Processing

“I'm all over the place, up and down, scattered, withdrawing, trying to find some elusive sense of serenity."
"The world can't give that serenity. The world can't give us peace. We can only find it in our hearts."
"I hate that."
"I know. But the good news is that by the same token, the world can't take it away.”
--Anne Lamott

***
According to...I don’t know, some expert on the internet, up to fifty percent of children will experience some sort of tooth injury during childhood. I was not informed of this completely horrifying fact when I became a parent, and it doesn’t make me feel any better about our daughter joining the ranks this week.

I’ve been at school until past eight o’clock in the evening for conferences for the past couple of days so Matt has been on full-time Dad Duty. On Wednesday night I pulled out my cell phone to check my messages as I walked to my car and saw that I’d missed a call from Matt. The message first mentioned an accident, and I assumed he meant the kind of accident in which the three-year-old didn’t make it to the toilet and he needs a quick over-the-phone lesson in how to work the little handheld carpet cleaner we keep in the laundry room. Then I heard him mention the ER. I called home before I finished listening to the message. He told me Suzannah had slipped and fallen on the bathroom floor and her face had hit the toilet, knocking a few teeth loose. By the time I made it home, he had already calmed our daughter and spoken to the on-call pediatrician, who said that if her permanent teeth were loose we needed to come straight to the ER. If it seemed to be only baby teeth, we could wait until the next day.

When I walked through the door a few minutes later, Suzannah was perched on the edge of the couch watching Star Wars and holding ice cubes wrapped in a wash cloth against her bloodied, swollen lip. After a little gentle prodding she allowed me to look at her mouth. Her upper gums were bloody, and her upper front teeth suffered the most impact. Her bottom lip was also quite swollen, although a little poking around led me to conclude that no teeth there were loosened that weren’t loose to begin with. Whenever she removed the ice, strings of bloody drool fell from her mouth. If you know my daughter at all it will not surprise you to learn that this was the most upsetting thing of all -- she didn’t know how she’d be able to go to sleep without getting blood and drool on her pillow and pajamas. I covered her pillow with towels and draped a few more over her bedspread. She finally fell asleep clutching that damp washcloth, propped up on extra pillows, but by then the bleeding had stopped.

Needless to say, our bedtimes were thrown off. We were all exhausted by the time we all managed to fall asleep, and Suzannah slept later than usual, but she awoke in a fairly cheerful mood. The swelling had diminished considerably, although her chin was obviously bruised, and she didn’t really want to eat much. Two days later, her teeth are still hanging in there, her chin is still black-and-blue, but she’s figured out how to eat more or less normally.

Tonight when I tucked her into bed, I said, “Looks like the tooth fairy will be coming a little earlier than we thought.” Without skipping a beat she replied, “I hope so. Then I can make some money.”


***
While my kid smashing her teeth against the toilet is outside our realm of normal, somehow, set against the backdrop of this week, dealing with a relatively minor childhood injury is -- well, so normal it seems unfair. This is what strikes me when someone shoots up a theater. Or a classroom. Or sets off a bomb at the Boston Marathon. I listen to NPR on my way to pick up the kids, I exchange e-mails with equally horrified friends, and I try not to read Facebook because I’m sickened by the speed at which we show our worst selves as we try to make sense of these things. Better to focus on what people are doing in the world and not on the internet. And, of course, there’s the matter of life needing to be lived. There’s the absurdity -- and, I suppose, the blessing -- of the way the world keeps turning.

So on Monday night, I came home with my children. I ran a bath for Isaac and listened to him splash around with his toys while I chopped onions and garlic for Spanish rice. I went through the motions of stirring scallions, shredded cheese, and handfuls of fresh spinach on my stovetop, then spooning the mixture into tortillas for spinach and cheese burritos. Suzannah showed me what she’d written in her planner at school and busied herself at the kitchen counter, drawing or writing -- I don’t remember what now. I brushed the burritos with olive oil. Stuck the pan in the oven. Added rice, tomatoes, cumin, and chili powder to the other pot simmering on the stove. Changed into running clothes. When Matt came home, I kissed him, told him how long the food still needed to cook, and headed out into the cool early-evening air.

People ran for solidarity and support on Monday night and all throughout the week; I’d like to say that’s what I was doing, but that seems a little grand for a solitary jog through the quiet streets of my neighborhood. There’s a part of my usual route that smells like heaven in April, like the trees have held the scent of all the rain that’s fallen this month and chosen to release it in a single burst of freshness so pure I want to stop and drink it as I run past. Breathing it makes me feel sort of desperately greedy and grateful -- both.

