Original Idea

Originally, my plan included the use of this blog to work out the ending of my memoir. Which way did I want to go, what story did I want to tell, was I brave enough to tell all, not sure of the lessons learned because I realized the ending had to be an organic process (god, I hate that term) and I was still at the point of no ending for my story.

Then I got to thinking, does this world need another memoir, another story about a life, how many more memoirs will be published, isn't it about time the memoir trended out of favor with publishers.

What about the book industry? Massive changes could be made in the next few years with the growing popularity of electronic reading. Where do I fit with all of this?

As for the running thing, where I live, it has been a time of heat advisory, and that is excuse enough not to run right now.

Accent on the Ascent implies their is a descent as well. Is this just another application of dualism? Is this just another way to look at one thing...which is just simply life?

Art as Life! What a concept! My friend DonJon Vonavich employs it daily. He, my friend, walks his talk. Snubbing his nose at dualism, all life is art for him.

My goal is to now become a film maker. I am starting on a new journey with old content. I will be making movies using poetry from my first book, NEVER OFFER A CHAIR TO A DANCING GIRL. Watch for movies about addiction, loves lost, wandering and mangos.

It is close to the end of July, and it is the fifth pass of the Uranus Saturn opposition that started in the Fall of 2008. For some, the word fall does include both meanings. What have you changed since then? What more is there to be done? I have my goals, but I don't seem to pay them much mind.

Prison of Culture binds the ages together and fits of rage carry on as protectors, how many more bombs must be dropped before we as a human race remember that we are all one.

Rain

Spring's arrival won't be for eight days, and the weather is finally warming up. The last two and a half months brought the south-east cold snow & ice, day after day. I continue to accent on the ascent, but this is what I have done my whole life. I can not think of a time when I didn't anticipate growth. This is what spring fever brings us, anticipation of growth. However, I am reminded that if I am anticipating, then I am not in the present moment.

I continue to run, though a daily practice has its challenges. Christmas Eve Day I tried to run, but I didn't make it to the highway. I had a stomach virus which lasted a couple of days and plenty of fatigue left my reserves depleted. There ended my long stretch of daily running.

On Boxing Day, my personal life shifted to include a significant other; I started dating. I found that personal choices and prioritizing what I do with my time became a focus. I questioned if I should go for a run and leave my new lover in bed asleep, only to wake up later with me gone. What kind of signal would that cast, what kind of assumption could be guessed at an empty bed when he opened his eyes. "My God!" I thought, "is this the start of codependency?"

I stayed with running over the last two-and-a-half months, even when the cold air knifed my lungs and brought asthma to my challenges. I remember when it happened, I started out in a fifteen degree temperature and by the time I hit the highway, my lungs felt as though they had been hit with an ice pick. That is when the heavy panting started. I needed to be judicious with my running. If I had a chance to come back home in the afternoon to run instead of early in the morning when the temps were colder, I did.

As I dealt with the cold, I also had to address my allergy to animal dander. Cats bring on my asthma, my new boyfriend has a great, very loving, demands to be petted cat. I could no longer host my denial, and I went to the doctor. He gave me steroids and a fresh prescription for an emergency inhaler.

Through the years, I have noted how inner-life reflects outer life...as my challenges with breathing continued, I noticed how I sucked air while I ran mirrored my car's oxygen intake. The check engine light came on the dashboard of my Pontiac Vibe, and the mechanic reported that the computer code read bad oxygen sensor. This improper working part affected the oxygen mixture. Wow, did that diagnosis sound familiar, who knew? A month after fixing the part, the check engine light came back on. Same diagnosis, it is a bad oxygen sensor. The mechanics never replace the part, but switched off the light. Two months later, the check engine light comes on and flips off at whim. Just like my asthma symptoms, wheezing at whim.

The long dark winter with the frigid cold brought lots of ice...and did I mention the snow? Yes, the coldest, snowiest winter in the last decade. I ran in the snow, while it was snowing, and I hopped over the snow drifted onto frozen ice. There were days this winter when I really wanted to go run for a two mile loop and could not get across the parking lot without slipping on my behind three times. I found myself, once again, being judicious with my decisions on when to run: If there is a chance of falling due to icy conditions, do not run!


Today, it is raining. I haven't run in six days. I came down with a head cold heavy-laden with symptoms. I did watch bad daytime television, ate lots of food and used up three boxes of tissues. I had two sessions with clients scheduled today, but one canceled due to having a 'bad head cold'. At least this afternoon, I will finally venture out and go back to work.

