And then the scar rips off

I was talking with my friend V recently about some experiences we have in common. Both she and I know about restraining orders, control freaks, liars, losing ourselves, finding our way back, healing. For me, we’re talking ancient history, padded shoulders and puffy hair days. Her story is more recent, within this century. 

Hours before our talk, something had come up that triggered reminders of the duplicity and danger V had survived. As she spoke about this to me, V’s voice veered from even to anxious to shrill. She started gesticulating wildly. Her eyes got teary. I, on the other hand, was calm, reserved even. I nodded as she spoke about what we both know to be true, that there are some scary dangerous nutcases out there, that the court system is flawed, that keeping yourself and your kids safe takes guts and that some of your worst enemies are the friends in whom you confide, who come back at you with, “How could you allow this to happen?” and never look at you the same again, though if you’re healthy you’ve realized by then that it wasn’t really friendship and so you haven’t lost much. 

I watched my friend as the anger took over.  Her eyes were wide. Her hands, hatchets almost, slashed the air. We talked, well I talked while she sort of yelled, about how those false friends usually find out the hard way that the world is full of sociopath spouses and other damaged supposed loved ones who will lie, cheat, break hearts and sometimes other body parts in order to get what their narcissistic brains and bodies crave.  

At one point I said that I understood her emotions. I said that for about ten years I was much like her. That full out response, the fury, followed by guilt, destructive self-talk, nightmares for days, would get set off at the oddest times: the tone of a radio voice, a headline in the news, conversation snippets over heard in the supermarket. There are still certain movies I can’t watch, I said. Certain kinds of reading matter I have to avoid.  I assured her that things will just keep getting better. Each day is easier than the next. 

As I drove home, I couldn’t help but reflect on how much I’d changed since the early ‘90s.  How much I’d accomplished. How stronger, wiser, more compassionate I’d become. How detached I was able to be. How happy I’d become. 

I had a medical procedure scheduled for this morning. The doctor went over some last minute details then asked me about my running. She’s a half-marathoner so she semi gets me. I told her I’d just become a Marathon Maniac, and talked about the two marathons I ran in two weeks that got me qualified. She was impressed, and complimented me on my strength, then told me I was a nut. 

I laughed back at her and told her she was only half crazy because she only ran half marathons.  We bantered back and forth like this for a bit. I was feeling a little more relaxed about the procedure, which was going to be uncomfortable but nothing, the doc assured me, I wouldn’t be able to handle. 

As she began, I tried to focus my attention on the medical student who stood at my right side. The doc had said the student would hold my hand if I wanted. 

“I just ran two marathons in two weeks. I can handle this,” I said. I smiled at the student.

The doc began and I felt myself tense at her touch.

“Relax,” she said. She continued working.

I tried some deep breaths, but just froze up more.

“You need to relax,” she said.

I yelled I can’t, and jumped up screaming for her to stop, stop right now.  She did. I could tell she was startled by my reaction. I was too.

I wiped my nose and eyes with my arm. The student handed me a box of tissues. The doc told me to calm down. I blew my nose and told her to stop saying that because it was just making me angrier. She nodded and talked about what to do next. She said we’d reschedule the procedure in the hospital, with me under anesthesia.

I said I felt like an idiot, like a weakling, because I couldn’t handle what should have been an uncomfortable but fairly simple procedure. She reminded me I was a Marathon Maniac and could handle anything.  

“Not this,” I said.

It wasn’t until I was in the car that it hit me.  It was the way she touched combined with a slight switch in tone when she told me to relax, a word I’d heard so many times earlier in my life, as I was being lied to, dismissed, redirected, controlled.  One minute I was fine. The next, all that scar tissue had ripped right off, and I was back in a time when my life was hell. 

I’d told the truth when I told my friend that things do get better. I wrote this to remind myself and others that sometimes we still fall apart too. And that’s okay. It’s all part of the process. 

Fall seven. Rise eight. Time for a run. Life is good. It truly is. I hope it’s good for you too.

Go gray? No way.

