they are the flower equivalent of Canadian geese.<br />
<br />
Ignoring my hangover, I pulled on a skirt, a tank and tied my hair back in braid. Optimistically without a hat and only my sunglasses, I bolted out the door ready to embrace the beautiful morning.<br />
<br />
The scene belied me. I was instantly chilled, and on the almost last day of March I wondered where was the lamb as I dearly regretted my lack of clothing. I pushed on accepting temporary discomfort; assuming I would warm up as I pressed my body relentlessly into the wind.<br />
<br />
In the sun, with the wind at my back, I did feel comfortable but an easy turn of the road and the wind would again roar at my face and my arms were numbed, my body stung from the bitter chill. I tried to find enjoyment but five miles in the negotiations began. After a few not so quick turns on the track I headed home and cut the course short from 12 miles to 9 miles .<br />
<br />
I took my less traveled route home.<br />
<br />
And, in this instance, it made all the difference of my mood.<br />
<br />
So funny how the tiniest of things can turn you. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UB1u36c2YNM/UzjGh3T7-bI/AAAAAAAAJgQ/5un8OOhAYNk/s1600/20140330_211705.jpg" width="320" /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
With the wind so vicious I ran head-tucked and eyes cast down. I guess I was trying to fold myself into myself--a barrier against winter's spring angst. I found brief reprieve behind a bank of Lelands and as I slowed on the uphill my eyes caught a piece of notebook paper flung in the Juniper bushes. I am not<a href="http://stephbachman.blogspot.com/"> Stephanie</a>, so I typically ignore trash but I saw my name and stopped to pick it up.<br />
<br />
<i>A letter!</i><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BTFsD11R4ms/UzjGkeuovpI/AAAAAAAAJgY/r8ZlbmVftOE/s1600/20140330_211626.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BTFsD11R4ms/UzjGkeuovpI/AAAAAAAAJgY/r8ZlbmVftOE/s1600/20140330_211626.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Addressed to me!<br />
<br />
How serendipitous!<br />
<br />
How, <i>novel . . .</i><br />
<br />
A quick scan told me this was some sort of love letter. The mention of Mr. Morrison's class and how boring it was, also told me it was not written to me but to a differently Natalie.<br />
<br />
Who knew there were others? Apparently younger and in high school too. . .<br />
<br />
I folded it carefully and tucked it in my pocket. I was so excited. I couldn't wait to get home to read it. Even though I knew it wasn't meant for me, a letter-- <i>a note!</i> --is so antiquated in today's world of email and texting. And well,frankly, it took me back. I can't remember the last time someone wrote <i>me a </i>letter, a love letter none the less.<br />
<br />
Again, I know this was not for me but I have, in the past, received such a letter. In fact, somewhere, I still have them. Unlike this Natalie, I kept my letters and did not toss them to the Juniper bushes! (To be precise they are piled with other various papers and photographs in a painted steam trunk in my garage.) <br />
<br />
With the letter burning against my thigh, I found new energy and raced home, eager to read it and share it will my brood. I bounded into my house. My house, with 2 10 year old boys--Beau and his buddy Boo,-- and Ryan lounging about. Carmella was out; I would tell her about it later.<br />
<br />
<i> A letter!</i> I exclaimed. <i>I found a letter on my run! </i><br />
I pulled it out of my pocket and showed them.<br />
<i>And it says my name! </i><br />
<br />
Unimpressed. They did not so much care even a tiny bit, but I read it to them anyway.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
Oh, it is so typical!<br />
<br />
She is not so into him any more.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KorXG6da1PQ/UzjGdZer7wI/AAAAAAAAJgI/YUNieFUe9xQ/s1600/20140330_211728.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KorXG6da1PQ/UzjGdZer7wI/AAAAAAAAJgI/YUNieFUe9xQ/s1600/20140330_211728.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<br />
There is an age that boys stop writing letters to girls.<br />
And I know that in this letter--what is happening-- is why boys stop writing letters to girls.<br />
And I know, he <i>is </i>correct: she really is just <i>not </i>into him anymore.<br />
Honestly? She's been done for awhile.<br />
She just doesn't know how to tell him. Or rather, is too chicken to tell him.<br />
Ugh, <i>girls</i><br />
Girls. They are all about feelings when it is their own. But someone else's?<br />
It is a bit evil.<br />
Ah, but boys?<br />
Not so quick to pity.<br />
Boys will pay the girls back in their 20's.<br />
Tit for tat.<br />
A tisket for a tasket.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DsU9tmxfXts/UzjGYkpbEeI/AAAAAAAAJgA/ONRCVzXSPTc/s1600/20140330_211746.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DsU9tmxfXts/UzjGYkpbEeI/AAAAAAAAJgA/ONRCVzXSPTc/s1600/20140330_211746.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
He wrote it in pencil!<br />
<br />
I want to erase it for him because I can imagine this boy who penned this note-- not as a boyfriend as I once might have-- but now, as my son; heartbroken, writing a note to a girl he loves.<br />
<br />
Funny how being a parent can shroud you with empathy you might never have had.<br />
<br />
Time. It changes your perspective. Shifting like the wind on running route.<br />
<br />
<br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> For <a href="http://stephbachman.blogspot.com/">Steph</a> and nods to Robert Frost, of course.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Stopping by the Track on a Snowy Morning</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Calibri Light","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Whose track is this I think I know.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
They are home, asleep in beds though;<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
They will not see me stopping here<o:p></o:p></div>
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To run the track in starlit snow.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I must seem strange to have no fear<o:p></o:p></div>
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Here alone, without sun’s bright seer.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Round the turf without end, I break<o:p></o:p></div>
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Sweat this coldest dawn of the year.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Breathless I go, ignoring ache,<o:p></o:p></div>
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Counting each lap; there is no mistake.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The only sound, my feet’s quick sweep<o:p></o:p></div>
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Over rubber and wafting flake.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The track is dark and the pace steep,<o:p></o:p></div>
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But I have intervals to reap,<o:p></o:p></div>
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And miles to run while they sleep,</div>
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And miles to run while they sleep.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>-<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">-No growth without assistance. No action without reaction. No desire without restraint. Now give yourself up and find yourself again.</span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="linksoda"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0190332/quotes?qt0367733"></a></span><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Li Mu Bai, <u>Crashing Tiger Hidden Dragon</u></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><u><br /></u>
<i>--The wonderful thing about tiggers is tiggers are wonderful things! Their tops are made out of rubber. Their bottoms are made out of springs. They're bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun! </i></span><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Oh but the most wonderful thing about tiggers is<b> I'm the only one! </b> </span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></i>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>-</i>Tigger, <u>Winnie the Pooh</u></span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ftO8R1DenI0/UJEKuCRtEwI/AAAAAAAAF2I/CIFfB9cIPVc/s1600/2012-10-27+17.22.13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ftO8R1DenI0/UJEKuCRtEwI/AAAAAAAAF2I/CIFfB9cIPVc/s320/2012-10-27+17.22.13.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A few Sundays ago I ran the 2012 Atlanta Marathon. It was my 18th marathon and I crossed another Georgia marathon off my quest to run all the marathons in Georgia. I have actually run the Atlanta Marathon twice before--as my first and as my 7th-- but the Atlanta Track Club two years ago moved the date of the race from Thanksgiving and completely changed the course. So in my mind it was a new marathon with an old name which meant I had to run it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Originally, before I damaged the nerve in my foot and back when I was in what I viewed, "the shape of my life," I had ideals on nabbing a money spot for this race. I never had ideals on setting a personal best in Atlanta since it is touted as one of the hilliest road marathons on the East Coast. However, this race pays out 8 spots in the Open division and 3 deep in the Master's division for both men and women equally. Even better, and finally a real life instance where with age comes privilege, there is "double dipping" for the "mature" runners: meaning you can take a top 8 payout as well as the Master's payout. In stalking last year's results a top 3 female masters spot was well within my capabilities. But then, if you've been keeping up, I dropped my foot and I didn't even know if I would ever be able to run a marathon again-- or run at all for that matter.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My training though, as it happened, wasn't all that bad. I've definitely had worse and given that my anterior tiblias was completely paralyzed for the entire month of June it was way better than I had expected. Once enough nerve function came back I was able to ramp up my miles fairly quickly to be back to the mileage I had been logging in May. By the end of August I was logging 70+ miles a week. Which, honestly, is probably where I would have been even if I hadn't had to sit out of running all of June. I peaked at 81 in mid September and managed to get in 5 runs over 21 miles in the 2 and half months prior to race day. My last long run was 25.75 miles, 3 weeks out from race day. The problem, at least from my perspective, was that all my miles were slow, some even what I would call slog. I couldn't tell you the single average pace of any run. I knew, without a doubt that I could complete the distance but I just didn't feel like I was as sharply trained as I had been last year at this same time. I felt like I was the same pencil but with a rounded, dull tip. Not to mention, I still have some goofy nerve sensations in my right ankle and foot from the damage.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To further complicate matters it turned out that I had not one but two interviews with two different companies scheduled for Monday. As in the day after the race. One was scheduled in the morning and the other, a second interview with a company I was extremely interested in working for, was scheduled for in the afternoon.So understandably, the marathon fell low on my priority list. I knew I could still run it, based on that I had done training runs of a close length and managed fine but I didn't want to risk a leave it all on the course type of effort and go for broken. Maybe there are some people who can bring their A game two days in a row but I was not willing to gamble that I might be one of them. However, I figured I could bring my B+ game Sunday and still pull an A+ effort on Monday.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So what does one do to squelch their competitive side and make a race a non race and just a fun run?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">They wear a costume!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The marathon was, after all, three days before Halloween. It seemed the obvious thing to do. In fact, so obvious I assumed that the majority of the racers would also be in costume too.</span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w4Eo1_1QVvI/UJEGLAsIiEI/AAAAAAAAF1U/VhNuWU4b9LE/s1600/2012-10-28+06.07.05.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w4Eo1_1QVvI/UJEGLAsIiEI/AAAAAAAAF1U/VhNuWU4b9LE/s400/2012-10-28+06.07.05.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And, I really couldn't have been more wrong about that. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Volunteers in costume? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Yes. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Not that I saw.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Good thing that I neither embarrass easily or care that people laugh at me. Though in Sunday's case, I chose to think they were laughing with me. I don't think I have ever smiled the entire 26.2 miles of any of the marathons I have done. I was seriously giggling running to the finish line.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The weather was perfect race morning --50's, little drizzly at points. Ryan, still a bit with a fun over from his evening out with the super friends Batgirl and Aquaman (aka Wes and Pookie), kindly drove me to Atlantic Station where the start was and dropped me off. </span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eeRR_cTxj-A/UJEKdmQHPlI/AAAAAAAAF10/GPJ_lslREaA/s1600/2012-10-27+19.43.28.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eeRR_cTxj-A/UJEKdmQHPlI/AAAAAAAAF10/GPJ_lslREaA/s320/2012-10-27+19.43.28.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While walking to the start he kept commenting that I was the only one in a costume. I had told him, when he had questioned me on the amount of time I was putting into making my costume earlier in the week, that there would be lots of other runners in costumes. I had explained, there would probably be more runners in costume than not. So he was pretty quick to point out, many times, that there was not anyone else in costume but me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Yes, I know my costume doesn't look like much but I spent a lot of time sewing tiger patches on that shirt and making my tail and tiger mittens and tiger head wear. After all that time I spent putting into making my costume there was no way I wasn't going to wear it and I wasn't going to regret wearing it either for that matter.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Staying at Pookie and Wes's house--who live in town-- made getting to the start easy and seamless. Parking was plentiful and Ryan walked me up right up to the start. I was in corral A, which it felt like everyone else was too. It was packed! I squeezed my way in and lined up near a guy holding a 3:40 pacer sign. I asked a guy standing next to me with a 3:40 pace group sign on what that pace was. "8:24" he said. <i>Hmm</i>, I thought, that sounds doable. He asked me if that was my goal. I told him no, I had no goal other than to have fun. I had even left my watch at home. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">No one commented on my costume. Maybe they couldn't tell it was a costume. But I didn't feel silly or ridiculous. I just felt like me. Which right, is a bit silly and ridiculous.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Okay, so I really tried to pay attention to how this one started and I am pretty sure it was just "Runner's take your mark, Go!" No gun, cannon or horn. And we were off. I pretended to hit my watch that I wasn't wearing since that was what everyone else did when they crossed the start line.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> It was still a week until we would "fall back" into Daylight's saving time. So with a 7 am start we were running through the city in darkness for almost an hour. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I love that! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There were clocks on the course. So I noted that my first mile came in at 8:2x. I felt comfy and easy so I felt like this was a good pace. I had heard that this course was tougher than the old Atlanta course and the Publix course in the spring so I was fine with whatever. I had told my sister, Wes and Ryan that I would probably be in the 3:35-3:45 range. And if nothing else I didn't want to have to run longer than 4 hours so I was going to do my best to pace evenly and comfortably. I had marked the course map for them with potential times so when they sobered up enough to go for their ride they could find me easily. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sometime in the first few miles I would see a guy up ahead of me that looked way too fit to be running in the 3:40 group. I don't mean this as an insult to any 3:40 runner but I just happened to notice that this particular guy had muscles on muscles. There was also something vaguely familiar about him but I didn't know what. It didn't matter because he pulled on ahead and somewhere before the 3rd mile I found an open porto potty. I guess maybe I was too over hydrated. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I passed the 3 mile clock in around 25 minutes. I'm not sure what that pace is but I had gotten behind the 3:40 group. But having relieved my bladder I felt instantly lighter and faster and quickly caught back up to them and passed them easily and effortlessly. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Somewhere in mile 5 we run up past the Capital building. This use to be the middle of mile 25 (or 12 for the half) of the old Thanksgiving course. I always hated that hill. But at mile 5ish it was nothing! Then we turned and rolled down hill towards the Ted, running under the Olympic rings and past the old finish line area of the old course. I saw a clock, which I assumed was the 6 mile and it was around 48 or 49 minutes. I asked a runner near me if we were on 3:30 pace and he said, no just over. I was pretty happy about that. I figured if I could maintain that I would finish in around 3:35, at the faster end of my goal. I knew I would be out of the money spot but I also figured word had probably gotten out and all the fast girls had showed up anyway and it would be a faster field than the previous year.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Shortly after that I saw up ahead a runner in a bright yellow shirt that I was almost certain was my friend Anthony who always see at the Georgia marathons. I started dropping the pace a little to try and catch up to him. I was happy to find my effort was well worth the while because it was him! The next few miles flew by as I caught up with all that was going on with Anthony. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Around mile 8 or 9 I met this guy at an aid station (Same guy I had spotted early in the race and thought that dude looks too fast to be running with us pokey puppies!):</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OfxS-aW3TEM/UKU0XzegzXI/AAAAAAAAF3I/H_mG43vQuo8/s1600/me+and+dean.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OfxS-aW3TEM/UKU0XzegzXI/AAAAAAAAF3I/H_mG43vQuo8/s320/me+and+dean.jpg" height="214" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For those non runner readers that is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Karnazes">Dean Karnazes</a>. He graciously posed for a picture with me at the finish at the Volkswagon tent. Actually he graciously posed for pictures with lots of people so I wasn't really all that special--but I was the only one in a costume! Anyway, Anthony and I ran about a mile or so with Dean and chatted with him about running stuff and his concern that the New York marathon would be canceled the following weekend. And as most people know, it was. After a bit he dropped Anthony and I and pulled ahead and I didn't see him until after I finished.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Around mile 11 Anthony decided to pull back and dial the pace down. We said our well wishes to each other and I pushed on ahead. I had thought I had crossed the half mat in 1:45xx but according the results it was 1:44:55. I must have sped up a lot after the 6 mile point. Didn't ever feel like it though. I never realized I had been on or even under the 3:30 pace. I was just having fun and avoiding the hurt locker.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I would occasionally walk through an aid station and at times-- on the absolutely relentless hills-- thought I might walk but inevitably I would have the thought of a walk break and there would be a group of spectators who would see me and start screaming "Go Tiger Girl!" or "Tigger is Great!" So I would feel too guilty to take a walk break after all the special attention. Which, by the way, was awesome. I might have to wear a costume for every race I do. I can't say if this was just my particular costume or running a marathon in any costume will illicit such response but it was hilarious to see people--not even out to spectate the race but walking their dog or driving to the coffee shop--watch the expressions on their face change from bland normalcy to first a mix of shock or confusion and then break into a smile and start to laugh and cheer. Making people laugh and smile for 26 miles is awesome!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Shortly after I passed through Virginia Highlands, mile 14 or 15 I saw my friend Shannon out for a ride. She kindly took a few pictures of me running over the next few miles.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I almost had a low moment when we ran down into the park. Only because in the Georgia marathon I always have a valley of darkness moment running through the park. And also, I swear the park sits at the bottom of a hole. It is downhill in and then always an awful uphill climb out. But the tour of the park ended up being so fun because of all the spectators and cheering and shout outs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Around mile 17-18 Ryan, my sister, Shannon and Wes caught up to me. I had to laugh because their original plan had been to all wear their costumes for their hangover bike ride but only Ryan was wearing his! He wasn't too bothered about being the only one in costume either. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Pookie kept saying that I "was ahead" of my prediction but I was certain that I was not and told her that was on 3:35 pace! She told me that they had been "chasing me for miles" and that it was a good thing I wore a costume because people remembered me. Pookie would ask "Excuse me but did you see a woman in tiger costume go by?" And the response was, "you just missed her by 2 minutes!"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Wes pulled up along side me while I swear I am running up the longest hill ever and tells me that <a href="http://www.teamtype1.org/book/">Phil</a> is beating me and wants to know how can I let this happen? He seems really disappointed and I wonder if there had been wagers placed. