Resting in the Run

One day, in late June, I decided to start taking a walk every day. I bought a pedometer, promised myself 10,000 steps and started discovering paths. I walked my neighborhood. I walked trails near soccer parks all over Northern Virginia. I walked in Charlottesville. By the end of August, I’d walked 475 miles. I even climbed a mountain. September came, and I started to run. My body grew stronger. I got faster (but not by much). Slowly, I began to ask myself why. Why was I spending so much time covering long distances, mostly by myself?

Because every walk was a sabbath. And I was desperately in need of a sabbath.

I am the mother of a large family, a woman whose husband travels, a writer who is compelled by the industry to engage in social media. All day, every day, I am besieged by people who draw from me. Recently someone asked me how I found the time to log that kind of mileage in a summer. I replied that a younger me would have said it was a very selfish summer. The wiser me says it was long overdue self-care.

Motherhood is a 24/7 “job.” At a time when all the other mothers from the 1989 playgroup with my firstborn are now settling into empty nests, I am still doing four loads of laundry a day, homeschooling six children who remain at home and scurrying from soccer to ballet and back again. This parenting gig is a marathon, and I’ve discovered I literally need running shoes to go the distance.

In a world where email and text messaging make one perpetually available at all hours and on all days, it’s not just mothers who are struggling to find moments of rest, never mind the whole day of rest every week as our Creator intended. The old cliche about the mom who can’t even go the bathroom without her children following her? Notice how many people take their smartphones into the place where once phones rarely went.

It’s not just mothers who are on 24/7 anymore. There is a universal expectation that text messages and emails will be received as soon as they are sent. Responses are expected shortly thereafter. Recently, my husband set his email to auto-respond and let people know that he was “stepping away” from his desk for the day. Undaunted, they tried to engage anyway; his text alerts began to chime at an alarming rate. There was no stepping away.

We are hard-wired for constant interaction, and somehow our bodies have overridden the default “rest mode.” After several years of existing this way, despite my attempts to intentionally limit digital input (and output) and avoid the overscheduling of my children, I found myself feeling exhausted and, oddly, alone. I was completely out of touch with myself.

Without a sabbath, a woman feels herself slowly going a bit mad. The clamoring around her reaches a deafening crescendo, and the highways (both physical and virtual) demand increasingly impossible velocity and distance. Panic presses in, and she becomes aware, as Ghandi observed, that “there is more to life than increasing speed. “

I don’t run (or walk or hike) for speed. I run to slow down. I run to rest.

I have found that the only way to a really rest is to get up an hour earlier, lace my shoes, set my phone to airplane mode and allow only the sounds of carefully chosen music or a well-produced audiobook to invade my brain space. Then the rhythm of my feet and the feel of the outdoors — whether sticky and humid or crisp and cool — awaken me to the sense of being created, both body and soul. To move, particularly outdoors, is to appreciate that we are souls living in bodies. So often, we underappreciate the corporeal. The combination of activity and free-flowing conversation with oneself rejuvenates and restores equilibrium. An awareness of one’s body, even if the awareness includes the burning of one’s legs and the pounding of one’s heart, brings thoughts into sharper focus. Sometimes, I am sure that oxygen deprivation has wiped out my short-term memory, and I have very little recollection of what I thought along the way, despite the clarity in the moment.

But I know I had a meaningful conversation with myself. And I know that God was the only other being who heard it. So, that explains to me why I return at peace, feeling stronger, more disciplined, and more capable of meeting the challenges of the day. I have rested in the run.

Running into Myself

On our first morning in California, with Mike’s encouragement, I got up to run along the beach in Santa Barbara. Six weeks ago, I started the Couch-to-5K program. I’m eager to tell you more about the how and the why of its beginning, but today, I want to share with you Week 5, Day 3.