Dear friends,   

I’m sorry but it’s time for us to say good-bye. This relationship is simply not working for me.  I’ve said it before, I know. Attempted to cut the cord umpteen times and counting. But today, right now, I mean it. I’ve got the proof here at my fingertips, in my appointment book: 3:30, Friday, Sylvie B. See? This is really happening. 

I know what you’re thinking.  You’ve heard this sad song a thousand times already for crying out loud. I’ve scheduled so many, many appointments, and never followed through:  too cheap, lazy, needed to read one more silly story on cracked.com, whatever.  

None of that wishy-washy stuff this time. I’m ready. I’m not backing out like I did last year when I set a day and time, then let my daughter talk me out of it.  She’s out of state. Has no idea what I’m planning.  Or maybe you’re thinking of four years ago, right before that big date, when I canceled both the appointment and the guy, and bought myself some outrageous earrings and a sweet bottle of cabernet instead. 

Nope. I’ve cleared my schedule. Got the jewelry and wine shopping done, too.  

In truth, I knew I wouldn’t back out the second I heard Sylvie suggest it. First, there was her sharp intake of breath immediately followed by the flash of a grimace. Then her voice, low but firm, as she combed out the tangled layers and prepared for the cutting: “Maureen, it’s time.”

She was right. I knew it instinctively. Understood it the way I know deep in my gut each time I find that perfect wine-cake-frosting combination. I knew it was time to cover you up. I’d seen it coming. Truth is I’ve been thinking about this for a long time now. You’ve gotten way too spirally, wiry, and worst of all, dull. Dull is not who I want to be. 

It’s not that I don’t appreciate you. Haven’t I been your biggest supporter these last few years? As you’ve grown and multiplied I’ve worn you with a cut-the-crap none-of-that-nonsense-for-me 'tude. I’ve always loved you, my gray ones, as much as I love all the evidence that proves I’ve lived a solid, rich life for oh so many marvelous, precious decades.   

My laugh lines show the world I love to smile. My blistered feet? Trophies from miles of marathons. And you, my ashen doves, each one of you holds a precious nay, distinctive memory of a hurdle I’ve vaulted, a challenge I’ve crushed: raising two kiddos all alone, teaching thousands of hormone-addled not-so-innocents how to fill in test bubbles; surviving multitudes of cats, most of them ridiculously long-haired and insufferably cute; vacuuming a couple of times a year every few years.

It’s not that I’m ungrateful that I’ve passed the half century mark. It’s just that I’m looking for a change. I've got a yen for adventure that you're just not satisfying. I'm yearning for something new. Perhaps a more daring me? Though Sylvie suggested I start conservatively, and maybe think a little longer before I go for the eggplant hue I’ve been craving. Ditto blue-black, or orange with magenta highlights, though I think they’re all excellent options. 

  

It’s time to bid adieu my pale, frail friends. Please don’t despair. I am sure this is just a temporary farewell.  You know I have commitment issues. Remember the Sun-In summer of  ’81? The copper Captain and Tennille helmet I swore I’d keep forever? That lasted what? Six months?  And what about my almost-mid-life-crisis a decade ago, my year of living blondishly? Remember how that turned out?  How you grays, browns, doves, salts, all came out to play within days of my third canceled hair salon appointment?

You know as well as I do that this isn’t au revoir in any permanent sense whatsoever. This is see ya later.  I know you'll always be there for me, ready, waiting, willing to enter back into the fray, at least until I hit my 80s. After that, I know all bets are off. I've seen how my forbears have aged. Eesh. 

  

Until we meet again,

Me

Mother's Day: It's complicated

We are not big holiday people. I think I need to start by saying that so you understand where I’m coming from with this take on Mother’s Day.

“We” here meaning me, my mom, dad, and sister.  We were a pretty tiny family, as far as things went back then. Most of my friends and cousins came from large broods with even larger extended families. Having seven or eight kids was the norm. A family of two was freakish.  

