Yesterday, a colleague from my college on the hill ran the Columbus Marathon. By a matter of seconds, her time wasn't good enough to qualify her, as she wished, for the Boston Marathon. But my husband and I were in awe at the athlete-strong time she finished this race with.
The night before, after going with a group of other colleagues to enjoy a wonderful performance of Ballet Met's Dracula (which is worth coming to Columbus just for that October treat), my marathoner colleague spent the night at our city home. We were up before dawn on Sunday so I could drive her to the nearby start of the 26-mile-plus race.
Once the event started, my husband, who ran a marathon at age 40, suggested that we walk to a spot in our small city where the marathoners would be running by so we could cheer her on. We leashed the dogs and set off at a fast pace but the marathon website was way behind in keeping track of her progress. By the time we got there we realized she had long passed us.
As I saw the hundreds of people racing by, I felt a little like weeping. With some surprise, I realized that I wanted to weep a little for myself, because I won't be running a marathon. The feeling lasted only for a few seconds and it's one of those rare moments of self pity I permit myself in a year.
More than a decade of near-experimental levels of medication to combat an evil disease took their expected toll and the bones in my knees have dead spots, which led my doctor to ban me from running. That was two years ago, when I was running up to 10 to 12 miles a week. Oh, well, as I say. I only have to remind myself that I am a medical miracle to place everything quickly into perspective.
Mostly, when I saw the runners pass us by, I wanted to weep a little for them, for the sheer physical heroics of the deed. Human heroics always make me want to shed tears (as does any animal show, too).
On the way home my husband re-told the funny (well, funny now) stories of what happened during his race, which I missed because I was home recovering from major surgery. Later, once we figured out when my colleague would be finished, I set off for the marathon finish line to meet her.
After some difficulty because of closed off streets and no available parking, I finally was able to edge my way to the finish line. Any encounter seemed miraculous because of the throngs of people that were there, but we finally met up. She was, as expected, in pain and exhausted, but she was alright, if much disappointed that she hadn't reached her goal for Boston.
Most of all, she was thankful and appreciative as she leaned on me for support and we walked slowly and gingerly back to the car. She had no family or close friends here for the marathon, so we were her stand-ins. My husband always says that complete strangers made him feel welcome in all of the Latin American countries he's visited, so he was glad we could pay it forward. I was glad, too, although it meant giving up a chunk of my precious dissertation-writing time.
As for my colleague, a tri-athlete who also cycles competitively, this was her sixth marathon. On the way home, I tried to cheer her up by putting things in perspective, reminding her of all that she has accomplished. But I don't think I did much good. And I can understand.
Ultimately, perspective is personal. For me, getting 3rd place in a 5K two years ago was the pinnacle of my physical achievement. For a sixth-time marathoner, who's already run Boston once, getting there a second time is the zenith.
I do admire her discipline and her perseverance and the fact that, on top of being a serious and successful scholar, she also trains herself as an athlete. She was sorry she didn't achieve what she set out to do but she didn't strike me as the kind of person who wallows in defeat. I was impressed with her resilience and her aplomb. And I got the sense that she was able to put things in perspective, finally.
A marathoner friend of hers, who was running the 26 miles despite a long-ago injured knee, almost didn't finish and told her, when they re-connected over the phone, that he had to walk backwards to the finish line to manage the feat. When she left our house, she was on her way to his house to cheer him up.
There's nothing better to take us outside of ourselves than to help others, and there's always someone out there who needs our support. Taking action outside of and unrelated to our selves, especially when it's not convenient for us, is the true value of perspective.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Leaves of color
These days, I like to get up close and personal with trees.My favorite past time is
walking under a blazing maple and looking up.
It's like being in a Wonderland of Color. It makes me want to giggle and twirl.
Getting up close and personal with leaves is also good.
They don't mind it.
They sway in the cool breeze and whisper.
They're not self-conscious about their radiant beauty.
And they're all together, regardless of creed or color.
Even looking at the ground is fun.
An embarassment of colors
Yesterday was one of the most beautiful days of fall I've had the fortune of seeing.
Thus, my husband and I took my little digital camera and we walked a few miles around my college on the hill, searching for color.
And we found it everywhere!
