Gathering My Thoughts

Outside my window:  The leaves are turning. It seems like the colors are duller this year, but there are spots of glorious maples, so I’m soaking those in. It was very chilly this morning. I need gloves and a jacket and a hat to run, but the sky is so gorgeous every day, at both sunrise and sunset. Well worth the shiver when I first step out. The morning glow was so gorgeous yesterday that, despite the instructions to “rest” (which I translate to “walk”) in my training plan, I found myself running so that I could see several of my favorite places as they came awake in the light. Autumn light shows are spectacular in Virginia.

Listening to:  Doctor’s office noises. I’m sitting in the waiting room at the physical therapist while Stephen works his Achilles.

Clothing myself in: Jeans and clogs and a sweater. I even pulled on a long jean jacket this morning. I’ve been so sad to see summer slip away this year, but I do love that jean jacket and it’s nice to have lots of handy, deep pockets again.

Talking with my children about these books:  Nicholas and I listened to Son of Neptune on the way to New Jersey and back and I’m now, officially, a Rick Riordan fan. I so enjoyed the book. Highly recommended narration, too.

In my own reading: it’s been all about the running reading binge lately. I’ll have a list of running books for you this week. I’m sure you can hardly wait;-).

Thinking and thinking: Actually, the brain is quieter these days. I’ve long been wrestling with some decisions and now they’re made. I feel so at ease with the course that lies before me that I’m thinking I decided the right thing. It took me almost 50 years to figure out that, really, I can’t be anything I want to be.

Pondering:

“It is simply no good trying to keep any thrill. Let the thrill go – let it die away – go on through that period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follow – and you will find you are living in a world of new thrills all the time. But if you decide to make thrills your regular diet and try to prolong them artificially, they will all get weaker and weaker, and fewer and fewer, and you will be a bored, disillusioned old man for the rest of your life. It is because so few people understand this that you find many middle-aged men and women maundering about their lost youth, at the very age when new horizons ought to be appearing and new doors opening all around them.” Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

Carefully Cultivating Rhythm: I think we have settled into as much of a regular rhythm as I can expect. I still foresee leaving town for Charlottesville at least a couple of times in the next couple of weeks and it seems like there’s always some big thing happening, but the airplane trips are behind us, and so is the drama that is The Homecoming Dance, and a few big soccer games. The days are finding their rhythm. It’s good.

Creating By Hand:  Christmas pajamas. Tune in tomorrow for some news on a sewalong and a very generous giveaway from the Fat Quarter Shop.

Also, much pointe shoe sewing, costume altering, and tutu-embellishing.

Learning lessons In: Embracing new seasons. Life has changed so much in the last two years. Three of my children have moved out. One has married and made me a grandmother. I’m no longer nursing a baby; indeed, my “baby” is quite the little lady now. My body is shifting and changing nearly as quickly as my twelve-year-old’s. We’re both taking up running to meet the new challenges. I find parenting a handful of teenagers requires every last ounce of wisdom I may have acquired over two decades of babies and little ones. And it requires as a big a leap of faith every single day as something as crazy as, oh, I don’t know, openness to life.  There is a little chill in the air as this season settles in. Still, I am called to meet it with arms wide open.

Encouraging learning in: Carefully reading the assignment, doing exactly what one is asked to do, and completing it cheerfully and on time. As homeschoolers, one of the biggest benefits is the ability to tailor a lesson, a course, or an entire childhood education. If the lesson as written goes on and on with endless repetition well beyond what is necessary for mastery, we just cut it short. If the method doesn’t work, we switch to something else.  Creativity is encouraged wildly. Rarely is a kid sent off on his own to muddle through vague directions. We’re right there to keep things on course. And if they were away all weekend at a soccer tournament and the bus broke down on the way home and it’s early on Monday and they’re tired, I cut them all kinds of slack. What I’m learning though, is that they need to learn how to work that other system—the institutional system—before they leave home. They need to understand how to follow directions and that sometimes we do stupid assignments because that’s what it takes to get through the class. Unless I teach them how it all works, they’re in for quite a shock.  I’m not sure how to balance the reality that they need those institutional skills with my own philosophy that everything must have meaning and the best education is a creative one, carefully tailored towards a child’s strengths. Daily, there is a striving for balance between two worlds.

Begging prayers: It was cold enough this morning to pull on my favorite pair of Elizabeth DeHority socks. I’m praying so hard for her. Every minute is a struggle and she’s fighting valiantly to meet the struggle with love and grace.