Couch-to-5K is walking-to-running program. It begins slowly, with very short running intervals and much longer walking intervals, for a total of about 30-40 minutes of training every other day. I’ve been committed to it. I walk at least 5 miles every day and I try to stick to C25K every other day. Sometimes I go two days between runs; sometimes, I repeat the previous day’s run because I’m not satisfied with my own performance.

I haven’t been tempted to give up, but I have worried more than a little about whether I will be able to finish.  Every once in awhile, I get utterly disgusted and send Paddy my performance record. I do this because I know Paddy will only respond with exactly the encouragement necessary. I’m not sure how he does this, but I am very certain it’s an extraordinary gift.

The night before my Santa Barbara run, Mike and I took a walk. I have become something of a marathon walker. I can walk and walk and walk, without tiring. I’ve literally logged half marathon walking days, just doing my everyday thing. On this evening, my husband was a very cheerful companion for all eight miles. Since I’d walked so far, I knew exactly where I wanted to run and how to time it the next morning.

Week 5, Day 3 is the first time the aspiring runner is asked to run without a walking interval. It’s a 5-minute walking warm-up, a 20 minute run, and a 5 minute cooldown. The longest I’d ever run without walking was 8 minutes. And that wasn’t pretty.

I timed the warm-up so that I arrived at the beach just as the run prompt was voiced. Mary Beth has made me a new running playlist of uplifting Christian music that was supposed to inspire me to run around a 10-minute mile (hah!). I started running. And I felt great. The sun was just coming up. I took some pictures on the go. I tried not to glance too often at my phone with the app running, clocking time and speed. I’d told myself I would turn around at the halfway point. I never heard her say I was halfway. I glanced at my phone. Seven minutes to go.

Maybe I could run those seven minutes and end up at the pier. Then I’d walk the pier and stop to take some pictures. Maybe I could do it fast enough to get there in time to get good sunrise pictures.

My hair began to curl in corkscrews across my forehead. Persistent neck pain all summer has kept me from wearing a headband. The corkscrew bangs drive me nuts every day. On this day, though, along the beach and feeling so good as I ran, I thought about my grandfather. He gave me these curls. He had tight, tiny corkscrews all over his head.

My grandfather was an athlete. An Olympic caliber swimmer, an avid cyclist, a man in motion all the time. He taught me to swim. First, I laid belly down on a board suspended between two chairs in his kitchen. Stroke technique without the water, over and over I stroked and he critiqued, going absolutely nowhere. Then he took me to the ocean and I swam off the coast of Long Island. A few years later, we swam together off the coast of Florida.

I remember a conversation in his basement, before he moved to Florida. I must have been about ten. I remember exactly where we were standing—the way you remember defining moments. He showed me a picture his brother had painted. His eyes grew dark and serious.

My brother was a talented artist, so very creative. Sometimes, many times, creative people have a dark side. They get sad; they think too much; they are held captive by their thoughts. The darkness can kill them.

He watched me carefully and I knew he was trying to tell me something important.

You’re a pensive type. I don’t know if you will paint or draw, but you will create. You will think big thoughts. Don’t let the darkness come too close. I keep moving. You can keep moving, too. Exercise will always be your friend. Take good care of your body. Always take good care of your body.

I haven’t thought about that conversation in so many years. I didn’t really know what he was driving at then and I still don’t know exactly, but on the beach in Santa Barbara, grace lit the morning. I think it’s entirely possible my grandfather knew a thing or two about depression and he was passing along his anti-depressant of choice.

I reached the pier and still had more time left to run. I ran the whole length of the pier and started back towards home before I heard the prompt to cool down. I’d run the whole time—no walking breaks, no real struggle.  Twenty minutes: I’d done it. Maybe, just maybe, it’s not too late. Maybe I can be a runner after all.

The sky was glorious. I wanted to laugh and to cry at the surreal moment at hand. I was on the beach, 3,000 miles from home, staring wonderingly into the sky.

I was middle-aged and still figuring it out.

Who decides to start running when she’s 48?

