Waiting: Practice with mood, setting, dialogue

When I left the house yesterday morning, I brought with me, a sweater, a book, a notebook, and a pen.

The sweater is because the main thing I've learned the last few days is that hospital waiting rooms are COLD. The book was to block out reality. The notebook and pen were in case I needed to take notes, but also because John Dufresne, leader of the writing workshop I attended last month, had suggested to always carry writing supplies. You never know when the muse will visit.

Or in my case, maybe you need something else to help you pass the time.  

Here are some scribblings from yesterday.

They were waiting at the curb. Disconcerting because they aren't waiting at the curb-type people. They are sit in the house and read the paper until the ride arrives type people. No they're not that either.They don't wait for rides. They drive everywhere on their own and do it just fine. Geez. They'd driven back and forth to Florida as recently as March. Today two cars sit unused in the driveway. My parents are standing at the curb.

Dialogue practice:
We've said good mornings and how are yous and are tooling down a busy street with lots of traffic lights and young drivers. Neither the young drivers' radios or cars need to be as loud as they are. We have to be at the hospital in seven minutes. We are nine minutes away. 

"So yeah, there might be a little complication," he says. "The lead's a little buried in the tissue around the heart. To get it out there might be some bleeding and uh yeah, this whole thing could turn into open heart surgery."

(A lead is a gizmo in a pacemaker. The lead carries an electrical current. My father's pacemaker has four leads. Two are good. One was capped off a few years ago as a safety measure because it had been recalled by the manufacturer. Then there's this renegade, this loose cannon which is fractured or frayed or almost fractured or frayed and needs to be dismantled before it randomly fires and harms my dad. They're replacing the lead and replacing the whole pacemaker too.)   

The whooshing sound is the driver, me, breathing out hard, like I practice in yoga.

"The doctor says it happens in three out of one hundred cases. It probably won't happen. but you never know."

"You're going to be fine. I can feel it," I say. What's the point in saying anything negative anyhow?

There's a break in the traffic. I switch lanes and gun it.

Setting notes:
Waiting room: cream walls, gray-green chairs, some couches long enough to sleep on, Meredith Viera on the television screen -- Who Wants to be a Millionaire. None of the three people in the room are watching. The television is mute. The only sound, other than the hum of the air conditioning comes from me, on the phone at the desk. I'm telling my mother, who is one building over, in the infusion clinic getting her weekly treatment, where to come when she gets done. The treatment, scheduled weeks ago, is at the same time as my father's surgery.

Practice with mood shifts:

They let me in to see my dad before they put him under. The pre-op area is a big rectangular room chopped up on all sides into twenty or so curtained spaces containing a bed, a chair, and monitors. In the middle of all this a nursing station with glass walls that muffle the work sounds: ringing phones, conversations about patients. There's one area where the rooms are blocked off by opaque walls, not glass, not curtains. In front of that area are three big young guys in police blues. They all wear bullet-proof vests.

My dad and I joke a little bit about who they could be protecting or preventing. The nurses won't tell us. Maybe it's Whitey Bulger, my mother says. It's much later when she says this. She's not here right now, though we feel her presence.

Surgery is delayed ninety minutes. My dad is a little annoyed by this. He's sick of waiting. He hasn't eaten in 18 hours. He's spent most of the last three days in hospital beds. But in the grand scheme of things, he knows the extra wait time is minor. He's a trouper.

My dad tells me to leave and visit with my mother.

It's down one floor, a walk through the lobby, outside for five minutes, up six floors and two reception areas later. The last secretary has directed me down a long carpeted hallway lined with curtains. The walls of this building are glass, so light filters in. I see bits of blue lake in the distance whenever the curtains are askew. I stop at this last nurse's station and when the nurse raises her head from her paperwork, we both shriek each others' names. We laugh and hug. I can actually feel the heaviness in my chest disappear. Funny. I didn't even know the heaviness was there, until it left.

We became friends 21 years ago, when our oldest, both girls, became friends in kindergarten. Then our youngest became friends too. Last time we'd seen each other was in Target a few years ago, I think.  

