Gratitude
[In re-reading the post below, it sounds like such a cliché. Nothing I can say will make this experience sound new when it’s as old as time. But I will leave it as is and hope the intent will shine through the words that sound all too familiar to me.]
A few days ago I sat at my desk in the late afternoon, working quietly on a project. No interruptions, which is rare at my job at Sea Grant. The task was not quite mindless, but not complex enough to keep my mind fully engaged. As I finished another step and checked it off, something shifted. I watched myself holding the pencil, making the check mark. Time paused.
In that moment an absolute contentment settled over me. I was hyper-conscious of sitting quietly in a comfortable office, doing a simple job, and I perceived that to be so comfortable was to enjoy a profound grace. My gratitude for that grace was all-encompassing.
The moment passed, though the peace of it lingered. Since then, other moments have come and gone. Just now, looking out our kitchen window on a quiet Sunday morning, with Dave asleep upstairs and the sun blazing into our beautiful house, a flash came once again of hyper-consciousness and gratitude. I’m not sure what that means (although my imagination runs wild, as it is wont to do).
I do know that it is entirely too easy to go through life complacent, taking for granted all that I/we have. I take for granted that I have a warm house to come home to, plenty of food in the pantry. I take for granted that my life is so safe, so relatively untroubled. It is not that way for everyone.
But somehow, in that moment, and in the moments that have followed, it was not important to think of what others lack. That is not as cold-hearted as it sounds, although I don’t know how well I can explain. What I felt, in those intervals, is that it’s more important to be grateful, and to be still for a moment. The world needs grace and stillness. I can’t fix, all by myself, the hunger and fear, the lack, the darkness. But I can be grateful, and I can be still.
Not a sandbagger after all
Turns out I’ve misdefined and misused the term. I’d heard it in conversation, and I thought I understood it: A sandbagger was someone who really could push harder, but took it easy. Kind of a slacker, I guess. But a sandbagger seems to actually be a deceitful runner, someone who pretends to be slower or injured in order to gain an advantage.
So I suppose I should be insulted that I’ve been called a sandbagger, and I for sure would not call myself one. I don’t pretend to be slower just to gain some kind of advantage. Advantage over what? Over whom? It’s an amusing thought. But what am I, then? It seemed such a perfect term…
Chicken? Too conservative? Self-protective? A lightweight? Slacker? All of the above?
Probably. But I’m also someone who genuinely enjoys running, who loves being on her feet, who loves hills and pretty trails, who loves the feeling of clicking into a stride and the sensation of flying. I’m not running to prove anything or to be faster than anyone except myself. I’m running to see if I can do it. I’m running to go places, and to come back. (If I were a sled dog, I’d be called a come-home dog; I always come home faster than I go out.) I’m running because it’s a joy.
Still, there’s that little shadow. A friend has teasingly called me a sandbagger. Another friend has looked me over and commented—not unkindly—that with my build, it seems like I should be able to go faster and farther than I do.
Can I? It seems as if perhaps I should find out. I have persnickety knees to baby, but I can be careful. I can run from my core and keep that right hip sucked in and that right foot toed out. I can walk faster. I can do some little intervals on the uphills where normally I would just walk the whole way. I can add a wee bit of kick on the downhills. I’m not going to win my age class, not going to be able to run an entire 5K without stopping to walk. But there’s that Equinox Marathon calling my name, teasing me to try to finish a bit faster yet again.
I don’t want to turn running into a grind. But it’s kind of intriguing, this idea of pushing just a little bit more.
I had forgotten
I’d forgotten how easy it is to throw on shorts, shirt and shoes and go run.
Okay, it’s true that it took a while to gather everything. I made several trips up and down the stairs retrieving things. It may have been easy to get out the door; it wasn’t quick.
But oh, it felt so good to get OUT, to first walk and then run, to make my body move, to feel my lungs open up.
