Great Expectations

 

"expectations are merely premeditated disappointments" --Wendy Silvers

to prepare for spring one must first:

detect fever, hear cough, look at sunken eyes

spend several hours at the pediatricians office

travel cross town to find the last remaining boxes of Tamiflu because "flu season is over"

fork over 120 bucks to cover all three kiddos just in case

pump her full of fluids and donuts (all she'd eat--don't judge)

pile on blankets, hand over remote

disinfect, disinfect, disinfect

chisel away at the ten loads of laundry that appeared overnight

work from home

run

[6 miles, 52:49, 8:48 ave pace, trail loop around the house]

make dinner

just. keep. moving.

8:30 pm, collapse

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Didn't Throw Up

 

A favorite seventy-something year-old friend likes to remind us (whenever we get fed up with current circumstances) that all we have to do is wait five minutes and things will change.

We know this to be true about the weather of late.  These photos mark a time lapse of 48 hours. Okay, so that's longer than five minutes.

 

It is Spring.  Time for change, growth, renewal, waking up. I'm following it's lead this year and waking up too. 

 

After proclaiming I had no plans to run any races this year or ever I have already signed up for two.  If you've been following along at all you know this is a first.  I've adopted a singular focus on running with mountain biking and slacklining as offshoots because I can't run every day or maybe I'm just crazy.  I even swam laps Monday for the first time in over 20 years.  I think that makes three times in my whole life I've ever swam laps. 

I'm spurned on by stories of people much older than me who can run much, much faster and farther.  It makes me want to go faster and farther too.

 

So with a little help from a book on loan from Clair (thank you again), I've started actual training without telling you.

 

I'm up to eleven miles at a 9:36 average pace.  Tuesday I did some speed work (interval training from the book) and warmed up for a little over a mile, 9:22 pace, then ran 3 miles fast with rest in between to sputter, gasp for air and regain feeling in my legs (7:22 mins; 7:20; 7:18) and then cooled down with a 9 min mile. 

I could have sworn I went slower with every mile but I blame that on a side effect of perceived effort.  Running is hardest when I want to quit.  And when it's hard.

All this is to say that with a bit of focused effort things can change.  I never ran like this before, maybe because I had no idea it was possible.  I've still got nothing on this guy.  He was amazing. 

 

My theory is there's something in the shoes (Clif ran in wellies), and this all may change come race day.  In my many years of playing tennis I practically perfected the choke.

People Get Ready

This isn't about running but it is.  It isn't about icing the homemade cookie cake with the homemade icing and exploding Ziploc bags (they made me do it) to get ready for the birthday party.  It isn't about lacing up my shoes or carb loading, pre-hydrating or plotting the perfect route.  It isn't about sending out invitations.  The minutia of my daily life isn't worth the print because you probably don't care.  Especially if you're not a runner or a mother.

I write best when I run, so I think.  I am eloquent, have earth-shattering thoughts and get goosebumpy with ideas.  Maybe it's the oxygen, the surging brain juices and electricity.  Perhaps I'm delusional.  Because when it's all over and I sit in front of the computer to type, my hands hover as if frozen above the keyboard and my mind is barren as a desert.

But the theme from yesterday's long run was preparation.  That much I remember.  Whatever I did to prepare was just the right mix to ensure a favorable outcome.  It reminds me of a favorite song.  A classic.  Goosebumpy.

Yesterday was the kind of day I'd been waiting for, anticipating.  Years ago when I thought my life couldn't have gotten any worse (but surely it could have) I knew there'd be sunnier days ahead if I'd just persevere.  Now those days are here and I wonder how things could get any better (but surely they will).  I realized in one moment that joy is the best preparation for sadness, sadness the necessary curriculum for joy.  Today, I will take them both.

Patience

 

Patience.  It is what I need today.  I've made it this far through winter without a hint of the doldrums but this past week I hit a wall.  Perhaps it has something to do with working 13 days straight.  Hmmm.

 

Last night I noticed my need for caffeine in waves like never before.  I was irritable, short, grumpy, exhausted.  Some may say that about wine, they like it to smooth the rough edges, but for me it's just a little caffeine, please.

 

But we are almost there.  The grey, rainy, foggy, cold wintry weeks we've had lately will soon give way to sun, wind and warmth.  Even today started cold and wet, but now the sun is breaking through just in time for the highlight of my day.

 

I look forward to running a suburban 10 with my girl, Mimi and know it's in part what I've been missing.  Time with friends, the long run, nice weather, change.

 

They days will soon be upon us when the kids arrive home from school, drop their books and go outside to wander.  When late dinners and open windows are the norm, spring camping trips and beach excursions on the calendar.  For more hiking, biking and baseball and new adventures in running races. I look forward to it all.

 

It will come, faster still if I keep my patience.