Keeping house: I’m all about the domestic. During September, I was gone so much that the homemaking routine was seriously out of balance. Now, I’m back and it’s autumn—the perfect time for some deep-down cleaning. I like to do a big decluttering and deep scrub-it-til-it-shines kind of cleaning before we batten down the hatches and before the population in my home swells with school breaks and holiday visits. The time is now.

Crafting in the kitchen: There were thinly sliced boneless porkchops on sale the other day. Mary Beth wanted Chicken Parmesan. I made Pork Parmesan instead and it is destined to be part of the permanent rotation. “Bread crumbs” were actually crushed rice Chex and Italian seasoning. Everyone liked it (that’s ten of us because Kristin was here, too) and there were serious fights over leftovers for breakfast the next morning.

To be fit and happy: The on-again-off-again 31 day series on life and running will resume tomorrow. Or the next day. I don’t know; life keeps happening. It will be back soon.

Giving thanks: For a man who works so hard and provides so well that I am able to say “not now” to an opportunity I thought I always wanted in order to invest wholeheartedly in the places where God truly calls me.

Loving the moments: Kristin and I have committed to getting outside every Friday. We're going to work our way through a list of trails and nature parks in our county. Oh, and we're planning to let the children come along with us.

Living the Liturgy: Advent ideas. Among my lofty yearlong plans, etched in ink back in January, was an ebook full of the best of Advent ideas. I’d love to deliver that to you, but it would take a miracle at this point because not one word of it is written. I believe in miracles, but it’s far more likely I’ll just share here in less-convenient-for-you fits and spurts.

Tip one: Order your Advent candles right now. You will be very glad you did.

Tip two: This book is amazing. Karoline is working on a review for you, but seriously, AMAZING. You want to have it.

Planning for the week ahead: My first baby girl turns 18 on Thursday. Takes my breath away. She’s got some excellent celebration ideas. We shall begin with lunch out with mom, move on to Pioneer Woman’s whiskey steak for dinner, and then continue the celebration on a mountaintop with some of her dearest friends over the weekend. A girl after my own heart. Truly. 

Real Support for the Uphill Climb

Let's just call it what it is: super challenging. If our path to heaven is the vocation of motherhood and the nurturing of a family, especially a large family, it's a hard path. It's a trail run uphill and the hardest part isn't at the beginning; it's well into the run, when you realize that you've agreed to carry a heavier pack then almost everyone else on the trail and there's no leaving anything or anyone behind. You've got to keep on running. 

That's when it's super-helpful to have someone who understands run alongside. 

My friend Linda called one morning. We talked for a few minutes before I had to dash out the door and deliver a teenager to work and a second-grader to dance. I apologized for my hasty hangup, and she understood perfectly. We quickly discussed schedules and decided I’d call her back in the early afternoon. And then I didn’t. Because I forgot. I forgot because I’m the world’s worst correspondent, and because I have a very hard time being still. So, the phone slips my mind.

She called me by mid-afternoon. This is why we’ve been very close friends for more than 15 years. She knows that I want to talk to her. She knows that I need to slow down. And she knows that if she calls, I’ll be very grateful. We had a long talk while I cleaned my kitchen and put dinner in the crockpot. The conversation began with the obvious fact that 2:30 was way too late to start a crockpot meal. It progressed to a lively conversation about the “robber barons” and then was summed up with a genuine sharing of my heart on a matter I’d never expressed to anyone.

I hung up feeling grateful and relieved. I was understood, and I knew it. There’s nothing quite like being understood. There’s nothing quite like an old friend.

In The 10 Habits of Happy Mothers, Meg Meeker writes of friendship: “No perfection is needed. Love is required, but even that can be woefully broken, because at the end of the day what we really need as mothers is a friend who simply stays. Because when she stays, we know that we are loved.”

I think this speaks to the quality of friends that allows us to trust them with our hearts. Over time, we learn that they are connected — bonded, if you will — and so they can be trusted to keep loving us even if we show our failures and our weaknesses. For some women, baring our souls in this way is extremely difficult, and it takes years to build that kind of trust. Bruised and broken relationships in our past or childhoods without unconditional love can make women skeptical that such a friend even exists. It takes loving patience to befriend a broken woman and to show her that faithfulness in friendship really does exist.

Meeker continues: “The hallmarks of inner circle friendships are trust, maturity and faithfulness, all of which work together to cultivate the deep love between us.” I have thought about this quote for months. I've weighed it against every good, solid, longterm friendship I have. I held it up to the friendships I've seen die. Yes, it holds up. She nailed it. Those are the hallmarks. I might add that a shared faith is also necessary, but maybe that's just for me.