If I needed any proof that running dogs in the winter keeps me fit, how unfit I am now is all the proof I need. After the most sedentary winter I’ve spent in probably 23 years, with just a handful of times on the sled and almost no dog handling, either, I can sure feel it. Packing 5 extra pounds doesn’t help. (Yeah, that doesn’t sound like much… unless you weigh just 105 pounds to begin with.) I’m in serious need of exercise. My average speed over 2 miles was pretty darn slow. My heart rate went higher than it should have on a modest uphill. I got winded real quick.
But here’s the very cool thing, and this too I’d forgotten: It’s possible, even after months and months of not running, to still fall into that magical rhythm where you feel as if you could run forever. It’s possible to be completely, utterly content just padding along. It’s possible to imagine, after just a single run, going much farther than 2 miles, much longer than a half hour.
This is what two years of Team in Training has taught me: You can run longer than you ever dreamed, travel farther than you ever thought. I’m taking a year off from TNT to see if I can pour that belief into my writing. But I’ll keep running.
Tribute to a champion
The dictionary’s definition of champion is someone who has “defeated or surpassed all rivals in a competition.” But I have my own internal definition of what makes a champion, and it doesn’t require first place.
I blast off the starting line, mat down to keep the three yearlings in my 4-dog team from overrunning its nearly 11-year-old leader, Buddy. He and Talia are running flat out, and Minbar and Tada! are blasting down the trail behind them. I’m floored, watching Buddy. His tugline is ramrod tight, and we’re just flying down the hill. I suddenly wish for a GPS to track our speed.
Andrea said that Buddy would be okay with a fair amount of speed. Could he be this good? We keep on flying—down the first hill, around the curve, down the second hill, everyone’s tugline nice and tight. Then Talia has to poop. The first time, she just slows down. The second, third and fourth time are progressively worse, and she begins stopping each time. I’m too slow on the mat for one of her stops, and sure enough, Minbar and Tada! run past the leaders and Minbar gets her foot over Tada!’s neckline. She can’t get it back off, and I realize I’ll have to hook down to untangle her. The minute I lean down to set my hook, my sunglasses fog up completely. I fumble for Minbar, a dark brown blob through gray mist, and mostly by feel, I pick her up and shake her foot off the neckline. I run back to the sled, yank my neck gaiter down, pull the hook, and pray that my sunglasses un-fog. They do.
Off we go, flying again. Buddy is driving hard with his beautiful long lope. Little Talia, next to him, is running fast, but it’s Buddy setting the pace. And I’m standing on the sled, just eaten up with happiness to be running these dogs, to see Buddy so cranked up, to watch Tada! (my favorite yearling) barreling down the trail in front of me.
It’s only my second race this winter, and only my fourth or fifth time on a sled all season. None of my own dogs can race anymore, so I’m running Andrea’s Buddy and three of Bonnie’s yearlings. My first race, in the AARP division with all older dogs, was lots of fun but not particularly speedy. I’ve also been running a lot of rehab teams, mixed teams, slower dogs. Most of my runs in the past few years have been a test of psychology and footwork, babying young, slower, or injured dogs, keeping faster dogs from overrunning their teammates. It’s a challenge I enjoy. But it feels like it’s been a long time since I just plain went fast, and I fall into the pure bliss of it. I’m steering the sled the best I can, wishing I’d waxed it, loving the way the dogs are charging, savoring a kind of run I haven’t had in several years.
It will be 6 miles of bliss, one of the best runs of my life. Talia will get a little insecure once or twice, and Buddy will be her rock. About three-quarters of the way around, Buddy’s tug will briefly go slack a few times, but he will always kick back in. We’ll be so strong on the uphill coming home that I won’t dare kick, and I will just hunker down behind the sled yelling, “You guys are soooo good!” and, unabashedly, “I love you!” and especially, “Buddy, you are wonderful!” Buddy can’t always go fast up that hill. On this day, with three yearlings pulling hard to help him, he will travel every single step of it at a full lope.