The sun was high and bright and the sky shone brilliantly blue. All the colors we saw were in sharp relief, almost neon-like in their radiance.
The blacks were blacker, the greens greener, the yellows and oranges sparkled, and the reds - oh, the reds! my very favorites - were blazing.
Even the shadows glimmered.Thursday, October 18, 2007
Safe - Part 2
Today I made a return of a kind. I returned to yoga.
After so many weeks (8 to be precise) of always having something to do on a Thursday evening, I finally organized myself well enough to leave the late afternoon class time open. And so I went to yoga. Hatha yoga, nonetheless. Once more, with feeling, as my mami would say.
My history with yoga is uneven, at best. Although I've tried to become a committed yogi, going two and three times a week to a yoga center and taking on Ashtanga with the same wide-eyed-and-bushy-tailed enthusiasm with which I embark on all my projects, all I got was muscle pains and sprains and the unshakable feeling that I was too short, too stumpy and too awkward to ever be a good yogi.
Plus, since I'm always living five years ahead of myself (in my mind's eye I'm already Dr. G and only months away from celebrating tenure), this "be in the moment" philosophy is basically alien to my psychic constitution.
I much more preferred trotting on the elliptical machine or cycling my heart out on an indoor bike or going to a choreographed weight-training class. But since I haven't been able to go to the gym for a while, I decided I'd try yoga again. Also, since a colleague teaches the class, I thought it would be supportive of me to go (and I was the only faculty member there, so I was glad for that).
Actually, I'm very glad for all of it. She is a careful teacher, who spends time explaining poses so one doesn't end up injured and hurting, and her pace was good. Maybe not as frantic as the Jane Fonda-aerobics-craze-trained part of me would like, but then, frantic isn't yoga, right?
The best part was that I rode my trusty old bike to the athletic center, riding up and down the hills of my small college on the hill (well, some hills I had to walk up, to tell the truth) and I arrived home sweaty, red in the face and exhilarated, and pretty relaxed (well, for me) after the yoga class.
The rains cleared out, the afternoon was gorgeous, the windows are open and the dogs and I are expecting my husband who's coming to visit. Could a day be any better? Not this day.
After so many weeks (8 to be precise) of always having something to do on a Thursday evening, I finally organized myself well enough to leave the late afternoon class time open. And so I went to yoga. Hatha yoga, nonetheless. Once more, with feeling, as my mami would say.
My history with yoga is uneven, at best. Although I've tried to become a committed yogi, going two and three times a week to a yoga center and taking on Ashtanga with the same wide-eyed-and-bushy-tailed enthusiasm with which I embark on all my projects, all I got was muscle pains and sprains and the unshakable feeling that I was too short, too stumpy and too awkward to ever be a good yogi.
Plus, since I'm always living five years ahead of myself (in my mind's eye I'm already Dr. G and only months away from celebrating tenure), this "be in the moment" philosophy is basically alien to my psychic constitution.
I much more preferred trotting on the elliptical machine or cycling my heart out on an indoor bike or going to a choreographed weight-training class. But since I haven't been able to go to the gym for a while, I decided I'd try yoga again. Also, since a colleague teaches the class, I thought it would be supportive of me to go (and I was the only faculty member there, so I was glad for that).
Actually, I'm very glad for all of it. She is a careful teacher, who spends time explaining poses so one doesn't end up injured and hurting, and her pace was good. Maybe not as frantic as the Jane Fonda-aerobics-craze-trained part of me would like, but then, frantic isn't yoga, right?
The best part was that I rode my trusty old bike to the athletic center, riding up and down the hills of my small college on the hill (well, some hills I had to walk up, to tell the truth) and I arrived home sweaty, red in the face and exhilarated, and pretty relaxed (well, for me) after the yoga class.
The rains cleared out, the afternoon was gorgeous, the windows are open and the dogs and I are expecting my husband who's coming to visit. Could a day be any better? Not this day.
Safe
I sit in front of my large picture window in the apartment in the woods, watching the rain of yellow and brown leaves that falls after the actual wet rain has passed.
I'm dissertating away with Mozart's horn concerto playing in the background and the tickle-dit-tick of my keys as its only accompaniment (except for Geni's interminable panting and Rusty's occasional snores).
