I spend my evenings after work running up the hills by my house. It’s the best release I can find. I’ve been running since I was in highschool. Somtimes I take breaks, like six-month breaks, but I always come back.
Music helps me open up on the road. I don’t need fast music, just good music. My first soundtracked run was thanks to my mom who bought me a tunebelt (below). I would record music from the radio on a blank tape and create the perfect running mix for my portable cassette plater.
Eventually I graduated to a skip-free CD player. I still have it.
Now I run with my ipod, around my arm. Snazzy. A big, foam tunebelt wrapped around your waste can really slow you down.
After all these years, I’ve created an unofficial soundtrack to my running endeavors.
top running albums
- Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Stadium Arcadium
- Rilo Kiley, More Adventurous
- Santana, Greatest Hits
- The Shins, Wincing the Night Away
- Travis, The Boy with no Name
- Ben Harper, Both Sides of the Gun (disc 2)
- Coldplay, A Rush of Blood to the Head
- The Decemberists, Hazards of Love
- Loch Lommond, Paper the Walls
- Ryan Adams, Easy Tiger
top running singles
- “You are the Best Thing”, Ray Lamontagne
- “Rain Down”, Phil Collins
- “Just What I Needed”, The Cars
- “Run”, Collective Soul
- “Linger”, The Cranberries
- “Lo Que Paso, Paso”, Daddy Yankee
- “Rafe”, Fauxliage
- “Magic Man”, Heart
- “American Woman”, Lenny Kravitz
- “Love Like a Bomb”, Oasis
- “Can’t Stand Loosing You”, Sting & The Police
- “Hips Don’t Lie”, Shakira
- “Abracadabra”, Steve Miller Band
- “Garden Grove”, Sublime
- “Africa”, Toto
- “Handshake Drugs”, Wilco
And… we’re moving. MOVING, moving.
As we prepare to go cross country, many emotions come to the surface
excitement
anxiety
guilt
gratitude
I’ve been going through life robotically; in a deep fog of what I imagine next to be. Last week I was trapped in my classroom through all breaks, barred from the outdoors on behalf of the rain, breathing shared air by twenty or so kids. Where am I? In my head. I am wondering, “really?”
And I know many people have moved and even more have traveled. We entrusted ourselves to God when Charles lost his job, refusing to see it as anything less than opportunity. So why then am I so surprised? Why do I hold my breath? If anything I should take a running start to the edge, ready more than anything for the wind to collect in my sails, to carry me onward and upward as I smile into what lies before.
I just love whole food.
The greatest glory is to reach up to a branch and pick your fill. On the ranch I stole away into the fields and made myself sick with fresh fresh vegetables.
On most days, a couple of oranges on a plate is the best dessert I can treat myself to.
Set my phone to vibrate and tuck it under my pillow. I know others will hate to wake as early as I will. And, I want don’t want any conspirators. This is a planned treat just for myself. Black as night is where I’m headed, in the first hours before the cock crows.
This morning I’ve claimed, the morning after, bloated and dazed in my bare feet I venture to the coffee pot, the first thing I will always do. Typically offering very little for the hung over and undigested, I plan on feasting on solitude in the most unlikely of mornings.
As a little girl being first awake was a delicious thrill– time without anyone saying what I should do, or commenting about the amount of sugar in my cereal.
This morning it is still a thrill– time without my own voice saying what I should do because, afterall, the day has begun and the people are out and busy and life is short: Should. Do. But in this dark morning, the day HAS NOT begun and therefore I can do and be anything I like without guilt. Without shoulds.
Sip my coffee.
Comb my hair.
Wait for the rising sun.
In these hours without hours I am strong, I do what I please.
I enjoy. It is quiet. I partake.
It is soft falling snow, no time, just drifting with lonely gratitude.
I went Christmas shopping and I liked it.
I really like picking out gifts for people and the whole experience made me feel right. Maybe I needed to lay all of the pressures aside and just go be me in an attempt to bless others.
I am tired and wondering how to find relief from obligations such as Christmas shopping. I read this article from some .org site that suggested we buy only gifts others would like to receive. I’ve been thinking about that for a few days.
I don’t even like the concept of “Christmas shopping,” a peculiar type of shopping designated for a strained season of expectations and pressure. Wishing today that we could enjoy Christmas without the stress of “I have to’s”.. in it’s original form.
“I have to get up early so I can beat the crowd because I have to buy my sister a Christmas gift.”
Back when or in places where people didn’t buy, receive, shop or have very much I am sure Christmas gift-giving was much more interesting, exciting and less forced.
I want my experience to be natural and heart motivated. Maybe then I will be able to enjoy The Holiday for what it truly is. The struggle lies in that it is a counter-cultural attempt to simplify a holiday that is today, at it’s core, about the self. Your circle must really be on board with you. Guilt and shame play too much a role in our society for me to be okay with going sans gifts this year when I’ll be on the receiving end many times over. If we could all come together and say, “Hey, how about this year we just enjoy each other, make ourselves some good, hot food, play games, and hang out with the TV off?” and be alright with that, Christmas would be a whole different story altogether.
Or are we too insecure coming as we are, considering the lives we are blessed with to be the gifts we share?
This is me in my classroom. I’ve often said that I love what I do. I think I love it so much because it brings me joy. It brings me deep joy to see those light bulbs go off… one by one, in the middle of a math lesson, amidst a class discussion on Indian in the Cupboard.
These days I have to remind myself what my love-to-dos are, my “I’m-good-at-this” things: to teach, to learn, to laugh, to grow, to go. I have my list and I am sure you have yours. This list we have to help us through stagnant times, or periods of uncertainty or doubt or boredom. I dig my list up when I am especially insecure, uninspired or when I can do nothing but go down my list, one by one, until who I am unearths and I’ve gained momentum enough to add new I’m-good-at-thises to my life.