I will marvel at Minbar’s gorgeous gait and tight tug, and I’ll laugh at Talia’s youthful confusion at the top of the hill. (The trail clearly goes left, but there’s this jumbled part that goes straight—should we go straight?) I will be so pleased with Tada!’s steady drive, even though her gait is not as clean and smooth as her sister, and I will be so grateful to have the chance to run her. I will be delighted beyond words that we’re going too fast for me to kick.
But it will be Buddy who will move me nearly to tears. He will drive for 6 full miles. On the very far side of 10 years old, with his eleventh birthday coming up in a month, he will bring us home to fourth place for the day and a respectable time for the distance, even with that stop to untangle Minbar. We will be a couple minutes off of first place. I’ll step off that sled as happy as if I’d won.
It wasn’t me pushing. I don’t get any credit for a run like that. It was Buddy pushing himself, like the champion he is.
For the love of a dog, part 2
“It came to me that every time I lose a dog they take a piece of my heart with them. And every new dog who comes into my life, gifts me with a piece of their heart. If I live long enough, all the components of my heart will be dog, and I will become as generous and loving as they are.”— Cheryl Zuccaro
On a few occasions, friends of mine have lost a really special dog and have said that they weren’t going to get another one. They said it was just too hard to think of ever going through that kind of loss again. I couldn’t understand it. I thought (and sometimes said), isn’t it better to have the dog, even if it means the pain? Aren’t the years of joy and pleasure worth the grief?
Now I wish I had been more sympathetic. At times over the past year I have thought seriously about not having any dog at all once my current four are gone. I think back to last winter and part of me wants to say, “Never again.” Too much of my heart got ripped out and carried over the bridge all at once. I wanted, still want, to protect what’s left. I no longer think there’s any shame, any weakness, in loving a dog so much that after losing her or him, you decide you’d prefer not to go through that again. I think of collapsing on the kitchen floor after my vet drove away with Storm’s body, of howls that ripped uncontrollably out of my throat. I could live without a repetition of that.
I also think of how wrapped up I had become in all things dog. I spent most of my free time in the winter on a dog sled. I spent a lot of time just hanging out with my dogs. Even when I wasn’t with them, I was thinking about them. The longer I hung out with them, the more conscious I became that they wanted more, needed more, than I was giving them. I believe that my yard dogs, on their chains, were relatively happy. I also believe they could have been happier. Some of them really wanted to be housedogs, an elevated status that only Storm and Trout enjoyed. Some of them hated the house, but they nevertheless wanted more of me, walking them or playing with them or just sitting and petting them.
A big chunk of my world revolved around my dogs. It wasn’t as much as some of them would have liked, but it was a lot. I don’t begrudge that time, that emotion, that dedication. But after last winter, I began to wonder if being dog-centric was what I wanted for the rest of my life.
The big question became, do I want all the components of my heart to become dog? (The quiet corollary to that: Would that really make me as generous and loving as they are?) And the big answer is, no.
Yet I will always love dogs. I will probably always love dogs too much. Am I a dogaholic who has to quit cold turkey? All about dog to no dog at all?
Willow jumps in my lap, eliciting an explosive “OOF!” as she punches my solar plexus with her front paws. She sinks down, shifts around to find the best way to cram herself into my not-very-substantial lap, and tips her head back for a neck scritch. I wrap my arms around her and find the particularly itchy spot just below her collar, and she stretches out her neck as far as it will go. Her head falls against me and her eyes close in bliss.
Do I really want to give this up?
When Willow goes, my heart will break again. In some ways, she and I are even closer than Storm and I were, although truly, comparisons between those two are neither fair nor meaningful. At least when Willow leaves me, she likely won’t be one of three. If I only have four dogs, and there are 5 years between the youngest and the oldest, statistics are in my favor that I won’t spend four months nursing three sick dogs at once and then losing them all, one by one.
In the meantime, I can shift my focus from many dogs to just a few, from dogs all the time to dogs some of the time. Maybe other things, like finishing my book about my little sister and starting to write a few new ones, will fill up some of the rest of the time. I’m not good at black and white—I can flash absolutes, but I have trouble maintaining them. Some of my heart is dog already, beyond retrieval. The pathological optimist says this: Someday I will have just one dog—and a heart that has non-canine parts to it.