Suddenly, I half notice an unusual lump of grayish color amidst the woody greenery and the darkening shadows of the forest on this rainy, fall day.
Closer attention reveals that a young buck, with tiny flesh-colored antlers sprouting from his forehead, is comfortably seated on the wet leaf-covered ground, under the shelter of trees, munching away and looking quite happy with his safe haven.
What a treat, I realize, to be able to observe him from such close proximity as he is seemingly unperturbed by or unaware of my presence, although the lights in my apartment must blaze against the near-twilight of the forest. But there he sits, becoming less and less visible as the shadows darken with the growing cloudiness of the day.
Last evening, as I got ready to close the curtains of my picture window, I caught a small fawn looking up, seemingly directly at me as it moved through the greenery outside. We looked at each other for a few minutes. It, interested and curious but ready to bolt, and I, spellbound and thankful for those precious moments of connection with the wilderness.
All is as it should be. I am here, working away at my dissertation and munching away, so to speak, at my ideas. There he is, pausing in his work of survival to take a break where he feels safe. The moment finds us both sharing the calm of having found shelter from the interminent and pelting rain.
I'm dissertating away with Mozart's horn concerto playing in the background and the tickle-dit-tick of my keys as its only accompaniment (except for Geni's interminable panting and Rusty's occasional snores).
Suddenly, I half notice an unusual lump of grayish color amidst the woody greenery and the darkening shadows of the forest on this rainy, fall day.
Closer attention reveals that a young buck, with tiny flesh-colored antlers sprouting from his forehead, is comfortably seated on the wet leaf-covered ground, under the shelter of trees, munching away and looking quite happy with his safe haven.
What a treat, I realize, to be able to observe him from such close proximity as he is seemingly unperturbed by or unaware of my presence, although the lights in my apartment must blaze against the near-twilight of the forest. But there he sits, becoming less and less visible as the shadows darken with the growing cloudiness of the day.
Last evening, as I got ready to close the curtains of my picture window, I caught a small fawn looking up, seemingly directly at me as it moved through the greenery outside. We looked at each other for a few minutes. It, interested and curious but ready to bolt, and I, spellbound and thankful for those precious moments of connection with the wilderness.
All is as it should be. I am here, working away at my dissertation and munching away, so to speak, at my ideas. There he is, pausing in his work of survival to take a break where he feels safe. The moment finds us both sharing the calm of having found shelter from the interminent and pelting rain.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Stopped time
Tonight, the beautiful wall clock that my husband's best friend gave us as a wedding gift more than 13 years ago stopped dead on its tracks.
Thinking it was the battery, my husband changed it, but the clock still refused to tick tock. In the hope that it was a bad battery, my husband then tried all the AA batteries around the house. But none would stir the beautiful wall clock back to life.
"I guess that the lifetime of this clock was 13 years," my husband said.
There's something very sad about losing a clock that has been such a fixture of our life together. I know of no clock doctors I can rush it to for attention, no clock hospitals that might resurrect its once loudly tick-tocking heart.
There's something very sad about a clock that stops for good. The silence is so final, so unappealable, so like death.
I will miss that beautiful wall clock very much, not least because of the ugly blank space it now leaves on the wall above the mantelpiece, where it was such a welcome sight for me each morning, each afternoon and each evening.
The beautiful wall clock even crossed the Atlantic when we moved our entire household from Puerto Rico to the Midwest, and it has been a faithful companion of this marriage for our shared lifetime.
Because of its untimely death, I will rage against the dying of its tick-tock. My purpose now is to find a clock fixer, somewhere, and bring the beautiful wall clock back to life someday somehow someway.
There are some deaths that aren't always final. There are some times that need not be stopped forever.
Thinking it was the battery, my husband changed it, but the clock still refused to tick tock. In the hope that it was a bad battery, my husband then tried all the AA batteries around the house. But none would stir the beautiful wall clock back to life.
"I guess that the lifetime of this clock was 13 years," my husband said.
There's something very sad about losing a clock that has been such a fixture of our life together. I know of no clock doctors I can rush it to for attention, no clock hospitals that might resurrect its once loudly tick-tocking heart.
