I'm a Runner

I wanted to run. Little time has passed since I made my wish, but last night I was told that I am a good runner.

I have been running every day for the past two weeks. It is incredible that someone of my weight is able to say that. I am sore, but my knees haven't shattered under my weight like I imagined they would.

I have run in parks, fields and on jogging paths. My longest time has been 20 minutes, and my longest distance has been 2.5 miles.

I started out running with a trainer. Then one day I decided to run alone and found that I like that better. I like setting my own pace and charting my own course. During the day when I feel stressed, I imagine what my run will be like that evening and that gives me some relief. When I run I am not anxious or embarrassed about my size or ability. I am totally free.

I am a wii fit runner!

Running or Donuts?

They hadn't seen me at the donut store in quite a while, but this Sunday morning at dark thirty I showed up and ordered the old usual, three chocolate iced and one chocolate filled. I was so embarrassed, but I wanted the chocolate and sugar. As I listened to the employees talk in Spanish to themselves about where I'd been, I thought they probably figured I was dead of a heart attack from all the donuts I'd eaten in the past.

Now, strangely enough, I have been rereading this wonderful book written by someone who did die an early death from a heart attack. Jim Fixx wrote one of the most inspirational books ever written about running. He wrote it in 1977, and I read it as a teenager. It was my dad's book. I don't know why he bought it actually because he was also more highly likely to eat donuts than run. Anyway, I've been reading it, hoping to gain enough comfort and inspiration from it to carry me through what would be a major undertaking. I want to run.

I don't want to run races or try to impress anyone with my discipline. Silly as it is, all I really want to be able to do is run across a soccer field at a nearby school. I want to feel myself move fast. I want to breathe deeply and experience the rhythm of my stride as I run for just a few minutes and then let myself fall down into the grass to rest.

I think for most people this would be an easy enough goal, but for me I'm wondering if it wouldn't be a miracle. I weigh twice as much as I should, literally. I don't exercise. And then there's this matter of comforting my anxieties with things such as donuts. It all comes down to delayed gratification. Will I ever get to a point where I can trade a few minutes of anxiety relief to gain a few more steps towards the goal of being able to feel the joy of moving fast and being in control?

I have been surprising myself these last few years with achieving some fairly impressive personal goals. I think choosing to take care of myself so I can run outranks all of them as far as difficulty is concerned. It would be tempting to try and motivate myself to choose to start taking care of myself in order to hopefully extend my lifespan. But as Jim Fixx's experience shows, there are no guarantees. I think if I want to do this, I have to do it now. There is no "getting ready." In fact, maybe I have been looking at it backwards. Maybe I have to run in order to take care of myself. I have to do it because of what I want to experience today. I will be no more likely to start achieving my goal after I finish rereading my book or going another 3 months without donuts. The field is 5 minutes away. I'm about to take a few literal steps towards my goal.

My Coach and the Softball Revival

This is Cordova Baptist Church in Cordova, TN. It looks pretty much like it did years ago when I was in 8th grade. I first went there because it was a requirement. At the time I didn't understand why, but they told me I had to go to the "revival" there before I could be on the church softball team. It was funny. I knew nothing about church and nothing about softball! What was I thinking? This mandatory revival was life changing and it became the glue that held my moody adolescent life together. The idea that God and the people at that church cared about me for no apparent reason was amazing.

Throughout my high school years I played on softball and basketball teams coached by the same person who coached that first softball team I joined. I attended Bible studies, Sunday school, Wednesday dinners, and something called Acteens (which I never figured out what meant.) Many many times it was my coach who picked me up in his old black truck, along with several other girls, and hauled us out to the church. I think I could hear that truck coming as soon as it turned into the neighborhood it was so loud. I fondly remember throwing bats, balls, water jugs and a Bible into the truck and then climbing in myself for the breezy ride out to the country church. Hours later he would drive my sweaty and bruised, jammed finger self back home. I was an athletic wreck!

I laugh now when I remember that as athletically challenged as I was, many years I served as team captain. It didn't occur to me that I might not be qualified for such a duty. Must not have occured to anyone else either! I think it may have been more due to the fact that I wasn't afraid to pray out loud in front of other people.

We lost almost every game, but it didn't occur to me to give up. I can truly say that our satisfaction came from just getting to play. I don't remember ever feeling any less of a person for losing a game. I think it's because I felt so important to the coach, my team, and God.

I don't know what drove my coach's dedication to a bunch of girls who couldn't seem to win a game, but I sure am thankful. We need more people like him in this world. I think of all the students I come in contact with who have such low self esteem and lack of purpose, and I wish they could have an experience like I did. I could have easily grown up feeling like a failure, but thanks mostly to him, it was just the opposite. I felt comfortable in many different types of leadership as I went through school. What a gift!