For the love of a dog, part 1
“And the fox said to the little prince: men have forgotten this truth, but you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.” —Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author and aviator (1900-1945)
Trout jumps up from the hallway where he was sleeping. He has leaked while he slept. I am only half-dressed, but I leap too, running to the hall in my nightgown and urging him down the stairs to the basement door. Willow dashes along beside us, and out they both go.
The yard dogs, Pepper and Kluane, got to sleep in the house last night because of the subzero temperatures. They wake up and shake in their sky kennels as I run back upstairs to mop up the rug while the housedogs are relieving themselves. It’s not a big puddle, thank goodness. I head back downstairs, let Trout and Willow back inside, shoo them upstairs, then let out Kluane and Pepper. They run to the yard, do their business, and race each other back to the door. They bolt inside, tuck themselves back in their kennels—they have this one down.
Trout is getting old, and stock in paper towels is probably rising in value because of him. I join countless other dog owners who mop up after incontinent pets, who have an entire doggie drugstore in their cupboard, who wake up gratefully at midnight and think, “Oh good, I can let the dogs out now and that’ll let me sleep in till 6.”
Multiple marathons
It is the 17th of November as I begin this post, and ice fog blankets the valley below us. It is nearly 40 below in town, only 10 below at our new home. I won’t worry about the dogs this day, but I go into town reluctantly, wistfully thinking about the sunrise that will be beautiful and fog-free up on the hill.
When I signed up for my second year with Team in Training, sights set on my second Equinox Marathon, I was blissfully ignorant of the future. I thought training would be much easier this summer, now that I knew what I was doing. The idea of running the marathon again, with a year’s experience under my belt, was terrifically exciting. Dave and I were house-hunting, land-hunting, thinking about moving, but actually buying or building something was all in the realm of “someday,” a hypothetical exercise, a vague possibility. We were driving by a lot of houses, but we weren’t seeing anything we liked.
Who knew that in the middle of my marathon training, on our way to work one gorgeous July morning, Dave and I would detour past a home for sale and both say, nearly simultaneously, “Wow.” Who knew we would walk through the house that same afternoon, fall head over heels in love, and make an offer that very evening. In about 12 hours, buying a house went from some vague future possibility to an ohmygod reality. And closing was scheduled for a little over a week before the Equinox Marathon.
It’s said that moving ranks right up there as one of the top life stressors. Suddenly I was in two marathons. With the volume of stuff we’d amassed in disorganized piles all over the place, moving out would be anything but straightforward. Preparing the old house for sale would turn out to be a major undertaking as well.
And just to make sure I wouldn’t have it too easy, one more marathon shouldered itself onto the schedule. My coauthor and I were given a deadline of mid-October to complete our major revisions for the second edition of our book, Skijor With Your Dog.
The last month of training for my second Equinox Marathon is a blur. My mind was elsewhere much of the time. But the race itself is not a blur. For those 26.2 miles, I was only running a marathon. It was a gift of single-minded joy in the middle of an enormous amount of stress.
After the race, when I turned all my attention to moving and to the book revisions, getting both done seemed an insurmountable task. Even with the help of my amazing in-laws, who spent several days packing and transporting an appalling volume of stuff, there was too much to do and too little time to do it in. So I decided to look at it as another marathon. I would make it through the same way: step by step, not worrying about how far I still had to go, thinking only of the trail right in front of my feet, and knowing that I would finish. That method of coping wasn’t always successful. There were times I lifted my head and looked forward, and felt deeply discouraged. There were many seriously grumpy moments, and more than a few tears. I can take very little pride in my attitude, which often was negative and frustrated or impatient.
Turns out I like running the Equinox Marathon a whole lot more than moving. Turns out I’m a whole lot better at it, too. I loved every step of my races, both last year’s and this. I can’t remember a single moment of despair or discouragement in either one. I don’t recall ever snapping angrily at someone, or stalking down the trail in a complete funk, or thinking, “I can’t do this!” I do remember innumerable moments of delight.