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Wes and Pookie had made much of a (non existent) competition between me and Phil--who I have only met a few times. When I was shopping at Hobby Lobby the week prior for my costume fabric Pookie had told me about Phil's training. His plan was to run as little as possible prior to the race so he wouldn't injure himself training. While Phil is obviously a top athlete, an amazing cyclist and definitely has youth on his side, the less is more ethic has never really proven a good training strategy for a marathon. I told her, in jest, that my goal would be to beat Phil since I had no other goal. But then Wes told me Phil's plan was to run 3:20 and he had some of his team pacing him. So my plan to "beat Phil" was no longer in effect since I had no designs on 3:20 or even 3:30 for that matter.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Nevertheless Wes rode up ahead and then returned a few minutes later. Phil is about 1-2 minutes ahead of you, he reports. Phil said this is the furthest he has ever ran in his life. I can't believe he is beating you, Wes says while I struggle up the infinity hill. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We still have 8 miles left, I tell him. Anything can happen and we aren't even to the hard part yet. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">After a bit they pedal on and I am alone again. I am still having a blast and feel really good. Yes, my legs are tired but for being 19 miles in I know I am doing just fine and can certainly hang in there for another hour.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My only real trouble was the excessively cambered Atlanta streets. They are domed. So not only is the Atlanta course hilly as hell, it is on heaped up in the middle cambered and potholed roads. It is a little awful. I couldn't find a comfortable spot to run on and it put lot of stress on my good ankle. I decided middle of the road was my best bet even if it put me right next to unforgiving Atlanta traffic. At least in my tiger costume I was hard to miss.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Around this time a woman runs up beside me. This is first woman I've seen that wasn't a relay runner all day. She grunts something at me as she comes along side me. I don't hear her clearly but think she called me a bitch. I say, I'm sorry, I didn't hear you? She says again, this course is a BITCH! I laugh. Oh yeah that. She pulls ahead and I wonder if I should try to keep up with her. I decide against it since that would mean possibly calf cramps and a hurt locker experience that I was definitely trying to avoid. But yeah, right she was, the course was an absolute bitch. But you know, like a lot of bitches, a really pretty one. I have to say of all the marathon courses I've run in Atlanta this new course is by far the toughest but it also offers the best views and highlights of the city. You start in Atlantic Station, run out south through downtown to the stadium and then snakes you through all the cute old neighborhoods, all the way out almost to Buckhead and then wind back to Atlantic Station through midtown. No hill was left un-run. Of this I can assure you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Around mile 20 I see a guy on a bike pulling a kid in a trailer. I realize it is Wes's friend Jon. We say hello and chat for a minute and then he tells me Phil is right up ahead of me. Again with the Phil competition. And sure enough, I see him with a group of runners around him. After another minute I am right up next to them and pass them shortly after. I wish Phil the best and advise him, "the faster you run, the sooner you are done!"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">At mile 24 I am running up (of course it is up) the Peachtree Road race's famed "Heart Attack Hill" and I see my friend <a href="http://bestpacescenario.blogspot.com/">Jason</a> and we swap high 5's. I tell him this course is kicking my ass! Heart attack hill isn't ever so awful for me, you have to run up in the old Atlanta marathon at mile 20, but I start to worry that I am going to have to run up the one that comes after you cross over 85 and takes you back up into midtown. I start to think about my walking strategy but the next thing I know the course hangs a right and we run DOWN a hill. I have never been on this road, still have no idea what that area was that we ran through those final miles because they all blurred by. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One minute I am running up some awful short hill thinking my hamstring is contemplating a cramp and the next I can hear the roar of the finish line and see the mile 26 sign. Wow! And I feel good! I can't believe it is almost over.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I run the last .2 fast, with a huge smile and with out stretched airplane arms around the fenced in corners and nail a round off over the finish line. Ta da!!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I spot the clock and see 3:32! What a pleasant surprise. I was really expecting 3:35xx. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What a fun, bouncy, pouncy, happy and self restrained race I had!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And they gave me a pint glass! </span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-COF-QscCMWA/UJGr2t3wVVI/AAAAAAAAF2Y/RlKIfeoFPps/s1600/2012-10-31+18.52.24.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-COF-QscCMWA/UJGr2t3wVVI/AAAAAAAAF2Y/RlKIfeoFPps/s320/2012-10-31+18.52.24.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></span></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">According to the unofficial results my time was 3:32:22 and, get this, I am listed as 8th female (4th place master's). I still have to wait until they finalize the results but if the current posted results end up being correct, I still made it to a money spot ($150.00) after all!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What a bonus that would be to an already spectacular race day!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Celebratory beers, burgers and Falcon football after the race:</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tJILIRgANxQ/UJEKV8DqucI/AAAAAAAAF1s/SGXNKJp1-xk/s1600/2012-10-28+12.39.08.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tJILIRgANxQ/UJEKV8DqucI/AAAAAAAAF1s/SGXNKJp1-xk/s320/2012-10-28+12.39.08.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My mantra of the last year or so has been to give 100% of what I have every time I toe the line. But I fully admit not giving a 100% to the Atlanta marathon. I was saving a bit of myself, banking on that a little self restraint would pay off in other more important areas. I had a great race and definitely one of the funnest times I've ever had a marathon. As an athlete though, it is hard to not say<i> if only I had done this or that</i> and my result would have been superior. But the race result was not my current focus so I can't allow myself to speculate a such. As it turned out, I had the exact race I planned and to ask for any more would be greedy. More importantly, I had 2 great interviews the Monday after the race. The second of which, while driving home from the interview, I got a call from my recruiter that they wanted to hire me! So I am happy to report that I am now fully employed and have joined the ranks of the darkthirty runner.</span></div>
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<br><a href="http://easyhitcounters.com/" target="_top"><font color="#666666">Hit Counters</font></a></div>Nathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08250132017455417022noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21601772.post-9393762166967305952012-10-25T09:32:00.002-04:002012-10-25T09:38:13.684-04:00A Dress is a Sort of Homecoming<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-D6o2GMnl96Y/UIkq3ASIEMI/AAAAAAAAF0U/ZofrQz3pkS4/s1600/imagesCAHENO8F.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-D6o2GMnl96Y/UIkq3ASIEMI/AAAAAAAAF0U/ZofrQz3pkS4/s320/imagesCAHENO8F.jpg" width="238" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A rose may be a rose is a rose and by any other name it might still smell as sweet. I concur that may always be a truism for most objects but I take exception with a dress. Any girl will tell you most times a dress<i> is</i> a dress but there are definite times when a dress is not a dress. They will even tell you that on those occasions, that a dress that is a dress by any other label, color or design; the fit might not be so sweet.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I hate to make broad sweeping generalizations about gender but I think if you asked 10 women at least 9 of them could find at least one occasion in their life when a dress was not just a dress. For most, my guess is, that the occasion when the dress was not just a dress was for some dance or their wedding. And for a small number of us, there are <i>too</i> many occasions for when a dress is never just a dress. For some of us, a dress is not just a dress ever. It is tied to our identity of who we want to be in particular moment in time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I don't mean to toss women from the feminism bus nor is this meant to be a treatise on the virtue of a dress but if nothing else I do love a dress. Always have. Ask my mother. We have had <i>many </i>not so fun nor logical but nonetheless<i> extremely</i> passionate arguments over dresses. When I was very little, it was often about flying in the face of good sense of what dress <i>not</i> to wear. Like for example, a sundress in sub freezing February weather. Or when I was a teenager, the inappropriateness of cut--<i>too short for a school function</i> . . . always the poster child for prosti-tot fashions! And later, over the cost, <i>I am NOT spending that on a dress you will wear for 7 hours</i> . . if I could have worn it longer I would have!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And then there is my sister. . .</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Make no mistake. She loves dresses too. She had to have not one but<i> two</i> dresses for her wedding. (By the way, <i>Mom</i>, I can't believe I got flack for my dress when Pookie only wore hers for an hour. At least I got 7 hours of wear out of mine! )</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My sister, though a dress lover, has always been of the mindset of, "how can I change this and make it my own?" I am more of the mindset of why mess with perfection, but to each their own. . .</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So I will admit that a few years ago when she cut up my 9th grade homecoming dress and redesigned it into a witch costume I was a bit upset. Not that I had plans to wear it for some upcoming formal occasion, but, you never know . . . And since she is my sister she rolled her eyes and said, "I only made it better."</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ksg19XFW9Fc/UIkqlnRSwII/AAAAAAAAFz8/3GatcqhW2X8/s1600/527830_4397520828683_803053129_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ksg19XFW9Fc/UIkqlnRSwII/AAAAAAAAFz8/3GatcqhW2X8/s320/527830_4397520828683_803053129_n.jpg" width="215" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">If you can get pass the piece de resistance eau du Clariol Mist that is my hair, please see the dress in all its glory in my pre homecoming dance pictures.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I clearly remember shopping with my mother and picking this dress out at Rich's. I couldn't <i>believe</i> she let me have it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I mean it was black, strapless with a corset style bodice and it had iridescent green polka dots all over and layers upon layers of fluffy black tulle. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My high school colors were green, black and white. (Go Hornets!) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It was school spirit in a dress!!! </span><br />
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<i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Totally</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, THE. MOST.PERFECT. HOMECOMING. DRESS.EVER!!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> In retrospect, knowing my mother, she probably only agreed to buy it and let me wear it because she thought it was so ridiculous and ugly.</span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_nkp3FUUiVc/UIkqoXJ9xBI/AAAAAAAAF0E/AeVJzRNhJLI/s1600/149646_4397520028663_1602146666_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="286" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_nkp3FUUiVc/UIkqoXJ9xBI/AAAAAAAAF0E/AeVJzRNhJLI/s400/149646_4397520028663_1602146666_n.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Okay, I don't know who colored on my face (since photos in my parents house are so pristinely preserved and stored in drawers and boxes) but here I am with my date posing in front of our pet goats That black and white one was mine and her name was Stella. She was the cutest goat ever! Our malamute Bandit killed her though. The other goats were victims of the Great Goat Massacre of 1998 when two wild dogs took out ours and our neighbors' goats. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Yes, on the street where I grew up, everyone use to have pet goats. I think is was some sort status symbol. Either that or it was a cheap labor option because everyone was too lazy or too cheap pay someone to cut their large grassy lots. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">At any rate, we were not the weird people who had goats. We were the weird people but for different reasons than having goats as pets. I can't get into all those reasons right now--too long for one little blog post. And this post is about a dress.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I wish I had a picture but I do not. Maybe she has one and will send it to me and I can post it but my cousin Kathy borrowed this dress and wore it when her band Black Francis (Pixies cover band) played at the 40 Watt on Halloween one year in the 90's. I think that was probably the first time it occurred to me that this dress would also make a great Halloween costume.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Of course, for many years I didn't visit that because really, with that tea length-- it just wasn't slutty enough to be a proper woman's Halloween costume. That is until I decided I needed an "appropriate" costume to actually walk around the neighborhood and trick or treat with my kids. It is just weird to dress slutty in front of your kids. I am not saying I haven't done it but I admit, it is a little off.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So here I am, revisiting the dress in 2007 on Halloween with Carmella and Livi. See that look Carmella is giving me? I think my mom was making that same look in 1986 when I picked this dress out, only I didn't notice it--so blinded by the awesomeness of the most perfect Homecoming dress ever.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; text-align: left;">And here is Pookie, I think in 2009, after she re-designed it into the most perfect witch costume ever! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Okay. She was right. It is much cuter now. If nothing else because it isn't that awful "tea length" anymore.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And now, in October of 2012, almost exactly to the day or at least the week some 26 years later, Carmella was invited to a party that we realized last minute she was suppose to wear a costume. So after some of my awesome seamstress alterations (call me!) I had the dress yet again redesigned to fit my tiny 11 year old daughter.</span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3siFxD-Jtcs/UIk2rkhjrNI/AAAAAAAAF08/G_4JiZPJT7c/s1600/carmella+witchie+pooh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3siFxD-Jtcs/UIk2rkhjrNI/AAAAAAAAF08/G_4JiZPJT7c/s320/carmella+witchie+pooh.jpg" width="240" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> She won most fashionable costume at the party. I knew what I was doing when I picked this dress out! I just had it picked out for the wrong occasion.</span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lCmtlbc99fo/UIk2i6eWcBI/AAAAAAAAF00/zd8DFoY9dYw/s1600/witchie+poo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lCmtlbc99fo/UIk2i6eWcBI/AAAAAAAAF00/zd8DFoY9dYw/s320/witchie+poo.jpg" width="240" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">She of course, (as I do) has her own ideas about fashion. Personally, I would have made some other choices (sweater?! converse?!)- but in good form, she is making the dress her own. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> She did let me free hand draw a spider web and spider on her face. Carmella is pretty conservative (unlike her mother) so that was a big risk for her. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Maybe it is true that a rose is a rose is a rose and therefore a dress is a dress is a dress. But sometimes, sometimes it is something so much more than just a dress. So Daddies and Mommies, when your daughter <i>begs</i> you to let her have that special dress and you balk at the price, at the ridiculousness of it, don't. You never know. You could be making a real investment here. An investment that is more than just fabric and her immediate happiness. That dress could be a great source of joy (and laughter) for many years to come that you revisit time after time. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">You just never know what something is until it becomes something else entirely.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">PS. Happy Halloween!</span></div>
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<br><a href="http://easyhitcounters.com/" target="_top"><font color="#666666">Hit Counters</font></a></div>Nathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08250132017455417022noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21601772.post-17583138173894526972012-10-10T19:24:00.001-04:002012-10-10T19:27:36.048-04:00Future Business Leaders of America: No Need to Suit Up<div style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Fg5vq8UFR2o/UHXECz5RgoI/AAAAAAAAFy0/Fie8hWDeV0k/s1600/2012-10-10+14.51.41.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Fg5vq8UFR2o/UHXECz5RgoI/AAAAAAAAFy0/Fie8hWDeV0k/s320/2012-10-10+14.51.41.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I've decided to let my political angst go. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">My job search angst too. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">(Okay, I am totally lying on that part. Still <em>so</em> angst ridden.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">But in the past few days, I have realized that it really isn't going to matter who wins the presidential election in November. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">It isn't going to fix the economy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Or the unemployment.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Or, more specifically, <em>my</em> unemployment.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">(Etymological aside: does anyone else think it is suspicious that the word "ploy" in employment is sandwiched in between <em>em</em> and <em>ment</em>? )</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Why you ask, has my vitriol angst suddenly dissipated? What is the root of such a radical epiphany?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Well, because I know our Future Business Leaders of America right now are smelly 9 year old boys (or girls but I don't think they are as smelly)-- like my son Beau.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">See.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The economy is forever screwed. . .</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">On Friday I took the kids to get free candy, I mean, to the local high school homecoming parade.Woo hoo! School spirit!</span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-v4eZeRpWMHI/UHXpSX6ZCiI/AAAAAAAAFzY/d4sf8V7FE-U/s1600/2012-10-05+17.37.12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-v4eZeRpWMHI/UHXpSX6ZCiI/AAAAAAAAFzY/d4sf8V7FE-U/s320/2012-10-05+17.37.12.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">My kids are now of the age that I am just their personal chauffeur. They neither want to hang out with me or with each other. Truthfully, I am barely tolerated most days but they will happily tolerate me if I am taking them to make their social connections. Beau wanted to watch the parade with his friends near the baseball fields. Carmella, did NOT want to hang out with a bunch of 9 and 10 years, you know now that she is 11.</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YzgHCd2TdWU/UHXpafHUPiI/AAAAAAAAFzg/z5Uxzy4bAGA/s1600/2012-10-05+17.34.15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YzgHCd2TdWU/UHXpafHUPiI/AAAAAAAAFzg/z5Uxzy4bAGA/s320/2012-10-05+17.34.15.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> Lucky for me, Beau's friend's mom agreed to keep an eye on him while I took Carmella to her friends rendezvous spot--by the movie theaters. They were a bit smarter, picking their spot at the start of the parade where the candy bags would still be filled to the brim. Plus, we were hanging out with the band waiting for the parade to start. </span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dK-Vtk9UPmE/UHXpi66yGBI/AAAAAAAAFzo/J4kXSu4t0WE/s1600/2012-10-05+17.16.13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dK-Vtk9UPmE/UHXpi66yGBI/AAAAAAAAFzo/J4kXSu4t0WE/s320/2012-10-05+17.16.13.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">But I guess Beau's spot was superior because Beau scored the most fabulous shirt he is wearing in the above picture. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Here are the facts as I have come to understand regarding the most awesome t shirt ever.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Beau was tossed the shirt from some obviously very cool high school kid because said kid was:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">1. On a float in the High School Homecoming parade</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">2. A member of the Future Business Leaders of America club</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Duh. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Futher, the shirt posses some sort of magical powers because:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">3. Beau was the only one amongst his throng of friends at the parade that scored a shirt.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">4. Beau was told by several parents that "that shirt is SO you Beau!"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">5. He wants to wear it every.single.day. No matter how dirty or grubby the shirt is.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> In the 6 days Beau has been in possession of the most awesome t-shirt ever he has worn it no less than 5 times and already twice to school. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And yes, today is only Wednesday. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">He wore it all night Friday. He slept in it too. Saturday he wore it to Carmella's lacrosse game. He had to change out of it for his game but immediately following his game's completion he superman like changed from lacrosse jersey back into the most awesome t-shirt ever. I managed to get it away from him and wash it Saturday night. But he had it back on Sunday, pulling it straight from the dryer before it even made it to the folding basket.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> I washed it again Sunday night so he could wear it to school on Monday. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">On Monday, at recess, apparently he got dragged through the mud because he and the most awesome t-shirt came home covered in Georgia red clay. So I washed it again but noted Tuesday afternoon while folding clothes that the mud stains didn't come out. So I set it aside to wash again, stain treat.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Yes. I really do that much laundry.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Somehow though Beau found the shirt because this morning Beau came down to breakfast again in the shirt. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Absolutely not, I told him. Go change. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">So he did, surprisingly without much argument, and I thought that was the end of it. I sent him to school in an acid green shirt with a blue hoody sweatshirt. So imagine my surprise, when I spotted him from my place in the carpool lane standing on the school porch not in an acid green shirt and blue hoody but in the now stained most awesome t-shirt ever.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">My blood boiled but I did chuckle at him and then, promptly punished him when we got home. Which, he really didn't seem to care about. He was like, yeah yeah, time out in my room but when that is over I need to go to Gio's to work on our skit we are filming for music class-- so how long is this "punishment" gonna take? We gotta get started on the skit I wrote. It is called Scary Pig 1. There is going to be a 2 and a 3 too. Maybe a 4. We are filming it today at Gio's and Tobias's houses. We might need to use our house next week. </span></div>
