Tennessee (L)

The cast of characters from my childhood slowly fade, while my old stone home’s background disintegrates to strip malls and condos. I feel a surprising dull ache to hear that my field that we played “Army” in, with its small ledges and waterfalls, the deep mud that once consumed my small yellow slipper is now torn up, waiting to become concrete and pavement like the other fields around it. This field was my Tennessee solace. I would run to it, escape in it, sit in it and watch for signs that it was safe to come home. We played in those fields as we could never play at home. Open and wild, creative and free. We sled over cow patties in the winter and cut through it to get home from school in the fall. We hated our parents for selecting this little ugly house with its paint chipped walls for our home. It was so unlike our friends gleaming new houses in friendly subdivisions. Our home was surrounded by fields and cows and further down the dirt road, small forests. We saw it as a means to hide our dirty underbelly of a life, slovenly and drunk, full of violence and hatred that one would have had to whisper in a subdivision where your neighbors might hear. In our lonely little stone house, we felt trapped, isolated and alone with no one to hear or to help. With no neighbors to casually drop by, our home was kept filthy and shameful, and we were mostly too embarrassed to have friends over. I used to see it in nightmares once we were safely ensconced in Maine, in rental houses with fresh paint.

After years of living in the beauty of Maine, where trees are out of every window you can find--home, shop, car. I understand my parent’s choice a little more. My mother must have thought she could stomach the conservative suburban south a little more if she could look out a window in the fall and see a swath of orange trees. It must have felt a bit like home to drive up a dirt road, past fields and farms, to come home every night. Sadly, I can almost never remember my mother outdoors in Tennessee. Whatever she might have hoped to recapture in the beautiful nature that stood stubbornly on our road, as the world around it was swallowed by progress, she never had much opportunity to appreciate. Whatever my mother did not take advantage of in our surroundings, we made up for in spades. She gave us what she had...fields and forests to roam and grow in. I am so grateful now that my childhood memories are full of trees and meadows, falls, streams, and even a small cave. That I spent hours alone cracking open rocks to find fossils and wrapping sticks with vines; that we found a secret clubhouse in the hollow insides of a fallen tree; that nights were spent picking harmless ticks from my head; that I grew up dirty from playing and running and climbing trees; that the fast world running by me was stampedes of cows running loose as we hid on our porch; that we had so many fields and forests around us that we had not one, not two, but three childhood hidden escaped convict stories to tell. Even with its peeling paint and shabby walls, our stone home was so much better than living in one identical to the 20 around it. But its essence of farm and field is therefore so much more painful, and ultimately likely, to lose. I know I had poor eyesight as a child, but there are sadly never any prescriptions for hindsight.

Rock-N-Roll Fantasy: Phase 2?? Complete.

For your reference, please refer to "Phase 1" of above said Fantasy. Here, some two years later, is an update for you.

I am in a new band. Chasin' Jasons. Marion is in it with me. We are a five-piece, four of whom are lead vocalists for an always entertaining "guess-who?" game. But here is the kicker -- I am the keyboard player.

Holy Hell. We are still in the practice stages, and our first gig together will be on 6/23 for a private party. I am torn between sheer terror and - well, milder sheer-er terror. But hey? Now I can honestly say that I haven't let fear of failure rule my adult mentality...and if I'm beheld as a fool, then I'm a fool in a rock band. I can live with that.

L, I am so proud of you for running a marathon that I almost burst from the swell of it. I always knew you had it in you. Maybe one day I can....run....ah, who am I kidding. "We" don't run.

Al, your babies look like Little Women. My sister's boy is 8 months now. How time flies by like a cannon ball...

My father, 5 days before his 23rd wedding anniversary, and 13 days before  his 76th birthday, has moved into an assisted living facility. His mind is....locked in dementia. My very strong stepmom has cared for him as well as anyone could have expected her to, but in the end the butcher knife episode and the gas-stove fright finally convinced her it was time. Surreal, talking to him now.

So anywhoozits -- It has been more than two years since our kindred souls met up in the same location, and I believe it's time. Ideas anyone? Love and miss you...... M

The Results are IN!

