Staying Still

When Superman's grief for Lois Lane compels him to reverse time by spinning Earth backwards, there must be a moment when time stands still. Or actually two, since he then restores Earth to forward rotation. (Don't worry if your chrono-spatial-gravitational physics is rusty. I have the unfair advantage of my own little resident Superman.) Though this ultimate statis is not only fleeting, it's imaginary, it comforts me nonetheless. Because right now my life is a blurrrr of motion.

Which brings me to- THE MARATHON. Yes, I ran! Loaded up with homeopathics and mulligatawny soup (thank you, Cheri!), augmentin (thank you, David!) and two days of rest (thank you, husband!), I awoke Sunday, November 6th to a brilliant sunny day in New York feeling well and eager. Together with 47,000 runners I made my way via two trains, the Staten Island ferry, and a bus to the starting line on Staten Island. Frank Sinatra got me crying for the first of countless times to "New York, New York" as we crossed the start and began our ascent on the upper deck of the Verrazano Bridge, all of New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Brooklyn and the Atlantic below us. I was so thrilled to be there and so high on the enthusiasm of runners and the crowds that I ran too fast too soon, and I knew it, but I couldn't resist. Six miles in I found Jordy, Duncan, Reeve and our neighbor friends in the crowd, another adrenalin spike. A lull after parting from them, but another boost in Clinton Hill-Bed/Stuy where the crowds were spectacular. A gospel choir rocked us on. In Williamsburg I picked out two close friends from LA - another boost. Then a long hard road ahead... Are we in Queens yet? Finally the Queensborough Bridge - ugh. Like the transition phase of labor in child birth. Long, hard, the crowds gone, lower deck this time, the relentless rumble of vehicles passing on the level overhead. My right knee started to complain. My hamstrings were grouchy. At last - First Avenue in Manhattan. WOW, the crowds were suddenly many times as dense. Their voices exploded in my tired muscles like rocket fuel. God bless these strangers! I shot off. Briefly. Then remembered how far I'd come. By mile 18 I need to walk quite a lot. Living up to the meaning of its name, "the Hinterland," the Bronx felt like a purgatory from which I might never escape. And yet there were a Scottish bag piping troop, children with fruit and water, and a HipHop duo singing "Welcome... to the Bronx," over and over in the tone of a dirge, which somehow all comforted and amused me through to the final bridge back to Manhattan. From then on it was all low golden rays as the falling sun beckoned us to the final resting place. Harlem, Fifth Avenue, a woman who cheered specifically for me ("Go, Pink!") just when I needed it, a right hook into Central Park. Bare trees overhead, a fantasy of Frederick Law Olmsted (my guiding spirit of late) watching from a knoll with wonder at what his park has provided, winding familiar roads from so many races to bring me to this place, a final detour back out to Central Park South past my grandfather's New York Athletic Club, a surrender of my vain hope to make the New York Times as my time passed 5 hours, irrepressible cravings that this damn thing be OVER already, the finish line in sight, and suddenly - permission to stop.

But not. Like the relentlessness of time in general, we were not permitted to stop. The New York Road Runners Club knew what they were doing.  To stop is to freeze up.  They corralled us like so many cattle in a forced march that lasted about 30 minutes. Wrapped in silver plastic blankets that look like excess material from the lunar landing pods, supplied with bright orange "Recovery Kit" backpacks of energy bars, apples, and water, we shuffled toward the bivouacked UPS trucks conveying our personal gear from start to finish.  An hour and a half and two more trains later I was home to hugs from four boys, flowers, and champagne on ice.  (Lest I give the wrong image, I would be the one on ice, drinking champagne whilst in a bath of ice water.  Grim, but effective!)

The marathon generates a host of metaphors. Life's a marathon, not a sprint. We're in it for the long haul. I hit the wall. You've got to pace yourself. I'm a "finisher." Once upon a time most people employed such metaphors without ever having felt a marathon. But with so many people running them now, the marathon offers a common language, a short-cut. (Ask any NY finisher about the Queensborough Bridge - say no more!) Having run the New York Marathon in particular, I'd argue it has become its own metaphor. "You ran New York?" evokes the whole wild wonderful thing -- runners and crowds representing every walk of life, every corner of the Earth, together making the world's biggest party out of something really hard and inviting everyone to be a part of it. Thank God, I got to run New York!

I wonder how the day and weeks after the marathon felt to the other runners. I felt like I ran off a cliff. I had some regrets. I wish I'd run it better, yadayada. But mostly I had lost my guiding star. Many RUNNER'S WORLD magazine subscribers must run New York, as they had a special article on overcoming the "post-race blues." My friend and mentor, Jimmy Moore, would have done as they advised and plotted his next race (perhaps an ultra next time). But it didn't feel right to make a new "goal." After sitting with this unease for several weeks, I realized why. What I crave now above all is stillness. Is it an oxymoron to make "stillness" a goal?

I started running again three years ago to pull myself out of the rut I'd fallen into after giving birth to two kids, having given up exercise, feeling glum. Running has restored me in body and spirit, and I will keep the habit going forward. But as I reflect over these three years, I also ran to keep up. To keep up with my "Rocket Reeve," who kept me running through my pregnancy with Tucker whether I wanted to or not. To keep up with Tucker, who by 15 months was off like a shot himself. To keep up with the pressured schedules of 3 boys with 3 different school schedules, and an average of 5 miles of daily walking/running behind strollers to move bodies where they need to go. To keep up my energy when sleep is in short supply (always). To keep up with my advancing age, which I believe is governed at least in part by expectations. And to prepare for something as yet unknown - the next hard, long, important thing. But I'm frankly a little tired of being on the run.