I wasn’t sure whether I was trying to run away from the world or run myself into some state of clarity or peace or what. But what a privilege. Just to move, to breathe, to be. To burst through my back door again, sweaty and spent, to smell the melted cheese and the spices from the dinner I’d prepared, to know that I would soon slip into a tub filled with bubbles, soothing for tired muscles even though my kids never can manage to stay out of the bathroom when I’m in there.

So I swing, these days, between desperate gratitude for this normalcy, the beautiful ordinary, and desperate grief, because the world is broken, and we’re broken with it. I’m easily angered and I find it difficult to extend much grace. I read Facebook too much, which almost never, ever makes me feel better about the world except sometimes someone will post, say, a beautifully-written piece by Erica Goode at the New York Times, and I’m nothing less than awestruck that a person can birth such a thing almost instantaneously in response to something that defies rational response.

When my head is muddled and my heart is hurting, it might not seem so strange, then, to find almost a comfort in dealing competently with a minor childhood injury -- a fixable thing. We have popsicles and milkshakes and plenty of ice, not to mention plenty of cuddles. And beyond that, there is my relentless need to notice every little ordinary moment, to place it in the context of our beautiful ordinary life, and to find joy there -- in the chopping of onions while my son splashes in the bath, in watching my daughter fill out her weekly reading log, even in the basic ordering of things -- taking the clean dishes from the still-steamy dishwasher and putting them away, in placing the folded clothes inside the drawers, in wiping down counters and tucking children into bed. It’s the illusion of order when nothing is orderly, sure, and most of the time unloading the dishwasher and folding laundry are simply chores to be completed. But they’re part of our rhythm, our ordinary beautiful daily rhythm, and that makes sense to me when little else does.

The trick is to keep breathing

The smell of lilacs and rain made me cancel my gym membership.

I've been running later in the evenings lately; when Matt gets home from work there is still plenty of light. I don't think anything clears my head better than a jog through the quiet streets of my neighborhood. The area in which I live is thick with trees and doesn't get much traffic, relatively speaking, and the air has been intoxicatingly full of spring these past few weeks. When I really feel like pushing myself there's a hill I tackle on the last mile or so of my run, depending which route I take, and the reward is not only a satisfying burn in my legs but the scent of lilac bushes growing thick along the sidewalk. If I stop to pause anywhere, it's here -- ostensibly to flip through the selections on my little music player, to find the best songs to power me through the last leg of my workout, but really it's to spend a few moments breathing in the scent of those lilacs.

I nearly skipped my run on Friday evening. A light rain was falling, and Matt was cooking dinner, and it would have been awfully cozy to stay inside and put on sweats and just skip straight to sipping wine and anticipating the weekend. At the same time, the air was so quiet and still outside, and the promise of forty minutes of solitude, of fresh air and soft grey light, led me to lace up my running shoes, blow kisses to my family, and head out the door. The wine would wait.

(I think I like writing and running for the very same reasons: it just feels so good when I stop. But there's always a moment, after the initial resistance, after all the excuses, after the slow start, when something catches -- my breathe, the pen, the keyboard, the page -- and I fall in, and suddenly I'm not even really there anymore, I'm just movement. Miles are run and words are written, and they might be slow and clunky, but something really good is happening to my body and my brain and so, despite the awkwardness/slowness/belief that I'm not really a runner and my writing is just a total sham, I continue to trust the process.)

Several months ago the gym I went to rather grudgingly for nearly eight years closed, and our memberships were transferred to a bright and shiny new gym much farther from our house. I was not at all pleased about this, because I've learned something about myself in the last year-and-a-half of jogging fairly regularly a few times a week:

I hate the gym.

And it's not that I hate working out. I mean, I don't always want to do it, of course, but I always feel great when I do. Even when I go to the gym and run on a treadmill. When I ran a few miles and then hopped on the elliptical for awhile afterwards, I'd go home feeling all the same adrenaline highs I feel anywhere else. But after Isaac was born and I started making running a conscious part of my Weekly Sanity Rituals, I realized that what really felt good to me was running outside, breathing fresh air and feeling the pulse of the world around me. I needed to be going somewhere. I needed to be able to choose a different street, a different hill. Sometimes I even drive a few minutes to the boardwalk and run along the water, which is arguably not much more interesting than jogging on a treadmill except that the boardwalk can be an interesting mix of bustle and solitude, of tranquility and energy, depending on how many people are out, on whether or not the tide is in and the water is slapping the boards underneath my feet or whether I can go and walk on the sand if I choose.

I guess, in the end, it's that going to the gym felt like work. Good work, to be sure, healthy work, but work. It was a total drudge for me. And I realized that there was just no way I would be motivated to drive fifteen more minutes to get to the shiny new gym clear across town when I was going to the one near my house once a week at the most. Matt bought me new outdoor running gear last fall, and unless it's just pouring, or our sidewalks are buried in snow (which doesn't happen much here), I'll happily run all winter long outside.