I have about four weeks left of couch-to-5K. I got a little off track while traveling. I’ve never been very good at the “31 days of ….” October challenge. I don’t have a button made or a catchy title for the series (suggestions welcome). But here we are at the beginning of October and I’d like to share a little bit about the marathon that is life and about how I see the long run taking shape before me.  I’d like to share with you the things I think about as I run and walk and try to sort out how fast life is changing in my home and in my body.

Come along? I promise we will stop to walk and take plenty of pictures along the way.

Taking flight (again)

This has been a whirlwind week. Just as I was unpacking from the trip to Miami, I was repacking for a trip to San Diego, with a short daytrip to Williamsburg and back thrown in for extra points. Long about Tuesday, I was sarting to panic. All the details of lesson plans and carpools and meals in the freezer buzzed in my ears and fueled the doubt that leaving again was even a little bit of a good idea.

The San Diego trip was planned long before all the others. The man who is my husband’s best friend, the best man in our wedding, and Nicholas’ godfather got married for the first time last year. There wasn’t a lot of fanfare and we didn’t really get to celebrate at all. Indeed, within days of his wedding, Brian and his new bride flew east for Mike’s dad’s funeral.  Life marched on. But Brian’s wife Katy promised that there would, indeed, be a party to celebrate their marriage.

In April, we all were super excited to learn that Brian had been selected to be promoted to the rank of admiral. Slowly, the party began to take shape. There’d be a wedding celebration and a wetting down party. The last weekend in September was inked on the calendar. April didn’t know that Mike would be gone all summer. April didn’t know that we’d be traveling so much in early September. April didn't know that I'd fight hard against that old nemesis depression all summer. April didn’t know that Stephen would injure his Achilles. April didn’t know that the Nutcracker would be three weeks earlier this year and so the costume and rehearsal schedule would be daunting at the end of September. April did know—and has long known-- that birthday week begins at the end of September and we would land at home on the first of four birthdays in six days.

That just meant I had to plan for birthdays before taking off. While planning for everything else.

So on that Tuesday, when Bobby texted, “I think we’ll come visit from Thursday to Tuesday. What are you guys doing?”  I responded “Perfect. Sort of. Call me.”

He did, right away, and I explained that Mike and I would be gone, but if he and Sloane and Grey wanted to come visit, well, that would about like having a fairy godmother drop in my lap.

It’s not the first time I’ve unexpectedly left six kids with Bobby. When he was 18, I went off for a routine prenatal appointment and left him in charge. Ten hours later, he loaded six kids into our giant fullsize van and drove them to the hospital to visit baby Katie after an emergency c-section.  That was exactly 12 years ago.

Now, he’s a dad, with a wonderful wife, and a baby I got to welcome into the world four months ago.  They’re going to be just fine at home. And yes, by golly, there are lots of lesson plans, a full tank of gas, and meals in the freezer.

I can’t really believe that I sat down to sew yesterday morning, but before I left, I did want to finally finish that baby sling I’d promised Sloane at the beginning of the summer. I used some Amy Butler fabric and then fussy cut from another Amy Butler print to put a bright applique on the tail. I used the pattern in Growing Up Sew Liberated. I’m thrilled with the result. I have a major crush on this sling.

I haven’t really read much this week. I finished up last week’s books and did some kid lit reading to stay as current as possible with “school” assignments. Oh, and I read Run Like a Mother on the plane. I have fully loaded the book basket with St. Francis goodies in anticipation of next week's feast. I have loaded the audio version of North and South onto my phone. I’m looking forward to a nice long listening investment as the leaves turn colors.

What about you? Reading? Sewing? It’s really time to make a list of Christmas gift sewing, isn’t it? I’m thinking about those corn-filled flannel cozies for teachers. They’re a little heavy and I’m not quite sure how we’d package them, but I think they might be just right. We use one almost every day. Do you think they’d be well-received?

Let me know what you’re up to—reading, sewing, traveling? If you’d like, you could tell me how you left your kids and went away even though every bone in your body was telling you to stay home and how you were really glad you did it.