We celebrated the big cultural holidays – Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, with as much gusto as anyone else I knew. We did the same stuff as everyone else too, but on a smaller scale: big dinners, presents from Santa, baskets filled with chocolate bunnies and marshmallow peeps. But we never did the other days, the ones my mother always referred to as “Hallmark Holidays” -- Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day. So maybe that’s one reason I used to take such a blasé view of them. I don’t have a lot of memories of these unholidays, at least from childhood. 

I remember making cards for my parents when I was little. I remember going to the drug store and buying those thin boxes filled with perforated valentines, and punching them out and giving them to all my classmates and my teacher. But I don’t remember anything specific at all. On the Hallmark holidays, we didn’t do special barbecues or visit special places. 

The first Mother’s day I remember with even the remotest bit of clarity is when I was eight months pregnant with my first child. I was on my way to my mom’s house just to say hi. I stopped at a roadside vendor to get her a three-buck bouquet of carnations, which I knew she’d accept dripping sarcasm, “Ah. I thank you SO much. You know how much I LOVE this holiday.” Or maybe honestly, “You spent too much. Really. Don’t waste your money.”

I remember it was a busy road, just around the corner and down the hill from my mom’s.  It was a warm day. Cars zoomed by, blaring music, honking at my rusty Datsun pulled tight against the curb, as I chose from the bouquets in the white plastic buckets in the shade under the vendor’s umbrella. I probably bought my mom a yellow or white bunch, colors she’d find less sentimentally offensive than pink. I paid and thanked the guy and he wished me a happy Mother’s Day.  

I probably pointed to my big belly as I said, “Not Mother’s Day for me yet. Next year.” In truth, I’d woken up that morning thinking that my husband would be giving me a gift, or at least wish me a happy day. But he hadn’t.  All he’d said about the day was that we needed to be at his parent’s house that afternoon for the traditional family barbecue. 

I didn't grow up in a barbecue family. We had a little Hibachi by the side of the house but that was it. My parents weren’t into eating outside, plus my dad was a golf addict and wasn’t around much on weekends. On Sundays from March to November and sometimes for longer if the weather allowed, my dad was awake by seven and already into his first game of the day well before the rest of us woke up. He’d come home just as my mom was starting supper, usually carrying a goody or two from the bakery down the street. 

On Mother’s Day, he’d bring home a box of Russell Stovers too. Though my mom always said that he shouldn’t have, she’d open that box right after dinner and made sure to take the best chocolates, the ones with fudge, marshmallow, pecans, walnuts, before handing the remains – the ones with neon interiors, to me and my sister and dad. 

I’m sure I was rubbing my tummy, while I was figuring what color flowers to buy my mom that day. Rubbing my tummy was my favorite thing to do when I was pregnant.  My first born was quite the gymnast in utero, always somersaulting and cart wheeling, and I was always cheering her on with love pats and whispers. She and I were connected from the day I found out I was pregnant. We were cemented at the first flutter, around the sixteen-week mark. I loved feeling my belly crest and dip. Was blown away by how she loved to respond to the sound of my voice.

I’d woken up that morning twenty-eight years ago thinking, “Happy Mother’s Day to me” because I already felt like a mom. I felt silly and somewhat ashamed, when it became apparent that I was the only one in our apartment who thought that way.  A part of me even thought, “What’s wrong with me, thinking I deserved anything today?” 

The man handed me my change. I don’t remember what he looked like, it’s been close to three decades now, but I imagine him as scruffy, unshaven, thin. I remember he was middle-aged, not young like my husband.  Before I could leave, he handed me a second bouquet. “Happy Mother’s Day,” he said again.

 

His kindness caught me off guard. I thanked him and blurted out that he was the first one to ever give me a Mother’s Day present. 

His response was a funny look then, then he nodded or waved. I don't remember much beyond that look.

Though my parent’s house was less than a mile away, it took about a half hour for me to get there. I took a longer route, through the next town and back, inhaling deeply, exhaling hard, cursing those hormones that kept wetting my eyes and nose.