Blindsided

I thought I knew what I was doing. I thought I was too busy to write and I was. So I stopped. And the camera sat untouched. But what I thought would help, didn't. The writing continued in my head and had nowhere to go. The pictures continued in my mind and had nowhere to go. They tossed and turned inside and the outcome was, well, unsavory.

So I creep back in. Slowly, feeling rusty, feeling different, so much has happened. So much change, so many hard things. But through it all knowing love changes everything and that is the lifeline to which I cling.

I lost a very dear friend just over a week ago. He was like none other. The surrogate father figure to so many of us lost children. He loved unconditionally, truly, to so many, yet each of us felt as if we were the only one. I treasure knowing him, his loss in part has led me back here.

I miss the way things were.

Music, reading and running have filled so much of my early morning and late night hours. A very welcome change. The fact that six miles can be a pleasant experience has me thinking about possibilities rather than middle age. So nice.

And new life, a whole slew of plants from the children's great grandmother in turn gives me new life. Funny how caring for a growing, living thing can touch something deep within, bringing forth hope, joy and a glowing ember of warmth spreading outward.

Before my friend passed on I found this song so moving, a lump appeared in my throat and tears in my eyes with the first few notes. But since then I'm dry, though it remains a favorite and good for a dreamy early morning run through the fields with the deer and the dew and all the spider webs spun the night before.

Mother, mother thyself

I went to bed the other night at 9:30. Signed off. Lights out. Pillow over my head and I was gone. Done. Exhausted. I felt it was the only option. I'm glad I heeded my own advice because the next day was much better than the three prior all put together. But that's how it gets doesn't it, when we run ourselves ragged? Perhaps at least one of you can relate.

I've never been that good at taking care of myself. I find it much more comfortable to focus my attention outward. So it fits that I clearly remember a rather mundane conversation I had in the hospital with my nurse after having my first child. I think it was the first day still and I was so excited, keyed up, and asked for some Excedrin because I was getting a headache. She looked me straight in the eye and said, "NO. You need to go to sleep. Go to sleep."

I was a little taken aback, I'll admit. I didn't want to go to sleep, I'd just had a baby and wanted to stay awake for hours on end just staring at him of course. But she was right. What I really needed was to sleep. I was exhausted. Beyond tired. So that's what I did and when I awoke I was ready for the next thing. She was right as much as I hated to admit it.

I guess my point in all this rambling is that as much as your friends might look out for you (and they do--as much as you'll let them), or as much as your employer may say they care about you (maybe they do), and as much as your family loves you (I'm sure they do), it's really up to you to take care of you. Sorry, but that's just reality. Good news is it works. I felt great that next morning like I could do almost anything.

Daydreaming

Spring seems far off, impossible, but it is coming. Already there is dusk instead of darkness at five in the afternoon; already hope is stirring at the edges of the day. ~Kathleen Norris, Dakota: A Spiritual Geography

I suppose I knew when I set the jar of wave-washed shells on the window seat in my office that one day far off in February I'd be looking at them in a longing sort of way, hoping, waiting, wishing hard for warm days. Those days are here and have settled in to stay. We've been teased and taunted by 70 degrees and I've had to watch my children run barefoot through the yard, in this gray February no less, knowing full well that the chill would return, the ice along with it and weeks more of winter. I am right now, finally wishing for the end of it.

I'm doing my best to avoid whatever plague it is that has struck my husband, and hoping to keep it from spreading through the house, dancing this yearly dance that we do with sickness. I listen to the stories from the kids about which of their friends were sent home with which unspeakable malady and how many others in their family are befallen with the same dreaded ick. "Wash your hands", is about all I can say and just hope to see the forsythia popping open soon.

"Key West" my husband says, will be our final answer. Key West is where we'll settle, or someplace like it. Somewhere warm. A place where clothing is light, swimsuits are daily attire and shoes are optional. But I always wonder if the winter doldrums can be felt there too or if there is some equivalent. I wonder if it's the rain that nags at people's sensibilities and makes them long for something else. Or is the sand a frustration or the salt air that destroys and corrodes or are they worth living with just for the temperate climate? I don't know, or won't at least for a good while, at this point I'll settle for the escape the dream offers, it's far better than complaining.

Rekindled

When he said he was going to start running again I nearly jumped out of my chair I was so excited. This was the final frontier of our marriage, I told him, the one last thing that we could do together that I thought we were missing out on, running.

When we met over 14 years ago he ran on average four nights a week, ate fast food as much as possible and had a fridge full of beer, you know, the life of a bachelor. As time went on, all of the above have practically disappeared, you know, the life of a happily married man. Even he will tell you that. But for reasons beyond this post the running is returning and I am a happy woman.