Ok, since Brady asked, I'll tell you. It was awesome! And since you aren't here to tell me enough with the details, I'll give you all of them! The most common advice we were given was to not start off fast. Our plan was to take the first almost 5 miles slow to warm up and prep for the first big hill. We were soon, I mean, within seconds, the dead last people. There were people ahead of us that looked like they wouldn't make it up a flight of stairs let alone a mile. It was humbling. But nothing beat the fast track to Shameville like the squeaking tires of the sweep cop car on our butts. That we hadn't quite prepared for. He had to pull over and wait for us as we hit the port-a-potties twice in less than 4 miles. He also stopped and picked up my gloves I dropped. (Nice guy!) I'm sure he thought we'd soon be riding in the back. By 4, we were no longer the last people. At 4.7 right before the big hill, we thought to ask the time when we took the next turn. It'd been OVER an hour. Neither of us can remember the exact time, but we couldn't believe we were running under 5 miles an hour! Slower than I'd ever run. That was the one oversight. Lacking experience, lacking a knowledge of real pacing, we should have kept a cell phone for time to calculate our pace. This was the last sign we had of our pacing and time until the timer at the finish line. We had no choice but to pick up our pace a little even up the hill sooner than we had planned.

It was a steep hill and then a slight uphill climb until almost mile 7. Then we knew we had a flat way until mile 10, and a water stop at mile 8 with my sister and girls (where one of them would hand me a tiny bottle of gatorade I'd filled earlier). At mile 7, "It Takes Two" came on my iPod and pumped up my pace. I felt incredible! Strong, no pain, sure we had it in the bag, and it was time to make up our pace. I whoohooed and sang a little. We decided it was our run theme song. That was my best epic mile. I even had to reign it in a few times to stay with my friend (that wouldn't happen again!). When I saw my sister and girls holding out water, calling out to me, I teared up. I wanted to stop and hug them! Instead I called to my daughter after I passed her and gave a big arms up "whoohoo!" I think the next mile was the longest of the run. Unchanging scenery and elevation that seemed neverending. Between mile 9 and 10 was when I first felt soreness in my legs and asthma in my lungs. But I knew we had it. We just had to roll back after mile 10 to prepare for the challenging final 2 miles. With nearly 2 miles to go we turned onto our final road and into a strong head wind that would accompany us to the end. Soon we were mounting the MILE long hill we knew was our Everest. The first half mile was STEEP. The wind was blowing cold and dirt in our faces, we tucked in and went, knowing the crest we could see offered false hope as it only led to another half mile slightly less steep hill. But we felt good, we had paced knowing this was coming.

When we hit the actual top with another half mile to go, one of my friends pulled up in a pick up and yelled out the window, "You F****ing did it!" And soon we would. We had a valley to go down and then a small hill to the turn of the end. That small hill was the hardest part of the whole run for me. We were running hell bent for leather to try and overcome a woman who was walking (we had succeeded in passing anyone who had walked in our view), she had another friend join her and picked up her pace as we struggled to finish ours. I experienced finish line blindness as I crested that hill and turned down into the finish, running right by a line of friends and family waiting for me, including my father. I could only see the time sign as I pounded under it, 2:25. I couldn't believe it! I expected my time to be close to 3, and with a start that slow and long, I would never have expected that time, slow as it is to anyone who actually runs for time. Our friends and my family came down to us and hugs and pictures ensued as I tried to inhale a muffin and as much water as I could. I was moved that so many people had come out to support me. I felt amazing for about an hour. Then reality started hitting inch by painful inch. I realized that I had never asked anyone advice on what to do AFTER a race. We made it though. My friend fared better than I did, even though I trained approximately four times as much as she did. I try not to be bitter!

A few times while I was running, I was overwhelmed by what I was accomplishing for myself. I teared up as I did when I saw my girls. I had a mantra when this happened, you can't start crying now, you need the salt and water!! The final time was when I was conquering the final hill and "Dog Days are Over" came on my iPod. I think if I had actually seen my father, sister, and children all sitting there when I ran to the finish line, I would have finished sobbing. Instead, thanks to a major endorphin rush, I finished smiling and smiling and smiling.