Practice with Flash Non-Fiction: My Blue Room

In my room I have azure walls, a textured rug that looks like sand and tickles my bare feet, a cerulean blue loveseat, and white bead board furniture that the LL Bean catalog assured me would evoke what I hope to own someday, a modest Maine cottage, perhaps one backing onto a vestigial marsh or fronting an unspoiled bay.  This is where I write, in summer every day and during the school year, once a week at least, though I wish it could be more. 

My desk is smooth and cool and faces an expanse of wall that could be ocean or summer sky. Sometimes, I take a break from typing and close my eyes. I rub my palms over the satin worktop and remember the silky edges of basinette blankets and this room’s former decorative incarnations:  In earlier years, a crib at the window, walls pasted with white and sprinkled with hearts, stars, rectangles, circles, all in primary colors; then later the paper ripped and faded, hidden behind Hansson posters, bumper stickers, postcards from our cross-country trips, snapshots from proms and graduations.   

My desk is just big enough to hold my laptop, some books, and a dotted porcelain lamp, the latter my only personal purchase on a two-shopping-cart college -supply trip to Ikea with my younger daughter.  My elbows meet desk meets forearms meet laptop in one sinuous slide, a natural extension of me, unlike my old working surface, which doesn't belong in this space, and was slightly higher and stung my wrists, a second hand dining table, Scandinavian-designed, golden teak. It was our first purchase, two weeks before the wedding. He didn’t want the table when things ended, or he asked for it too late. Or maybe the girls were using it for school projects. I don’t care to remember.  It sat in the cellar then. It’s still there today.  

I wrote downstairs on the teak for years, my news stories, graduate papers, letters to lawyers, child support departments, university financial aid offices, while the girls played at the other end of the room or watched their favorite show, or hung with friends, or ignored me from their rooms above. It was dusky down there, the paneled walls dark, the rug too. The lights in the low ceiling always flickered and buzzed, no matter how often I replaced the tubes.

The setting suited me, then eventually became too cold, too dark, too quiet.  The teak hasn’t moved in years, though my daughters have, many times. It sits at the edge of what was once the old playroom, slumber party venue, craft studio, but is now my oldest one’s makeshift studio apartment. The table top holds two obsolete printers, a cracked computer monitor, three crates of moldy paperbacks, the internet router, several families of dust bunnies, and occasionally a snoring cat. A jumble of kitchen supplies, and suitcases stuffed with shoes, sweaters, winter coats occupy the space underneath.  

Most nights we sit on the loveseat upstairs in my still blue room, my eldest and me, and watch Jeopardy or pat cats. We talk about futures, hers and mine.  On the floor next to my desk, encased in its original plastic, is a rolled up poster. It’s about the same size of the only decoration on the wall beyond my laptop, which is a framed souvenir from my first Boston Marathon. The names of all 15,000 of us runners are embossed in navy upon the marine blue backing. If I stand and squint, I can find my name inside the right curve of the second letter O in Boston. 

My newest poster, still taped tight, is a memory from this year’s run. I have yet to flatten and frame and figure where it needs to go. I have yet to find my name. I’m happy with my open walls. For now, that’s enough. That's all I want.  

My Boston Marathon 2014, part 2: Wrapped in love and running as one

I went into Boston to pick up my race number the Friday before Patriot’s Day, which this year happened to coincide with Good Friday, which is a holiday in my school district. It’s called Non-School Day.  I’ve made it a point to visit the Boston Marathon Running and Fitness Expo every year, whether I’m running or not, since my first Boston back in 2001. It’s always festive, always joyful. It’s Christmas and my birthday rolled up into one. 

No one expo stands out as being better or worse or more memorable than the year before.  They’re all equally fantastic. One year I got to talk for a bit with Dick Hoyt, a quiet, unassuming man who shrugs off his vast accomplishments. Another year I hugged my hero, Kathrine “KV” Switzer and thanked her for all she’d done for women of my generation.  I still remember the fun I had chatting with Runner’s World editor Mark Remy, who writes a ridiculously silly column where he regularly pokes fun at himself and lots of other serious athletes out there. 

 I blame KV Switzer for my running addiction.