She leads me to my mother. The two of us sit for awhile. She reads her book. I read mine. It's quiet and peaceful. The sky is brighter than any piece of turquoise I saw in Santa Fe. The clouds are few but so white they sparkle. They did the right thing, making this particular building all windows and putting this particular clinic on the top floor. 

When we leave, Tina and I hug again. Then my mother and I take the elevator down six levels, walk for five minutes, take the elevator up a level and join my dad.

Ten minutes later, he went in to surgery. Many many hours later, he came out just fine. There were no complications. Right now all is good. The sky is just as blue as it was yesterday.

What I think about when I think about writing

As I was walking six miles yesterday, instead of running like I had planned, I opened up the dam, and let thoughts wash over me. It was a good, cleansing ninety minutes.  First in my mind of course were the weekend’s medical events and their ramifications for myself, my parents, and my children. Then I was thinking of my writing and how it seems to be flowing more easily, just a week into this daily experiment.  And of course I thought about my running and why right now it is so hard for me. 

I have many great people in my life. This really is true. It wasn’t true for a long time. Twenty years ago, my life was miserable and a lot of that had to do with being surrounded by awful people. By that I mean people who should have cared about what was right and safe for me and my daughters but who chose to put their own interests first and in doing so put me and my girls at risk. I was young and naïve and for me that translated into really believing in the Catholic turn-the-other cheek precept. That bullshit, all of it, nearly killed me. 

Since then, I’ve developed a pretty reliable interior creep meter. I have learned that good is rare.  I am careful, probably too careful. People who know my whole story respect that and understand that it is necessary. 

  

I found my way back then by trusting my interior compass and mustering strength.  It was much more complicated than that of course. How I found that strength still mystifies me. I honestly don’t know how I pulled myself back from the abyss. I do know this. I would have lost my mind and therefore everything without the emotional support of my parents and my paternal grandmother. I am also grateful for being able to remember with precision the strength of my maternal grandmother who passed away many decades ago but whose ability to endure still influences me today.  

I’ve already heard from one dear friend who read yesterday’s post and has offered to join me in running Boston in the spring if I choose to do so. Some runners are generous in spirit like that.  She and I met years ago when we both worked in the same clothing shop in a local mall. This was when my youngest first started college.

I took the job to keep me occupied and around people. I worked a full-time day job, but I needed to fill up the dark nights when I’d be home alone. I couldn’t stand to be at the gym every night. I needed something else. I had started missing my daughter before she’d even left.  I knew I’d be a wreck if I didn’t find some way to busy myself once she was gone.  Also, I’d found out over the summer, just three weeks before her first semester tuition was due, that her father was not going to help out and the full tuition burden would fall on my shoulders. Working in retail doesn’t pay much, but I figured that every little bit would help. It certainly couldn’t hurt.  

The fact that the wording in the above paragraph is somewhat even and temperate is testament more to the talented Haruki Murakami and his way with words than it is to my own coping ability.  I have a great anger inside me.  I admire Murakami’s facility with language and have been trying to emulate his techniques as a way of bringing forth my own best work.  I’m not trying to be him, I’m just doing my best to be me. I’m not there yet, so I experiment. This is my starting line after all, a figurative and literal place where I get to consider my life, and all its possibilities.

Today, I started writing this because I was waiting for a phone call that would signal the start of a busy day with lots of hurry up and then lots of waiting. And now it begins. I’m glad I got to write this. I got to remember a time when I had the ability to draw on reserves I didn’t know existed. I’m thankful for that, and many other things too.

At least there's time to think

I usually do my long runs on Sunday mornings. Up until last year or so, a long run might mean anywhere from ten miles up to sixteenish.  I’d vary the distances in order to minimize injuries. One Sunday I might do fifteen miles, the next Sunday I’d cut back to ten. The next week I might do sixteen, then cut back to eleven the week after that. The cutback week is an important part of the training process. You want to challenge yourself, but stay healthy too.  Every runner has her own way of doing this. My way is a very long run one week, and a not so long run the next week. 

I did two marathons in 2010, the Vermont City Marathon in June and the Manchester, NH marathon in November.  Since then I’ve felt a little burnt out. I’ve done several half marathons, but nothing longer. And even those half marathons didn’t appeal to me all that much. I trained sporadically. I ran grudgingly. My times have fallen off and I’m okay with that.  I wonder if I’m just going through some sort of personal growth phase. 