I think what I love about running outside is not so much that I can pat myself on the back for getting in a good workout; it's more about finding a space in my day in which I can be truly present. I'm not distracted by people on machines a few inches away (which always makes me feel stupidly competitive); I'm just breathing, letting my thoughts go where they will, and finding my quiet center. Last week I posted this as my Facebook status:

When Isaac was a newborn, 7:00 or so was his "witching hour" every night -- he fussed and fussed for awhile, just processing all the crazy new things he had to absorb. It occurs to me that my urge to jog in the evening is the same thing; I can run in the sweet evening air and let all my crazy thoughts rattle around in my head before they finally fall out on the street somewhere, or I can sit in my house and fuss for awhile. And let's be honest, no one wants to see that.

This is probably why running "works" better for me in the evening. Saturday morning is a much more convenient time, but I'd much rather drink coffee and eat waffles and play with the kids. Letting the stress of the day -- even just ordinary stress, ordinary stuff, nothing earth-shattering or horrible -- build up a bit drives my desire to get out, to move, to let it go, to breathe, to find my way quietly back to myself.

And so we quit the gym.

It was just after a cool, lilac-scented run a week or so ago that I burst through the back door into the noisy warmth of my kitchen, sweaty, spent, a little more clear-headed and able to approach the chaos of dishes in the sink and trains on the floor and the exuberance of my children (who just get louder and louder the closer we get to bedtime; why is that?) with patience and good humor. I appreciated the contrast, even, and the fact that this blessing of solitude exists literally right outside my front door, that these moments of serenity -- however fleeting they might be -- are moments I won't find on a treadmill. I suggested to Matt that we stop kidding ourselves with the "Well, we should probably try the new gym a few times" and go ahead and admit that we just weren't going to do it, so therefore we should stop paying the membership fee even if it was such a great deal. He agreed. I might miss the treadmill in the dark of winter, when it's tougher to get outside in daylight hours, when I'm feeling trapped by weather, but I've also learned I'm tougher to keep inside than I realized -- so I think I'll be okay.

Smile at the rain

Earlier this week I was granted a little reprieve from my daily teaching duties. Because I am not employed full-time, I don't have to administer the HSPE (high school proficiency exam), which means I found myself with some blessedly free hours throughout the week. On Tuesday, I didn't have to go in to school at all, so I used my time to take care of things like getting my driver's license renewed and grading mountains of papers at the library (I find it easiest to concentrate there; if I stay home, even if I'm alone, I'm likely to succumb to fits of obsessive cleaning before I can settle down and get my schoolwork done). I finished earlier than I thought I would, so in the window of time between finishing those papers and picking up the kids, I decided I'd go for a run.

It had been about two weeks since I'd gone for a real run -- I blame my sinus infection and Isaac's ear infection and general life craziness and the unending rain. The closer we get to spring, the more difficult it is for me to go to the gym; unless it's really pouring, I'd so much rather be outside, breathing fresh air and going somewhere. This particular day had been wet; I'd driven through a light shower to get to the library, and I knew we'd likely have more rain later in the day. Still, when I left the library and headed to my car, I noted the break in the weather -- the ground was damp, but no rain was actually falling -- and decided to take my chances.

I was about two miles into my usual 3.5-mile route when the first drops fell. I could have headed for home at that point, but I was feeling so invigorated by the air outside, and also, I figured a little light rain would feel rather refreshing. The day wasn't particularly cold, and I had worked up a healthy sweat. I made it another half-mile before the sky opened up and I found myself caught in an epic downpour. It rained so hard it felt almost like light hail. The wind picked up and lashed my hair against my cheeks. Within just a few moments I was completely drenched.

And it felt kind of great. Because when you're caught in that kind of downpour, what do you do, really, except surrender to it? And keep running?

Closer to my house, I met another insane jogger on the sidewalk. We were both kind of head-down, all business at that point -- but we made eye contact as we passed each other, and he grinned and flashed me a double thumbs-up. I grinned back. It was, I think, the best moment of my afternoon (although the hot bubble bath ten minutes later wasn't bad, either).

Moments

Sunday nights can be difficult for me. Actually, Sunday night starts sometime during Sunday afternoon, when my defenses are low and my kitchen feels a little too chaotic because we left our coffee mugs and breakfast dishes strewn across the counter before we left for church and didn't have time to clean it all up before our children begin clamoring for lunch. And then I think about everything that needs to happen before we dive back into our weekday morning routines: the diapers need to be washed, the kids' clothes need to be removed from the dryer and put away, the kitchen needs to have some kind of semblance of order restored to it, groceries need to be purchased, meals need to be planned, lessons need to be planned, papers need to be graded.