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<em><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">What?!</span></em></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Either way, I guess he had made his peace knowing that there would be consequences and he just didn't care and would deal with them because he sat in his room. He even cleaned up, read and got all his stuff ready for tomorrow.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Besides, I totally needed him to go to Gio's so I didn't have to take him with my on an appointment I had to take Carmella to. Sometimes the tolerating each other is a 2 way street.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> I know, I know. Mom of the year award coming my way yet again! </span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8sZVI5XLNWw/UHXELjNJm-I/AAAAAAAAFy8/ymJK7bnjkME/s1600/2012-10-10+14.52.35.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8sZVI5XLNWw/UHXELjNJm-I/AAAAAAAAFy8/ymJK7bnjkME/s320/2012-10-10+14.52.35.jpg" width="240" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">So anyway, Future Business Leaders of America, Beau has claimed himself as one of yours. And he is bringing it in business super casual. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Stains! <em>Okay!</em></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> Fit? <em>Not important!</em> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And you should know he has zero respect for authority. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And he definitely doesn't care if his clothes are clean, or himself for that matter . (Dear Lord, or his hands, <em>ew</em>)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">But most of all: He doesn't even like to do <strong><em>work</em>.</strong> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Last week I had a conference with his teacher who told me he wasn't doing his "morning work." At first she was worried he couldn't do it. But when she figured out that he <em>could</em> and could without much effort or time, she asked him why he wasn't doing it and he flatly told her: " I don't want to."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I asked him what he was doing instead of his morning work and he said "talking to my friends"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And what are they doing? I wanted to know.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">"Their morning work."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Okay. In seriousness, I do think the future of America and Business will be okay. I mean, provided that Beau and his peers outgrow these little boy and child like habits, unlike some of the people currently in power positions... </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And last comment. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">When I picked Beau up from "working" at Gio's on the script he had written I could tell he was mad about something. Finally, as I parked the car in the garage, I heard him mutter to himself, "Now I just need to go <em>relax</em> after my difficult time at Gio's where <em>no one</em> would do what <em>I</em> told them!" </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>What?!</em> I said. You mean to say your friends wouldn't "work" like you wanted them to? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>No!</em> He said, disbelieving and irritated. They just wanted to play and goof off. They were NOT taking it seriously at all!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Huh.</span></div>
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<br><a href="http://easyhitcounters.com/" target="_top"><font color="#666666">Hit Counters</font></a></div>Nathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08250132017455417022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21601772.post-42603134988229893132012-10-01T09:58:00.000-04:002012-10-01T18:08:58.645-04:00Checking in at the Track<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4oe8b-rRVPQ/UGidMlGgI3I/AAAAAAAAFyU/cTCmfNfibmM/s1600/2011-11-21+09.39.46.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4oe8b-rRVPQ/UGidMlGgI3I/AAAAAAAAFyU/cTCmfNfibmM/s320/2011-11-21+09.39.46.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I've been running a lot lately. No specific workouts. No watch.No predetermined distance. Just me and the sidewalk until I decide, yeah, that's enough for today.<br />
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It is pretty awesome.<br />
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I don't know how I am ever going to convince myself to go back to doing speed work or tempos or adhering to any sort of "plan"--not that I really ever was that sort of runner. But I did use to wear a watch and try to stick to paces and some sort of loosely formed plan. There was method to my madness.<br />
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I keep thinking, each week, that <i>this</i> is going to be the week I am going to reinstate some structure and starting doing some regimented speed work. I said that at the end of August about September and here it is the last day of September and the closest I've come to speed work or a regimented run was a few times on the treadmill last month when I did a mid length progression run.<br />
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Instead of specific workouts and paces I've just been running and tacking on extra miles to most runs. Sometimes I even run twice a day and most days of the week I run at least an hour and a half but sometimes more than 3 hours. I've needed my time with the miles. I've been a bit stressed out lately. And running is such a great activity for stress--at least for me-- because it keeps my body physically busy but my brain can be better occupied working stuff out.<br />
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Like what?<br />
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Well, for example, I am currently in the process of looking for a full time job after spending the last 12 years helping Ryan's landscaping business and caring for our children. I just can't imagine that there is anyone who ever found the job search process particularly fun--especially if you are in the situation where you<i> really </i><u>need</u> a job--not just want one or want to change careers. I will concede that interviews are fun and I have enjoyed that aspect of the job search experience. It is fun meeting new people but the rest of it? Well, okay mostly the rejection part, is quite humbling. Everyday I get to find out that no one else thinks I am as awesome as I do. And I am really trying to impress people here and 100% failing at it. At times, I feel a bit like a circus monkey doing tricks. In all instances I am never certain if am doing the correct trick, or if I am doing the correct trick if I am doing it in the correct way; and then when it is over I don't know if I am being applauded or heckled for my talents.<br />
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One thing is for sure though; no one is tossing any coins in my top hat.<br />
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On the very worst of days it feels like I am being punished for the choices I made because I had children. I recognize these are choices *I* made. Most certainly they were choices I thought were best for my family and at the time I was happy to make them. But now, with the current state of our country, our personal business and this economy definitely makes me feels like I may have made the wrong choices. To be clear, not the having children part--no regrets there-- but the part about not pursuing a career outside of our landscaping business. Sigh. It just really stinks to learn that after 12 years of doing something that you thought was the best choice was in fact not the right choice.<br />
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But nevertheless . . . choices I made.<br />
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So running is definitely keeping me from completely folding under the stress I feel. I <i>need</i> the extra miles, the time on my feet more than I do a quick pace. A quicker pace or regimented workout would mean having to actually think about running. (That would probably be even more boring than having to read about running.) But in running lots of easy miles I am keeping my body busy and my mind has time to contemplate the state of my shrinking universe.<br />
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And it is quite fortuitous that there is a fancy new sidewalk outside my neighborhood where I can find all these miles I am seeking. After 2 years of construction the DOT (I guess that is who to credit) finally has completed it.This has opened up brand new routes for me that after over 11 years of living here I am grateful to explore. I can now run all the way to Roswell or to Woodstock on the sidewalk without having to worry about twisting an ankle on the soft shoulder of a busy road.<br />
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However, I've sort of grown attached to a particular route that is just over 9 miles.<br />
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It leads me out of my neighborhood up what I call a "stealth hill" for the better part of 3 miles. I live in what is known as the <a href="http://naturalhistory.uga.edu/~gmnh/gawildlife/index.php?page=information/regions">"Piedmont region"</a> of Georgia.The Piedmont is known as "the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains." These "foot"hills are definitely taller than a foot but I concur that from the eye they don't look like much. However, a 2-3% "foot"hill that spans several miles makes it feel like gravity hates you, only you don't know why. Your calves though, they have an inkling.<br />
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After I turn the corner, the stealth hill ends and my route will roll for a bit and my calves will be happy. Then I turn another corner and my route starts to slope down, my calves are even jollier. Then the route will roll up and down until I get home.<br />
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That is unless I "check-in" at the track to see what's going on.<br />
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And most times, I do "check-in."<br />
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I found out last year that the local high school track--previously just 3 miles from my house but now, because of the new sidewalk additions, can be as far as just over 5 miles. The track is open to the public 24 hours, 7 days a week. I've been there on Christmas. Open. As early as 5:30 am in the summer? Open. The track is definitely spooky at dark-thirty but nevertheless open and surprisingly, not underpopulated. Only problem with dark-thirty and I would guess the night time hours too, is that there are no lights.<br />
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But that is what headlamps are for, right?<br />
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This is such an awesome resource! This track is <i>so</i> nice: two sets of concrete stadium bleachers-- if you are the type to do "stadiums" (so far I am not), a synthetic turf football field, and, best of all, a wide rubber track. I can literally feel the bounce when I run on it. I liken the experience to when I was on the high school gymnastic team and we would visit the rich private schools (Pace and Westminster) and turned out our floor routines on their spring assisted floor. Our routines were <i>awesome</i> after having trained on the very non springy inch thick wrestling mats in our home gym. It was like going from doing flips in quicksand to doing flips on a trampoline.<br />
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Pricey and privileged education in this case was never triumphant.<br />
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Anyway, that is what it is like running on the track after hammering out miles on the concrete sidewalk-- it is trampoline like. Because of this I often check-in when looping back home. The track is a nice break from the hills and an easy way to add miles. Most times I just tack on 2 or 3 miles but sometimes it is more. The problem, of course, is my pace. At first I will be all reigned in and controlled, possibly even still plodding along. But then, I don't know. After a couple of 400 meter laps my legs recover. They get all tingly from the rubber reverberations. I will try to hold back but then the next thing I know; I am all out sprinting.<br />
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Dear lord it is awesome.<br />
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I love how the wind will be at my face and then halfway around it is at my back. People on the track become Monet like blurs and I feel like I am flying. I swear, my body makes a swishing sound as pass them.<br />
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I am the Nike swoosh!<br />
<br />
But once I start that sprint it will be game over. There will be dues to pay for my lack of self control. My legs and lungs will burn, my skin will itch. My heart rate will take forever to recover and I will still have to run those rolling 4 miles home (3 if I go the short way). Most times, by the time I even get to the track, before I have even put in my bonus miles with an all out sprint, it is hot--blazing full sun on the black rubber track. Or worse, hot <i>and</i> humid. And, of course, I <i>never</i> have water. So those final miles can be punishing. A complete buzz kill. Or, rather, endorphin kill.<br />
<br />
But that's okay. My choice and really, complaining aside, I do love it.<br />
<br />
Getting to check-in at the track is totally worth eating the paste and paying for it. It is non verbal social interaction on my solitary runs. It makes me feel less alone because the best thing about checking in at the track are the people. Not just the high school athletes but all the other people that are always there. The "pedestrians" like me. The non high school athletic stars.<br />
<br />
There are usual suspects, depending on time and what day. <br />
<br />
On Sundays, and occasionally during the week in the mornings, there is an older gentleman with an impressive thick shock of white hair. I guess he is in his 70's but he could be significantly older. He doesn't acknowledge me even though I always wave at him and smile. (I don't take this personally because I have never seen him talk to anyone.) His legs are so muscular. They belie the old man socks he wears. He will show up and run 1-2 laps slowly. Then he will switch his shoes to spikes and do 100 meter repeats or maybe it is 200's. He never takes the curve. He stays on the straight a way. My guess is he is a competitive grand master racer. I like him. I want to be running sprint repeats when I am his age and be serious about it.<br />
<br />
See, I still have <i>plenty</i> of time to be serious.<br />
<br />
There are also, of course, "the moms" that walk in pairs, emphatically gesturing with their hands as they chat. Okay, I do not know for a fact that they are "mom's," but they are of that age. There are other runners--men and women of various ages and stages of fitness, running loops like I do and are either "in the zone" or zoned out to their ear-buds. There are also boot camp participants who do sprints and stadiums and push-ups and squats. They look simultaneously like they are having the time of their life and that they have never been more miserable. An attractive young black man, who is the boot camp sergeant, and stands like a sentry on the field and yells orders out to them as they run up and down the concrete stadium steps. He smiles at me when I pass by him, as if he and I are in on some joke together. I pretend like I know what that joke is, but I really don't know. There is also the young ground's keeper who I am fairly certain is a smoker and drives a Gator vehicle around the field; moving things and cleaning up trash and debris from the track and the field. I can tell he has an opinion about the boot campers because I caught him smirking at them one day and then he winked at me when I passed him on one of my loops. I think we also must have an inside joke but again, I am not certain what it might be.<br />
<br />
On weekends, when there isn't a school sanctioned event, there are always young men or teenage boys playing a pick up game of football, rugby or soccer. Sometimes I have to dodge the occasional rogue ball. Most times, except during school hours, there are dads coaching their kids-- utilizing the turf, rarely the track, and, even rarer, the stadium steps. I love it though when the dad's have a stopwatch. Sometimes the really little kids, who are there with their parents, will race me for a few hundred meters before they are distracted by a butterfly or run out of steam or just decide to lay themselves flat out in the middle of their track lane.<br />
<br />
Sometimes I will see runners with evidence of being in the injury clink--an ankle or knee brace, a slight limp--walking loops with starts of trying to run only to be defeated within a few strides, frustration coloring their face.<br />
<br />
I identify with them the most.<br />
<br />
During the week, when school is in, what I assume is the special needs class comes out to walk loops.I don't know if this a PE class or part of therapy but I would guess not recess since there is no recess in the high school. They do not seem to be chaperoned by a teacher--at least not that I have seen but someone must be watching them. None of them actually run but most do walk loops. A couple of them do not walk around the track at all. Instead they stand on the field, near the fence or in a fixed spot on the track near the gate from which they entered. They will just stare up at the sky and occasionally flap their hands. They look lost and confused. But I will admit, they could be neither lost nor confused and their standing and staring might just be an act of defiance against forced exercise. There is one boy who always walks very quickly as if he is really angry. He even looks like he is having an argument though I can never figure out what he is saying. From my perspective it is like he was given an assignment to walk x number of laps and he is going to get that done as fast as he can but he is not one bit happy about it and he is not afraid to show it! He makes me a little nervous. A few of the girls do seem to interact with each other, socializing as they walk. One girl, with Down's Syndrome and a short blond pony tail, always smiles at me and I always return a hello to her. I have tried to say hello to a few others but for the most part they act like they don't see me.<br />
But to be certain.<br />
<br />
I see them.<br />
<br />
And I am reminded that they are not afforded the same luxury of choices that the rest of us at the track are.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br><a href="http://easyhitcounters.com/" target="_top"><font color="#666666">Hit Counters</font></a></div>Nathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08250132017455417022noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21601772.post-70172099839863540452012-09-18T09:54:00.005-04:002012-09-18T15:39:57.400-04:00Diamonds on the Soles of My Shoes<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="color: #474747; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 23px;">People say she's crazy </span></i></div>
<i></i><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><i><span style="color: #474747; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 23px;">She got diamonds on the soles of her shoes </span></i></i></div>
<i>
<span style="color: #474747; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 23px;"></span></i>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="color: #474747; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 23px;"><i>Well that's one way to lose these </i></span></i></div>
<i><span style="color: #474747; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 23px;">
</span><span style="color: #474747; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 23px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Walking blues </i></div>
</span><span style="color: #474747; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 23px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Diamonds on the soles of your shoes </i></div>
</span><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #474747; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 23px;"><br /></span></div>
</i></div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="color: #474747; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 23px;">She was physically forgotten </span></i></div>
<i></i><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><i><span style="color: #474747; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 23px;">And then she slipped into my pocket ...</span></i></i></div>
<i>
</i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #474747; font-family: Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="line-height: 23px;">Paul Simon, "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes"</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8p4nZhTRBG4/UFhkrnw2CSI/AAAAAAAAFx0/Xjk-YKPciB8/s1600/2012-09-18+08.03.54.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8p4nZhTRBG4/UFhkrnw2CSI/AAAAAAAAFx0/Xjk-YKPciB8/s320/2012-09-18+08.03.54.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">A</span>s if anyone here is going to know what I am talking about and as if that is even going to matter.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I know, there is more than one way to lose the walking--or any kind of-- blues. . . </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But you know, I have my preference.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Once, when I was maybe 5, probably 6 though, I told my mother I wanted to go ice skating. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And she said,"But you don't know how. Ice skating is hard.<i> I</i> can't even ice skate."</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I told her, with absolute confidence, " I can skate." </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