Or maybe it’s because my book is about running. Maybe because I spend so much time writing about running, the running itself is no longer all that special to me.

Running used to make me happy. My long run anchored me and gave me a sense of accomplishment. Within days of finishing each long run, I found myself looking forward to the next. 

Now, my long runs are about eight miles. During marathon training, that distance used to be a short run. You’d think this new, shorter distance would be easy for me. It isn’t.  I find myself making excuses to keep from going out on the run. I find other things to do. I leave the house later and later each Sunday. Perhaps this has to do with this summer’s intense heat. I hate running in the heat. It wears me out. It’s not fun at all. And I refuse to run inside at the gym. I need the feel of the sun on my shoulders. I need to hear leaves rustle and birds chirp. 

Today I decided to do a six-miler at the rail trail. I’ve been doing most of my runs here this summer.  The rail trail is a shady and cool stretch of packed dirt and pine needles. It starts in the town of Sterling and heads west through many towns. There are parking lots and entry points every couple of miles. My favorite section starts near the sparkling waters of the Wachusett Reservoir and ends in a quiet grove in Holden. I run alone but there is always someone nearby. It’s popular with joggers and cyclists and walkers.  It’s pretty and serene. 

I of course left the house late this morning. I don’t know what’s gotten into me lately, but I always seem to find something that keeps me from getting out of the house when I need to. By the time I got to West Boylston the sun was high and the temperature was about 90. The air was heavy. We were due for a storm. 

I started slowly like I always do and knew within seconds that a run was not happening today. The heaviness of the weekend had settled over me like a winter coat. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. In years past, I’d probably have forced my body to continue running.  Maybe I should have done that today. But I didn’t. 

Instead of running six miles, I walked six. It took a little longer, but I didn’t care.  I had a lot to think through, and my concerns weren’t going to get cleaned up by running.

  

Yesterday in the hospital room, while we were waiting for the discharge papers to bring my dad home, I said, “Only ten more years and then I can retire.” The context was simple.  We’d run out of things to talk about and I blurted that out just to fill the empty spaces. 

My father gave me his scary principal look. “Don’t go wishing your life away,” he said. “It’s too short.” 

I really want to run Boston again. I’ve run it seven times. Six times I raised money for a charity that helped me to get to my first finish line back in 2001.  I feel great loyalty to the American Liver Foundation. They are good people. They do great work. Last year, I started the paperwork to sign up to run again for the ALF. Then I sprained my ankle and couldn’t run for three months, so I had to put my plans on the back burner.  I wasn’t too upset about it. I figured I’d just run for the ALF in 2013 instead.

But 2013 is looking to be a tough year. I’m not wishing that, just acknowledging the truth of it. 

“Palliative care” is a term I have gotten to know quite a bit about, these last few months. I could say more, but that's enough for now about that. 

 

The other day, my mother and I were talking about the upcoming school year. We were talking about  the fact that I will again be teaching sixth grade. It will be my 18th year at that grade level. I’d really hoped to be teaching seventh or eighth grade, but the job I bid on was given to someone with more experience.

We were talking about how teaching sixth had gotten pretty routine for me.

 “Ah, it’s just as well,” my mother said. “You’re going to have a tough year here at home. You might as well have an easy time at school.”  She makes these little pronouncements so casually, and yet  my knees quake. 

As I walked the quiet pathway today, I visualized crossing the finish line in April. I wrote my donation letter. I started listing potential donors. I thought about the little boy I run for who has been waiting for a new liver his whole twelve years and I imagined the words I would combine to make people understand how devastating it is to live your whole life waiting for a phone call saying you have a donor match.  

I have to think things through though. What kinds of emotional reserves do I have? How deep do I want to dig? How much am I capable of giving?  While I am out training, while I am home writing letters, what will I miss?  Life IS too short. At least for now, I have time to think.