Our first foray out onto the trail went something like this:

me: "I love this! This is so great, I'm so glad you're doing this again, I love having someone to run with!" I blurted, bouncing along as we went.

him: "Yeah. Great." huff. puff.

me: "I mean, I know you're doing this for yourself and all, but I'm so glad you're taking an interest again in something I like to do, this is so much fun!!" leap! leap!

him: "Humph." plod. plod.

And that's about how those first couple of runs went, but as he's gone more and more the ease and natural grace of a former athlete has come back, the stride has returned and today we ran in quiet unison, headphones on, through the trail. A few surprise Rocky punches into mid-air for effect and some backward running purely for my amusement were the clear indication that at 40 we are far from old, dated perhaps, but the spirit of youth remains as we refuse to let it go. The only thing that made it better was hearing this song, at just the right point in the run, and that yes, there was nothing holding us back. A happy woman.

A changed perspective

Some Friday afternoons I think there's nothing better than holing up in my little office, the door slid closed, sitting in the window seat, music playing, making something new. The kids are settled, no homework, no busy schedule (usually), or at least there's typically a break in time before running back out on to the next thing. The still and calm are all I'm asking for, the time to myself, the time to breathe deep and settle in to the weekend, knowing the demands are temporarily are fewer, less urgent, or can just wait.

Things have changed of course, I'm not quite sure how I landed at exactly this place, but I know it happened gradually, largely without my being aware. Every once in a while I'm reminded of my age, my stage, where I really am. Working with many twenty-something-year-olds can be an ever-present reminder of how I fell asleep one day at 30, whirled around three times on the pregnancy merry-go-round which promptly spat me out 10 years later, back into another crew of twenty-something-year-olds who hold the mirror up to my age.

"What are you doing tonight?" one of them asked me one day at work, as if I had plans or something. (and on a weekday!)

I chuckled and started in, "Well, let's see, I get the kids off the bus, then it's homework, then one load of laundry after the next, you know the laundry never ends, then there's general child management which can involve nearly anything you want to name from conflict resolution to deep conversation to tickling to sports to friends and playdates or wiping tears, then meal preparation, lunch prep for the next day, back to the laundry, connecting with the husband, tending to household management, my business, life, dogs, chickens, the kids some more and then it's their bedtime and then more time with my husband and then my bedtime and it all starts over again the next day. Why, what are you doing?"

"Aggh! That sounds practically awful!" was his only response.

"Hmmm. Awful. It's never been awful. In fact, I wouldn't describe it ever as awful. It's really all I've ever wanted and all I still want. I love my family. I wouldn't trade it for anything. That's just the way things are." he was dumbstruck.

And I realize how thankful I am for that merry-go-round and how astonished I am at how it works its magic. If he's lucky, he'll step foot onto his own one day and he won't know what happened and that's probably the way it's really supposed to be, that is if you're very, very lucky.

Country life

These are the ratty, old coveralls I put on the other day so I could shimmy under the house to try to find the mouse that had died somewhere up under there. I did it partly on a dare, (husbands you know) but partly because I said I would, because I could, and because sometimes I like doing things I have no business doing as long as I know no one will get hurt. It's my chance to feel like a pioneer, a frontierswoman, you know way out here in the boonies, 5 miles from the suburban mega mall in my farmhouse, crawling through the dirt in a two-foot crawlspace under 80 years of timber and spiderwebs looking for rodent carcasses. Of course it was yucky, but then, what would you say you've done lately that really reminded you that you were alive? That's what I thought. And no, to answer your question, I didn't find a cotton pickin' thing.

Out and about

It all looks so different in winter. Cold, withdrawn, asleep. Even on a near 50 degree day, yesterday, which has suddenly turned into snow, sleet and ice today. Only a few short months to go and I can pry myself from the woodstove more often. How I love that woodstove.

The dogs could care less about woodstoves.



The cat on the other hand only ventures out on 50 degree days and stays plastered to the woodstove on others. She's 14 1/2. We'll allow it.

She and everything else seems to wish for the sun's return, even the chickens who are easily tricked by a light into laying.

I'm making plans to increase the flock,

the girls are almost two which I hear is nearing the tail end of their prime laying years. I suppose that could be good, or bad, depending on how you look at it. At any rate, some youngsters are in the works.



And since I can't bring myself to kill anyone (it's a bit early yet), you may just see them aging gracefully and dying the old fashioned way, as the new brood takes over laying. I expect some ruffled feathers. The henhouse can be a rough place.

However you look at it

From where I sit change is certain.

From where I sit I see good things all around. I only hope that at a time such as this, where we find ourselves standing at the begining of a new path, that what we want is truly what we need.

One thing is for sure, that if you told me twenty years ago what my life would look like today, I wouldn't believe you. And that's the truth.