She asked me, how I knew? </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I explained to her, I had been watching it on TV and that I just <i>knew</i> I could do it. I was certain of it. Not even a glinting sliver of a doubt in my mind. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I knew, I could skate.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So my parents, my mother doubting, took me to the ice skating rink.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Parkarie. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Parkaire was a new "mall" built around an ice rink on what was once a grassy field with an old airport landing strip on the corner of Lower Roswell Road and Johnson Ferry Road. It was an ice rink that had doors leading into, out of Kroger. As if, while grocery shopping, you might get a wild hair and want to take a break from your errands and go skate. Set your groceries, preserved and waiting, on a cold bench while you turned a few loops on the smooth, just Zambonied ice rink. Or, more likely, brilliantly so--I think; parents could just drop off their kids while they quietly Krogered for a week's worth of groceries. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
What a great little mall that was. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
My dad took Karate in one of the upper level glass front store spaces. A neighbor owned a shoe store called Papagallo's or some strange Italian name like that. Wender and Roberts, the drug store that would deliver your prescriptions, had the best candy aisle. I even adopted my cat Scrounge from that mall when the local Humane Society held a pet adoption day. Found my little black and white kitty with one yellow eye and one mottled eye in a cage adjacent to that ice skating rink. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
As my mother tells the story, she took me to the ice skating rink and was indeed surprised when I was set loose on the ice, that I not only could I ice skate but I could ice skate quite well: I did spins and twirls. I skated in figure eights; backwards and forwards. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I did, just as I had told her, know how to skate. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Even though I had never tried. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I just knew; that I could.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Now, really, I don't know why I could skate. Because I know there were <i>many</i> things, when I was young, that I thought I could do before trying them and I would very quickly find out, the hard way, that I could not do them even a tiny bit. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Like swimming. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I was forever jumping in pools and bodies of water and having to be scooped out and saved because I could not swim at all. Not even a tiny bit could I swim. And I wouldn't even teeter cautiously on the edge of the pool or wade trepidatiously down shallow steps. Nope. I would run, jump and dive, flinging my tiny child body through the air with exuberance and splashing straight into the deep end with the greatest of confidence. And then I would sink, like a stone, and have to sit, wide eyed and staring up through light shafted water from the bottom of the pool, waiting to be saved. At three, I would even sneak out of our Beau Rivage apartment, intent on a Saturday at 5 am, that I was going swimming. Details, like not being able to swim or that the pool would even be open or that I could ever make it over the stone wall leading to the pool, were completely irrelevant. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Eventually though, with much persistence, I learned to swim. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And I found, after effort and time, that I could even swim very, very well. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Lately though, I've been wondering what happened to all that youthful bravado. How and exactly when, and why-- did it all go away? What happened to the girl that always felt she could and would try anything without even a second of worry that maybe she could not?</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Failure wasn't ever a thought. And even when she met it head on; she just plowed through it. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
What happened to the girl that always banked on the currency that she could rather than the debt that she could not?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Where the heck did she go? </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
She was awesome.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Sometimes though, she comes back around. Most often I find her when I am pounding out the miles on the sidewalk, trail, track or treadmill with Pandora in my pocket and some musical poetry floating in my head. I feel her awesomeness, her bravery, her invincibility. I feel the hardness of the ground travel in shock waves through the diamond pattern on my shoes, up my legs and through my bones, muscles, organs and every tiny tingling nerve ending in a rhythm that says, <i>you can you can you can</i>.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
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<br><a href="http://easyhitcounters.com/" target="_top"><font color="#666666">Hit Counters</font></a></div>Nathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08250132017455417022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21601772.post-15785262029785629722012-09-13T20:59:00.000-04:002012-09-14T13:10:13.684-04:00Excuse Me Ma'am, But Is That Your Foot You Dropped? <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-os0qcKL55nQ/UFJSMvihEFI/AAAAAAAAFvY/Ns1rtfG3izM/s1600/foot+drop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-os0qcKL55nQ/UFJSMvihEFI/AAAAAAAAFvY/Ns1rtfG3izM/s320/foot+drop.jpg" width="240" /></a><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">“Things may happen and often do to people as brainy and footsy as you”</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> </span></i><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">― Dr Seuss,<u> Oh, The Place You'll Go!</u></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Why yes, as matter of fact that is my foot. And thank you, thank you for noticing. . . .</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Oh, the things that can (and have!) happened since I last blogged. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Just when things were going so well for me too!</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Let's break it down, shall we? </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rFGh7wm4Rq4/UFJ-NS4_jRI/AAAAAAAAFww/N0cTK7ik1fE/s1600/award.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rFGh7wm4Rq4/UFJ-NS4_jRI/AAAAAAAAFww/N0cTK7ik1fE/s200/award.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Since I last blogged, and you last read my wise words of writ, I had just finished my 17th marathon in a blazing </span></span><span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">(for me) </span><span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">3:28. Two weeks prior to that I had some humble pie with a side of tornado and ran a 3:58 marathon. But all in all, not a bad showing for this 40 (now 41 ) year old runner. And in the months prior to that I had run a marathon personal best (3:26), a 10k personal best (43:14), a 5k personal best (20:30) and was averaging in the neighborhood of 65+ miles a week for over 10 months.</span><br />
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> Finally! I had broken free of the injury clink. </span><br />
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">And the streak of health and fitness continued: Two weeks after the GA Publix marathon I went for some cool (and free!) testing. I have never known my heart rate, VO2Max, lactic threshold or any of that other fancy data stuff. For the most part, I don't even know what pace I run or specifically how far I am running since I don't own a Garmin and rarely wear a watch and only map out my runs when I get home most times. So the cool news, which really wasn't too surprising I guess, was that I am pretty (or rather, er was) darn fit. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">My VO2Max was 55. Which if you look a<a href="http://www.topendsports.com/testing/vo2norms.htm"> this chart </a>you can see that is pretty good for a 40 year old female. My max heart rate is 189 and lactic threshold is 179. Which, according to Andy, the PhD candidate that administered the testing, said that was also really good. What it sounded like to me though is that I have to run pretty dang fast to hit lactic threshold and well, I don't like that fast stuff so much. But really, it was eye opening what it felt like to hit max heart rate. I have to say that I don't ever go to that point in racing. Ever, ever. I'm not even sure I get up to lactic before I start to panic and back off. I also think this explains why I like the marathon so much. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">But the results were not all good news. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">My weight was up-- higher than it has been since I think I had a baby. I'm only 5'5 and I weighed in that day at 134.5lbs. Usually I am in the 127-132 range ( I was 127lbs in October of 2011 at my last physical). My guess is running 2 marathons 2 weeks apart and the necessary recovery from that led to a bit of gluttony and weight gain on my part. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Okay, I know it did. (<i>mmm</i>, celebratory beers)</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Also, bad news was that body fat was higher than the tester or I had thought it would be too--we had both guessed 18%. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I was 20%, which, supposedly for women, according to</span><a href="http://www.builtlean.com/2010/08/03/ideal-body-fat-percentage-chart/" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> this chart</a><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">, is still in the "athletic" range. At any rate, I knew before he did all the weighing and </span>Dexa<span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> scan that my weight was going to be up from what is was during peak training as my waist size was up an inch and I couldn't fit into one of my smaller <a href="http://www.thisnext.com/browse/revolveclothing.com-store/apparel/">Betsey Johnson</a> dresses as a result. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">But apparently being an athletic fatty didn't slow me down too much. Two days after my testing was complete I ran a 5k/10k double and ran another personal best at the 5k (20:27, okay just 3 secs) and a course personal best for the 10k (45:15). </span></span><br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3Fil-7J1qko/UFJ_uj6GHiI/AAAAAAAAFxA/DychBYbqBkQ/s1600/073.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3Fil-7J1qko/UFJ_uj6GHiI/AAAAAAAAFxA/DychBYbqBkQ/s200/073.JPG" width="133" /></a><span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Nevertheless I felt that if I wanted to see real improvement I was going to have drop some weight and body fat. Andy and I talked about a few options for me where I could improve my fitness. He explained that VO2Max goes up with lower body fat . However, VO2Max also goes down with age (and surprise surprise, body fat goes up with age. I tell you what, there is no good news about this getting old gig.)</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> He indicated that my lactic threshold was actually really quite good and I probably wasn't going to see much improvement there. Basically, my best bet to get faster would be to drop some fat/weight. He said I could "healthily" go as low as 12% but we also talked about the sacrifices that would involve (beer, food). And besides, at 40 I think I kind of need some fat to fill out the wrinkles. Too low a body fat at my age just makes you look old and saggy baggy elephant like.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Personally, I felt getting my weight down into the lower -mid 120's would bring me to a reasonable body fat of 16-17% and my Betsey Johnson dress would fit me again. I also felt I wouldn't have to make too many sacrifices to make that happen. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">To be certain. I am not going to say losing weight is easy. It isn't. At all. It took me 6 weeks to drop 8.5 lbs and get my weight down to 126. And from there I couldn't get it to budge at all. My dieting plan was as follows: no alcohol Monday through Friday (definitely hardest part), no white bread or pasta--whole wheat only, meat only once a day, more fruits and vegetables, no processed snacks ( pretels, potato chips, cheezits etc). I was already running around 60-70 miles a week and swimming once a week. I added in some cycling and added push ups (100) to several workouts each week. A key workout for me was running laps and after every mile stopping and doing 10 push ups. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Honestly, it was a lot of effort for just a measly 8.5 lb loss. But I was pretty happy that my dress that didn't fit before did fit and I shaved 3 minutes off my time from my personal best at the Olympic distance at this year's Peachtree International triathlon (2:43 to 2:40) which 2 minutes of that was off the run portion. I even nabbed top in my age group. A first for me in triathlon. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Being 40 had been rather kind to me at the races: </span></span><span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I took first overall female at a couple of 5k races, top master at other distances and top age group placements at pretty much every race I entered (except that one with the side of tornado and that is my own fault.)</span><span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> I would say I was probably the fittest I've ever been in my life and this is saying quite a bit since honestly, I have never really been unfit. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">And then I dropped my foot. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">And here is where ends </span></span><span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">what</span><span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> I am sure has probably seemed most like an obnoxious braggart's tale. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">So, maybe you are wondering what exactly "foot drop" means. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">No worries. I'm gonna explain it. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Actually, you can read about Foot Drop <a href="http://www.thisnext.com/browse/revolveclothing.com-store/apparel/">here</a>. But basically it means you can't flex your foot because you can't move your anterior tiblias muscle. And let me tell you, in case you didn't know it, but the anterior tiblias and the ability to dorsiflex your foot is absolutely crucial in being able to run. Really, even walk normal. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">There are varying degrees of foot drop. They have a scale for dorsiflexion. Zero means no mobility and a 5 means complete mobility. I was a zero for the first two weeks of my injury. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Foot drop has to be the absolute craziest scariest injury I've ever had. It seriously messed with my head. One minute I'm at a party eating raw oysters in the backyard and drinking beer and playing corn hole and then an hour later my foot is paralyzed. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I had been sitting on the steps, drinking a beer and listening to this woman tell me the longest and most tragic woe is me tale I've ever heard. I had been sitting cross legged, as I was wearing a dress and darn it sitting cross legged stretches out my hip flexor. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">After what felt like</span></span><span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> a</span><span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">short eternity I stood up to excuse myself and untangle myself from the grips of this woman's tale under the very useful ruse of having to use the restroom. As soon as I stood up I rolled my ankle. Initially I wasn't so worried about rolling my ankle as I roll my ankle all the time running, and most times, just keep on running. It hurts a little but it's just a split second pain; a tweak and then the pain always goes away.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">So I take another step and I roll my</span></span><span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> ankle again </span><span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">and this time </span><span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">almost fall down</span><span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">. It is then I realize that I can't move my foot or ankle at all. Ryan tells me stop being a weirdo and that my foot is just asleep and I just need to go "walk it off". So I comply and take some things to the Jeep. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Walking isn't easy. I am doing the "steppage gait" because other wise I would fall over my foot. It is like it is glued to ground. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">While I am putting the stuff in the Jeep my ankle collapses and I land flat on my back in the road. This time I rolled my ankle all the way over to the top of my foot and bloody my last three toes on my right foot. My foot is completely numb and I can only wiggle my big toe. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I am completely freaking out.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I implore to Ryan that we must leave and he isn't happy about it because he "is winning at corn hole." He is "in the final round" and "might win 50 bucks."</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> I don't so much even care a tiny bit about how well he is faring in corn hole since my freaking foot is paralyzed, bloody and I can barely walk. To me that seems way more pressing than corn hole or $50. But I agree to wait it out a bit longer. It isn't an emergency, yet.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">An hour later and corn hole still has no definitive winner and I am in full out panic and have a bit of an adult tantrum, after which Ryan finally agrees we can go home.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I ice my foot when I get home, though the only part that hurts is my toes since they got all cut up when I fell. I take a </span>Motrin<span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> to further combat any swelling and hope that my foot will be functioning the in the morning.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I wake up the next day and my foot is still paralyzed. I begin massive Googling and learn that foot drop is what I have and that it is usually a symptom of some other, usually serious and deadly, neurological disorder or disease. Most of what I find is related to </span>ALS<span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> or MS. All very frightening. I do find some information that the </span>peroneal <span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">nerve can be damaged by crossing the legs but the damage doesn't seem to be complete paralysis like I have, but rather just some tingling. I also find that severe ankle sprains can cause peroneal never damage but my ankle is neither swollen or bruised that I can tell and I have no pain, just numbness. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">After 3 days and still completely unable to flex my foot I go to see an orthopedist upon the advice of a friend who is a physical therapist. I am, by this point, fairly convinced that I have some terrifying neurological disorder. My hip and lower back are also killing me since to walk I have to lift my knee and thigh up just so my foot clears the floor. I am in a miserable state.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">An X-ray rules out any breaks or tendon damage. I tell the doctor my story: oysters, beers, sitting crossed legged listening to sad saga and then my ankle rolling tale. He says, "Well, you're fairly thin." And I say " Well, thank you." </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">He laughs and continues, "In leaner people the peroneal nerve can be superficial and easily compressed." To prove this he grabs my leg and presses on my nerve and weird nerve sensations go down my leg. He goes on to say that probably what happened is that I compressed the nerve, temporarily paralyzing my leg--like when your foot falls asleep-- but the real damage happened when I stood up and rolled my ankle. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">He then goes on to say that best case scenario is that I "stretched" the nerve and worst case that I severed it. He felt that my injury was of the stretching type and that it should come back 100%. Only he couldn't say when that would happen. I pressed him for a time line and he said "could be 6 weeks or it could be 6 months or longer" </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> I asked what if I severed it?</span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">"Well then, it probably won't come back but either way you have to wait at least a month and if you don't see any improvement then come back and we'll do a nerve study."</span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VsH6CyzqGRA/UFJbheU8OGI/AAAAAAAAFv0/dC4A4MUPPO0/s1600/finish+2012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VsH6CyzqGRA/UFJbheU8OGI/AAAAAAAAFv0/dC4A4MUPPO0/s320/finish+2012.jpg" width="240" /></a><span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">He said that he was going to recommend physical therapy and that I "seemed fairly motivated" so I would only need to go once and get some exercises. He also gave me a brace to stabilize my ankle so I wouldn't roll it again and do further damage. He said I could swim and cycle until it healed and sent me on my way. But not so happily. Not the quick or miraculous fix I was hoping for.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">And what boggled and frustrated me is that I got injured just hanging out and sitting. Seriously! I run 70 miles a week and I hurt myself to the point of paralysis from just sitting around? </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">The universe sure was having some fun with irony at my expense to say the least. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">And so I went to therapy, still not 100% convinced that I wasn't dying of a neurological disorder and got my prescribed exercises. The PT said to do them two times a day and she felt it was going to be an even longer recovery than the Orthopedist had though. So I decided to do the prescribed exercises 3-4 times a day instead of just twice. And I swam. A lot. And I rode the trainer. A lot. Like 15 hours a week of swimming and riding the trainer each week. I've never put in so much time to going absolutely nowhere than I did in the month of June. I even brought the trainer to the beach. I am so very grateful I could at least swim and bike. I really don't know what I would have done otherwise. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I guess completely lost my mind rather than only half of it? </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">And I want to say that I probably would have been more accepting of my injury if the cause of it had been from a legitimate trauma or anything other than just sitting on my ass.</span></span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xah8z_-xTRQ/UFJckFD03ZI/AAAAAAAAFwE/0G0DvUmdiYw/s1600/steph+and+nat+pt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xah8z_-xTRQ/UFJckFD03ZI/AAAAAAAAFwE/0G0DvUmdiYw/s200/steph+and+nat+pt.jpg" width="160" /></a><span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">The PT told me that when I was able to dorsiflex my foot 60-70% I could start trying to run on the track, provided I kept it short and I wore my stability shoes. By the last week of June, about 4 weeks after I injured it, I was finally able to run a bit. I ran every other day up to 4 miles. After a week I was able to run 6 miles on hills. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">It is weird but once the nerve started to come back it came back pretty fast. The first two weeks were definitely the worst and it felt like I wasn't making any improvement. I don't know if it was running that helped it along or just all the other stuff I was doing but by July 4th--about 5 and half weeks after the initial injury-- I was able to run the Peachtree Road Race and run the course back. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">In retrospect, it probably wasn't the wisest move ever but it didn't prove a set back at all. The main concern with running before the ankle was 100% was a compensation injury or another ankle sprain because of altered stride and unstableness, but luckily for me that wasn't the case. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Steph and I ran 48 flat for the race and then we beer mile-ed it back to the start with her husband Doug. I love those guys! We always have the best time at races and Steph was so nice to run with me even though we missed qualifying for time group A again by one measly second and it was completely my fault. I totally owe her.</span></span><br />