I cannot say the same about moving. Even after we finished the book revisions, the stress and the frustrations continued apace. I am infinitely grateful that the Equinox is an annual event and moving (hopefully!) happens only every decade and a half or so. I am also infinitely grateful that I had two marathons under my belt before we moved. The transference was obviously imperfect. I could have done much better in the attitude department. But once one has gone 26.2 miles in a day, I think it becomes harder to say, “I can’t do this.”
It is now the 25th of November as I finish this post. This is how the whole fall and early winter has been, everything taking so much longer than it should. But I’m not a fast runner, either. I’ll get there. I can see the finish line.
Week 14
It’s the 14th week of our training for the Equinox Marathon. We’re supposed to run for four hours or 16 to 17 miles today (whichever comes first), and I’m jogging contentedly along the Sheep Creek bike path just a mile or two into the run. My knees have been giving me trouble, and I’m concentrating on something new I learned in an injury prevention clinic on Wednesday, “flying by my pelvic floor.” I’m trying to work from my abdominals, lifting up instead of crashing down on my legs, keeping my hips and knees aligned, running carefully so I don’t mess up that especially grumpy right knee. I think I’m doing well. The new technique is making my running pace a little faster, and I don’t know if that’ll have ramifications later on, but it feels comfortable. Things are going fine.
Uh, maybe not. A wave of deep fatigue begins to wash over me, and it doesn’t go away. I feel progressively more and more tired. My knee starts to twinge a little bit. I begin to worry about the force of this fatigue, so early in the run. What does it mean? My sense of well-being vanishes, replaced by worry, then discouragement. If I’m this tired after just a couple of miles, how am I going to complete the run? I’m not getting enough sleep these days, nor enough to eat. I’m worried about selling our house. There are boxes everywhere and total chaos in my living space. I’m worried about moving the dogs. I feel stretched so thin, and I don’t know how I will do it all.
Tears begin to run down my face. I feel so disheartened that I stop trying to walk fast, and my arms drop to my sides. I trudge along feeling sorry for myself. Okay, my mind says, snap out of it. Remember what our Team in Training mentors and coordinators have always said? If you’re having a rough time, think of those who have cancer and how much more they struggle with.
So I think about my little sister.
Jody’s face, drawn and white. Her soft, brown hair all fallen out, her eyes so dark and sad. Jody fighting for her life, and how unfair it was that such an extraordinarily good person would have to suffer so much. Okay, that was a huge mistake. Now I’m crying so hard I can’t breathe.
I see joggers coming toward me and dip my head, trying to hide my tears behind the bill of my ball cap. One of them is Liz Anderson, one of our Team in Training coaches from last year, and she says hi as she goes by, and I try like hell to muster up a smile for her. After she passes, I cry even harder.
My friend and mentor Andrea is somewhere up ahead of me, and for a brief moment, I wish she would suddenly turn psychic and wonder why I’m so slow and come back to me. But that’s silly. I’ve been self-reliant this whole summer, and she really would have to be psychic to think of checking on me. I’m on my own.
Little by little, the tears slow down and finally stop. I trudge a little faster. Coach Tracey is waiting with water at the pullout right before we head up Ester Dome Road, but I don’t need any. I stay on the far side of the road so she won’t see my red eyes and tear-stained face. She calls to me to ask if I have enough water, and I say, ridiculously, that I have about 40 liters left in my Camelbak. I mean 40 ounces, of course. She teases me because 40 liters would be about 10 and a half gallons. Blessedly, it makes me laugh, and that helps a little.
The climb up Ester Dome Road, and then the trail through the woods, are both long and miserable. I’ve been tired on this hill before, but I’ve never gone up without enthusiasm. Today I have little appreciation for the beautiful trail in the woods that I usually love, nothing but a determination to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I see aspects of the trail I’ve never noticed before, because I’ve always been focused on moving forward and upward, and I feel lost. The trail goes on forever and ever, and I almost hate it. But not quite.