I’ll be back soon with pictures of Coronado.

Figuring it Out Between Flights

I wrote this last night and meant to post this morning, but then, well, there was life. Good luck keeping track of time herein;-).

Outside my window::

::another gorgeous sunset in the over the soccer field house. It never fails—every night is more spectacular than the next. I just jumped out of the car to take a picture and several people turned to look and ooh and ahh. They looked as if the sunset were a complete surprise. Makes me wonder how they’d missed it until I thought it camera-worthy.

(All the rest of today's pictures were taken last week in Miami:-)

Listening to::

::the bass of the car stereo next to me. Not a teenage driver. Soccer dad. He’s going to go deaf…

Clothing myself in::

::long sleeves and jeans. There’s a crispness and a chill in the air. Very welcome, indeed.

Talking with my children about these books::

:: Nick is reading The Red Pyramid. Mary Beth is reading The Last of the Mohicans. Stephen is reading The Iliad. Honestly, my head is spinning and I’m wondering how to balance all of this with my newly reignited appreciation for lighter fiction. Adam Andrews, in Teaching the Classics, is taunting me with his assertion that I can’t teach it if I haven’t read it. Really? It’s three-on-one and I’m a voracious reader, but still…

In my own reading::

::well, yeah, I admit, there’s been some of that. I read Kathrine Switzer’s Walking and Running for Women Over 40 on the airplane on the way home from Miami Friday. It was fine, but nothing to light a fire. I do want to amend my thoughts on Running Like a Girl. In hindsight, I did learn a lot and actually, as the words run around in my head almost a week later, I am inspired.

In my own reading::

::well, yeah, I admit, there’s been some of that. I read Kathrine Switzer’s Walking and Running Over 40 on the airplane on the way home from Miami Friday. It was fine, but nothing to light a fire. I do want to amend my thoughts on Running Like a Girl. In hindsight, I did learn a lot and actually, as the words run around in my head almost a week later, I am inspired.

Thinking and thinking::

:: about the direction of this blog and the direction of my life.  When I started blogging, I was pregnant with my eighth baby. And then I had another baby. I was a mom with a full house and I could write about anything from the college admission process to morning sickness on any given day. Things have changed since then. Life has changed since then. I find myself wanting to hold things closer, to share less generously.  Some of that is because sharing has stung at times. But that’s not all of it, or even most of it. With every year comes the clearer recognition that all of life is about finding one’s way. It’s all about figuring it out. Do I want to keep writing about figuring it out forever? I really do not know. And so I’m thinking and thinking, which is actually another way of saying “finding one’s way” or “figuring it out”-- so I guess I just did write about it again.

Pondering::

::”It’s in your broken places where you are most often used by God.” Christine Caine

Carefully cultivating rhythm::

:: I’m actually earnestly craving rhythm. We spent four days in Charlottesville, then came home for a day. Then we left for Miami for two nights. Then stayed home for a day. Then I drove to Williamsburg and back for a day. In two days, we leave again, for San Diego, this time. I’m a total homebody. But I have my eye on the day after we return and I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to sit still and I’ll want to return to Charlottesville. So… Sometime in early October, my life will have rhythm. In the meantime, my children are following carefully written plans. They are adhering to a very fine-tuned color-coded list of places to go and people to take them. They are reheating and putting finishing touches on meals from the freezer that I cooked and for which I left detailed directions. And they are (more or less) following a chore chart. And yes, this level of organization rivals anything I ever did before having a baby. And such June Cleaver efficiency makes me tired. But generally satisfied.

Creating by hand::

:: first up tomorrow is finishing a sling for Sloane. She’s coming with Bobby and baby Grey to hang with my kids in my absence. I think Grey deserves a cozy place to put his feet up.

Learning lessons in::

:: packing. Air travel. Car travel. Travel with children. Travel without children. Running while traveling.

Encouraging lessons in::

:: independence within limits.