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I still didn't have 100% dorsiflexion back until probably the end of July. By mid August all the numbness was gone but I still have some strange nerve sensations--burning or alternately cold spots --and sometimes the ankle just feels tired or like it might not work, but it does. I can't tell if that part is all in my head or not. I constantly find myself flexing my right foot to make sure I still can.<br />
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The good news is in the past month I've been back running 60-75 miles a week. Nothing fast and certainly nothing fabulous but I am so, so grateful to be back out there running miles around the town on my sidewalk. The bad news is that all those speed gains I made last year?<br />
Gone.<br />
And the weight that I lost? <br />
Yeah, some of it has come back.<br />
How much?<br />
I don't know. I've been a bit afraid to get on the scale or even try my dress on.<br />
But really, I don't care.<br />
They are just vanity pounds.<br />
Vanity paces too.<br />
<br />
<br />
You know.<br />
It really is unfortunate how I always need real life, <i>literal </i>metaphors-- like dropping my foot-- to make me realize what is important, where my head should be. Other people get to say stuff like, "and then the other shoe dropped."<br />
They even get to use air quotes when they say it.<br />
<br />
Me?<br />
I get to say, "and then I dropped my foot."<br />
And really mean it.<br />
And then, I have drag that foot around; hobbled, humbled, tripping over hurdles and punished for my hubris.<br />
And honestly, I really can never feel too sorry for myself because it really is all so ridiculous.<br />
<br />
So yeah, I get knocked down.<br />
But I get up again.<br />
And I just keep on running.<br />
<br />
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<br><a href="http://easyhitcounters.com/" target="_top"><font color="#666666">Hit Counters</font></a></div>Nathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08250132017455417022noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21601772.post-12858287245894366882012-03-22T10:25:00.001-04:002012-03-23T07:19:57.719-04:00Shaking off the Darkness and Running on the Sunny Side of the Street: 2012 Ga Marathon Race Recap<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">~Seen the carnival at Rome<br />Had the women, I had the booze<br />All I can remember now <br />Is little kids without no shoes<br />So I saw that train <br />And I got on it<br />With a heart full of hate<br />And a lust for vomit<br />Now I'm walking on the sunny side of the street</span></i></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>--The Sunny Side of the Street, </i>The Pogues</span></b></div>
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<i style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">~<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">I am done with my graceless heart<br />
So tonight I'm gonna cut it out and then restart<br />
Cause I like to keep my issues drawn<br />
It's always darkest before the dawn</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i>Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out. . . </i></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">-<i>-Shake it out </i>by Florence + The Machine</span></b></div>
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<i>~<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Oh, and I know this of myself<br />
I assume as much for other people<br />
Oh, and I know this of myself<br />
We've listened more to life's end gong<br />
Than the sound of life's sweet bliss</span></i><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>--Missed the Boat </i>by Modest Mouse</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></b><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></i></div>
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<i>What were the words I meant to say before she left</i></div>
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<i>When I could see your breath lead where you were going to</i></div>
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<i>Maybe I should just let it be</i></div>
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<i>And maybe it will all come back to me.</i></div>
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<i>Sing O January O</i></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">~<i> January Hymn</i> by The Decemberists</span></b><i><br /></i></div>
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<b>For those that don't care for the story here are the results of my 6th turn on the Georgia marathon course and my 17th marathon. This ties for my second fastest marathon and is a course pr by a minute.</b></div>
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<b>Natalie Fischer #137</b></div>
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Age: 40 Gender: F</div>
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<img alt="3" src="http://results.active.com/images/a2/clock/digit_3.gif" /><img alt=":" src="http://results.active.com/images/a2/clock/digit_58.gif" /><img alt="2" src="http://results.active.com/images/a2/clock/digit_2.gif" /><img alt="8" src="http://results.active.com/images/a2/clock/digit_8.gif" /><img alt=":" src="http://results.active.com/images/a2/clock/digit_58.gif" /><img alt="3" src="http://results.active.com/images/a2/clock/digit_3.gif" /><img alt="8" src="http://results.active.com/images/a2/clock/digit_8.gif" /></div>
<table cellspacing="0" summary="Race Results for Natalie Fischer"><tbody>
<tr><td class="title"><b>Distance Marathon</b><b><br /></b></td><td><br /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="title"><b>Clock Time 3:28:51</b></td><td><br /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="title"><b>Chip Time 3:28:38</b><br />
<b>Pace 7:58</b></td><td><br /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="title"><b>Overall Place 95/1872</b></td><td><br /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="title"><b>Gender Place 17/638</b></td><td><br /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="title"><b>Division Place 4/97</b></td><td><br /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="title"><b> 10K 48:28</b></td><td><br /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="title"><b>Half 1:40:41</b></td><td><br /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="title"><b> 22 1Mi 2:51:28</b></td><td><br /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="title"><table cellspacing="0" summary="Race Results for Natalie Fischer"><tbody>
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<table cellspacing="0" summary="Race Results for Natalie Fischer"><tbody>
<tr><td class="title"><br /></td><td>Two weeks ago I ran the Albany Snickers Marathon. It was a disappointing day for me. I had wanted to run my heart out for a pr. But weather, lack of sleep and quite honestly a dismal attitude made it an impossible and miserable day. Given the conditions of that day--70+ degrees, rain, humidity, tornadoes etc--a pr wasn't going to happen. BUT. But I could have had a better experience if I hadn't been so damn negative. I have so much regret about that and it has nagged at me.<br />
<br />
I <b><i>LOVE </i></b>running. I really think it is happiness in motion. I think races, marathons in particular, are a blast. I try to always have a smile when I am out running-- whether racing, on track, treadmill, sidewalk or trail-- and try to make it look fun--even when sometimes it most certainly is not and I am definitely suffering--because I want all those non runners to know that they are missing out.<br />
<br />
So I apologize for my negativity and forgetting that I run because I love to run. That I run because I think it is fun,. But mostly I am really sorry for forgetting that being a better runner does not always mean having your fastest time. I am sorry for forgetting that a successful race isn't just what the clock at the end says or where you place in your age group.<br />
<br />
I will admit it took me almost the entire 2 weeks between Albany and the Ga Marathon to recognize all that. I was depressed and self pitiful--as many people are after a bad race. And then I was depressed about the forecast for the Ga marathon. I whined, complained, shook my fist at the air for the injustices and spewed negativity everywhere I could: Facebook, my log at Beginner Triathlete, on the Runner World forums, to friends and to complete strangers. Some people joined me in my complaining--misery loves company, right-- others just flat out ignored me and then there were the few who gave me the tough love that I needed to hear. In particular was my friend Harvey who upon every running related facebook comment or negative training log blog I typed would simply advise: "Don't think. Just run."<br />
<br />
And then Ryan reminded me, when I was ( yet again) complaining (that it was going to be hot! ): "No one is making you run." I realized he was absolutely right and that I had no rebuff to make.<br />
Why<i> was</i> I complaining?<br />
He was 100% correct.<br />
I <i>chose </i>to sign up for this.<br />
No one made me.<br />
I was, supposedly, doing exactly what I wanted to do.<br />
And further more, and more importantly, I was doing exactly what I lecture my kids about NOT doing. I am always saying to them: "Don't whine. No one cares. No one wants to hear about what you can't do. They only want to know about what you can do."<br />
<br />
With that in mind I starting thinking what I <i>could</i> do even though Harvey told me not to think.( NOT thinking, btw, is a hard habit to break.) So Friday afternoon I printed out 3 pace bands. 3:25 for a pr (sigh) 3:28 for a course pr and 3:35 which was a guess at what might be realistic given the course, the fact that I just ran a marathon 2 weeks ago and that it would be hot and humid. I studied them. I even tried some visualization; imagining the course and trying to see the time on the clock at the 5k, the 10k, the half and the finish line. I could see all of them and I could see none of them. All I kept coming up with was my dream the night before.<br />
<br />
I had dreamed about the race. An obstacle course dream where it was extremely crowded for the first 3 miles. The 5k timing mat caught on fire and the race navigated through buildings and later through a party where lots of my friends and family were. And all through the dream I was carrying a dark green down blanket that I wanted to get rid of but couldn't find anywhere to put down. I never saw my time on any of the clocks and my alarm had gone off before I got to the finish line.<br />
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I looked at the pace bands and I just didn't know. And then I got an idea. I pulled up the elevation chart and I made another "pace" band. This band, rather than having a time/pace corresponding to each mile I made either a red arrow pointing up for significant hills, purple wiggly lines signifying rolling hills or a blue arrow pointing down for significant downhill (ie fast parts of the course). I put the elevation gain/loss next to my symbols. I printed it out, cut and then sealed it with scotch tape. Then I ripped up the other pace bands and threw them in the trash. I decided my pace would be whatever my pace was but I would chill on the up hills, hammer on the downhills and roll with the rest of it. I knew this meant I was in for a fade since the last 3 miles is all up hill. I didn't care. I wasn't going to think about it. I decided, I was just going to run.</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VLRkZZRH5wA/T2iQQHdWulI/AAAAAAAAFqc/IG7pMNXLX3Y/s1600/pre+race.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VLRkZZRH5wA/T2iQQHdWulI/AAAAAAAAFqc/IG7pMNXLX3Y/s320/pre+race.jpg" width="240" /></a>Unlike at Albany I had an un-stressful day before the race--both kids won their lacrosse games. And as a mom, I have to brag: Beau scored a goal. He hadn't yet scored one this spring and had really been trying but either he would miss or the other team's goalie would knock it out. The weekend before at <a href="http://dreamteamtriathlon.com/">Dream Team Triathlon</a> training <a href="http://www.tribirdie.com/">Jill Poon</a> asked the kids what their goals were and Beau said that his "goal was to score a goal."<br />
<br />
So Saturday morning on the way to the game I reminded him of his goal and told him to "make it happen." He played terribly the first quarter but got it together for the last half of the game. In the last few minutes of the game he scored the final goal helping his team win 6 to 4. I don't know who was more excited. It was pretty awesome and quite inspiring. He had a goal and he made it happen. Love. it.<br />
<br />
And then after their games we shuffled the kids off to my parents so I could make my goal of a good night's sleep happen too.<br />
<br />
Score! </div>
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<b>RACE DAY</b></div>
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I woke up at 4 am on Sunday and went about my usual race morning routine--coffee, breakfast, shower/stretch, gear check etc. While waiting on Ryan to get ready I wrote on my hand Harvey's advice: "Don't think. Just RUN!"<br />
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At 5:30 Ryan and I loaded up the Jeep and with Lola (the dog) headed into Atlanta. I realized riding into the city I was not cold. We had the back windows of the Jeep out and I was perfectly comfortable sitting there in my skirt and sports bra. The temp on the car dash said 65 degrees. I decided not to believe that since I had looked at the weather hour by hour and it said 60 degrees and 95% humidity for the start. And told myself; <i>It doesn't matter. You will be hot and will probably run slower and that will be okay</i>. Every time I had a panicky thought I would just reassure myself that "I would be fine" or that "it was going to be an awesome day!"</div>
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I have done the race day self assurance <i>a la</i> Stuart Smalley in the past and as silly as it seems, it totally works! Maybe just thinking of funny things makes everything better. I mean really: <i>Trace it, face it. Erase it! </i></div>
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Why I didn't do it at Albany I have no idea. Maybe I was too busy drowning in my self pity. I really don't know but I will admit to failure on many levels during that race and only a few of them had to do with the weather and none of them had to do with my training.</div>
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Anyway, Ryan found parking on a side street and I again decided not worry about my car getting broken into (this is not an unfounded thought in Atlanta. My sister lives in the city and regularly has her car broken into. Trashcan Honda notwithstanding). Ryan and Lola walked with me to the start and he waited while I spent way too much time waiting to pee and then walked me a bit towards my corral. He kissed me good bye and instead of wishing me luck, said "have fun." </div>
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And even though I know that was a tongue in cheek "have fun" because Ryan does not think there is fun in running marathons I decided that sounded like a great plan! </div>
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I pardoned and excused my way into corral B. I settled on the right side (left side is evil) somewhere behind the half's 1:40 pace group and a good bit in front of the full's 3:30 pace group. I jumped up and down and did some stretching and took stock of what hurt, worried about it and reminded myself that today, stuff was gonna hurt and what hurt now would go away and be replaced by something else so no sense in obsessing about it. (trace it, face it, erase it!) Then I thought I might have to pee again. And I told myself, not to worry since soon I would be sweating so much my body was gonna need that pee. I know it doesn't work that way and it was just nerves. Thankfully I saw <a href="http://run100miles.com/">Christian</a> and passed the time chatting with him before the start. </div>
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Finally the start happens. I always mean to pay attention to how it happens but I always forget--could be announcement, horn, gun, cannon. No idea. But we are off. I hit my watch and put my earbuds in, turn on my ipod and giggle happily that <i>The Gambler</i> is the first song shuffle has picked for me. Perfect! Best life advice ever. </div>
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Okay, so one of my most favorite things about this marathon is that we start in darkness. It is absolutely the coolest thing to run through downtown Atlanta in predawn darkness. </div>
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Mile 1</div>
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I was so HAPPY and excited this first mile. I was trying to take it all in but it is very crowded since we are with the half marathoners. I can see up ahead the 1:40 pace group and I am determined to stay behind them and not pass them. I know my first 2.5 miles are going to be fast because my awesome pace band tells me we are dropping 110ft . I hit the split but I can't see it since it is dark. Actually, as it turns out, I don't ever look at any of my splits till after the race. There are clocks pretty much every mile but I semi ignored those too. Anyway, 7:35 for the first mile and I am DRIPPING with sweat. But I definitely do not feel overly hot. I just think to myself that this is the effect of the humidity and just means I am going to have to be extra vigilant with my hydration and nutrition.</div>
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Mile2</div>
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I am just running along. Occasionally I yell out "hole" or point to cracks/obstacles in the pavement to the runners behind me. I really feel fabulous. I wave at the spectators and my heart swells with happiness of just getting to run! I am so excited for my tour of Atlanta and getting to listen to my awesome play list. In my recovery since Albany my longest run was only 10 miles. Which after my months of logging higher mileage I was just plain missing running. I decide then that I am going to think of something positive every mile. </div>
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I run through the first aid station, Gatorade, sip, sip and water, sip sip sip toss and dump some water on myself and think wow, I am really sweaty. I decide that I should probably walk/slow jog at least every other aid station for the first half and in the second half walk them all if need be. I did this strategy at Soldier's marathon and last year at Boston. I finished 3:31 and 3:33 respectively so I knew I would probably still hit sub 3:35 even with the slow aid station passes and all the hills. Not exactly Gallo walking but enough that you get your fluids in and your heart rate down and digest all that nutrition goodness. </div>
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7:30 for this mile. Ha, and I thought I had slowed down. </div>
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Mile 3: It is still dark as we pass over the Jackson Street Bridge. Last year when I ran with Steph the sun was up at this point. I am pretty stoked to still be running in darkness with the lights of the city gleaming. Atlanta really has one of the prettiest skylines of any city I have ever seen. </div>
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7:44--we are now going to gain the elevation we just lost. </div>
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Mile 4: I walk through this aid station. I take Gatorade first, couple sips. Then a couple of sips of water. Then another cup of water that I dump on the back of my neck and I am off running again. I will repeat this at every aid station for the rest of the race.</div>
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This is the Auburn ave area and I see people out on their porches. Some look to be drinking beer, others probably their morning coffee and I wave to them. So fun! I remember that in the earlier years of this race there use to be a gospel choir that was out singing when we ran through here but I haven't seen them the past couple of years. Bummer. </div>
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7:57--chilling on the uphills</div>
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Mile 5</div>
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We are easing into the day light and also the Inman Park area. A beautiful neighborhood, Atlanta's first suburb full of old Victorian houses. I've had many friends over the years who have had apartments in the old Victorians. I think about all the fun parties and parades I've been to in this part of the city. I have my first Gu. Always a Roctane. I don't wait for the aid station to take gu's. For me it works better to have the gu in my tummy ready and waiting. I also take the gu over the mile. </div>