I've had enough ER for now

She was standing at the counter eating hummus and pita bread. Her shorts and tank top were soaked and salty.  She didn’t want to sit down because that would stink up the chair cushions and she was going to be showering any second anyhow.  When the phone rang, she glanced quickly at the number. She considered letting the answering machine deal with this, because the number wasn’t familiar. She wasn’t in the mood to talk with a telemarketer, and she badly needed a shower.  Then the word “hospital” flashed onto the digital screen. She picked up. 

It was her mother, her voice soft, enunciation perfect. 

A chill went down her spine. She inhaled deeply. She’d heard this tone just once before. “You are at the ER with dad? Okay. I will be there in 15 minutes. I will see you soon.” Her own voice matched her mother’s, a bright song.  It sounded like they were planning to meet for cocktails. 

Yum. Cocktails.

She hung up the phone and her legs started shaking, so to quiet them she moved fast. To the bathroom first to wet a towel to sop up what sweat she could, then to the bedroom for a quick change of clothes.  She wondered if she would regret taking the time to wash up and change. What might she miss? What was really going on in that ER with her father – her father the healthier one of the two, her father the caretaker. 

Though her mother had said that everything was fine, should she believe her? Why had her mother ended the call with “Ah. very good. That will be lovely,” rather than, “Oh don’t rush it’s really nothing?”

She always made a point of driving slightly below the speed limit on the city streets she was now plowing through. There were often lots of runners on these roads. She always felt it her duty to keep them safe. Screw that, she thought now. She was riding the bumper of a gold Corolla going ten miles below the speed limit. “Will you fucking move?” she said. She enunciated clearly. It’s what her mother would want. 

She thought of all the times drivers had ridden on her bumper and sometimes even given her the finger. She’d watch them in her rearview mirror and feel just a tiny bit superior. Now she wondered if those drivers were dealing with life and death situations. She wondered if that’s what she was headed toward. 

It had been 19 years since the last time her mother had used that tone of voice with her. It was a Sunday evening in early April, at dinnertime. She was waitressing at the Italian place. The owner, a young mustached guy who didn’t pronounce his suffixes properly and who never used the letter r, called her to the phone at the bar. Sundays were always busy. That day was no exception. She had a full station. Every seat was taken. He looked pissed.  

A pretty typical Sunday night at the restaurant.

She mouthed sorry and put the receiver to her ear. It was her mother, that strange, softly enunciated version, telling her she should probably come to the hospital when she had a few minutes because her father seemed to be having a little heart thing.   

I got off the phone and faced my boss. He was much bigger than me and had a deep voice and I was still dependent on waitressing to pay the mortgage. I was afraid of many things back then. I was afraid of big men. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to feed my kids. I was afraid I would lose my house. Up until then though, losing my father was not one of my fears. 

“If you don’t mind, I think I need to leave soon. Two of my tables are done and the other two are eating. If you don’t mind I’d like to leave when they finish. I’m so sorry.” I explained what my mother had said. He told me to leave right then and to not worry about it.  His kindness frightened me more than the phone call from my mother.   

It took just a few minutes to get to the hospital. I found my mother standing in a hallway, staring into a glass-walled room where a bunch of doctors and nurses were sticking wires into my father’s arms and legs. My father was having a massive heart attack. They’d given him a clot buster to unplug his arteries and get his heart pumping again. The clot buster wasn’t working. We stood there and watched as my father was dying.  

In the car now, I wondered again if I would regret taking the time to change out of my gym clothes. I muttered Hail Marys and Our Fathers and as I entered the garage couldn’t help but notice that the hills, Grafton and Vernon, where my mother and father had grown up, were right in front of me. The landscape of my family’s history was laid out before me. It was comforting. 

Nineteen years ago, seventy percent of my father’s heart died. But thirty percent lived and therefore so did my dad.

Still, we all knew he was living on borrowed time. Thirty percent is not much. We always knew that one day what was left of his heart would stop. He was always upfront about it. He always wanted us prepared. He’d be the first to tell you that every single one of those days since his heart first died, (it died a few more times in those ensuing weeks in intensive care - getting him stabilized was a miracle), every single second of every day, has been a gift.  It’s a cliché, I know. It’s a paragraph of clichés. But it’s true and it works here. It stays. 

It turns out, so does my dad. 