It all adds up to this: I really just want to take a nap. It doesn't matter how rested I am; as soon as I nurse Isaac down for his afternoon nap, all I want to do is curl up on the couch in the semi-darkness of the living room, listen to the soothing hum of the dishwasher, and take a break from my own head.

"I just want, like, a little power nap," I say to Matt.

"Which means what, exactly?" he asks.

"Wake me up in twenty minutes."

"But you really want an hour."

"Maybe thirty minutes."

"Thirty for real? Or are you going to argue with me when I come and wake you up in thirty minutes?"

"Well...I might not fall asleep right away."

"So I'll come and get you up in an hour, then."

(We have some variation of this conversation almost every time I try to take a nap. This hasn't changed in over eight years of marriage.)

I'm in a pretty good headspace today, though. Part of it is probably due to the nap, which was delicious (and more than makes up for the fact that it's been awhile since I've had a good one; I desperately wanted one last Sunday, but my children didn't cooperate, and that affected my attitude more than I wanted it to). And part of it is that I was determined to compartmentalize the things that were stressing me out -- just put them down for awhile. I left all of my grading at school, had a great and productive after-school/evening lesson-planning session with my friend Becca on Friday (with sushi!), and had a pretty peaceful weekend. Not necessarily in the sense that we weren't doing things -- yesterday we were on-the-go for most of the day -- but in the sense that I was happy to just be. Things were good.

Yesterday afternoon I headed down to Tacoma with the kiddos for a play date with Patti and our friends Kathy and Alisia and Alisia's beautiful daughter Anaiyah. Anaiyah was born about five weeks before Isaac at the Lakeside Birth Center, and Patti was Alisia's doula as well -- yet another way in which that evening in September of 2009 when we decided to have Patti at our birth continues to bless our lives; we never could have anticipated the connections and friendships that have grown up out of that moment. Anyway, the afternoon was so great -- Suzannah played hard, and Isaac and Anaiyah were adorable together, and we all laughed and talked and enjoyed a few great hours before I realized that it was getting dark and Isaac was falling asleep in Alisia's arms. I left feeling so centered, refreshed, recharged.

This morning we all slept a little late; Suzannah seemed to be feeling a little under-the-weather and I wasn't sure we'd be up for church with her or not. But she seemed cheerful and eager for Sunday School when she woke up, so we headed on in. Sometimes going to church feels a little like writing practice or working out; I often don't really feel like it, but then I do it anyway, and I am never, ever sorry. Today during communion I found myself thinking about Lauren F. Winner's memoir, Girl Meets God, her story of her conversion from Judaism to Christianity. She writes:

I have never, not once, felt anything at the Eucharist. Not a thing. I have never felt stirred, or joyful, or peaceful, or sad. I have never felt closeness. I have never felt God at the communion rail. Steven once sad that after receiving communion, he felt woozy, as if he'd drunk two bottles of magic wine, not just one tiny sip; but I have never felt woozy.

I keep hoping one day that God will give me some feeling at communion. In the meantime, I figure He is helping me become something else. He is calling me to know Him in the Eucharist even though I don't feel Him there. He is calling me to a place where He is truer than everything else, truer even than how I feel.

I don't know if I always feel something at communion, either, but it seems I'm less likely if I try to conjure it. And then sometimes I'm moved to tears, and I couldn't begin to explain exactly why. I just continue to show up, and trust that God will meet me there. Today, though, I did feel peaceful. And stirred, I suppose. Mostly, I felt the unmistakable sense that I was home, and that everything was okay.

When I was younger, I had this very generic prayer that would run through my head all the time: Please, God, just let everything be okay. It wasn't exactly the same thing as "praying without ceasing," but at a certain time in my life it was about as close as I came. And then, maybe on the flip side of that, I remember very specific moments in which I have felt that everything would, in fact, be okay. Or that I was okay in that moment, and that was enough. It was almost like hearing a whisper in my ear, the actual words: Everything is okay. It's what I felt this morning, just sitting there, just being.

I felt it again later, after my delicious afternoon nap, after I'd committed to a run, after I'd gone back and forth between I don't feel like it and Okay, fine and resigned myself to lacing up my running shoes and allowing my husband to prod me out the door: It's not that cold, it's not raining, you'll feel really good after you do it.