Maybe it's the approach of winter. An instinct to hibernate. The immobility of things frozen. Nature's relief of obligation to grow, strive, change. Now that I feel I can keep up, I'm not sure I want to. Instead I want to slow the whole thing down. I don't want to venture so far. I want to be quieter. To escape time. The first step, I realize, is to let go of all this wanting and not wanting, of striving even not to strive. Instead I'm doing more yoga, attempting meditation (never been very successful with it, but then again, what is success?! Incense helps put me in the mood, at least, and makes the house smell nice too), writing in my journal, trying to move slower, breathe more, expect less. None of this comes naturally to me (as my friend Jonathan's "perfume" name for me, "Flurry," evokes). Would that it were as easy as halting the Earth's rotations!

Then again, I'm really starting to look forward to summer. By then the kids will be bigger. Jordy has saved up more vacation. Maybe we'll be able to hike Mount Moosilauke together for the first time! Or head east to Mount Katahdin... After all this stillness, I'll be ready for some action.

Little Touches

Last week I went to the funeral home to view my husband's grandmother the day after she died. My aunt-in-law, who along with her husband comprised the other two visitors, invited me to touch her too. I was so glad she did. I never would have done so on my own. Grandma's hair was very fine, her skin very soft despite the cool hardness of her cheek.

I keep thinking about this final touch, about the feeling of her body, living and in death, on my finger tips, my cheek, in my arms. I remember how frail she felt in recent years, as if I might break her if I held her too tight. To the end she welcomed a squeeze of the hand, a brush of our cheeks, a hug nonetheless.

She was a woman who, I sensed without having known her then, really enjoyed her body in younger years. She spoke often of the pleasures of summers sunning herself at the beach. She took great pleasure in good food. She told of sleeping in spoons with her husband, recalled by my aunt-in-law last week over champagne toasts to Grandma, and the joyous sensations of being pregnant. I remember her watching me breastfeed my babies with interest, once asking me, "What does it feel like? You know, I never had the chance to do that. They bound my breasts at the hospital to stop the milk." Her question didn't seem to carry a political pro-/con-breastfeeding agenda; it felt like she simply regretted the lost chance to explore a new sensation.

In contrast to Grandma's final years, when touch was limited to her cat and greetings/partings with visiting family, my days are overrun with little touches. I often wake up to a soft little foot tickling my tummy or lodged under my chin. I'm so used to the small fingers that lightly roam my neck and chest while nursing that I can forget the gift of this wee, ephemeral bit of tenderness. I have "snuggle requests" from the bigger brothers upon waking and before sleep, hand-holdings across streets, and kisses on heads of ruffled hair. I enjoy the embraces of my husband throughout the day, sleepy snuggles, and the brushes of our fingers and bodies amidst the bustle of packing lunchboxes and dressing boys for school.

We are still in the stage of family life where a kiss and a hug provide miraculous healing. Although the two bigger boys have achieved the rational capacity to question the mechanism for this effect, when push comes to shove comes to real ouch, they still want a kiss and a hug first. Two-year old Tucker puts his faith in both Band-Aids (for invasive, non-invasive, and thoroughly imaginary wounds - so much fun to open! stick!) and Kiss-Kiss/Hug-Hug remedies.

With three young boys, our little touches can get acrobatic. We recently built new Ikea beds and dressers for the boys' new "mountain" bedroom. As I climbed into a case to screw in tracks for drawers, my rear end must have suggested a horse, as Tucker promptly climbed on for a ride. At music class yesterday during the "free dance" portion, he required not only that I carry him, but that I flip him upside down repeatedly (exhausting!). The boys love nothing more than "Tough Time" with Jordy at the end of the day, which consists of Jordy lying flat on the floor while one-after-the-other the boys hurl themselves at him.

This morning Duncan, the big seven-year old, required a snuggle on the rocker, curling up pretending to be a baby again, arms gripping me hard. This fall Reeve took to crawling into bed beside me at night, so stealth that I wouldn't realize his presence until waking in the morning to the slow rise and fall of his breath, his warm back against my arm. To my relief and chagrin, he has quickly adapted to his new bedroom, sleeping as late at 7am in his own "big boy" bed.

These touches wrap me in a warm web of life, a web that reaches beyond memory to my mother's countless loving touches of little me. I fear the loss of touch that will happen as they and we age. It happens so gradually I often don't notice. No morning snuggle this morning with Reeve, and he is fine, and so am I. Then one day they will leave home. And one day Jordy or I will loose the other. I have to hope the gradual nature of the changes will make it bearable. And give me time to get a seriously snuggly dog.

Grandma once told me that one of the hardest things about getting older for her was the dissonance between the way she sees herself inside with how she knows others perceived her. In her mind's eye, she was eternally 40. Healthy, vital, teenage kids at home, in love with her husband. I am there now. Since 40 I've had a baby, got the chance to run a marathon, and enjoy good health and affection all around. I'm grateful for these little touches, and to Grandma for helping me see my bounty.