Last year, I got to meet John Hanc, who was shilling his book The BAA at 125. I bought a lot of running gear at the expo last year. In addition to Hanc’s book, I bought socks, shorts, headbands, a couple of energy bars, a decorative hook set for all my race medals.  Usually, when I get home from the expo, I spend a few days going through my stash of treasures. I put things in drawers, start reading any new books. I spent most of the days after the marathon last year in front of a television set. My 2013 expo bags went unopened for weeks.  

I was thinking about last year’s expo, and all that came after, as we left the parking garage and entered onto Boylston Street. The memories of previous marathon years roll together and I have trouble sometimes telling one from the other. I knew I’d want to remember this year. I knew this expo and marathon would be different. I couldn’t help but wonder what differences we’d come upon. I wondered what I’d want to memorialize in print.   

The first things I noticed were the pots of daffodils that lined sidewalks in front of the shops and restaurants on both sides of the street. I’d read somewhere that hundreds of thousands of daffodils would be lining the course, from Hopkinton to the finish line, to commemorate last year’s bombing and to signify rebirth and new beginnings for all those affected. 

We all run Boston.

We hit Marathon Sports first, and picked up lots of running gear with this year’s logo and the phrase “Boston Runs as One.” As I was waiting for my friend to finish paying, I noticed a chunk of tar about the size of a small dog on a shelf behind the register. I stood on tip toe and looked closer.  The top was painted gold. I could make out a mouth and the tip of a nose. I asked the sales guy what it was, and he confirmed my suspicions. It was a chunk of last year’s finish line. I was looking at the shattered head of the unicorn in the B.A.A. logo.

The finish line holds special meaning for me, not just because touching it is the final ineffable proof that you’ve accomplished something you’d never thought possible. A piece of the finish line figures prominently in the book I keep editing and rewriting. To the main character, that finish line is everything. I think that’s because it’s everything to me too. More so now than ever, it’s hallowed ground.  

The clerk told me that yes, I could hold the chunk, but to be careful because the tar was starting to crumble. For a flash, I thought about breaking off a tiny piece of yellow, just to have as a memento. Who could it harm? Then I noticed the smoky dark splotch, a burn mark the size of my palm, up just about where the eye should be. I ran my finger over it and thought about how that scar had gotten there.  I decided the chunk was already hurt enough.  Besides, it wasn't exclusively mine. It belongs to all of us. I took a picture instead, then handed the wounded creature back to the guy for safekeeping.  

 Hallowed ground

Next we walked down to the Old South Church, where small groups of people milled about on the flagstones between two ginormous daffodil gardens. At the center of each group was a man or woman with patterned gold and blue scarves draped around their necks: stripes of blue and gold, patches, frills, checkerboards. They were removing their scarves one at a time and handing them to passersby. 

  Gardens of daffodils and in the distance blossoming scarves.

“Are you running this year?” one woman asked me. When I nodded, she told me to pick a scarf, any scarf.  We’d heard about this. During the winter, some members of the church decided to start a project of knitting scarves for as many marathoners as they could.  It was their way of wrapping the runners in love and strength. Once word got out to the public, people around the world offered to take part. In addition to each of the fifty states getting in on the act, donations came from as far away as Australia. My scarf was made by Linda in Lockport, Illinois. My friend Wendy’s scarf came from a town just three miles from her home. 

We shared hugs with the church volunteers and settled down near the daffodils to watch other runners receive their gifts. There were lots of tears and lots of smiles. 

 Nothing like being wrapped in love.

Our last stop was the expo, which was at the Hynes Convention Center. Several police officers checked our bags before allowing us to walk up the stairs to the number pick up area. We got in a long line that snaked from one end of the building to the other and back again. I joked that the place reminded me of that last scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, when the crate containing the Holy Grail is lowered unceremoniously into the center of a large warehouse. As the camera pulls back, you see that the warehouse stretches from horizon to horizon. 

We joked a bit about wearing out our legs before even getting to the starting line, but we moved pretty quickly, up and down the hall, then up an escalator, down a hallway, through another line that wound like a bunch of letter ms  through a large room,  then into the number area. We had our numbers within a half hour, which isn’t all that bad considering the territory we had to cover.  In the past, getting your number was a simple matter of walking to the end of the expo room, and maybe waiting a minute or two. 