I feel the need to mention that while I have a gym membership, I've found that running outside is so, so much better -- and that's where I run these days, unless it is raining or icy or otherwise really awful. Running inside, on a treadmill in a row of treadmills in a windowless room, conjures up creepy mental images for me: A hidden video camera, perhaps, and someone taking notes like, Subject A kept a steady pace for the first mile but began to falter halfway through mile 2. I probably run faster, because when I run inside I'm all about improving my 5k time, but I just get so bored and antsy. When I hit the 3.1-mile mark sometimes I force myself to run a little longer, but mostly I can't wait to be done. When I'm outside, breathing fresh air, smelling the sweet damp earth, crunching through pine needles and leaves, smiling at people walking their dogs and sort of just -- enjoying being a part of this great pulsing world, sometimes I feel like I could just keep running forever. I almost always do at least three-and-a-half miles; sometimes I do more. I get into my zone pretty quickly when I'm running outside, but I don't always experience the kind of peace I experienced this morning. Sometimes when I'm running I'm working things out in my head, or indulging in my usual delusional fantasies in which I'm amazing. This afternoon, though, I wasn't thinking about anything. I was just moving, just breathing the sweet rain-scented air. Everything was okay. And I'm not even sure it had anything to do with the fresh air, or the way the evening light was fading, or the way I felt as I approached my street at the end of my run.

I can never explain these moments, nor can I will them to appear. They merely happen, like little gifts of undeserved grace.

Running, Part II: My first 5k

It's now been just over a week since I ran my 5k for the Northwest Hope and Healing Foundation, so this update is terribly overdue. However, school started this week and I have been just a little bit busy; I know you'll all forgive me.

The short version: I ran the entire thing, and my time was 33:05. I wanted to run it in under 33 minutes, but I'm actually fairly pleased; my only official goal was to run the entire time, and I did. I also met my fundraising goal (the one I set less than three weeks before the race) thanks to some wonderful people.

It was a fantastic day.

The long(er) version: I woke up early, before the rest of my family. I threw on my shorts, toasted myself an English muffin, grabbed a banana for later, and headed out the door. Matt and the kids were going to meet me up in West Seattle, because the thought of getting all of us up, fed, dressed, and out the door by seven o'clock was far too stressful. I met Kyanne at the park and ride, and we hit the freeway around 7:15. The parade route would be closed starting at eight -- the race was at nine -- and we wanted to allow plenty of time for parking and registration. (I did, anyway. Kyanne came along because she is a very, very good friend. I'm pretty sure she just wanted to allow plenty of time to get coffee before the race.)

I probably talked my head off and annoyed her to death on the way up there; I was a little wound-up. And inexplicably nervous, which was probably sort of silly; it's not like I was being graded on this run. (Here I have nightmarish flashbacks of running the mile in gym class.) Anyway, I was all, "I secretly LOVE being out this early on weekend mornings! There's no traffic! It's so quiet!" And because Kyanne is a very good -- and generally very tolerant -- friend, she did not throw me out of her car and go back home to her warm bed.

We parked a couple of blocks from the waterfront. A few people were heading the same direction we were, and I immediately began sizing up the competition. (I know, it's not a competition, blah blah blah.) We wound up walking behind a group of fit looking girls with cute little pony tails and running clothes, and I think this was the point at which I turned to Kyanne and started bitching about how I don't have "good running hair." (I know. I sometimes can't imagine why she's friends with me. I think she asked me what "good running hair" even meant, and I was all, "UUNNHHH!")

We hunkered down at the Alki Bakery, which, blessedly, was right next to the starting line. Bliss! We could sit inside and stay warm right up until the race started. Our friend Becca met us there -- she hopped off the bus shortly before eight, right in front of the coffee shop -- and the three of us spent a pleasant, relaxing hour waiting for the race to begin.

...Except that's a lie. I'm sure Kyanne and Becca would have enjoyed a pleasant, relaxing hour, but I basically ruined their coffee/pastry time by talking a mile a minute and alternating between such reasonable things as, "I am going to be so depressed if I'm, like, the slowest runner" and "Those people clustering over by the starting line better WATCH OUT, because I am NOT going to be stuck behind anyone!" At some point I noticed all these hyper-looking skinny Runner Types jogging frenetically back and forth in the street.

"Why are they DOING THAT?" I demanded. "They are making me antsy."

"They're just warming up," Kyanne said. "They have no body fat." (Wow. Poor them.)

"Should I be warming up?" I said. "I don't really know how this works. I already ate a banana because my friend Julia is a REAL runner and she said that's what she does before a race. But -- should I be out there? Running around?"

Kyanne very patiently explained that "those" people are the ones who do all the races and they are Serious Runners. (We all know I am a "runner," not a Serious Runner.) I relaxed marginally, only to be set off by millions of other dumb little things for the next hour. I don't even remember what, but at one point Kyanne did have to say, "Shari, you need to reign in the crazy." And I hadn't even had coffee.

Shortly before nine, we noticed people clustering around the starting line in the middle of the street, so we went out to join them. Kyanne and Becca were walking together, but they very kindly hung out with me (I lined up with the "joggers") until the horn blew to signal the start of the race. I had never in my life been so excited to run; the adrenalin was surging and I hadn't even started.