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We run through the Little 5 Points area --it is an eclectic area with interesting record, tattoo, clothing, head shops and fun clubs/bars. For those that don't know; Ryan and I went to elementary school (<i>Holla </i>fellow East Side Elementary grads!!) together and grew up in essentially the same neighborhood. I moved to Roswell in middle school and didn't see him again until a random night in October when we were both 25. It was at a Dayroom show at The Point (now defunct). We ran into each other that night and have been together ever since. And every year in the marathon I get to run past the building where The Point use to be. And that was my positive happy thought for mile 5!</div>
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Dayroom clip (couldn't find one from the show at The Point)</div>
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(And that is our friend Brad on drums that also went to elementary school with Ryan and I. )</div>
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7:24! oops! Maybe a little too much positive thinking.</div>
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Mile 6 </div>
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We turn on Freedom Parkway and run past the Carter Center. And my story for this mile is that Jimmy Carter once babysat me. I, of course, have no memory of this since I was 2 but I am certain I must have made quite the impression. Jimmy Carter was governor at the time and a close friend of my Aunt Boo and Uncle Charles Kirbo. My aunt was babysitting me and Jimmy was over visiting. Boo had to run the maid to the bus stop, probably a was gone all of 20 minutes but I was left in Jimmy's care while she did that. </div>
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8:06</div>
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Mile 7</div>
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We have turned off Freedom Parkway and I see a girl that looks familiar. I realize it is Iona! She is my sister's friend who I adore. She is a retired Olympic triathlete. As in <b>The</b><i> Olympics</i>. She is from Jamaica and has the best accent ever! I <i>love</i> hearing her talk. I am so excited to see her and I can tell I completely overwhelm her with my enthusiasm. She tells me it is HOT! And tell her she is from Jamaica and should love this. She does not. I don't either, but what can you do? </div>
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Here is Iona and I at Universal Joint enjoying beers after the race. How pretty is she? (Note to self. Suck in tummy when standing next to Iona.)</div>
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7:12--I am thinking maybe I messed up hitting my splits for 6,7.8. I know I was excited to see Iona and all but I don't think I was running that fast. </div>
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<b>Mile 8</b> </div>
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I see a guy in a tutu with a wand and I decide that I am grateful that there are men in this world so secure they want to run a marathon in green tutu and carry a wand. What a beautiful thing. </div>
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We split off from the half and I scream over the runners 'Have a great race halfers!! Woohoo for the marathon!!" </div>
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The race had greatly thinned out at this point so I was flying solo. I remember somewhere after the split running down North Avenue and past Buddy's gas station (where my friend got robbed once while pumping gas) and I was above the sunrise. Higher than the sun and running down the hill towards it. It was a spectacular view. So beautiful. I shouted good morning to a couple sitting on the curb sipping their coffee. In fact I shouted good morning, hello to so many people and they would cheer for me or say something like "beautiful day for a race." And I would say, "Yes it is!"</div>
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8:04--I was late hitting the split since this is where my ipod fitz out when I dumped water on it. <i>Doh!</i> I was pretty bummed since I love my sound track and I stopped to try and get it going but it was dead! I decided maybe it would be good for me to hear myself breathe. And maybe it would start working again. But either way I wasn't going to let it get me down. </div>
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<b>Mile 9</b></div>
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This is the area near where they have the Sweetwater festival every spring. I am still trying to get my ipod going but it is dead dead dead. I am still feeling good and just not about thinking that I am probably running way too fast since the miles are just flying by. This is also a nice downhill but I know the ugly long hill is coming so I enjoy the downhill while I can. </div>
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7:21</div>
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<b>Mile 10 </b></div>
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This is the mile with the longest hill of the marathon. I settle into it. I pass a guy during this mile and tell him this is the worst hill. I know later he will probably thought I lied to him when he was in the the last miles that are all.up.hill. but the elevation change for this one mile is technically more.</div>
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7:54 Gu time!</div>
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<b>Mile 11</b></div>
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I don't like this mile usually. I think that is probably because this is where I feel the effects of the hill from mile 10 because my pace band tells me that the next 5 miles are gonna be pretty fast rolling mostly downhill. I pass a corner and realize we are near where Ryan and I rode during the Fridge to Fridge ride this past fall before Colby's Venison Stew party. That was such a fun day. My mind rewinds to think about the fun that day. So many good times on the streets and old neighborhoods of Atlanta. This is a picture for the ride and our friend Chris's house in the Kirkwood area. We rode that day between Kirkwood, Decatur, Candler Park areas. Good times. Good times.</div>
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<b>Mile 12</b></div>
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I see a girl up ahead of me. She looks awesome. I admire her physique and her stride. I wonder if I look like that when I run. I decide that I don't because I am not as fit or as tall as her and I decide I shouldn't pass her but next thing I know? I pass her. She says "good job" while I say hi and then I assure her this is just a for now. She seems really nice.And she does pass me later--around 21 or so and finishes about a minute ahead of me. She was really strong looking.</div>
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7:35</div>
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<b>Mile 13</b></div>
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We run through Decatur and it is such a blur. I am happy and waving and shocked that I still feel this good. If only the rest of the race would have this terrain. I know that at 17 miles this fun is going to end and it will be time to dig, dig, dig.</div>
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7:47</div>
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<b>Mile 14</b></div>
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No memory of this mile and apparently that is because I was flying!</div>
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7:31 weeeeee!!!!</div>
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<b>Mile 15</b></div>
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Another Gu. How crazy is that? In training I'll run 15 miles and not even stop for water never mind a gu. I am still, believe it or not, walk/jogging the aid stations. Process is still a sip or 2 of Gatorade, some water and then some water on my head. It is warm. The sun is out. But honestly, it really isn't an issue for me. It has to be in the mid 60's at this point, probably 80% humidity. When I checked weather.com before the race the hourly forecast predicted low 60 for the start with high humidity. The morning would progress towards low /mid 70's for about 11 am and the humidity would drop to about 70%. By comparison Albany was almost 100% humidity the entire race and the temp was always above 70. I felt like I was suffocating. The wet shoes didn't help. So for me, this was a million times better. But I can tell--by others breathing and how they look that they are not faring as well. I know the heat and the hills is going to get to me too but for now it is not.</div>
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7:44</div>
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<b>Mile 16</b></div>
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Almost to Druid Hills. This part is hard! But it really is my favorite part of the course. I am excited to run through it even though it is going to hand my ass to me. This section of Atlanta is so beautiful and was designed by landscape architect of Frederick Olmstead of Central Park fame. The cherry,dogwood, red bud and pear blossoms are in full effect. The road is flanked by stately homes high on wide grass lawns dotted with bright pink and white azaleas. People are out with their kids, dogs, drinking--at least in my mind--mint Juleps. I so very much wish I could live in this area. Maybe if I win the lottery.</div>
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7:31 </div>
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I run pass a guy who tells me I am doing awesome and I tell him now the real work is about to start and we turn the corner and run up the first of the Druids. I see on the clock that if I can keep my miles under 9 minute miles I will finish around 3:30. Surely I can do that, I think. But really I don't know. Don't think! Don't think! Just run!</div>
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<b>Mile 17</b></div>
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I know at some point soon I will get to see my sister, Wes and his family since she had told me they would be somewhere around 17-19 miles. I am excited to that Ryan is with them. Even though all I do is untangle myself from the ipod and yell "Dead ipod! Dead ipod! Take it! Thanks!"</div>
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8:11 Here I am running up that long hill, untangling the ipod. </div>
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After the race my sister who has always run the half said she was surprised we have to run up that hill. She admits it is awful. Really this one doesn't bother me so much. That one at 23? on Spring Street? 67 feet in less than a quarter of mile of evilness? Kills me every time. But more about that later.</div>
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<b>Mile 18</b></div>
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Some where in either this mile or maybe later I see Santa from last year. I scream, as loud as I can running up a hill <i><b>SANTA!!</b></i> The guy running next to me laughs, I mutter,quietly "I know him." But Santa doesn't seem to remember me. I guess I've been naughty.</div>
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8:16</div>
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<b>Mile 19</b></div>
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I am passing people. People are passing me. No one wants to chat with me though. Even when I give shout outs to other runners they all but ignore me. No love for the Nat! No friends to go to the Island of Misfit toys with me. The spectators and volunteers all have love for me though! They yell out "Streaker!" or "Yay for the girls!" or "Yay for the skirt!" or sometimes even my name "Nat Nat you are doing awesome!' And I say "Thank you! This is awesome! or what a Beautiful day or Hells to the Yeah for a yard party" That last one got me lots of cheers from one group. </div>
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It is awesome but it is also really hard because my legs are getting trashed and I am hot and I am getting a little tired now. But seven miles to go! I'll be done in around an hour. Just do as many sub 8:30 miles as you can do I tell myself. You are doing great! And I have another gu! </div>
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8:11</div>
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<b>Mile 20</b></div>
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Oh Nelly, it is getting hot in herreee! </div>
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Thankfully though I get handed a nice cool wet towel. Fabulouliciousness. I feel like a boxer with the wet towel wrapped around my neck. And a left hook, then a right to those hills. Bam! Bam. Pow! Nope. Not at all.</div>
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The water and Gatorade I am being handing though is warm at best. Mmm, warm electrolytes! That makes them digest faster, right? </div>
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8:19 I know we are about to get a brief down hill and I am going to make the best of it I can but boy are my legs feeling heavy.</div>
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<b>Mile 21</b></div>
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I actually pass a few of the people that had passed me in the last few miles. I know they will probably pass me again since I am just working the down hill. It is also kind of shady here and there is a family in this part that hands out Jolly ranchers every year . I think about grabbing one but I am worried I might choke on it and that wouldn't be so fun.</div>
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I pass a guy with an Albany marathon shirt on and I tell him I am a survivor too! He said this was his "do over" and boy does he not sound like he is liking his do over. I, on the other hand, think this is a million times better even if in another 10 minutes it is going to feel like we have to hike up a mountain.</div>
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8:06 </div>
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<b>Mile 22</b></div>
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We bottom out in Piedmont park and now are onto the part of the race that I don't like. Every year, with the exception of last year because I was running an easy pace, the park is my undoing. The first year this is where I started to feel really sick with heat exhaustion. 2 years ago it was where I almost flat out quit and didn't only because I thought finding a ride was going to take me longer than to actually hobble my way to the finish. </div>
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They changed the course in 2010 and added a hideous out and back lollipop in the park. You run up a hill that is in full sun, hit a mat and loop back down the hill. It is nice getting to see people you didn't know were behind you but it also totally sucks when you see the 3:30 pacer is right.behind you. and know that he is going to chase you down. Damn it.</div>
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8:17</div>
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Mile 23</div>
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Right before I hit the mat that heralds the end of the 22nd mile and the beginning of the 23rd I see Doug and Steph . He is less than a 1/4 mile ahead of me.</div>
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Doug yells "Come and get me Nat!" </div>
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Ugh. </div>
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And Grr. </div>
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Oh boy do I want to charge after him and smack him in the ass but I am cooked. I am not worried about it nor am I surprised. I knew I would be paying back the bank at this point. I just didn't know exactly what I the interest rate would be. </div>
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Did I owe 1? 2? </div>
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Or God forbid more minutes per mile? </div>
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I decide to have another gu because I think there is going to be an aid station before we exit the park and I know I am going to need something for the climb up to the finish. I can already tell I am about to be hit with some cramps in my hamstrings. If I didn't have to run uphill it wouldn't be an issue. It is only about 150-200 ft gain over the next 3 miles but there is no reprieve from it, no shade and it is hot! Apparently around this time the race officials yellow flagged the race. I never noticed any flags at any point though. All I know is that at this point I was feeling every bit of the heat .</div>
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<a href="http://stephbachman.blogspot.com/"> Steph</a> is waiting for me as I pass our friend Kim. She takes this picture of Steph and I. </div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pbEw_Yv7Bxs/T2sjKfEy5oI/AAAAAAAAFro/8UziCn2S4gE/s1600/steph+and+me.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pbEw_Yv7Bxs/T2sjKfEy5oI/AAAAAAAAFro/8UziCn2S4gE/s400/steph+and+me.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Steph asks me if I need anything and I tell her some water if she has it would be great. She loosens the cap and hands it to me but I realize even with her loosening it for me I still have a hard time getting it off. I think maybe I am not cooked. I am fried. Done. Game over. </div>
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But then Steph tells me that I look great and asks how I feel . <i>Really? I look good? </i> I tell her I am pretty tired and hot. She babbles on that she told Doug that he looked great but that she was lying to him. He looks terrible she says. On the one hand I think maybe she is trying to mess with my head. But I know Steph always only has good intentions so instead I tell her that now I know she is lying to me. She insists that she isn't and also that she isn't going to be able to run with me for long because this pace is too fast for her with her backpack.</div>
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No problem! We can walk for a minute. I drink some of the water, dump a little on my head, thank her and hand it back to her. As I toss my gu packet in the trash I assure her that I have not littered at all today (she likes to pick up trash while she runs and I am trying to get brownie points with her for being a non littering runner.)</div>
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I start running and she stays with me and I thank her for being there and I tell her that I am in the "valley of darkness" but she is making me not feel it so much. We exit the park and head up the hill at Spring Street. Halfway up I feel my left hamstring seize and I tell her I have walk. Ugh. She says that is okay and I am embarrassed at how bad I am doing now. I tell her I knew I wouldn't run a pr but I had thought maybe a course pr would happen but it was looking like 3:35 was what was going to happen. I am going to be happy about that I tell her. I've had such a fun race. </div>
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9:22 (that's ugly)</div>
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<b>Mile 24</b></div>
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Steph leaves me a little after this point and I start running again. I think someone gives me another wet towel maybe it was the next mile. I really wish someone would turn on a fan. I really can't say what happened when in the last few miles. My "don't think just run" plan is in full effect because my brain? It has melted. Zombies wouldn't even chase me now.</div>
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8:25</div>
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<b>Mile 25</b></div>
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Is this Ga tech campus? I think so. I don't like this part. Lots of concrete, no shade and slight uphill. Volunteers are nice but this part is just painful. I am working through my cramp. I've have to shorten my stride to hold off the seizing. It works but is slow and uncomfortable going. It is so annoying when you reach this point and your legs become so uncooperative. Stupid legs.</div>
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8:37</div>
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<b>Mile 26</b></div>
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Last mile. I am doing math now. Or trying. It is so hard but I know sub 3:30 should happen. I have doubts I can hold on for a course pr but I will try. Every now and again I hear someone yell my name or at least I think I do. Either way I throw up an arm and wave. I try to encourage those I see start to flounder--Come on, almost done now. Hang on. Keep it up. I say this out loud and it is as much for them as it is for me.</div>
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7:58</div>
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<b>Mile 26.2</b></div>
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I see the sign that says 1/4 mile left. One lap around the track I tell myself. Do it in 2 minutes I tell myself. I don't know if I can but if I do I will come under 3:29 for a course pr. I make myself run as hard as I can because I decide for 2 minutes I can do anything. Any longer than that is impossible though. </div>
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And I do: 1:54 </div>
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And I am done! On my watch 3:28:44. Official time faster. Hell yes!! No cartwheel necessary. Thank God because I have the wrong skirt on for a cartwheel.</div>
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I work my way through the finishline and my phone rings. It is Ryan. Yay!! No wandering around mumbling to myself like Beaker. <i>Meep. Meep, meep. Meep.</i> Of course he parked, like always, at the top of the hill behind the Tabernacle.And then there was, I am sure, the quite humorous spectacle of me trying to help him take the Jeep top down while I was hit with Charlie Horses all over my body. Which I would laugh, even though they hurt, and make more Charlie Horses happen. So am this sweaty, gross, jerking woman on the side walk. I think I even had part of my skirt tucked in my ass cheek.</div>
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We go to my sister's and I shower and change and have several beers.</div>
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And then we pile in the Jeep and go meet friends at Universal Joint for burgers and many, many beers. Here I am with my friend Shannon who ran the half and my sister who did not run this year (slacker). </div>
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So it was a great day!<br />
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Final thoughts:</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="title"><i><br /></i></td><td>I can tell you now that I figured out during the race what my subconscious was telling me in my pre race dream: That it would be crowded early on because we were with the half runners. That the fire at the 5k timing mat was because I went out so fast I set the course on fire. The party I ran through was the race--filled with long time friends who were running and family that was spectating in the city I have called home for all 40 years of my life. And that dark green blanket? It was my mind's way of telling me that I was going to be pretty darn warm during the Publix Ga marathon but I would manage just fine.