The time changes in a couple of days, but I have been practicing the change in my mind for the last week. When I wake up, I remind myself that in one week, it will be one hour earlier. I keep reminding myself all week so the one hour spring forward won't be such a jolt on my system. And now, in this moment, as I re-read my last three sentences, I am reminded of the word "anticipation" anticipating the time change is a future thought...Now, I sink into the present moment.

Running in the Dark

Here I go, it is 7:30pm the night after the winter solstice 2009, and I lace up for a run. I notice my posture is getting even stronger and my breath is equal to my pace, and it is dark while I run. The waxing moon high over Jupiter with misty clouds which damp down the light. I remind myself that in six months, the sky will be lit with sunlight. Then, I will be reminding myself that in six months the sky will be dark. Another cycle, another year, and I just assume I will still be running.

Tonight, I am hungry and tired. I worked a full day with clients. I still run. But tonight, I only run one mile. I have not run just a single mile in several weeks, if not over a month. I got home, and I noticed the washing machine was still washing. I looked at the digital display and thought, "Shit! I only ran for a lousy twelve minutes or less???? What??? I need to get back out there and push it!!!!"

Then, I had a moment of clarity. A moment when I realized that I just ran a twelve minute mile, and I am not even winded. I am not even sweaty! Just two months ago, running this same mile was over a twenty minute ordeal of wheezing, panting, leg cramping, and dire straights. In just two months, I have shaved over eight minutes off of one mile of run time, and I didn't even push myself the whole way.....WOW....Who Knew?

Who knew I could do this, who knew I would want to keep running through hang-overs and menstrual cramps. I am embarrassed at how many hang-overs I have had since starting to run, and yet I keep on running.

I think about how I wrap up in a scarf and big fleece sweatshirt with a hood. I think about the knit hat I wear to keep warm in the cold winter weather. I am glad the bulk hides my figure. I think about what it will be like to run in hot weather with less clothes, and I wonder what I will wear when it is over one-hundred degrees with the humidity.

I am thankful I started training in the cold weather when it is dark, less people can see me, as if they care, as if I care. This will be interesting to watch and wait to see what will become of me.

Rest

A couple of days ago, I did not want to run. My mind complained about being tired while my body moved through obligatory quadriceps and hamstring stretches. My mind acquiesced to the stretches for the piriformis and other lateral hip rotators. My mind still made a case for not running this morning while I laced up my shoes. My mind reminded my fingers to tie the laces tighter than yesterday, and then it went right back to the "no run day" dialog.

It is like I went though a systems over-ride. Some unexplainable force took control, an over-ride of my mental chatter, and I went for a run. My mind wondered what happened, where did I expect to run today, not the hills, no way...too tired for the hills. My body trudged up the hill, down the next, up another hill, down a steep grade. I turned around at the bottom of the hill and started back up the steep grade down and up again.

My mind said to stay straight, but my body turned to the right and up another hill on the side road. My mind pointed left at the first cross-road, but my body kept pacing forward. My mind said to turn on the next side road, and my body kept moving ahead. Finally, my body turned for home, and my mind rejoiced. My body then turned on to another side road, it planned to go for another mile. My mind, shocked at the decision, protested. My mind gained back the controls to the body systems, turned into a cul-de-sac and pronounced that we are headed for home.

Yesterday morning, I got up early to go for a run. By the time I was out the door, the weather had turned. It poured rain, and my spirits were dampened. It was a cold rain, the type of rain that brings the cold and flu. I shivered and closed the door, my body's desire to run frozen. My mind said the word, "Rest."

My body asked, "Stretches?"

My mind answered, "Rest."

My body asked, "Can we run tonight when we get home from work?"

My mind compromised, "Yes."

As the day progressed, my body kept up the anticipation of a nice little after work run. However, by the time I drove home, my body was tired. My mind wondered if the body had just caved in or if the body had caught the mind's fatigue, like a virus or bacterial infection. My mind wondered if it could actually pass on the infliction of fatigue.

My body asked the mind if we could skip the run tonight...my body wanted to go to bed. My mind went over to the calendar where I mark run days with a green highlighter and no run days with an orange highlighter. With a tinge of sadness, I marked the nineteenth of December with an orange dash.

I set my alarm for the next morning, in order to run before work. I rose early, drank some coffee and started writing instead, this blog to be exact. At this moment, I sit hear at my desk and over my head is the sky-light looking out to the eastern sky showing gray light. My ears register drops of rain and sleet hitting the slanted roof-top window.

My body says, "It sounds cold outside. Can we run when we get home from work?"