Not all friends are very close friends. Those close friendships are ones we cultivate and care for and ones where forgiveness flows both ways. Says Meeker, “(Inner circle friendships) require attention, diligence and emotional elbow grease on our parts. Like a marriage, they need honing, sweat and time.” To this, I would add that friendships lack the sacramental grace of marriage, and they lack the commitment. It is acceptable to walk away from a friendship. Sometimes, it's the right thing to do. The challenge is to know when to stay and work on it and when to acknowledge it's time to move on.

I’ve come to understand that true friendships are of immeasurable worth. With passion, Meeker writes, “Women friends are vital because they help us become or stay emotionally more stable. They lift us out of despair, they make us laugh when we want to sob, they force us to keep living when we don't want to.” There was a time in my life when I would have thought this statement melodramatic. But now I know the feeling in the pit of your stomach when you know that the person on the other end of the phone is in so much pain that she just wants the world to stop turning. And you can't turn back the clock. And you can't change the horror in her life. And you can't alleviate the pain. But she needs you to say something, anything. Because she needs to hear your voice and she wants, somewhere deep down, someone to tell her how to keep going. And you know why she called you.

She is secure in knowing that you are truly a friend. “The deep mystery of friendship is its intense security which accepts us exactly as we are and, at the same time, yearns for us to change, to improve and live a better life.” Intense security in a friendship: I don't think that can be overstated.

Read about the rest of the journey here.

Let's Be Very Clear About the Goal

From the morning run. How can I keep from singing?

First, this clearly isn't going to be a "31 days in a row" kind of thing. There will be 31 posts, just not on consecutive days. I could probably write for several hours about all the reasons, but mostly, it can be summed up this way: I have a house full of kids. Many of them are teenagers. I find mothering teenagers and younger children at the same time to be an unpredictable, 24/7 proposition that makes the margins for writing exceedingly narrow. 

Now, let's talk about goals. Last time I wrote, I mentioned that my goal was to finish a 5K and run the whole thing. In the past couple days, I've re-examined that goal. Upon closer inspection, I see that it wasn't my primary goal. My primary goal was to banish depression. Remember? That's probably even what all the walking was about.

What I learned this week, on the bad run day and the day after it, is that I really do need sustained time in motion, preferably in the sunshine. I knew this week would be a hard one. I'm very familiar with anniversary reaction and this week--last year--was pretty terrible. I should have taken extra time to be sure to move more, not less.

Should have. But I didn't. I'd returned home from three weeks of traveling to three different places and I tried to scramble to put everything in order and get back on a solid academic schedule. There were four birthdays to celebrate, a funeral, and then a tailgate party to plan when Patrick was in town to play locally. I scurried. But I needed to rest. 

I was so tired and depleted on the day of the big game that when Patrick texted me from the locker, struggling with fresh waves of grief brought vividly to life by many memories of his grandfather over the course of Paddy's childhood in this very stadium, I was grateful for the rain. The dam broke for me, too. 

I didn't run the next day. I didn't even walk. I plodded through the chores and the ordinary movements of life. I drove to soccer and dance. I kind of wallowed. Gloom gathered. That bad run (that had been my last run) haunted me. It wasn't fun any more. Still, I knew I that had available to me a very powerful antidote to depression. I needed to find a way to make it work. There is science behind the quest to run every day:

““What we’re finding in the research on physical exercise is, the physical exercise is at least as good as antidepressants for helping people who are depressed … physical exercise changes the level of serotonin in your brain.

It changes, increases their levels of “feel good” hormones, the endorphins. And also — and these are amazing studies — it can increase the number of cells in your brain, in the region of the brain, called the hippocampus.

These studies have been first done on animals, and it’s very important because sometimes in depression, there are fewer of those cells in the hippocampus, but you can actually change your brain with exercise. So it’s got to be part of everybody’s treatment, everybody’s plan.””

I sat down with the calendar and mapped out the next day. I did it all on paper. (My digital rabbit hole is the subject for another day, but let's just say that time in front of the computer requires equal or more time away from it outdoors.) I decided that running the whole way was less important that moving for a longer period. So I planned a run with distinct, purposeful walk breaks every seven minutes. And then I also planned to walk a half hour when I finished the run. 

Much better.

Throw in the fact that we were down to one car and I walked another 6,000 steps in the neighborhood  throughout the day and I went to the gym to really stretch things out, and I ended the day on a much more even keel. 

The goal is to be healthy--in my brain and in my body. If I have to take a 1 minute walk break every 7 minutes for every run for the rest of my life, just so I can run long enough to get the anti-depressant effect, so be it. I've long suspected that I'm more about endurance than speed any way.

More about that tomorrow.

From the evening walk...

There will always be bad runs...