I have recently made contact with my old coach after so many years have passed. His wife tells me he is still coaching and is still tough and stubborn. I believe it. But it also makes me happy to think that other kids are getting the benefits of his coaching. Maybe as I get to know him as an adult I will be able to understand his caring dedication to us as kids.

So Coach, if you are reading this, I hope you can see how much you mean to me. I'd like to see you in person again some day as long as you don't have a bat and a practice ball in your hand . . . I still bruise easily!

144 Umbrellas

I love umbrellas! I like all kinds. Last summer during my annual 4th of July party it occurred to me to use a large umbrella for sunscreen as I floated around the pool all day. Simply looking so ridiculous made me happy. I got a huge colorful beach umbrella for my birthday this year, and my mind has been hard at work trying to figure out how to plant it in the middle of the pool for this year's party.

I have even been known to use an umbrella in my school lesson plans. The umbrella represented the main idea of the piece of writing and the details hung from little ribbons "under" the umbrella. The rain represented any idea that didn't belong in the writing, and it simply rolled right off the umbrella and onto the ground.

I bet if you think about it, you can remember being a little kid out in the rain with an umbrella. For me it was the coolest thing. The umbrella represented such freedom! I could go outside even if the weather was bad. It made rainy days special. Kind of made me kid-powerful when I graduated to holding my own umbrella.

Yesterday I had an umbrella experience that made me just about as giddy. I bought 144 drink umbrellas for this year's party! Now honestly I do not plan to serve 144 alcoholic drinks. That is not the point. But drink umbrellas make whatever the drink is extra special. They represent fun and relaxation. They are so totally unnecessary and that's what I love about them. The package of 144 of them cost just over three dollars, and somehow I got a charge out of getting the potential for that many luxuries at such a low price. Silly as it sounds, it made me feel rich.

As I write this I wish you many "umbrella blessings" for this summer. Have fun and let me know if you come across a new one!

Cleaning and Morality

Take a look at my office closet. But don't tell my mom you saw it! I'm off for the summer and can no longer find any excuse to put off getting my house in order. In January my water pipes froze and burst in five places, so there was construction until April. My excuse for the last two months is that it was an overwhelming task to tackle at the end of a school year. That excuse has expired.

So this morning I worked on putting my office back together. There were baskets and boxes of things that came out of kitchen cabinets, various stacks of paper, a shoebox full of mints and gum, and a multitude of "home accents." I started by taking down the do-dads. I made my bookshelves look neat. I cleaned up my desk and put any type of paper I came across into a big clear storage box. The do-dads, minus a select few, went in a smaller storage box. I did some creative furniture arranging and it doesn't look too bad in there now. I put the plastic storage boxes in the closet and shut the door. I'll engage with them another day.

After I finished I sat down to have a coke zero, quite pleased with myself for such a big accomplishment. The housekeepers are coming this afternoon and now they will be able to clean in there. But as I was enjoying my success, I kept thinking about that closed closet door. The more I thought about it, the more anxious I got. I'm having company in a couple of weeks, and even though I don't anticipate that they will have any desire to look in the office closet, it prevents me from having that "ready for company" feeling.

This is where the morality question comes into play. I think I and the other members of my family have experienced more guilt in our lives over having a messy house than all other things combined. Not that our house ever really got messy (except for mine when I became an adult, but that's another story.) But I'm telling you, there was serious fear about what our company would think if the house wasn't as clean as it could be. And I guess in a way the fear was understandable because most of our company was family, and they had the same rules about cleanliness.

The company that's coming in a couple of weeks is a little different. They are a chosen set of "sistas." From what I can tell, some of them grew up with the same kind of rules about keeping house, but I'm not sure the guilt is as overwhelming for them. I think they'd still invite me over, even if they didn't have time to straighten up first. And I'm not exactly sure they mind what my house is like.

Best I can tell, the guilt is about appearing lazy, so I guess it does have a connection to most people's sense of morality. But I wonder what it really says about me that my closet looks the way it does. I wonder if I would be a better person if I went ahead and dropped the do-dads off at the goodwill, and got right on that filing project today. But on the other hand, I wonder how much sense it makes to worry so much about what other people think, that I would feel like I had to clean everything up before the housekeepers came so they wouldn't think I am awful for letting it get this bad.

I don't really know the answers to my questions, but there is one cool thing that has come out of this post. My confession about my closet has eliminated some of the guilt. Anybody can look at the picture. There's nothing to hide. Regardless of a person's views about the morality of cleanliness, my closet is my closet. Like it or not. Choose to judge it or not.