The expo was one floor below and as overwhelmingly crowded as it always has been, with scores of vendors marketing all kinds of running paraphernalia that you just might possibly be unable to live without come Marathon Monday.  Along with my legs, my credit card got quite a workout.  For the most part, it was the same old circus as always. But here and there were subtle and not so subtle changes. Almost every runner, for example, was wearing a blue and gold scarf. Indoors. In April. Also, every other merchandiser seemed to be selling something Boston Strong: T-shirts, stickers, hats, keychains, socks.

On the temporary walls where runners are invited to leave messages about why they run, most made some reference to the events of last year like, “I’m taking back my finish line” and “It’s my fucking city.” There were dedications from floor to fingertips to the four who where lost and to the hundreds injured. I wrote “Faith, Hope, Charity, Boston 2014 4 Ever” with a heart around the 4, my own feeble attempt to give homage to Martin, Krystle, Lu, Sean, and the rest.  Even as I wrote, I knew it wasn’t enough. My message wasn’t going to change anything that had already happened. It was ink on cardboard, and nothing more.

We exited the Convention Center and headed toward the mall entrance.  Suddenly a horn started blasting. Then a muddy voice came over the intercom. It was at about the third time of hearing the message that came in between the blasts that we realized we were being told to evacuate the premises. We were at the mall entrance by then and watched as people nonchalantly exited behind us. 

I suggested that maybe it was just a practice drill. My friend shrugged his shoulders. No one seemed panicked. It was then, as we were scanning the crowds, that we noticed the cowboy hat a few yards away. 

Carlos Arredondo is the gentleman in all the 2013 photos who is helping emergency personnel rush Jeff Bauman to the medical tents. He is a peace advocate who lost one son to war and another to suicide. He disregarded his own safety, and rushed in to help when the bombs went off. Didn’t think twice, just did it.  He wears a cowboy hat in nearly all his photos. He was standing just inches from us, while folks shook his hand and posed with him for pictures. 

I’m not a big fan of intruding on famous folks who are just out and about minding their own business, but I had to meet Carlos. I don’t know if I would ever have the guts to rush in and help the way he did. Heck, I don’t know if I’d ever be able to get out of bed again if I’d lived through what he’d suffered through even before that.  He is my hero. 

I shook his hand and thanked him for all he’d done for me, our marathoners, the city. His voice was soft and kind. He looked right into my eyes as I spoke. He asked about my running and I told him about my charity. He wished me good luck and said he’d be at the finish line cheering us on.

Best. Sign. Ever.

After that, I was all Bostoned out. I needed to clear my head. It had been a beautiful day, but an overwhelming day too.

As we exited the mall, a girl in a shop asked if I was running Boston. I stopped and we talked for a bit. Told her how I either run or volunteer every year. How Boston is my family.  The girl was working in Teavana, a store that sells special teas and pots and cups.  She was about college age and wore white geisha makeup. Her ebony eyebrows looked like they’d been painted on with a thin brush. 

She told me her dad was running. That he ran every year, and that though he didn’t qualify this year, he had won an entry via an essay contest. My friend then asked what he’d written about and the girl hesitated, then began tearing up. She told us he’d written about his experience after crossing the finish line last year. 

Family members, including her mom, siblings, grandparents, were on both sides of Boylston Street. They’d cheered him on as he ended his run. He’d crossed about ten minutes before the bombs went off. As chaos ensued, family members couldn’t find one another and couldn’t contact each other by phone because the lines were overloaded. Every family member had thought the worst.

“It was the most awful two hours of my life,” the girl said. “I’m just so thankful we were all okay.” 

I asked her if she’d be at the race this year.

“Of course,” she said. “I’ll be at the finish line, where I always stand.”

She asked me my race number and wrote it down. She told me she’d cheer for me. She thanked me for running. We wiped our tears and hugged. Then I went home.  

Yup.

#KVSwitzer #BostonRunsAsOne #BostonMarathon2014