There's something very sad about a clock that stops for good. The silence is so final, so unappealable, so like death.
I will miss that beautiful wall clock very much, not least because of the ugly blank space it now leaves on the wall above the mantelpiece, where it was such a welcome sight for me each morning, each afternoon and each evening.
The beautiful wall clock even crossed the Atlantic when we moved our entire household from Puerto Rico to the Midwest, and it has been a faithful companion of this marriage for our shared lifetime.
Because of its untimely death, I will rage against the dying of its tick-tock. My purpose now is to find a clock fixer, somewhere, and bring the beautiful wall clock back to life someday somehow someway.
There are some deaths that aren't always final. There are some times that need not be stopped forever.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Nothing better
On this lovely fall morning of all of 37 degrees, I'm flushed and sweaty and exhilarated. I'm also inwardly celebrating the great idea of having brought my $14 flea-market-find bike up to my small college on the hill.
There's really no better place than this one to ride around on a bike, especially because you can leave the bike anywhere and it'll be right where you left it when you return.
That's unlike anywhere I've ever lived, where I've usually had to factor in heavy locks and chains to protect the bike, and even then there was no guaranty that it would be there when I got back. That's not the case here, for sure.
I remember a bicycle that spent all of last year parked, unchained, next to a light post on a hilly road near my apartment complex. The bike changed positions each week. One week it was parked on one side of the street, another on the other. I heard that maintenance personnel moved it out of their way each time they had to do work on the road. But the bike basically remained undisturbed and unclaimed for an entire year.
It wasn't there when I returned this fall so either the owner finally reclaimed it or somebody decided that it was abandoned and took it or the maintenance people got tired and threw it away.
After determining that this chilly fall morning was perfect to give the bike a run, I set off to pick up the organic eggs I buy from a biology professor who has a farm near the college and to the library to collect another mountain of dissertation-related books. Well layered under my comfy fleece hoodie, goofy-looking helmet secured on my head and large backpack ready, I set off into the brisk cool morning and absolutely loved it.
True, the library wasn't open so that errand has to be postponed until later today but I can feel the endorphins dancing salsa in my blood so I'm sure to repeat the feat as many times as I'm able this year, while the good weather lasts. I'm already thinking that one of these Saturday mornings I'll take the bike for a longer ride around the nearby hills, to see what I see. And I always have next year, too.
I've never been much of an athlete (well, I've never been an athlete at all) but I have always appreciated the value and the endorphin kicks of working out. And, actually, there's really nothing better for improving the outlook of a grayish fall day that kicking those endorphins into high gear.
There's really no better place than this one to ride around on a bike, especially because you can leave the bike anywhere and it'll be right where you left it when you return.
That's unlike anywhere I've ever lived, where I've usually had to factor in heavy locks and chains to protect the bike, and even then there was no guaranty that it would be there when I got back. That's not the case here, for sure.
I remember a bicycle that spent all of last year parked, unchained, next to a light post on a hilly road near my apartment complex. The bike changed positions each week. One week it was parked on one side of the street, another on the other. I heard that maintenance personnel moved it out of their way each time they had to do work on the road. But the bike basically remained undisturbed and unclaimed for an entire year.
It wasn't there when I returned this fall so either the owner finally reclaimed it or somebody decided that it was abandoned and took it or the maintenance people got tired and threw it away.
After determining that this chilly fall morning was perfect to give the bike a run, I set off to pick up the organic eggs I buy from a biology professor who has a farm near the college and to the library to collect another mountain of dissertation-related books. Well layered under my comfy fleece hoodie, goofy-looking helmet secured on my head and large backpack ready, I set off into the brisk cool morning and absolutely loved it.
True, the library wasn't open so that errand has to be postponed until later today but I can feel the endorphins dancing salsa in my blood so I'm sure to repeat the feat as many times as I'm able this year, while the good weather lasts. I'm already thinking that one of these Saturday mornings I'll take the bike for a longer ride around the nearby hills, to see what I see. And I always have next year, too.
I've never been much of an athlete (well, I've never been an athlete at all) but I have always appreciated the value and the endorphin kicks of working out. And, actually, there's really nothing better for improving the outlook of a grayish fall day that kicking those endorphins into high gear.
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