Monday – endurance run, 1 hour. Tuesday –speed work, 40 minutes. Wednesday – strength run, 1 hour hill repeats. Thursday - endurance run, 1 hour. Friday – off day. Saturday – long run, 2 hours. REPEAT AD NAUSEUM…..
There’s no reason for my hiatus from writing other than running doldrums. So much of what I write, whether thoughts in my journal, papers for school, or this blog, is discovered on runs. Ideas are not usually uncovered on leafy sidewalks, but rather mentally sieved until something meaningful remains. By the time I return to my driveway, I have a nugget of a story. The problem is that lately, I have been leaving my driveway with a severe case of the “blahs”…with little exuberance and curiosity. This isn’t my normal self. I’m the girl who’s over- the- top excited when I have a five dollar Publix coupon, when my boys lift the toilet seat, when I have time to cut my fingernails, or when my neighbor rolls my empty garbage cans up to the door. I’m happy with the little things, but lately, I’m in a funk.
A few weeks back, I admitted to my friend Skye (actually, I huffed the admission on a 7:30 pace home stretch) that I don’t have what it takes to qualify for Boston, or what it takes to run a 3:30 marathon. I complained that it seems to come easier for everyone else…speed, that is. In her sweet, matter of fact way, she replied, “Of course you can…it’s all mental!” And that was it…nothing more to dwell on, no discussion about my 400m splits or my breathing on long runs. Skye is a beautiful runner. In the words of Kristin Armstrong, she can fly out the gates like a whipped horse just because it’s Wednesday. I wish I could borrow some of her raw athleticism. Fortunate for me, Skye is also kind and wise, and wouldn’t hold a negative confession against me. The truth is that the mental part of marathon training is also the most critical and rigorous part, and ….NONE of us are exempt. My bland mental state has been encroaching on my training and my writing. There’s really nothing more to dwell on though… it’s time to displace boredom and negativity with wickedly physical runs…it’s time to start writing.
On a warm afternoon this week, stirring lentil soup, spoon in right hand, book in left, I read the words:
“It’s the life in between, the days of walking lifeless, the years calloused and simply going though the hollow motions, the self protecting by self distracting, the body never waking, that’s lost all capacity to fully feel – this is the life in between that makes us the wild walking dead.”
I had to sit down to let the words settle. It was too hot for soup, and I’ve been in a lukewarm state of mind for too long. The minute I became a mother, I started fighting the “in between”, the empty nothingness of folding laundry that would be in the dirty clothes basket the next day and of cleaning bathrooms that would lose their mountain breeze scent one pee pee accident later. I can’t think of anything worse than a Sisyphean task (remember Sisyphus, the mythological Greek king punished to roll a boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down again, and repeat this for eternity?). I’d take Alcatraz over endless and unavailing work.
Spring has drifted off and June’s heat has wilted my favorite blooms. Even the early morning is overtaken by motionless, dense heat. The lazy pace of the summer day is only broken by peals of my children’s laughter, by the vibrant green plate of cucumber slices, and the vase of foxglove blooms by the sink. I love flowers by the sink…these one’s cream and scarlet flecked…are beauty every time I come to the tap for water. Medicinal blooms for a “blah” heart and mind.
It’s these little things that will push me past a stale state of mind, get me back to the spirited person I really am. I decided to not filter the little things out, and for the rest of the day make a mental list of all the little things I already have, all the little things I’m thankful for. After all, it’s thankfulness that changes the heart, soul, and expression of a person. Here’s my list so far:
1. Freshly baked sweet bread loaded with butter.
2. Creek in my mother’s knees when she lowers herself onto the floor to play with my boys.
3. Snakeskin wedges I haven’t worn since I’ve had children.
4. Riding four-wheelers on dad’s farm with the boys tucked in against my chest.
5. Text message from Laura Leigh.
6. Friend calling his wife princess as he joined her in the pool.
7. Nose to nose in the dark.
8. Faint aroma of newly cut wood.
This is it…I smile. I surprise myself how I smile. These are all common, small things in my “in between” moments. But when I write them, they look like little gifts. Little black and white scripted packages that hold a world of color, smells, sounds, and feelings. And the act of writing them down is sort of like unwrapping gifts…lovely gifts that banish the monotony of an ordinary summer day.