Today, I am still sore and recovering and a little bit wondering, "Now what?" It was a great experience, it's amazing what you can do when you dare to challenge yourself out of your comfort zone. I'm glad that I did, and I plan to keep on doing it. I think the best reward was not when my daughter posted "You were amazing! I was so proud of you!" on my FB wall, but when I saw it in her eyes.

Run Slow (L)

I'm running my first half-marathon tomorrow. Could double as my last, who knows? I don't. I've never done one. I think that's clear. Furthest I've gone in training is 10 miles. I'll let you know if I make it back. This course been described by seasoned marathoners as "rugged" and "challenging." Makes me wonder what the heck I'm up to. Would either of you ever thought I'd be attempting to run 13.1 miles without someone with a gun chasing me? I remember when I first tore my ACL thinking, "Thank goodness, I'll never have to run again." I'm not an athlete. In fact, doing athletic things is the first time in my life when I wish I wasn't what people describe as "long and lean" because people assume I am athletic. They think I'm fast. I look like a runner, I look like a swimmer, I have little fat on me, people expect I am fast. I am not large, but I am fighting weakness. I was shaped into weakness. My siblings called me "Rat Retard Refugee Runt" when I was little. I was scrawny and always topped with low blood sugar. That was before the surgery that took a tumor the size of a grapefruit off of lungs and spine. Scraping off that tumor left some scars on my lungs that add a challenge to my life, and for the past 8 years asthma. I can remember being afraid to exercise, I remember the pain when I would cough.

I'm not exactly how I ended up here. But 9 weeks ago when someone sent me the link to this inaugural run, the furthest I had ever run was about 3 miles. Someone else sent me a novice training plan, and I decided to try it. Why not? I could quit the training anytime and no one would be the wiser. At about mile 6 on the long runs, my friend decided to join me. I mostly trained alone but for that long run. At 7.5 I decided to sign up with her. Every time I increased that long run, I was in awe. Wow, I just ran that far? I just ran 7 miles? I was the kid bent over dry heaving after the presidential mile run in school they made us do for P.E. When I finished my first 10 miles, I was hooting and cheering myself on, luckily I was alone on a deserted bike path. I got another 10 under my belt, SLOW. But tomorrow will be the first 13.1. And the first 11, the first 12...Each time I run, something new hurts. I guess it's better than the same thing hurting. I plan to work on form after I finish this, assuming I finish this oneinjury free.

It's interesting to try new challenges. Having by nature always been a fearful person, it's feels so refreshing and healthy. I like making my body do new things, learn new shapes. Maybe it will stop shooting out new shapes of cancer and tumors if I give it something else to do.

One of my favorite running songs is "Dog Days are Over" by Florence and the Machine. I run a little faster on the line "Run fast for your mother and fast for your father, run for you children, your sisters and your brothers." I feel like I'm doing that every time I run. My brother was the first to run, I'm taking it over for awhile until he's back in form. I'll try and get my sister on the road slowly. I have the eyes for my father, the body for my mother. I'm doing what they never got the chance to do. I'm hoping my children are noticing me doing new things and it gives them the courage to do the same. I run, not because I am fast or good, but because I can.

Pictures of You (L)

I remember when we were whole and we kissed
to Pictures of You
you had a father
I had a mother
it all seemed so tragic
and epic and
moving

I remember when it was
so simple
as love

before our littlest
fell asleep in our bed
before our oldest
walked away
before
Pictures of You
wasn’t a night
when you were 45

looking down at you
and seeing the boy
I knew 25 years ago
who had a mother and a father
and not much else

I remember nights
that were music
and moments
when we didn’t know loss
when it was simply
Pictures of You

Pause (L)

My kids are getting older. We all know this, it happens every second, every minute, every year. It happens to the best of us, and it is the best thing that can happen. I’ve written about it in many ways, with longing and nostalgia, with fear, with fortitude and determination. Since my husband’s father died two weeks ago, something has stirred within me--taken everything in my soul and given it a tremor. Maybe that is partly the reason for my new way of seeing the aging of my children. Death can put things you’ve set on the back burner into a sudden boil, or in my case, a slow rising simmer.