I am not my closet.

The Buddha

If you know anything at all about the Buddha you will laugh as you read this! I will admit right up front that I know precious little. I read and forgot most of Siddhartha in graduate school. I've never read any of the actual scriptures. I know what he looks like because I have a really cool giant Buddha picture hanging on my wall. It is the traveling Buddha because it journeyed to my house tied to the top of a RAV4, all the way from Fort Worth. He hung over the edges! He was a very giant present from someone who I think actually understands who he is.

I came to love the Buddha many years ago, but not because I knew what in the world he was all about. I became fascinated because I didn't know what he was about. And I really didn't want to know either. I loved the statues and pretty images because they were different. They represented a rebellious, but lighthearted and fun part of me. I liked having them around because it seemed like I "shouldn't." Why would a Christian have Buddhas sitting and hanging around?

Today I watched a program on Buddhism. I have been reading about mindfulness lately and thought it would be interesting to know a little more about the tradition it comes from. The history was interesting, but almost completely confusing, especially about the difference between the happy fat ones and the serious skinny ones. I became increasingly confused, but just as I was tempted to get frustrated because I couldn't "get" it, I was able to lighten up and realize that ulimately it doesn't matter very much in my situation. But as Kyle, the Jewish kid on South Park, would say, "I learned something today." I learned it is not necessary to understand a philosophy or a religion to enjoy and benefit from it. I can try and practice mindfulness, and I can smile at my decorative Buddhas. And at the same time, I can unashamedly admit to anyone who thinks it's cool that I must be a Buddhist (or is, on the other hand, appalled,) that to me the Buddha is just a symbol for happiness and contentment. No attachment to understanding. Smile.

If I wrote a book . . .

I don't ever actually plan to write a novel, but if I were going to, I know exactly what I would write about. I would write about a colorful man who planned all of his life to cease to exist after his death. But he was wrong. He ends up being busier than ever trying to communicate with a group of women, former friends, who are still living. He passionately wants to wake them up to the solutions to their various problems. He ends up trying all kinds of crazy things to get attention.

As he does things like going into one friend's house and mysteriously leaving the toilet seat up, or appearing as a gluttonous blue jay who actually minds her when she talks to him, he begins to reflect on the long talks he had with her about relationships. We find out all about the interesting relationship between her mom and dad who never exactly liked each other, as well as the story of her own quest for love. He even throws in how perfect it would have been if she had only responded to his own advances when he was alive.

Meanwhile, he shows up as various crazy people in the life of another former friend who is studying to be a therapist. He especially enjoys playing the roles of her sisters who, in the tradition of Flannery O'Connor, recount the family horror stories concerning dead animals, and carry on incessantly about their own eventual deaths. We also get to watch as he inspires her father to spend his last few minutes alive playing a practical joke on the family gathered around him.

He also shows up in another friend's life every time she loses self confidence, which is quite frequently. He wears himself out sparking memories of him telling her, "You're right, you do suck," and laughing as she began to argue. He gets frustrated with her as she tries to follow her passion for teaching writing. She is fairly unsuccessful, since she has recurring fears that she is crazy. He finally decides to lighten up and begins speaking to her through silly comments made by her therapist.

The book ends as the group of friends who end up referring to each other as "sistas," come together for a summer party and discuss whether their dear departed friend who loved to wear lipstick was actually gay or not. And though they can never quite figure that out, they do come up with some answers to some of their own problems as they laugh about him. They each learn, in their own way, that life is less about the meaning of the events that occur during it, and more about acceptance. He even learns a little about acceptance himself, and comes to terms with his responsibility of continuing to have an afterlife.

I am going to read fiction.

I am about to say the same thing I have said so many times before! I have got to cut down on the non-fiction. Too much reality can be such a struggle. Lately I have found myself drawn back into the promise of everlasting fulfillment if I will just put into practice all I am learning from my teaching books and health books.

I think for at least a little while I will shield myself from the glaring reality of my shortcomings and try to enjoy life a little more. In almost all fiction books it seems that the problem, no matter how bad, gets solved and makes me feel good about life without having taken a single bit of action on my part.

Instead of writing as much as I usually do, I think I will get back to this book I started today. The first chapter made me laugh out loud. This woman drowns and is disappointed that she's only 35 and is still stuck in her corpse as the fish eat her and the water washes her flesh away. Suddenly she feels her soul being sucked out of the rotting thing and feels herself joyfully leaping into the air at last. Seconds later, she figures out she is a flying carp.

I think that's enough to make anybody thankful for life in the moment. No self improvement necessary.