Begging prayers::

:: for safe travels. And for people left at home.

Keeping house::

:: this is the one part of the plan that needs major fine tuning in the next couple days. And not a little elbow grease.

Crafting in the kitchen::

::I’m telling you, Fix, Freeze, Feast has been the book of blessing these days. Good stuff here—lots of two thumbs up kinds of things.

To bit fit and happy::

:: Last night, I had a super fun chat with my friend Chrystal about the Couch to 5K, among other things. We laughed a lot and I shared my heart a bit about how I’m running into myself at midlife. Do listen in—it’s a gift. (At this current moment, her blog is down. I'm trying not to entertain the idea that everything I touch on the internet, breaks.)

Giving thanks::

::Mike’s project in South Beach was a huge success. I went with him to the grand unveiling of the studio and I was blessed to hear how much all the people he works with down there genuinely respect and love him. We spent two nights in a cozy old inn and we ate like royalty. I attempted a pathetic run on the beach and returned again the next day to at least get endurance points in and walk a good 8+ miles. I may never be much on speed, but I can keep going and going and going. Mike worked most of the days we were there and our evenings were filled with official functions, but it was still good to be together after so much being apart. 

Loving the moments::

::when my little girls come running to the door to greet me. And then the moments when I wrap them into myself and inhale their sweet heads. And then sleep in my own bed with no alarm set for the morning.

Living the liturgy::

:: I’ve got some feast day planning to do this week, beginning with Padre Pio today (ideas here). Adding the plans for the rest of the week to the list…

Planning for the week ahead::

:: Seriously, I’m in planning overdrive. We will begin birthday week the day I return. Y'all, Birthday Week gets me every single time. I must provision for the marathon that is the celebration of 4 children's births in 6 days. But first, I must provision for the days I will be gone. The most important part of that plan? To persuade Mary Beth that really, she does need to consult the plan. Or at least remember where she put it;-). In all seriousness, she is pretty much running a household of six children these days and she’s doing an admirable job. Even if she does fly by the seat of her pants a bit more than I would… (This must be amended to note the fact that I saw her making a list of her own, even though I was making a detailed list. When Sloane gets here, her most formidable challenge might be finding time to read all the lists.)

Climbing Mountains and Conquering Fear

Let me take you back a few years. It was Christmas 1989. Mike was working at George Mason University in sports information and the basketball team was playing a Christmas tournament in Hawaii. Baby Michael was 14 months old.. The three of us flew with the team from Atlanta to Honolulu, non-stop. It was a miserable flight. Michael was perfectly well-behaved. Alternating between playing with the few things I'd brought along and nursing and sleeping, he was so content that people went out of their ways to tell us how good he was. But I was miserable. As we flew, I felt more and more swollen and my chest felt leaden, as if something were bearing down and suffocating me. I was glad to land, collect my floral lei, and put air travel behind me until the return trip a week later. 

Mike worked a lot that week and Michael and I toddled around explored the island on our own as best as we could. We saved a hike up Diamondhead for Christmas day when Mike could join us. The hike is an impressive one, up the volcano at a decent incline, until nearly the top and then up a steep flight of stairs the last 1/10 of the way. I struggled almost from the beginning. Early on, we transferred Michael from my back to Mike's. Still, I felt heavy. I tried to keep up and I tried not to let on how hard it was, but when we got to the base of the stairs, I told Mike to leave Michael with me and go up alone--I just could not do it. I absolutely could not climb those stairs. He was rather incredulous. He didn't go up to the top either. There was a bit of a stony silence coming down.

We had hiked together before--during college in the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia--and I loved to hike. A one car family, I was home with a baby and Michael and I walked all over the place all the time. What was this and why couldn't I just muscle through?

Three months later, we discovered a formidable tumor in my chest. I had cancer. Mystery solved.  I didn't fly again for 15 years. And I didn't climb mountains, either. The memory of that feeling of suffocating kept me from trails with inclines for a very long time.