I started my music -- I start all my runs listening to Lady Gaga these days -- and started jogging. Except the crowd was moving so slowly at first; I immediately tried to weave in between people so I could actually run and not just sort of bounce up and down in more or less the same place. I'm pretty sure I heard either Kyanne or Becca call after me, "Use your hallway elbows!" (You know what I mean if you teach in a crowded high school.) It took approximately one minute for me to make it to the actual starting line, and by that time, there was enough room to run.

I don't know if I can accurately describe the sheer elation that took over at that point. I had initially been worried about trying to run too fast in the beginning and getting tired later on, but I settled into a comfortable pace right away. The route took us right along the waterfront with a beautiful view of the Seattle skyline; the morning was gray and cool and felt absolutely perfect for a run.

The first half was effortless. I was flying. Not necessarily in terms of speed, although I quickly passed basically the entire "jogging" group (note to self: Next time, you can line up with the runners!) and I'm pretty sure none of them passed me again; it was, simply, one of the most exhilarating things I've ever experienced. Running with this huge group of people was incredibly energizing and inspiring. Almost immediately I began to notice people in a way I hadn't been able to do prior to the start of the race. I saw a family running together -- at least I assume they were a family -- wearing the same t-shirt with a woman's face and her name on the front. (Most of us wore the race shirts, but several teams wore their own customized shirts.) I saw countless people wearing pins bearing names and images of women they loved, women who have battled breast cancer. There were people -- adults, children, families -- lined up along the street, cheering. Some held signs. The power of that, and of all that collective motion, was immense.

I teared up several times during the first half-mile or so. I thought about my friend Dori, about my friend V's mother, about all the people who have shared their stories with me -- when you tell people you're running for breast cancer, or probably for anything, really, you're blessed with these stories if you take the time to listen. I thought about all the women who inspired a thousand runners to take to the street on a cool late-summer morning, and I'm telling you this: I didn't have to worry about my legs or my lungs or whether I'd chosen the right music, because I was carried on the wave of those stories, along with everyone else. It might sound dramatic, but it was one of the most profound moments of my life -- to recognize and honor the interconnectedness of people who share these stories. I mean, this is at the heart of why I read and write at all -- I tell my students all the time that it's about reminding ourselves of our humanity. It occurred to me last Sunday that I was running for the same reason.

The route returned along the sidewalk down the same street, so the people who reached the halfway point would be running back in the direction from which they came. This meant that as people turned around they were facing us, and as the first (impressively fast) runners turned and passed us, those of us still heading for the turnaround point burst into cheers.

When it was my turn to pass the halfway mark, I was excited to see people (and several little kids, which I just loved) holding out cups of water for us to grab as we ran by. Now, okay. I'm all proud of myself for running this race, but I actually jog at least three miles a couple of times a week, and I do not generally need water halfway through. However, I really wanted this to be as AUTHENTIC AS POSSIBLE, which meant that because it was a REAL RACE, I thought I should definitely grab a cup of water and chug it without stopping. Hello, validation! However, it turns out that gulping water while running requires more coordination than I was prepared for, so I wound up tossing the entire cup directly onto my chest. I might have caught a stray drop or two on my tongue, since my mouth was wide open. I really hope none of the onlookers with cameras caught that dignified little moment on film.

I started to feel a little tired probably around mile 2, but then I saw one of the little runner girls that had walked to the race just ahead of Kyanne and me. I was suddenly filled with the insatiable need to pass her (hello, more validation, even if it's only in my head! Where lots of things are!), so I picked up my pace a bit. I didn't sprint past her, because I wanted to finish ahead of her. I became absolutely fixated on this, which is ridiculous, but it worked, because I found the extra burst of energy I needed. I passed her, and I totally finished ahead of her. YEAH. It would have been so much more satisfying if I could have stopped to explain to her that I was winning, of course, but what can you do.

Seeing the finish line was pretty fabulous, too. Even better: seeing my husband on the other side, holding our children. Suzannah was dressed in capris and a pink sweatshirt and mittens, and Isaac just looked cheerful and gamely interested in all the commotion. Matt didn't manage to snap my picture as I crossed the finish line, but I probably didn't look quite as amazing as I did in my head, so this is really very okay. (I like to preserve the integrity of my fantasies as much as possible, thank you.) We sat inside the bakery and shared a chocolate chip cookie with Suzannah while we waited for Kyanne and Becca to finish. They arrived to find me bouncing up and down and announcing that I felt AWESOME and wanted to do it again RIGHT! THAT! SECOND! I totally could do it, and that would be a 10k! Hey! Wouldn't they like to do a 10k with me?

...No?