My List

In a season where people often ask, "What's on your list?" I'd like to share my list of a different sort, things I'm thankful for this holiday season. Here goes...in no particular order

1. Time off (yay!)
2. gift buying, card sending completed a whole week early (first time ever)
3. tons of help from my husband :) #2 would otherwise not exist
4. my chickens started laying eggs again! their second winter they don't lay unless you trick them with a light to extend their daylight hours (thanks again to the hubby and daughters who rigged the light for me)
5. a babysitter that puts me totally at ease and fills the house with smells of Christmas baking and who has a mellowing effect on the kids (jaw drops open here)
6. my busiest and most successful Christmas knitting season ever (and I thought quitting the farmers market would be my downfall)
7. happy dogs
8. happy kids
9. happy marriage
10. the chance to bake way more than I need to, just because
11. an old friend hopefully moving back to town (fingers crossed!)
12. my ideal job, without it #1 wouldn't be possible either
13. friends
14. creativity. the kind that prompts my son to make a punching bag out of pillows with his friend, and my daughter to write a book so intriguing that her tablemates at school snatch it during free reading time
15. my other daughter's two front teeth
16. hope for the future. for changes coming, for hearts softening, reality hitting. for eyes lifting and a life that continually moves forward.

Is it over yet?

It has been one of those weeks. You know (those weeks), where so many things happen, big and little, stressful things, tiring things, exciting, good, confusing, mundane, exhausting things that by Wednesday you find yourself curled up and squished together in a big chair with your husband for a very long time watching the Blue Lagoon (of all movies) because there's nothing better on but you don't care and you don't want to move and all you need is to veg out. And it wasn't just me, it was him too and today just added to it all and he said he wished for seventeen Saturdays beginning tomorrow. One of those weeks.

But the good news is I made a new hat, and some booties to match, and they'll be up in the shop just as soon as I can snap some more good shots of them both. And the shop is doing well, folks are getting ready for Christmas, I see it every time a man buys a necklace from me. I know it's for his wife and I secretly love the way he's shopping for her from her list because I know he didn't find it by accident.

So here's to a happy Friday tomorrow, some curling up and squishing together time, some vegging out, and wishing for seventeen Saturdays to follow.

Little things, big things

I was sitting in the office, in the window knitting away and I heard the tractor start up. Normal. I watched as he drove slowly by me and noticed the auger attached to the back. Not normal. The auger is for big jobs. The auger is for digging big holes. I ran down the household "to do" list in my mind and nowhere on it was dig...big...holes.

He's up to something....

Then I remembered our conversation about the raised beds he'd like to put in the garden for next year. Great idea, weeds grow like crazeeeee out here, must be help from the cows who used to graze here for years and years. I pictured tiny little plots maybe 6' X 6' or something like that. This just goes to show what I've learned over the years of being married to this man: 1. when he sets his mind to doing something he does it well 2. he does it completely 3. he usually does it much bigger, more organized and well planned out than I originally thought.

This, of course is in direct contrast to the way I jump into projects with both feet before looking, get sidetracked half-way through and am then on to the next thousand things that distract me. Which is maybe why I started cleaning out the refrigerator in a dress 5 minutes before we left for church. Yeah, that's right. He made me stop. When we got home he took over. He emptied it completely out, scrubbed it down better than an operating room after surgery and I had to pinch myself when it was all over.

Why we like the country

1. There isn't a neighborhood association to tell you what you can and cannot do.
2. The outside is just as important as the inside (sometimes even moreso) and space to run and play is part of who we are.
3. It smells good.
4. Getting away from people forces you to figure out who you are. That's important.
5. I can tell the kids to "go outside and play" and not have to worry about them getting snatched.
6. It's pretty almost everywhere you look.
7. You can see the stars and have big bonfires and play baseball without smashing any windows.
8. The kids can ride their bikes without leaving home and without helmets like it used to be.
9. They know how to play with virtually nothing for hours and have a ball.
10. I can run without ever leaving home. Follow me.....

I start off at the tire swing and go past the tool shed,

across the slate path,

down the hill,

past the firewood,

by the dogs (hi dogs),

past the chickens (hi chickens),

up to the beanfield,





down the path that the man of the house cuts for me,

by the neighboring field,

dodging the deer tracks,

and past the newest brushpile waiting to be burned (hint: this is what yard waste looks like in the country),

into the trail through the woods,

past the old remnants of farm,

under the big branches,

and old cedars,

out into the clearing and past the neighbors,

saying goodbye to the summer's poison ivy (good riddance),

dodging the mine fields full of black walnuts that smell strangely like lilies in springtime,

past the old rusty farm implements left behind so long ago,

and the well-house-turned potting shed,

next year's garden,

crazy children,

and back up to the house where the cannas have forgotten it's November and are on their second bloom.

Around and around I go, over to the barn, out to the road, and back, and I feel awakened, alive and at home.