A shot of raspberry gel, a bit of sunshine, the trail levels out. I might live. Tracey is at the intersection of North Henderson Road, where we’re supposed to turn away from the normal route and take Henderson back downhill, then meet up with the Equinox Trail again and follow it in to the finish. She says North Henderson is a beautiful place to run. I worry aloud about my knees on the downhill, and she says to just take it slow and I’ll be fine. She’s right on both counts. The road is pure loveliness, my knees hold up well with a gentle pace and my “pelvic floor” mantra, and my spirits begin to lift.
As the trail goes down, my mood keeps rising. Within a few miles, I’m back to (my version of) normal. I alternately run and walk toward the finish, feeling a reasonable, bearable kind of tired instead of the horrible fatigue of the bike path. At about mile 25 of the trail, mile 15 for me, Tracey is at another pullout. She breaks into a wild and crazy dance to encourage me on, and I am laughing so hard I can barely run.
The last mile is easy. Heading across the big field in front of the Student Rec Center, where the Equinox Trail will finish, I find a sprint inside me and fly to the parking lot as if I had just run a mile or two, instead of 16.
More things I’ve learned about running
(see blog post in May archives for #1-21)
22. Not having time to write about running means I forget too many good things.
23. It is surprisingly possible to run with a belly full of Kona Mocha Ice Rage.
24. Stretching after a run is a very good thing.
25. Honey Stingers work better for me than Sharkies.
26. The Camelbak Classic hydration pack is awesome for a small person like me. (Thank you, Jill.)
27. People can be generous far beyond one’s expectations.
28. It is not easy to see where you’re running when you have tears streaming down your face.
29. When you’re struggling, what may seem like just a small gesture of support can turn into an unimaginable kindness.
30. The Equinox start hill is not as steep as it was last year.
Being selfish
I get ready for our fourth TNT run on a hot, sunny Sunday morning. They’ve revised upward the predicted temperatures and pushed back the expected cloud cover to later in the afternoon, when it won’t do us any good. I pack my recovery food (Fig Newmans and sunflower seeds), pull out my water bottle, and plan for what may be a grueling workout. Between the heat and not sleeping well—as has become the norm for me lately—I am lowering my expectations for this 70-minute run. I just want to be out there, running or walking, matters not.
Right now, it seems to be all I can do for myself.
This year started out rough. My three oldest dogs became either sick or cold-sensitive last fall and winter. They needed a great deal of attention and care, and the only way to do so without quitting my job was to drain my annual leave. By early spring, I had zeroed it out. I’d also fallen behind on nearly every other aspect of my life. And that combination resulted in a couple of missed opportunities that are hard to take.
Two writer’s conferences coming up this year held great promise: The Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference in June and the Wrangell Mountains Writing Workshop in July. The first is loaded with professionals who might help me market the book I’d written about my little sister, and the second is in my genre of creative nonfiction and is led by Kathleen Dean Moore, someone I’d really like to meet and study under. But with no leave and so many other obligations, neither was to be.
Instead, I look ahead at a summer in which there is much to accomplish at home, much to do at work, none of it related to creative writing. There will be little time left over, and no extra annual leave, for working on my book or any other serious writing. I look at putting that side of me up on a shelf again, at least for the moment. My MFA behind me, there is nothing external to keep me in that world.
But I need something of my own. I could just give myself to the obligations that surround me, but I need a little bit of time to myself, a little bit of quiet, a little bit of contemplation. Funny how selfish that sounds to me.
This running, though it is for such a good cause, is nonetheless selfish. It gives me that quiet, it gives me something positive to focus on, it does not allow excuses or procrastination. I can’t seem to stand up for my writing, but I can stand up for training, in part because this selfish act is also raising money to fight cancer.
And it is no small thing that my running for TNT also asks me for at least this little bit of writing, this tiny drop in the bucket, that matters more to the writer than many could understand.