(Kyanne and Becca are seriously really good friends. I can't imagine how irritating I must be when I'm feeling that excited.)

The six of us went out for a celebratory brunch at Easy Street Records, where I ate the absolute best breakfast burrito I've ever had and drank one of the best mochas. And then I went home and took one of the most satisfying hot showers of my life. It was a really, really great experience and a wonderful day, and I absolutely want to do it again. My goal for next time is to beat my time. Considering I was the girl who wanted to stay home from school on days when we had to run the mile for gym class, I feel pretty okay about my first one, though.

I have no idea how I can possibly go for runs now without crowds cheering along the street, but I suppose I'll manage.

(Matt did get some pictures, by the way. I'll try to remember to post one or two of them soon.)

Running, Part I

I've mentioned before that I was pretty much allergic to running for, oh, the first two decades or so of my life. And I still don't consider myself a runner, to be honest -- I consider myself a "runner." Yes, in quotes. Because I'm definitely not fast, and I'm probably not all that dedicated. It's just this little thing I try to do a few times a week. I do it because it's an hour or so out of my day in which no one is touching me or needing anything from me and my mind can just do whatever it wants, and as a nice little bonus, it's helping me keep my pregnancy weight off.

I started jogging several years ago after I realized that the twenty-five pounds I put on during my first two years of college weren't going to lose themselves, and I wasn't yet totally willing to give up the 4.99 medium pizzas that Dominos delivered right to the dorms on nights when dinner at the campus dining service just sounded disgusting. (Later, after I finally started going to the gym -- often dragging my roommate with me -- we also started cooking more because we had our own apartment and our own kitchen. That helped. A lot.) Surprisingly, I kind of enjoyed it. I liked listening to my favorite music and just going into (while at the same time getting out of) my own head for a little while. It turned out to be a huge stress relief for me. I also learned that I ran farther and faster when I was angry or upset, so it was a nice little coping mechanism, too. By the time I moved to Washington after college, I could run a few miles without wanting to die.

I decided to take it more seriously in the year or two before I got pregnant with Suzannah. Instead of jogging sporadically down at the boardwalk, I joined a gym with Kyanne -- which actually did motivate me to go, since I didn't want to waste my money. By the time I got pregnant in the fall of 2005, I was in better shape than I'd been since, oh, basically forever.

Of course, when I got pregnant, I gained ten pounds as soon as the pee hit the stick, and I spent the next eight months reassuring myself that I was eating for two, so it was fine to eat nothing but Clucks 'n Fries from Red Robin with a milkshake on top. (In my defense, the smell of broccoli made me want to throw up. The smell of almost everything made me want to throw up, and many of those things did make me throw up, so, for the first four months at least, I ate whatever sounded good. I'm sorry that what sounded good was often pizza and not huge pans of roasted vegetables.) Anyway, blah blah blah, I had a REALLY FABULOUS TIME gaining a lot of weight. Then I had a baby and lost, you know, nine pounds or something. Then I lost a little more, and when Suzannah was around four months old I hauled myself back to the gym. But I wasn't great about making that a regular habit. I think moms will understand -- if you have a free hour to yourself, the choices are so mind-boggling. Do you exercise? Read? Write? Clean the bathroom? Take a shower? Take a nap?

Somehow, it became easier for me to commit to jogging after I had Isaac. I lost all of my pregnancy weight in six weeks, which always seems to impress people when they hear it except a.) I still had leftover pregnancy weight from Suzannah (what? I can call it pregnancy weight four years later!) and b.) I can't take any credit for that. It was all breastfeeding and no will power, because I ate all the cupcakes and bread and alfredo sauce my little heart desired. But at that point, I thought, hey! I could start jogging again, have a little time to myself, and potentially feel really great. I made myself do it a couple of evenings a week and maybe once on the weekends (plus, I was out walking with the kids nearly every day; fresh air is one of the keys to our collective sanity). There are so, so many things I would love to do with my "free" time, but the allure of an hour with no one needing anything from me, without having to make any sort of conversation at all, was (and still is), frankly, irresistible.

I've learned that I probably run best at the gym, where I'm faced with both my actual speed and time right there on the treadmill display. It's mostly strictly work there, and if I didn't have my running music I would find it excruciatingly boring. (A month or so ago I forgot my music and almost gave up and went home; it definitely wasn't my finest workout.) My favorite places to run are outside, though: the streets around my neighborhood, some quiet and some taking me along a steady flow of traffic; the boardwalk along Puget Sound, only a few minutes from my house; long quiet stretches of highway in Montana. I still remember so clearly the afternoon I went for a jog up the highway north of Gildford when I visited my grandparents one summer. It was hot, and I can only imagine what I looked like as I huffed my way back into town. As I approached my grandparents' house, I could see my grandpa standing in the yard, shaking his head and gaping, one hand on his hip.