There were no doctors and nurses around my dad when I found him in the ER. My mother was not separated from him and watching from behind a glass wall.  The two of them were sitting there calmly, she in a straight-backed chair, he in a hospital bed. Both were complaining about how so much of life lately has been spent waiting in hospitals.  My father was connected to one monitor, just one. It showed his pacemaker-assisted heart beating an athletic 60 beats per minute. His blood pressure was low and his oxygen was fine. 

His heart only has a certain, finite amount of beats left. I guess that’s true for all of us, but for him it’s truer. There will be a time soon when it will get so worn out it will tire and stop. But for now, it goes on. The problem today is that the pacemaker stopped working, not my dad. 

As part of the ER protocol, an intern came in and asked my dad’s wishes. This was at the beginning of last night, when we were waiting for test results, when we still weren’t completely certain. We still thought that perhaps it was his heart saying good-bye. The intern came in then and asked my dad if he would want to be revived if his heart should stop.

 

I held my breath and waited. I know what I wanted my dad to say. I wanted him to say yes please let me live. But it’s his life. His choice. Two decades ago, he chose life. But he didn’t have arthritis then. He hadn’t lost so many friends. His skin didn’t bruise and bloody then at just the slightest hint of contact with walls and bandages. There are doctor’s visits every three months now, and sometimes more than that. I worried if my dad, now nearing 84, had had a change of heart.

My dad used to be an elementary school principal. He knew how to give a look that would shake a misbehaving kid to his pencil-stealing test-cheating core. My dad was quiet for a moment. He appeared to be studying the young man, this pup new enough to be a grandson. He narrowed his eyes. His mouth was grim.  Then one edge pulled up ever so slightly. 

I smiled a little because I recognized it.  It was the look; the white hot scary look that every kid at Lakeview School had known and dreaded. The one two certain little trouble-making girls on View St. had run from many, many times. His voice was a growl, his enunciation as muddy as the dirt brown fields of Grafton Hill in March: “If there’s any hope at all, of course revive me. I want to live.”

 That’s how he said it nineteen years ago too. 

They called it the Paris of the 80s. We called it home.

Brave is more than a movie (Spoilers)

Brave is hard. Brave is tossing out the clichés and adverbs. Brave is taking the time to find the right word. Thank you dictionary.com. 

Brave is reading what you write and asking is that me. When it isn’t, because it never is the first second or sometimes even the final published time, brave is saying "I’ll try harder next time."

Brave is scraping off the layers and getting to the core which for me is my Catholicism which I can’t escape no matter how hard I try.

The Catholic Church: the meek shall inherit the earth.  Me now: Oh that is such bullshit. But maybe not.

Here’s a journey toward brave, Pixar version: 

We’re in Cinema North on a steamy July afternoon. Brave, the Pixar movie, is playing. We’re in the fifth row from the front, in the lowest point, in between the wave of seats that rise to meet the screen, and right before the rows start to swell toward the back. 

The movie is sweet though I seem to have grown a sand paper garden in my stomach. I can’t ignore the little swipes to my internal membranes. Those rough petals hurt. 

Brave is about a daughter battling with her mother for the right to be her own person. I know this fight. I am a daughter. I am a mother of two daughters. 

The movie has flaws, but not enough to interfere with the message I’m receiving like a punching bag now.  I’m surprised it hurts so much. I’m a grown-up now. I’m feeling like an idiot.

We’re at the climax. It’s the scene where Merida’s father is about to kill the bear, who is actually Merida’s mother under a spell put there by Merida who cast it impetuously because her mother didn’t understand her. (Wow. Mouthful. Sorry.)

Her mother wanted her to be someone she is not.

   

Merida points her sword. The tip is inches from her father’s heart.  Throughout the movie, we see that Merida relates more to her dad than her mom. So their close relationship further heightens the drama of this scene. 

Merida is raw fury. She will murder her father whom she loves in order to save her mother. It’s her moment of truth. She’s finally realized the enormity of what she’s done. She finally realizes how careless and stupid and self-centered she is. She didn’t appreciate her mother. She sacrificed true love. 

Yeah. You go Merida. 