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Thanks for reading!</td></tr>
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<br><a href="http://easyhitcounters.com/" target="_top"><font color="#666666">Hit Counters</font></a></div>Nathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08250132017455417022noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21601772.post-17683485224246378142012-03-05T09:10:00.000-05:002012-03-07T17:38:26.162-05:00Good Weather is Hard to Find and the Turtles Bear it Away: The 2012 Snickers Marathon Recap<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i> <b>From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away.</b> </i><br />
<i>--- </i>Matthew 11:12<br />
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<i><b>“She would have been a good woman,” The Misfit said, “if there had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.”</b></i><br />
--From A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor<br />
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<i><b>"What</b></i><i><b>ever Logic is good enough to tell me is worth writing down," said the Tortoise. "So enter it in your book, please. We will call it: If A and B and C and D are true, Z must be true. Until I've granted that, of course I needn't grant Z. So it's quite a necessary step, you see?" </b></i><br />
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<b><i>"I see," said Achilles; and there was a touch of sadness in his tone. </i></b><br />
--From What the Tortoise Said to Achilles, by Lewis Carroll<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-orrJlUukHgk/T1QZBqYIA3I/AAAAAAAAFpA/FgX1gSNwlxo/s1600/good+woman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-orrJlUukHgk/T1QZBqYIA3I/AAAAAAAAFpA/FgX1gSNwlxo/s320/good+woman.jpg" width="296" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"><b>If </b></span>the story was the weather then clearly the turtle was the main character. Only I didn't know that. I thought it was, of course, The Natalie Show and I was the starring character. <br />
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Friday, when we left our home north of Atlanta under looming skies and drove four hours south to hot and sunny Albany I should have known the turtle was going to play a bigger role than I realized. Especially when Ryan asked, after only a few minutes of navigating the streets of Albany, "What's up with all the turtles?"<br />
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Later, as the day and turtle sightings progressed the question from him to me became more pressing and annoyed; "Seriously, what the fuck are all these turtles about?" And me, always more Hare than Tortoise should have known then how my 16th marathon was going to go down. As a one time literature student and avid student of Flannery O'Connor and the Southern Gothic I should have known that symbolism isn't just a fancy storytelling technique. But apparently I was skimming and just wasn't really paying attention and quite truthfully , I didn't really even notice all the turtles Ryan kept seeing and asking me about. I was looking but apparently; I was not really seeing.<br />
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I had a rough week the days preceding the marathon. I was losing my shit and not at all keeping it together from not running, trying to organize my house and kids. The looming weather report that each day got a little bit worse with a little rise in temperature, humidity, and then adding threatening wind, severe thunderstorms and tornadoes into the forecast only made my usual pre marathon anxiety worse. It was all making me more than a little bitchy. These things played on my mind even though I repeated over and over each day: <i>Control the things you can and suck it up and deal with the things you can't. </i> I guess you can lie to your face in the mirror but when you close your eyes and go to sleep at night your mind will tell you the truth whether you want it to or not. <br />
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I had two, what I call, "crazy taper dreams". I always have at least one pre race dream. And usually these dreams involve some sort of wardrobe malfunction, being late for the race or running the wrong way. In the dream I had Monday I was running in and out of industrial like buildings, parking garages, up concrete steps and opening metal doors. It was dark and gloomy with poor lightening. Wednesday I had another dream and hands down is the most bizarre taper dream I have ever had. <br />
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I dreamed I was in a car accident and was badly injured and both of my legs from the knee down had to be amputated. The cause of the accident had something to do with the other driver not swimming across the lake because his wife wanted him to. This part didn't even make sense to my dream self because I thought why would he swim across the lake in the dark and in the rain? I was only hospitalized overnight which was a relief because it meant I could still run the marathon on Saturday. My hospital issued prosthetic legs were a lovely pair of Frye Campus boots. They looked exactly like the ones my friend Leah was wearing the other day when I saw her. (Guess I liked those boots more than I actually realized.)<br />
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I was able to run in my new prosthetic Frye boot legs but I was slow and wobbly and it was pretty uncomfortable. I had a catalog of prosthetic legs and picked out a pair for cycling but they cost $6,000 dollars. I also wanted the ones specifically for running but they cost just as much and I knew even if I could afford them I wouldn't get them in time for the marathon. I figured I would just deal with running Albany in the Frye boots but hopefully soon I could afford the running ones. But, then I reasoned I should probably get the cycling ones first since I didn't think I could ride my bike at all in the Frye boots--no toe clips. I reasoned since I<i> could</i> run in the Frye boots I should get the cycling ones so I could at least do a few triathlons over the summer. Maybe in a few months I figured I could afford the running prosthetic legs and would have a shot at a fall marathon pr. <br />
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Saturday, during the marathon, around mile 13 I would wonder if that dream was a prophetic warning of what was to come or whether it became a self fulfilled destiny. Two days before the race though I tried to entertain hopeful optimism and just laughed at my crazy subconscious. <br />
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And on that optimism.... It is funny but the week before I was at Carmella's double header Lacrosse game. Her team had won the first game 15 to 4 but the second game was a bit closer. They were almost certain to win the second game too --up by 2 points as the clock wound down to the last few minutes. In the last minute the other team scored and with less than 30 seconds on the clock a time out was called. One of the Dads confidently exclaimed that our girls were "undefeated." I cautioned that the game wasn't over yet, anything could still happen. He looked at me and asked the cliche, "is the glass half empty or is it half full?" And I told him, " the way I see it there is some water in the glass."<br />
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I don't understand why the question is always pessimist or optimist? The world is not black or white. There is not only shades of grey there's a whole freaking color scale! A Kodachrome, right? And I understand that all the colors might make it all a little confusing to "see the writing on the wall" and the inclination is to simplify it but I guess I just think no amount of positive or negative thinking is going to change that there is some water in the glass. It is what it is.<br />
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But to answer the question. I am a realist who desperately <i>wants</i> to believe the glass is half full. I want to see the sunny day. I want the rainbows and unicorns. And I guess that is why I didn't really notice the turtles: I was too busy looking for rainbows and unicorns to see what was really there.<br />
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While we were at the expo to pick up my number, Ryan was busy trying to figure out "what was up with all the turtles" and I was busy talking to runners at the pacer table. I was looking for that darn 3:25 pace band. It doesn't exist. I couldn't find it at Savannah and I couldn't find it in Albany either. The reason it wasn't in Albany was that the Fed ex guys hadn't brought the pace bands yet. While waiting to find out about the pace bands and conferring with the pace leaders the suggestion was made to line up with the 3:35 pace group and adjust from there. I realized this was a valid suggestion.I asked what that pace was--8:12.<br />
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And I thought, <i>ick</i>. <i>What's the point of having trained to run sub 3:25 and go out running 3:35?</i> To me the math that would get me to sub 3:25 wasn't going to work if I went out at a 3:35 pace. I just saw that idea as a waste of my training. I felt <i>very</i> confident I was in sub 3:25 shape. My training these past 3 months has been my strongest <em>ever</em> and I ran a 5k (20:30) pr and 10k (43:14) pr in February--both indicating sub 3:25 was a reasonable goal. Heck, I was only a 90 seconds shy of sub 3:25 in Savannah and that was most definitely not my best day ever.<br />
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I think in that moment I decided that if can't run 3:25 tomorrow I would rather save myself and try in 2 weeks at the Publix marathon for which I am signed up.Oh, but to be certain, I know the idea of me actually running a 3:25 marathon on the Publix marathon course makes seeing a unicorn riding a rainbow a more likely scenario.<br />
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I walked away from the pacer table mulling the choices. If I ran 3:3x I felt fairly certain that would be too fast to turn it around and run 3:25 at Publix in 15 days (for which I am registered). So the choices I reasoned were this: go for sub 3:25 as planned, target 4 hours (long run pace) or not run. My thinking was also if it is going to be raining and hideous weather I would rather not be in it any longer than I had to be. And seeing as how I had made the trip to Albany I might as well run the darn race. 3:25 it was. . . and I was not excited, confident or thrilled about it at all. And I was irritated about that. I <em>wanted</em> to be excited and confident. I was mad that things were not going <em>my </em>way. Really. I waste way too much time being angry at the weather and things I have absolutely no control over. <br />
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The forecast for the morning called for 70 degrees, 88-100% humidity, 10-20mph wind, rain, lightening, thunderstorms and maybe a tornado. The race director promised to let us know by 6 am if the race would be canceled.<br />
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Meanwhile the severe storms that were predicted for Albany Saturday were about to hit Atlanta and the northern suburbs. So Ryan and I watched the weather. I tried to go to bed at 8 pm knowing, at the very least, a good nights rest was going to be critical in getting through the race in the morning.<br />
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A tornado around 9 pm, according to the reports, touched down about 5 miles from our house. My parents (who my kids were staying with), my nephew, brother in law, sister in law, and my in laws all live within a 10 mile radius of us. Gratefully, everyone and their homes were okay. My in laws lost power and we didn't know how our house was. Even still Ryan and my phone both rang or beeped with texts well past midnight with friends and family calling to see if we were okay and to check in to let us know they were okay. I would have turned them off but the forecast predicted another line of storms after midnight.<br />
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Needless to say, a good nights sleep didn't happen. Might have been worst night sleep's ever. How stressed out can one person be lying in a comfortable bed? The answer is pretty damn stressed out.<br />
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The Race<br />
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I stayed in bed until my alarm went off at a quarter til 5. I got up and had the usual cup of coffee, water, bagel with some peanut butter. I made a playlist and down loaded some new songs to my ipod and got dressed. At 6am I saw the race was a go. At 6:15 Ryan and I left to go to the start.<br />
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It isn't raining yet but it is a muggy 71 degrees. There is a breeze so it doesn't feel oppressive and I think, well this isn't so bad. <em>Maybe</em> there will be race day magic. There usually is. I tell Ryan my legs feel really tight and I try stretching a little. Ryan holds my place in the ridiculously long porto potty line and I go and warm up a bit, stretch. I am tired but I am always tired at the start. I've managed just fine in the past. I decide not to worry about the flashes of lightening I see in the distance. <br />
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With a few minutes to 7 I kiss Ryan good bye and make my way up near the 3:25 pace group. Even though I know it is coming and even watch as the guy pulls the cord for the cannon the boom still startles me and I say " Oh shit!" And it must of scared the piss out of the sky too because it starts pouring as I run over the start mat.<br />
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I try to be smart and stay back from the pace group but by the end of the first mile I am right in step with them.<br />
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<b>First mile </b>clicks off at 7:38. Too fast, obviously but still 3 seconds slower than I ran that first mile at Savannah.<br />
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I think the rain made it deceptively cool. I didn't feel hot. I felt totally fine. Easy even. I would even say I felt better than I did at Savannah. My legs though did feel tired and achy. But my legs always feel like crap for the first few miles of every single run. I just don't pay attention to it.<br />
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<b>Mile 2</b> also uneventful. I definitely feel like I am holding back and keep just behind the pack of the group. I guess though I am part of the group because even though I have my ear buds in I can still hear mostly what is being said.<br />
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8:01. And I think that is exactly what I did in Savannah. I feel like I am being smart.<br />
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I am rain soaked though. I pointlessly try to avoid the large puddles. I decide the Green Silence was the right choice. They don't feel as heavy as the Adrenaline's would have, I tell myself.<br />
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<b>Mile 3</b> Just as the rain lets up I start hearing what I guess might be tornado sirens. I hadn't spoken to anyone. Not sure yet if I wanted to commit to the pace group so I wasn't looking to make friends. But I asked, to no one in particular, " Are those tornado sirens!" It was confirmed that they were in fact tornado sirens. Then I hear the pacer inform us that he would get us to the finish in 3:25 but his first objective is safety or some non sense like that.<br />
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It occurs to me that it flies in the face of good sense to be out running when there is a looming threat of tornadoes. I have the first of many moments that day where I do not feel very smart or that I am being at all logical. <br />
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I pass a guy vomiting and I hear the pacer says something about breakfast. I tried not to look but I did. Mile 3 I think and people are already vomiting? <em>You are not him. You are not him</em>, I tell myself. <br />
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7:44 The pace felt fine but between the sirens and the dude vomiting I am unnerved. Looking back this is where I should have pulled back. But I remember contemplating it and looking at my arm on which I had written, "HTFU" and "You can!" and I stayed the course. <br />
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<b>Mile 4</b> I want them to turn the sirens off. I see people stopping, jumping off the course to walk, piss or vomit. I start worry about my house. I hope it is okay. I wonder if Beau's lacrosse game is canceled. My legs still feel tired. Hopefully they come around soon.The pacer is trying to be light and engaging. I am grateful for it. If nothing else it is distracting. 7:48<br />
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<b>Mile 5</b> 7:44 I think there are still sirens but I think the rain has stopped. I am trying to listen to others talk while I internally debate my plan. I had originally, when I didn't know the weather was going to be so awful, planned to go out with the 3:25 pace group and drop the pace a little after 6 or so miles. After I knew how bad the weather was going to be I decided that plan was totally unreasonable. So my debate was stay with 3:25 or slow down to long run pace. I had my first GU.<br />
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<b>Mile 6</b>: 7:53 Aid station. More people still stopping, not looking good. I start to think maybe it is warm. Am I warm? Oh what to do! I don't want to slow down. I really <em>want</em> to run 3:25. I want another pr! I am wearing my green silence. They are my pr shoes. I try not to think about that my legs feel pretty crappy or that without the rain it really is starting to feel pretty darn hot.<br />
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<b>Mile 7</b> 7:44 Chaos happens. A young, quite fit I should add, guy about 5- 10 feet in front of me holds up his arm and steps off the course. I pass him and assume, like the others who have been stepping off he is going to piss or vomit. But then I hear someone shout "Stop!! Everyone stop! Help!" I don't stop but I glance behind me and see that guy in the fetal position in the grass. He looks like he might be shaking. The guy next to me yells "he is having a fit!" I don't know what to do. I don't have my phone. Up ahead there is a police car blocking the traffic for the race course. Our pacer bolts off to get help. I stay with the group, keep running and fight back the tears and the panic feeling that is rising in my chest. I feel myself sliding into the "valley of darkness" and again, I feel like I am not being very smart.<br />
<br />
<b>Mile 8</b> 7:46 The pacer comes back. Someone again repeats that he was having a "fit". I think about what this means. Is he having a fit because he has epilepsy or is he having a seizure from heat stroke? I don't know and I don't think to ask but this is where my resolve at the race and my pursuit of 3:25 begins to really crumble. I am trying to give myself the pep talk but the little voice in the back of my head keeps reminding me that I am a parent. I have obligations in this world more important that running a 3:25 marathon. I start to really worry about the safety issue of this race. Maybe it is warmer than I think it is. Nevertheless I am still sticking with the group. I don't feel good about it though. I want to give it a little more time and see if it passes. <br />
<br />
<b>Mile 9:</b> 7:52 I am still with the group but I note that this mile is slower and that it felt pretty tough. This I realize is not a good sign. We are out on an open highway/road. It is kind of windy. Hitting us sideways though. I pass one of many churches that I will run pass on the course. In South Georgia there is a church every quarter of mile. You can't turn a corner down here without finding one. This one has one of those marquees with an uplifting message. I read it and say it to myself twice. It is a positive message and I think I should adopt it for the rest of race. It will help me dig deep I decide. My mind wanders away from the positive message and starts thinking about the guy who fell and I worry about my house and that my feet and ankles and calves feel pretty awful. I start to say my newly adopted mantra from the church marquee to bring my mind back to the positive thinking but I have already forgotten it and all I can say to myself, having totally mixed it all up is : God creates disasters. Not helpful or positive but now that is what is stuck in my head! Crap.<br />
<br />
<b>Mile 10</b> 7:56 Hmm, how did that happen? I try to figure out what is going on with the pace. That felt really hard and now I am behind the pace group. I have another GU and when I come to an aid station I decide to walk it. Maybe my heart rate is too high. I don't know what is going on but I feel like something is off and I need to pull back.<br />
<b><br /></b><br />
<b>Mile 11</b> 8:20 I slow down and I think about how I am feeling. Not so good. I decide by this point I should be feeling better. My legs feel wrong. Nothing I can pin point but my feet, ankles and calves are achy and tight. Is it the shoes? I only did one long run in the Green Silence. 16 two weeks ago and it felt fine. My legs did not feel like this. Maybe it is from the rain. I can feel the pavement through my shoes, like I am running barefoot. <br />
<br />
I can still see the pace group but they are pretty far ahead. I debate if I should try to chase them down or hold this pace. The sun is poking its head out. <br />
<br />
<b>Mile 12</b> 8:05 I try to pick it up but it feels worse. I definitely know I am not bonked but I just don't feel right. Not sick at the stomach but my feet and ankles and calves just hurt. This is not how my legs usually feel. I can't find a rhythm. Did I go out too fast? I look at my watch. Well this is definitely slower than I ran at Savannah and my legs never felt like this at all during the race--even in the last few miles. Sure my calves felt twitchy in the last 10k but this is different. I decide on a walk break and a slower mile.<br />
<br />
<b>Mile 13</b> 8:42 I realize that 3:25 and a pr is gone based on how my legs feel. The "wheels" have come off. Do I want to put them back on? What is the right choice? What is the logical smart thing to do? <br />
<br />
I am not enjoying running at all. It feels hot and muggy to me. There is no rain and the sun is making it feel gross. I still see every so often someone throwing up or kneeling down or stopping for some reason.I hear the occasinal ambulance or police siren. This stinks. Really, no one looks like they are enjoying themselves. It seems really early for on for people to look this miserable. We have yet to reach the half way point.<br />
<br />
Speaking of which, I hit the half in 1:44xx. This is a good 3 minutes slower than I ran at a Savannah. I reason if I can hold it I can probably run close to 3:30. I feel a bit cooked though so it certainly won't be easy, fun or most questionably in my mind--worth my effort. I think about: If I try to gut it out for the best time possible it will still be an undesirable time for me, I will still be disappointed and then, I figure, I will have no shot whatsoever at a good race in two weeks. I just don't think I can recover that quickly. I mean I've done marathons 4 weeks apart but never 2 weeks. I don't even know if it is reasonable to think I will be able to pull it off no matter how slow I go.<br />
<br />
What to do. What to do. People are passing me. Legs feel icky. I am lonely and not seeing the fun in it. I can't entertain myself with taking pictures since I left my phone with Ryan. <br />
<br />