Last summer, when I was doing my marathon walking, I stumbled upon a picture of a friend of Patrick's on Instagram. Aimee had just hiked Humpback Rocks, a perfectly gorgeous and very steep trail on the Blue Ridge, between University of Virginia and James Madison University. Seeing her picture brought back flood of memories--not the Diamondback memories, but the ones that precede it. I remembered climbing to Humpback Rocks with Mike when he was at JMU and and I was at UVa. It was before we were engaged and I remembered him telling me we would bring our kids on that hike one day. I texted Aimee right there on the spot and asked her if she'd want to hike to Humpback Rocks with me in the fall. She agreed, and that hike became my fitness goal for 450 miles of summer walking.

Our first visit in August, Aimee wasn't able to make it. I was disappointed, but my stepmother, Barbara, suggested that when we returned three weeks later, we all make a trip of it. I remembered that the Humpback Rocks hike was harder than the Diamondhead hike, assuming one was healthy. It's just a mile to the top, but it's very steep and there's a good bit of scrambling over rocks--it's not a pristine trail all the way. Barbara said she'd done it a few years earlier and she'd seen kids handling it fine. So, we set a date.

My dad set up camp at the base of the trail, book in hand, and phone at the the ready should we need anything. Mike, Barbara, Sarah, Karoline, and I headed up the mountain. The girls whined bitterly. I kept telling them that they were strong and they'd be so glad they did this hike because the view at the top was unlike any they'd ever seen. Mike encouraged me to go ahead and said he'd keep the girls moving along. They didn't lag for long at all though and we stayed together the whole way. Once we got past the easier gravel path onto trickier natural "steps" and lots of rocks, the little girls actually perked up. They soaked in the beauty around them and thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of the terrain. It wasn't long before they started whooping and singing as they scrambled. And when they started singing "10,000 Reasons," known around these parts as "Shawn's song," the whole mountain seemed to glow that much brighter in the glory of the day. (To understand Shawn, read this, by "baby" Michael, now all grown up.)

My stepmother was nothing short of amazing. It's not an easy hike and she was right there with us to the top. I'm inspired by her health and vigor and the way she has embraced an active lifestyle in her 70s. She's been such an encouragement to me and it was special to have her with us.

A little more than halfway there, we faced a set of stairs. At first, standing there looking at the flight, I felt a familiar sense of panic. Tears filled my eyes and memories flooded my mind--memories that had been carefully, firmly shoved aside for 24 years. Mike was behind me. He came close enough that I could turn just slightly and tell him softly, "I'm going to run those stairs." 

And I did.

It wasn't even hard. 

I'm pretty sure Mike has video of it.

I was fairly jubilant the rest of the way and the girls were unbounded in their excitement. The top was everything we'd promised them and Sarah didn't want to ever come down. They begged Barbara to let them come every weekend to do the hike again and again. We took lots of pictures and they sent them back to their siblings and tried to convey the sense of accomplishment they felt  and the astonishing beauty of the place. But we all knew that, really, you had to be there in order to understand.

Going down, I fairly skipped the whole way. I had to mind my step, but I didn't feel the descent was hard at all. I  know that lots of people think descending is harder that climbing up, but not me. I floated down that mountain. 

Later that night, we went to Paddy's soccer game and then drove two hours home, arriving just before midnight. After all that fresh air and exercise, I still couldn't sleep. My mind whirred with the memories of the day--the rocks, the trees, the happy little girls, the strong man always walking behind us all, making sure that this time we'd get to the top. I was so grateful that Barbara had kept insisting we could do this hike and that she'd quietly propelled us all towards it (and made sure we had a fabulous picnic to enjoy after it). My dad had nearly stayed home, but I was grateful he'd come along and was waiting to share the afterglow. 

In the dark, well past midnight, I didn't want to let go of the day. 

I am healthy and strong. I ran those stairs.

And this time, I saw the view at the very top.