My children are 13, 11, and 9. Which translated into my mother speak means, about to leave me, about to hit puberty (one step closer to leaving me), and will soon no longer sit on my lap. It’s hard to give words to what I’m feeling. I feel like the English language doesn’t provide them for me. I need interpretive dance or a language that better supports the nuances of feelings of a parent who had a shitty childhood and now wants to create a better one for their children. There is a sense now of immediacy for me, like this is it, this is the show. All the years before were a dress rehearsal.

Now, when I snap, when I fail to have a quality parenting day with my children, I have this global comprehension that this is a ship that has sailed, that I’ve not only just missed the opportunity to foster something that will shape them into happy, confidant creatures, but I have potentially created a traumatic memory that they will carry into adulthood. When they were three, well, I could have a bad day and feel like they would forget it, or I’d have years and years to balance out that bad day. Now, it feels like seconds.

This might sound like self berating, the kind of thing a friend would tell you, and you’d say, no, no, you’re being too hard on yourself. Everyone feels that way, or putting this kind of pressure on yourself can’t be good for you or for them. If what I’ve written has elicited these types of thoughts from you, it is because of the above mentioned shortcomings of the English language and/or because you cannot see my interpretive dance.

If, however, it has made you want to say, “You’re right, perhaps you should go onto some sort of anti-anxiety medication until they are out of the house because Joan Crawford called and she wants her job back,” or “Maybe you should quit your job, write a book, and clean your house before earwigs eat your children,” you might be getting what I am saying.

I am unfulfilled. People who are unfulfilled are less happy, less energetic. Taking up the challenge of learning swimming, following through on running, these are things that have helped. One of my wisest friends once told me that I need something that feeds me. Being unfulfilled was okay when I thought I was the only one who would suffer. But now when I see it through a parental lens of how this might be affecting my children and affecting them now...It has become a puzzle I feel I have to solve. Something that needs rectification. I used to think having children would make me happy. It has, it has given me more pleasure and meaning in my life than I could even imagine. But now it seems that having children is the thing that is driving me to discover HOW to be happy. I must admit, I feel better just writing this. And seriously, I have no wire hangers, but there are a lot earwigs about.

It's All Right

Last night in the shower, my mother’s legs flashed into my mind, vivid like I had just lifted a sheet from her bed to view them. Swollen with edema, giving a fine sheen to her skin, her many bruises in hologram like technicolor. I could almost touch them. Another flash. Her face, still, tilted, grey hair on her pillow, her former double chin sloping a new angle to join her face and neck into a single construct — eyes closed, then open, looking at me, brown, one eye smaller than the other, narrowed from 30 year old retinal damage. The flashes came unbidden, like machine gun fire waking up neurons in my brain that I’d soothed to sleep 3 years ago with life’s distractions. I didn’t want to stop them, there she was, so close, just outside of my shower, just there, a blink away, thrown so suddenly into my mind that it felt like a visitation. The spray hit my face as I wondered what her message could be. I closed my eyes, let the warm wet pour over me, face lifted for more. There I was a young girl on the carpet of my father’s study, this flash familiar less distinct, blurred in the framing, trying to tie my mother’s shoes on her puffy 35 year old feet. She has on panty hose for socks, slacks pulled up for the job of tying her leather wingtip shoes, black and tan, the laces a thin tight cord. I remember the smell of the leather, the size of her feet (so much smaller than I’ll ever see them again), the overwhelming worshipful love I feel for her. It’s the same era that I became obsessed with a fear of her dying. I would ride with her wherever she went, I would chase after her car when she tried to flee the swelling misery of our home, I would make her describe the spot where she would meet me in heaven.

Oh how sad that little girl would be to know that at 42 she would cling to flashes of a bruised swollen leg, a sleeping face of memorized peaks and valleys rising from a swarm of soft grey hair with flakes of dry skin resting on each strand, shading the black flecks of the woman she used to be, just so she could see her mother again. The 42 year old, she knows this is life and has friends who have also lost their parents. She knows the final years of her mother’s life, in bed, in pain. She knows the in between years of anger and distance. But that little girl, deep deep in the recesses of my mind, her worst fears are realized — she has lost her mommy. I let her grieve sometimes, as I tell it's all right.