My mind looks at the calendar and remembers that since we started running fifty-nine days ago, we have no double orange days marked on the calender. Tomorrow stands as a two month marker for this change in lifestyle I acquired.

My mind looks at the clock, and I have run out of time. I need to leave for work.

25 degrees: This Week's Running Theme

"If it were just five degrees colder!" That is what my friend Julie said to me while walking in downtown Boise. I met her in college while at Boise State University. She hailed from New Orleans and the cold weather seemed so foreign to this southern gal who had no trace of a Louisiana drawl.

Julie claimed feminism as her religion, and we together acknowledged the cardinal seasons like good aspiring pagans. We met Sunday's for breakfast. She taught me to drink French roast coffee with chicory. One morning I asked her to give me a hair cut. She had no comb or sharp scissors, but instead she used the tines of a fork and pinking shears. The zig-zag cut gave interesting texture and shape to my wavy locks, and I thought she was brilliant.

The outside temperature Julie loved the best hovered at twenty-five degrees. This last week, most every day I ran in twenty-five degree weather. Sunny, mild, cloudy, windy, dark, and at sunrise with heavy frost, my lungs breathed in cold air while I went on my daily run. Though, I did miss a day of running. It was on Tuesday when it rained about two inches. I did not feel like running in a deluge, I did not feel like running between the bands of gulf moisture, I did not feel like sopping up greasy road spray from passing cars. But, when the front passed through, twenty-five degree air, Julie's favorite temperature, found its way into my nostrils.

While running in the cold December weather, I keep thinking of Julie, my friend from twenty-five years ago. I wonder where she is, if she is still singing and playing her guitar. I wonder if she still likes the cold weather, and if she still cuts hair.

Day 45

Twenty-seven degrees outside, it is 6:30 am, and it is first light. I wrap my purple Shiva scarf around my neck twice, over that I add my snowboarder sweatshirt, and top my head with a stocking cap as I go for a run. I top the first hill, and I start laughing. I am experiencing joy. I am having a hard time believing that I am running this early in the morning and this cold in the morning, and I am feeling joyful for it. I plan on jogging the long route today. I am feeling good, not like yesterday when leg cramps cut my run to a mile instead of the longer two point five mile route. My breath is strong and my body is in a good rhythm and pace. Everything is going great! I circle around Bellevue Road at about seven tenths of a mile in to my plan, and then I had to pee. I realize my morning run would not be the two point five miles, and I would be lucky to make it home without wetting my pants. With every jarring step, I feel a splosh in my lower abdomen. I push my way back up the hill, making my steps even, concentrating on grace, not to swash my bladder too much. I thought I could go a little farther, but the urgent call of nature is too great to ignore. I sprint for home.

Domestication

People ask me, "Do you have any pets?" Often when a new guest is in my home eventually the question arises, "Where's the cat?" When I get asked the question about the cat, I ask back,"Does it smell like a cat?" People just assume I fit the stereotype. Single woman, into the healing arts, with a bookish air, earth-motherly type of woman should automatically have at least one cat on premises. Not so. Not in my house. I have allergies. Asthma to be exact. Constant breathing problems would plague me if I were to have a cat or a dog. Everyone deserves to breathe. I choose not to have fish. I do not want to clean the tanks out. I do not want a turtle. No to reptiles. No to rodents of any flavor. Basically, I do not want to clean up someone else's shit. I think about a bird, and then I look outside. Seven doves perch on the ground under my patio table and chair set. A chipmunk sits on the round of wood and cleans his face in the morning sun. A red male cardinal and his tawny mate frolic as their two beaks meet in a kiss. Mocking birds land on the umbrella as they jump to the fence and feeder. Jays circle in, and sometimes the woodpeckers poke around my back yard. I sit at my dining table and watch squirrels move in death defying contortions in order to reach the suet and meal cakes that hang in a green mesh cage. Goldfinches and purple finches flock at the feeder with their families a few hours before dusk. Innocent titmouse twins peck away at the millet looking for peanuts. Junkos, sparrows, wrens, and thrashers scratch the dirt border between the golden oregano and the muscadine vines. I buy the birdseed and keep the feeder stocked. I keep fresh water in a copper dish set on the aggregate patio. I watch the cardinals drink from it, not to mention the chipmunks, squirrels, doves and red wasps. I sweep the sidewalk clean, and I pick up the empty sunflower shells. I tend to these wild creatures. If I have neglected to supply the feeder, the birds squawk in a relentless banter. Once the feeder is full, the twitter changes. The birds song becomes a charge of revelry. One more thing about feeding the wild birds and animals...I still have to clean up the droppings.