"What I can't figger," he hollered, "is why in the hell you'd wanna ram yer ass up through yer hips like that in this heat."

I admit it: When I run, I suffer from Acute Delusions of Grandeur. This is the danger of going into one's own head a little too much, I guess. When I run, I am Lady Gaga. I can sing, I can move (don't worry, I don't try to actually do these things -- at least not while I'm running -- but you'd better believe I am the best singer IN THE WORLD when I am in my car), and I have huge crowds eating from the palm of my hand.

In my head I become the teacher from Dangerous Minds. Jonathan Franzen takes writing advice from me. In my mind, I go back to the day in June when Matt and I stopped by Louise Erdrich's bookstore in Minneapolis (Birchbark Books -- fabulous little shop) and not only is she there but we strike up a conversation and she clearly loves my beautiful kids but she basically wants to be my best friend because we just immediately click. I am also curing cancer, and no one can believe how fast I'm running this 5k. I run with determination and grace and a quiet fury. People take my picture at the finish line and I look healthy and flushed but basically good enough to be on the cover of a magazine. My hair is tousled just slightly in that way that supermodels work for hours to achieve.

When I come gasping through the back door at home, Matt politely asks how my run went.

"It was awesome," I say. "I'm pretty sure that was my best run ever." I'm not slightly flushed; I am beet-red and pouring sweat and my hair is stuck all over my face and neck. The dog immediately busies herself slurping my legs. I try to explain how I'm expecting my Nobel Prize for Amazingness to be delivered to the front door any second, but I suspect it's hard to take me seriously. (Once, on a summer weekend retreat with a few co-workers, I went running around a huge park -- I did about three miles -- and they just hung out and watched. When I finished, one of them said, "Well, you look just awful.")

Matt smiles and says, "Cool." He might not quite understand just how amazing I have been in the last forty-five minutes, but he's probably the one human being who could actually look at this sweaty, red-faced woman with the messy pony-tail and say, "You look good." And even seem to mean it.

(I'm running my 5k tomorrow morning -- wish me luck! And again, thank you so much to those of you who donated for this very worthy cause and those of you who've been my best cheerleaders. I appreciate each and every one of you.)

Two things

I've fallen a little behind in keeping up this blog -- at least to my expectations. But, you know, it's summer, and my days have been filled with all sorts of blissful things that might not make for the most interesting reading. We play at parks, we run through sprinklers, we spend mornings at the zoo and afternoons in the backyard. It's a lovely, ordinary life. (Because I need to stay sane and because it's what I do, I try to write something every single day, but I'm pretty sure anyone can understand why I might not be inclined to type up all the pages of my notebooks. It can be pretty noisy inside my muddled little head sometimes.)

I do have a couple of entries waiting in the wings, but for now, two things:

1. I am running my first 5k in two weeks. I've been running pretty regularly since Isaac was born, a couple of times a week anyway, and it's helping me keep the baby weight off -- also, it gives me a little time to myself, to get in my "zone" and think. Or just be. To exist purely in the motion, feeling healthy, feeling like I'm doing this one thing to take care of myself. I am not at all a fast runner; in fact, I was pretty much ALLERGIC to running for the first couple of decades of my life. But I can jog a pretty comfortable 3-5 miles, depending on where I'm at and what my mood happens to be like and what music I'm listening to. I've thought for awhile that I might like to attempt a 5k, something OFFICIAL. And then Kyanne sent me a link to the Alki Beach 5k Walk/Run benefiting the Northwest Hope and Healing Foundation and women battling breast cancer. This is particularly timely, since my friend Dori was recently diagnosed with breast cancer -- it just seemed like something I can do. So I'm running for breast cancer awareness and I'm running to raise funds for breast cancer patients here in the Northwest. (Did you know that Washington has the highest breast cancer rates in the nation? I didn't.) I'm running because I'm healthy and because I can.

I know there are so many causes worthy of people's time and money, and this is just one of them -- but Dori is the face on the statistic for me, and that makes it personal. If you're inspired to give even a little, I would deeply appreciate it.

(Click here for the link to my fundraising page.)

2. On the same note, 20% of all sales at Art Deco Dame from now through August 21 will go to Dori's rising medical costs. Even for those lucky enough to have decent insurance, this kind of medical expense can be pretty staggering, you guys.

(Click here for awesome, cancer-fighting vintage!)

In other news, our mostly-cool summer temperatures are skyrocketing up into the 90's for the next couple of days. We're going to spend tomorrow at the lake with Kyanne and her husband and rediscover what summer is supposed to be about: the smell of sunscreen on my children, swimming in the middle of a cool lake, and grilling food outside because cooking anything inside is just crazy.