 

You had love in your hands, and you gave it up. . .   So bow down to her if you want, bow to her. Bow to the Queen of Slime, the Queen of Filth, the Queen of Putrescence. Boo. Boo. Rubbish. Filth. Slime. Muck. Boo. Boo. Boo. (That’s the Ancient Booer’s speech from Princess Bride.)

Her movie name is really truly The Ancient Booer. 

There's a guttural sound coming from Merida now. It is subhuman. Painful. The Alpha and the Omega. It is the sound of ultimate human suffering. It is this: "You will not murder my mother."

It is the Christ moment. 

You can hear the sharp intake of breath from the two adult females in the fifth row. 

My right hand goes to my mouth and the scream stays inside. It becomes a bubble then a tumor then cracks and dissolves to liquid and comes out in tears.

Here's real life brave, on the phone this morning. The subject is chemo. 

"It's pretty long. Boring. Takes about three hours. We tell dirty jokes to pass the time." 

We're not dead yet. 

 

Stripping to Aerosmith

My whole point in writing this blog is to make myself write. I write a lot, but not every day. I want to change that.  The more I write, the better I get. The better I get, the faster the book gets done. The faster the book gets done, the sooner I get to move on to the next adventure in my life which will probably be another book and then this starts all over again.  

  

This morning I ran into trouble. I didn’t know what to write. Correction. I knew what I wanted to write. I just was afraid to write it. I wanted to write about why I haven’t had a drink in almost a month, except for a free margarita two weeks ago. I already had a fancy title for the piece and everything: In support of discipline. But in order to write the piece, I needed to get to the heart of some pretty personal things. I’m not sure I want to go there. It’s a pretty black area. 

All margaritas should be free and delicious.

Plus, honest to God it’s an awful title. Plus, it’s a humongous lie.  I’m not that disciplined. Evidence: The two-pound empty Nutella jar in the recycling bin. I opened it on Monday. You know, just to take a spoonful. It was gone by Wednesday. Evidence: My living room sofa. You could stuff a pillow with all the cat fur glued to it.  If I’m so disciplined, why did I eat Nutella for breakfast three days straight? Why is my house such a pit? 

Hello lover.

Now I'm itching to vacuum the furniture. That’s a terrible way to spend a gorgeous summer day.  I needed to get out of the house before I did something stupid. I headed to the rail trail, three miles of shaded packed dirt.  

  

It was already 89 degrees by the time I started running, so I took it even easier than I usually do. I turned up my shuffle, turned off my brain and let the thoughts cascade in.  

Four songs in to my run, Aerosmith’s “Take Me to the Other Side” arrived. I’m just passing the mill on the Holden side of the trail, and I’m breathing well and my legs are strong.  I’m moving at a nice clip despite the steady uphill from West Boylston to Holden. Plus, I’m loving this song’s brassy strip club beat.

Loving you has got to be

like the devil and the deep blue sea.

 Yup. That’s you, running. Sometimes you are so irritating. Other times I love you so much. You make me crazy.  I wish I could quit you. I chuckle at my own stupid joke, only it sounds like a grunt. 

It hits me that I have the same relationship with writing: classic love-hate. If you want to be a good writer, you have to be honest. Right now, honest is not where I want to be. Honest is an awful place to be right now. I hit replay when the song ends.   

My mama told me there’d be days like these

And man she wasn’t fooling.

The memoirist Dani Shapiro spoke at a conference I attended a few weeks back in Taos, NM. She talked about that tenuous tightrope walk between respecting privacy and getting your story out there. What do you tell? What do you hold close? She had her mother’s therapist review her last manuscript because she wanted to make sure she didn’t offend her mom. The therapist said she’d written quite generously and beautifully. She assured Dani that her mother would love it. The book came out and this is what Dani’s mother said:  “You have ruined my life.”  

You blinded me with love and yeah it opened up my eyes.

Loving you has got to be like the devil and the deep blue sea.

Running is like that. You can be on a roll for days. You can have a whole perfect training season.  And on race day you go out there confident and ready and just knowing you’re going to get yourself a personal record and you get cut down at the knees instead.

Or maybe one day you go for a routine checkup and your blood test is off.