Wow! So much can happen in one week. Or, ONE BIG THING can happen in one day that becomes your whole week? Possibly to become your whole next month or year?
I rushed through the door after work last Thursday. Hardly even noticed Charles was sitting on the couch. My plan was to clean up the kitchen and pack the camping food as fast as possible so we could get on the road man! Why fiddle-fart around when you could be in the Sequoias?!! I was banging around in the kitchen when I felt him stand in front of me. That “I’m here” stand. That “please look up and talk to me” stand.
So I looked up and still didn’t see anything. Until he grabbed my hands and once I noticed his palms were sweaty I noticed that his eyes were bloodshot. He told me he lost his job and I started laughing and repeating, “you’re kidding.”
I know I need to work on my reaction abilities.
And then the shock wore off and we were driving to his little office cubicle. Trader Joes cloth bags in the back seat, ready to collect and hold and separate everything that was his. Parting gifts? Or office junk that should not be coming home. Office stuff that should stay in an office. One of the items we’d hastily pack was Charles’ model airplane collection that canvassed his bookshelf; the model airplanes he picked up when he took a group of ten tweens to the air museum for flight camp.
Our next stage in life; at six months down, a lifetime to go. And here we are. Right. HERE. Smack dab baby.
Where will God take us? I wonder that everyday. I was wondering even before Charles’ position was “dissolved.” There is a plan. It’s God’s.
A busy bee, I go and go and go. It is hard for me to let go of my destiny– I’ve got it by the reigns and am pulling in tight!
It’s not destiny. It is not me even letting go because I don’t have ahold on anything but how to get myself all bent out of shape– it’s GOD knocking at the door asking me to please step aside so he can come in and be my handy man. He’s even asking politely; he humors me while I’m in frantic work mode- job searching, talking, doing, bringing home my paychecks, cashing, paying, planning, making it- he just waits patiently.
If I just step back and learn to say and do just enough- just enough- and to receive GRACE that says
God knows. Take his light and easy yoke.
Rest will enter.
my desk… is crazy looking today.
I’ve got ungraded math tests and personal narrative essays piled to the right, bills and government papers in their respective piles, letters that are awaiting finishing touches, my Polaroid pushed up in a corner reminding me of my more free and creative self, and my application… yes, my application. Oh God. It’s mere presence… simply writing the word: application, here, on wordpress… feels ominous. Dangerous. Like eyeing, for the first-time-on-accident, an oil spot that has leaked from the car. Uh-oh, oops, it’s out there. Just like that- in that honestly, matter-of-fact, in trouble-y feeling way.
After a year of thought, consideration, endless pro and con lists, and precise calculation (“hmm… how many years can I squeeze in before Charles and I get intentionally/unexpectedly pregnant?”) I’ve begun the application process for the UCLA doctorate program for Educational Leadership.
I don’t feel giddy, as one should on the verge of a new adventure… but rather
naughty? Like I’m doing something … well, naughty. Like sneaking back into the fridge, after we’ve said good night, brushed our teeth and nestled into bed, for just one or two giant scoops of that delicious double layered german chocolate cake I made? Which, at this point, it perfectly chilled. That kind of naughty, but on a bigger, less endearing scale.
It’s probable that I just feel guilty. Like the way I feel when I buy tulips at the grocery store for none other than me.
I’ve used about three or four too many similes.
Nerves have left me with few examples and words.
May I write my truth. And write authentically even after times that I might write falsely, timidly or with ulterior motives. May I embrace the challenges as well as the joys of writing.
I raced a man on the street today. I was running my usual loop. I’ve not gotten up to four miles in a long while because I am stuck on this loop. This loop, is perfect, perfect loop. See, I hit the ground running up a deep wedge, it hurts, knocks the breath out of my unsuspecting lungs, but I like to get the worst behind me. So I keep one foot in front of the other and trudge up the hill I call Myrtle Mountain.
It’s smooth sailing all the way home, once I get up that damn one mile grade. Tonight, I had just hit my favorite spot (the spot where I get a slight runners high if I’ve been keeping a respectable pace) when this man rounded the corner in front of me, joining in my loop. He started off about ten feet in front me of, and then he was about six, and then about three, and then I had to, you know, pass him. God I hate passing people. Emabarassing. Like I’m staking my claim or something. Way too bold and assertive seeming for me, usually. But tonight when I did it I intentionally pulled way out to the side, sort of off the sidewalk, and just sort of, began to (politely) pass.
Holy crap.
You would have thought he’d seen a toddler passing him. Or a granny… and he was Usain Bolt. The sudden shame and humiliation seemed to catapult him (in the mere blink of an eye it seemed!) ahead of me, again. Dang- where did the rocket speed come from? When previously you were running slow enough for someone like ME to pass? And… I forgot to mention. This was… a BIG man. Big. Man. Burly man. You can imagine that when he passed me back it wasn’t just a little pass, it was frontal attack, because, man, he did not only pass, he cut. He cut in front of me so that the tips of my toes nearly hit his heals.
At that point: GAME ON DUDE.
At that moment I bacame…. I don’t know WHAT I became, but God, it was raw and determined. I raced this guy, ALL OUT, this big giant I don’t know from Adam, through the rest of my loop.
I was so relieved (I’d stopped breathing), when, a mile into our little impromptu Olympic championships on the streets of Monrovia, it came time for me to make a quick left and duck into the safety of my apartment complex.
Surprised and pretty much proud of my own gameyness, I drank two Rolling Rocks and considered it my cool down.