--At some point during miles 11-14 I caught up and chatted with the guy from Texas who was with the 3:25 group. I ask him if he stopped when the guy fell. He confirms that he did and that by the time the medics got there he seemed to be coming around. There is no mention of a seizure so I don't know what happened but I feel better knowing he got help. I hope he was okay. He weighed heavily on my mind. No race is worth hurting yourself over. -- <br />
<br />
<b>Mile 14</b> 9:10 Still deciding what to do. My legs feel worse. Feels like someone took a bat to my calves and ankles and the bottom of my feet ache badly. I can feel my IT band tightening on both sides and that makes me panic. I do not want to have to battle ITBS again. I know for certain that this race is absolutely not worth putting myself back in the injury clink. <br />
<br />
At this point, since I am taking a walk break every now and then when my resolve weakens I am noticing more stuff. Mostly what I see is the little turtle markers on the sewers. I laugh, Ryan was right, the turtles are every where! Turtles! Seriously! It all starts to dawn on me the mistake I have made. I went out as the rabbit and I most definitely should have been the freaking turtle. Turtles.<br />
<br />
I feel really stupid.<br />
<br />
<b>Mile 15 </b>8:40 IT band is very tight. I am hot. I am miserable. I am lonely. I decide to call it a day. I reason if I call Ryan at the next aid station and he can pick me up around 16 or 17 and that I can probably safely recover to be 100% in two weeks for the Publix marathon. Not my idea of fun or ideal but I know I am better than today. What I want from myself just isn't going to happen for me today. I've already been dumb and, I decide, punished sufficiently for my mistake.<br />
<br />
Live to fight another day, I tell myself.<br />
<br />
With this resolve at the next aid station I asked a volunteer if I can use a phone. <i>I am done! </i>I tell them. I do feel a bit guilty. I mean, I paid to be out on the course. These awesome, kind and exuberant volunteers are out here for free.<br />
<br />
I suck. My self loathing is thicker than the humidity. <br />
<br />
A nice man gives me his phone. I call Ryan.<br />
I am done. Come get me, I tell him.<br />
Are you fucking kidding? He asks.<br />
No, I am cooked, I say certainly. But my voice shakes as I admit it. Saying it out loud and these nice strangers hearing me say it makes it sad, scary and very real. Quitting is always hard and it never ever feels good. My eyes well up and fight back tears. I will <b>NOT </b>cry in front of these nice poncho wearing people handing out water and bananas on their perfect manicured front lawn. I feel like the biggest ass ever.<br />
Ryan asks,where I am.<br />
I think the address was 1528 Coventry. Who knows. I say, I will start walking towards 16 and 17. Find me along the course.<br />
Okay, he says.<br />
<br />
I hand the phone back to the nice man and say thank you. He offers me a place to sit and wait but I tell him I will meet my husband at the next aid station. Such nice people. I am pathetic.<br />
<br />
I walk for a bit. And then bored by the walking I start jogging. I try to be encouraging to those I see struggling. I feel guilty but I also feel like a huge burden has been lifted. Sure there is a tug of guilt knowing I am not going to be a Natalie fan tomorrow. But for now I just want today to be over. I just want to go home.<br />
<br />
For the first time all morning I feel hopeful. I laugh a little, thinking -- you know, if this was a true Southern Gothic tale-- that after 2 hours of running down those rain flooded and tempestuous streets of Albany I have been baptized. Baptism by storm! I giggle at my next thought and conclude that Ryan, with his gnarly beard and his hair he hasn't cut in a year could totally pass for Jesus and he is going to save my wretched ass. Hallelujah! Ryan saves!<br />
<br />
Or so I thought. <br />
<br />
<b>Mile 16</b> comes. In it I come across<a href="http://betheats2run.blogspot.com/"> Beth</a>, a local ultra runner acquaintance. She is super focused and doesn't even acknowledge me despite my screaming <i>Beth! Beth!</i> for several minutes. I jog along side her and start to think either I am invisible or she hates me. But with persistence she seeing me flailing beside her. I, of course tell her ALL of my woes and that I am quitting. I guess I should have known better than to tell someone who runs a marathon every weekend in her training for yet another 100 mile race of my woes and expect some sympathy. But I think I've already shown that logical thinking, good sense and being smart I was not. Pride, clearly not a factor anymore.<br />
We say hi and she smiles.<br />
Then I say, I am quitting.<br />
Her face gets serious and she looks at me, sizing me up and says." I think that is a mistake. You'll regret it."<br />
I give my arguments of "but I could just run Publix in 2 weeks! I don't want to injure myself again.Blah. Blah Blah. Feel sorry for me <em>pleaseeee</em>!!!"<br />
"Just run walk it," she tells me. "You'll be fine. Besides you are running too fast right now anyway."<br />
I am?<br />
Yeah, 8:20's.<br />
<br />
Huh.No quitting? I don't know if I like this idea. I KNOW I sure as heck don't like walking. Walking sucks.<br />
<br />
We chat and I try to hang with her. Keeping an eye out for my husband who is sure to show up at any minute and I am certainly going to climb inside that car.<br />
<br />
<b>Mile 17</b> Still no saviour. Still hanging and annoying Beth. <br />
<br />
I start to realize that maybe he isn't going to come get me. That what happened is that I called and said "babe, come get me. I am dying. " And he said "yes" but really what he said, after I hung up was: "Fuck that. I'm going to the River Aquarium and find out what is up with the turtles!"<br />
<br />
<b>Mile 18</b> I am forsaken. I am certain of it now. I start to wonder about our marriage vows. Hello, good times and bad, please come pick up my sorry ass Ryan! You promised!<br />
<br />
I am still ready to quit. Ready to tell anyone, everyone and I do. I am sure Beth is annoyed and ready to shake me off but I am lonely, needy and don't care how annoying I am. By the end of the mile she tells me how ridiculous quitting would be. I only have 7 miles left and I can "totally do this" she points out. <br />
<br />
Right. Right she is. But I realize that<em> today</em>, I just don't <em>want</em> to. But apparently, March 3rd is the day where Natalie does not get what she wants. <br />
<br />
Does she though, get what she needs?<br />
<br />
<b>Mile 19</b> Apparently yes. Because obviously what I needed, I realize now, is a good ass kicking and a serving of humble pie. Hmm, I guess I was due. <br />
<br />
It doesn't matter that Beth is right. Right that I can"totally do this." I have to do <em>this</em> because apparently, Ryan, who I am certain is off researching turtles, is not going to come and get me and I am going to have to "do this" whether I want to or not. <br />
<br />
Damn it all to hell! <br />
<br />
As I come to this realization another runner pipes up and asks if I am NatNat. It is Chris from the Runner's World forums. We introduce ourselves and swap our stories of misery. He asks if he can hang with me. I warn him, that any second I might be quitting but absolutely he can hang with me if he can stand it. He tells me that he has read my blog and "knows what he is getting himself into." Yay! Another wretched soul to run with!<br />
<b><br /></b><br />
<b>Miles 20+ </b>The sky is darkening; rain and pace groups come and go. At some point we lose Beth but not before she introduces us to her friend Vanessa. I come across again the lady in the dress and also the pretty blond lady who I had told my tale about quitting a few miles back. They had both wanted to quit too but like me are hanging in there. I think eventually they all pass me. But Chris, thankfully, is willing to stick with me. He is struggling with GI issues. I am struggling with bad attitude and sore achy legs, lost resolve and soon will be able to add the nasty snake of a calf cramp to the list of my woe is me's. I still hold on to the bleakest of hope that at any moment Ryan will show up and save me from my misery.<br />
<br />
It is fun run walking with Chris. I probably would have laid out on the side of the road and held out the $4 dollars I had to my name and offered it to anyone to take me away if he hadn't been there. <br />
<br />
All through these miles I see runners sitting on the side of the road--vomiting, taking a break, looking desperate for it to be over. I hear ambulances and sirens. And all the while we pass the most cheerful, optimistic and kind volunteers encouraging, thanking and wishing us well. <br />
<br />
<b>Mile 24 </b>The sky darkens ominously to my right side. The rain is back.The sky looks like it means serious business this time and that the mother of all storms is ready to hit us. <br />
<br />
I do start to worry that maybe something as happened to Ryan. I mean, really how could he have forsaken me like this? 13 years of marriage and 2 kids? I know I am ridiculous most days but come on, I am a good wife. Don't toss me out into the storm!<br />
<br />
<b>Mile 25</b> The four hour pacer finds us. She is all alone. She looks pretty done too. I offer to carry her sign for her but she says she is okay. I tell Chris this is it! We need just to suck it up and get it done. No more walking. The rain is heavier, the wind has kicked up and there isn't a culvert in sight for us to dive in.<br />
<br />
<b>Mile 26</b> The rain is really heavy now and it is getting dark. And I am not shitting you but we have to step up on the sidewalk and then we RUN INTO A BUILDING! We run through it and out on to the river walk. The temperature drops easily 10 degrees and the sky completely breaks open and dumps more rain than I think is in the Flint River. I warn Chris ahead of time that I am going to have to do a cartwheel since it isn't a pr. <br />
<br />
I hear his wife cheer for him. <br />
<br />
And we are done. We cross the finish line in 3:58 and change. I cartwheel, give Chris a hug of thanks, get my medal--which is a . . . FREAKING TURTLE! <br />
<br />
I look for Ryan. He isn't there. I can't believe it.<br />
<br />
I had thought he would be there. Part of me thought he had been following me on the course, giggling when he saw me but never letting me see him. When I don't see him at the finish I panic. I assume something horrible has happened. Oh the images my mind can play. I find a phone and call him. Apparently he has been driving the course looking for me but kept missing me because I kept<i> running. </i>Oh well. It is done.<br />
<br />
<br />
What a disappointing day. After 14 years of running and 16 marathons I should know better. I KNOW that I just don't run well in warm humid weather. I never have. And for that matter I have never run a pr at my spring marathon. Trying to force an aggressive goal was a huge mistake. One I just should not have made. IF I had been using my brain at all instead of holding onto my heart wish and being a silly optimist I would have had a much better day. I have no doubt about it. I only have myself to blame for the day I had. It just was not a day to try and run a pr and everything prior was telling me that but I, as usual, wasn't really paying attention. No worries though. It is for sure noted in my "book" for future reference.<br />
<br />
A note about the photos. I took those in college. I still laugh thinking about my 22 year old self arranging Aunt Boo's lawn animals for my staged Tortoise and Hare race. I don't know if you see it but there is a cat, ducks, pig, and bull dog spectating the race. I am the most ridiculous woman ever. There really does need to be somebody to "shoot me every minute of my life." Oh, wait there is. His name is Ryan.<br />
<br />
And my calves and ankles STILL feel like someone took a bat to them and, yes, as a matter of fact I do walk like I have a pair of Frye Campus boot prosthetics. <br />
<br />
Self fulfilled prophecy indeed. <br />
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<br><a href="http://easyhitcounters.com/" target="_top"><font color="#666666">Hit Counters</font></a></div>Nathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08250132017455417022noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21601772.post-63992627341872486342012-01-03T18:25:00.002-05:002015-11-11T22:13:08.323-05:00My Box of Rain<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I meant to write this post before Christmas. It was going to be titled: <i>Gifts, Neither Bought nor Wrapped</i>. I thought I would have time to write it because I was ahead of the Christmas game. But then, ironically so, I guess, I got caught up in the mad pageantry of Christmas and didn't have time after all.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> But then I thought, well okay it will be fine after Christmas. Belated Christmas gifts. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But then I had to take Christmas down and well, the next thing you know it is 2012.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And so it goes and then it is gone and then time just keeps on marching relentlessly forward.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> I decided today though I wasn't going to let this one go. Not this box of rain, this box of . . .</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>wind and water -</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Believe it if you need it,</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>if you don't just pass it on</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Sun and shower -</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Wind and rain -</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>in and out the window</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>like a moth before a flame</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>It's just a box of rain</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>I don't know who put it there</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Believe it if you need it</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>or leave it if you dare</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>But it's just a box of rain</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b>--Grateful Dead, Box of Rain</b></i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="line-height: 20px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Thursday before Christmas I headed out for my weekly long run. Usually I do this run on Fridays but I had to do it on Thursday because my kids were out of school Friday and I had to get my house cleaned up so Christmas could come and wreck it. Everyone knows Santa doesn't visit the messy houses. </span></span><br />
<div>
<span style="line-height: 20px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="line-height: 20px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">At least this is what I told my kids so they would help me clean. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I really didn't want to do my long run Thursday. The weather was yucky; warm and rainy. I had even contemplated running for 3 hours on the treadmill because I so very much hate running in the rain. It isn't the water or being wet part that bother me but the wet shoes. I hate it. I don't hate the treadmill, in fact I rather I like it but not so much for 3 straight hours of running.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> I was in the unhappy of debate of the lesser evil: 3 hours in the rain or 3 hours on the treadmill. And worse, I felt pressured that I<i> HAD</i> to do my run that day. I don't like feeling like I ever <i>HAVE</i> to do anything. My instant inclination is toward rebellion. I am immature like that. Apparently I am not going to outgrow it either. It is a character trait. Not a good one either.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Really what it boiled down to was a bad attitude. As my favorite Milton quote goes: <i>The mind in its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of Hell, and hell of Heaven. </i>I checked myself and then the weather and it was something like 68 degrees and 99% humidity. I puzzled over what exactly 99% humidity was and decided to suck it up and run outside-- the gym was bound to be warm and humid too I figured. Might as well HTFU!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> And just so you know; 99% humidity is rain. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So I headed out on my regular 21.25 mile loop. A loop that takes me on a tour of East Cobb. A loop that I have done so many times I have worn a groove in the sidewalk. A loop that is so familiar I could run it with my eyes closed. A loop that takes me past the house I lived in from the time I was 7 until I was 13 and past the middle school I attended and down roads that I have driven and ridden in cars since I was 7 years old. What I am saying is that for me it is familiarly uninspiring. It isn't bucolic scenery, gnarly wooded trail or a divine pristine meadow. It isn't a new place or a perfect place. It isn't ugly but it really isn't interesting. It is so, suburban. But there is, if nothing else, that memory connection-- that running past the familiars of my past, does in fact, jog the memory--pun, though weak, intended. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And so it goes, or rather went, as I ran up and down the rolling sidewalk hills, rain spilling over the brim of my hat as I dodged drivers who for whatever reason never look right when they go right. As I leapt over puddles my mind found a reverie; a story that bled into another story and entertained me for all of the 21 miles until eventually I found myself home-- sopping wet, tired and tingling with happy. Nerve endings of my muscles connecting to memories and feelings. It was a feeling I could really feel.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The story is one that sits somewhere in a frame at my parent's house. I can see the newspaper article- weathered and yellowed behind the glass and dusty frame- but I can't read any of the details. But I know the story. . .</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My great grandfather, Harold Legette, is a young Navy man. He is on a boat in an ocean; probably the Atlantic. I think that would fit his age and the right war best. I can't remember the date either but my mind is determined that it is in December. Possibly it is even Christmas Eve-- that would make the tale even better. It is night. I remember that detail specifically. My grandfather falls off the boat; swept over the rail by a wave. He thinks no one saw as he was tossed into the ocean and is certain he is as good as lost. Drowned. He floats there in the waters; buoyed up and down by the waves. I am certain it must be cold. He watches as the lights of his ship disappear into the night. He is floating in the wettest and the darkest of darkness. As the last of the ship's lights disappear it takes with it hope. It is replaced by helplessness. Despair and loss settle into his heart. Adrift in immeasurable darkness, he treads water, alone.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As he struggles to stay afloat in the dark expanse of the ocean he sees, in the distance, the light of the ship turning in the night: stretching its beams over the water and breaking up the pitch of black night. He watches as the light returns and finds him in that endless darkness. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Someone must have seen him fall over board! He is saved after all! Not lost to the water, the world or that unending darkness and forever forgotten. He is lucky. He is found again.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This is the story that explains some 60 years later why my great grandmother Ebie Legette insists to the 14 year old me that we have take the long way to my Aunt Boo's house. She doesn't want to walk next to the swimming pool that sits in between our house and Boo's. She is terrified of water. But the 14 year old me doesn't know that yet. I haven't found the framed article. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Instead, I think she is being a silly old person and I further shake her soul with my terrifying tales of swimming not only in swimming pools but up and down the brown murky water in the lake behind our house. She pats my arm that is hooked on hers and tells me she loved meeting my friends. My gaggle of friends-- probably Gina, Liz, Carrie, Brent and Sean -- I begrudgingly left behind at my house to walk my great grandmother back to Boo's house where she is staying.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> She tells me I am lucky. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I am 14. I don't feel lucky. I am 14 and I know nothing of luck, gratefulness, want vs need, love or life for that matter. I am though enjoying my great grandmother's kind attention as we walk through the pre dusk darkness. This is so different than the attention she gave me as a younger child. The attention that alternated between hand swats for my "plundering" or shushing for my motor mouth. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I don't remember all of our conversation but I know before we reached Boo's back door she told me this: <i>You are a lucky girl to have so many sweet friends</i>.<i> It isn't money that makes you rich. It is your friends and your family that make you rich.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I saw her to the door and ran home and forget those words for the better part of the next 10 years of my life. I found them again in grad school and was inspired to write a story about them. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And then I forgot them again.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> I forgot them until I found myself on wet sidewalk in waterlogged running shoes with my mind lost to the deliciousness of a great run a few days before Christmas. I tried to hold onto those words; words wrapped up in nostalgia and tied tight with an endorphin bow. But I lost them again. This time to the obnoxious side of Christmas. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This is not to say I don't absolutely love that side of Christmas. I certainly loved seeing my kids giddy and over the moon from their gifts. And I love my new running clothes, Frye boots and NookColor tablet. I love all my new stuff! I have always been driven to wanting to own stuff. I still, at 40, when I should long know better; confuse want and need. I am, if nothing else, a material girl living in a material world. But certainly, as I am oft reminded, that my material wants and desires are often for naught because I am in fact, not rich. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">At least not financially so. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I am, as my great grandmother said: Lucky. And I am rich--if friends and family and love are a commodity then most certainly, I am rolling in it. They are that "<a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171619">thing with feathers</a>" that lifts me up, the life preservers that keep me afloat in those times of seemingly unending darkness and aloneness, in that vast, vast sea of nothingness.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So as everyone trudges forward into the New Year with their ambitions, their goals and their resolutions I continue with my original quest of why I started this blog in the<a href="http://thenegativesplit.blogspot.com/2006/01/negative-split.html"> first place </a>and named it "The Negative Split". Sure, it would be nice to literally run the metaphor. But alas, I guess, that is the irony. I'm okay with irony. I rather like it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Final thought is this though, for certain: I will never sandbag anything, and that includes life, just so I can do the second half better. </span><br />
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