My conscious has got to be my guide.

Take me to the other side.

I see the silver gate  on the Holden side. It  marks the end of mile three, my turnaround point. And that’s when the realization hits me too. The big catharsis? At the turnaround point? Is this the universe calling to me?

The reason I’ve been avoiding my book is because I need to expand upon one of the characters. I need to write more about how this beloved character gets very ill. That’s one of the things we talked about in Taos at my novel workshop. When John Dufresne, a novelist I admire mightily, said I should consider doing this, I knew in my heart that he was right, because I'd been writing around the illness for a long time. Facing the truth is hard.  

I rest my forehead against the cool metal barrier and I can’t help it. The sides of my mouth start pulling down.

“It’s not always easy, is it?”  It’s a man’s voice.

I raise my head and pretend I’m wiping sweat off my face.  It’s an elderly man and his wife slowly strolling down River Road.

I nod in agreement, then turn and head for home.

I hate cigarettes

Sometimes when I run, I run in elaborate imaginary scenarios; Hollywood set kinds of things. I’m sure I’m not the only one. 

Haruki Murakami, author of What I talk about when I talk about running, says he shuts off his brain when he runs. He doesn’t think about anything. I’m not buying it, because that’s not how I work, and I’m pretty normal. At least that’s what most people say. 

I  love this book.

I’d like to justify the constant movie reel by saying it’s probably because I’m a product of the MTV generation – video killed the radio and infected my brain. But the truth is, I’ve had movies running through my head for as long as I can remember. As I little girl, I’d wake myself up with laughter in the middle of the night, goofball dreaming I don’t remember today. What I do remember is this: my dad, three in the morning, waking me to sanity, yelling from across the hall: “Jesus Christ will you go to sleep.”  

In times of stress, of course the dreams would be less than pleasant. After my grandmother died, I had to sleep with the light on for weeks, because I swear to God even today that she was watching me from my open closet door, and once stood over me. She was wearing a dress of small blue squares, some navy, some near gray, black piping at the neck. Her white hair was pulled back in a soft cottony bun and loosened strands brushed my face. That’s what woke me up, the falling hair. Her blue eyes were no longer cloudy. Her smile was my mother’s. Creepy, but comforting in a way too.  I’m guessing Stephen King would understand.  

I love this book too.

When I was going through a tough and scary time many years ago, I woke up once to find myself dragging a chair across the floor to block the front door. Okay. More than once. A good writer needs to be honest with herself. And it was an end table, not a chair. And I wrote about it in my book though I changed the character’s name and hair color.   

I think my elaborate running scenarios are a way of coping. Sometimes, I deliberately put myself in scenes. Like when I am training for a long race. I picked up that technique years ago, when I read how some top athletes visualize success while they are training. Picturing themselves running on the course psyches them up for race day and makes them stronger.  

One of my favorite movie scenes. Always motivates me.

Lately, my scenarios involve the Philip Morris Company. The movies come whether I want them to or not. 

Many marathoners put messages on their singlets. Sometimes it’s a shout-out to loved ones: “This one’s for you mom!”  Sometimes it’s to entertain others: “Save a horse, ride a runner!” Lately, in my elaborate running scenarios, my singlet says variations of this: “If you support the Philip Morris Company, you are a murderer.”

For 26.2 miles, I am the end all and be all; the Alpha and Omega. Some people on the sidelines cheer me on. “Yeah. You go! Cigarettes killed my aunt/uncle/dad/cousin/neighbor!” Or, “You tell ‘em kid. You’re my hero!” 

Then there are the ones who try to stop me. They are the smokers. They are the tobacco lobbyists. They are the politicians and big businesses. They are mothers and fathers and grandparents and teens. Their nicotine fills my lungs. I cough. I slow. 

I consider that the smart thing to do would be to move to the white line running down the center of the road, far from the crowds on either side, the safe middle ground. But fury arrives in the form of seraphim, bodiless innocents with flaming wings and rosy cheeks. They tickle my knees and push my shoulder blades and I’m charging like horses, one side to another, grabbing cigarettes from lips and fingers and the crowd is cheering and the sun is shining and the air is cold and healing.