One thing runners tell me, just as they extol every good thing about running, is that there will always be bad runs. They will creep up on a girl just when she's feeling like this running thing is nothing but great. They come out of nowhere and legs  feel like lead and lungs burn--the same legs and lungs that felt so great just 48 hours prior to this run. 

I need a strategy for bad runs. It needs to be a different strategy than the one I have for bad weigh-ins. Yesterday, before I went on my bad run, I got on the scale. Up nine pounds. I blinked. Looked. Blinked again. Hopped off. Got back on. Up four pounds. Back off. Back on. Up two pounds. Enough of that. Clearly the scale has issues and it's determined to mess with my mind first thing in the morning. The scale has been pushed under my bed--all the way to the middle. There it will stay. No more bad scale days.

Bad scale days are days when three digits on a measuring device can determine my mood for eight hours or more. Those numbers often do not accurately reflect my efforts towards good nutrition or my intensity of exercise. They are capricious and seemingly out of my control.

That's what bad scale days have in common with bad run days. They just are. I don't cause them. I can't control them. Sometimes, despite all my best efforts, they just are. 

But I'm not relegating my running shoes to a dusty spot beneath the bed. Instead of avoiding bad run days, I'm going to apply some mothering wisdom to them. If nothing else, I've learned one thing in twenty-six years of mothering nine different personalities: I am in control of very little beyond my attitude and my openness to grace. 

I remember when my big boys were little ones. I wanted that magazine kind of house--the one where all the real, simple techniques worked in harmony to have a home where nothing was out of place and everything matched and no one ever lost a shoe. I began with the color coordination of everything possible.Every child was assigned his or her own color.  Michael was purple. Christian was blue. Patrick was red. Mary Beth, of course, was pink. Towels, cups, backpacks, jackets, boots--all color-coordinated. Worked wonderfully. Until someone threw up on his towel and refused to use his brother's because he'd been warned that he was only to use the blue things. It worked until the red sippy cup melted in the bottom of the dishwasher. It worked until they outgrew their coats and boots and protested when I handed them down to the next child in line. Now what? Total color switch? All I knew was that my lone little girl was going to wear red and blue coats for several winters--and she still talks about it mournfully, even as I buy bright florals for her sisters. The color coordination of everything was a total fail. 

Color coordinated cups have given way to a motley collection of water bottles. Some are carefully chosen in someone's favorite color. More are soccer tournament swag. Most are the generosity of Christian when he bought lovely, matching bottles for his whole basketball team, complete with a coordinating carriers. (Wonder where he gets that inclination?)

My reality is that lots of other attempts to control all the things failed as well. Large family mothering is an exercise in letting go. Every single day. The older they get, the less control I have. A bad teacher. A girl who breaks his heart even as he falls head over heels. An illness or injury that wipes out an entire season. A teammate who makes a critical mistake and ends the tournament. Even worse? The bad decisions my kids make all on their own. We won't list them here, but know that I have no control over them. They keep me awake at night. They are thoroughly discussed in heated conversations, but I don't have control. Sometimes, life in a big family feels like 26.2 miles of a bad run. 

There's no option to quit. The only option is a good night's sleep and a run again the next day. And the day after that. And on the good days, I inhale deeply and notice how bright and beautiful the landscape is around me. I take the time to thank God for the air filling my lungs and the knees that bend again and again without that pesky twinge. I share with Him my hopes and dreams and I do it thinking that maybe all will come to fruition. On the good days, I almost believe there will never be a bad run again. 

Almost.

On the bad days? I'm learning to keep running, or maybe to slow to a walk and refocus. I'm learning that life is a marathon and if I get all tangled up in every bad run and I let them get into my head,  they will quickly convince me that I am a bad runner. 

A bad mothering day, a hard mothering season? They don't make you a bad mother.

Just keep putting one foot in front of the other and know that God is in control.

I Almost Gave Up

This morning's run was supposed to be a  5 minute walking warmup, 22 minutes running, and a 5 minutes walking cool down. Since I'm running a little behind my intended 9-week schedule because of time taken to travel, I thought I'd get a little ambitious and skip to the following workout and run 3 minutes more. I want to finish the app program by the end of October and then just keep running 3 miles until the 5K on Thanksgiving. Last week's runs were all really good, so I was sure I could do the 22+ .

I also told myself I wasn't going to look at the app. I was just going to run until I couldn't run any more. Things got off to a good start; I got to the end of the asphalt that's right around the 10 minute mark, maybe a little more than 10 minutes and I felt decent. Then I didn't. I started talking to myself earnestly. I persuaded myself to run to the corner and then to the next corner. Nah. Not that far. I'll just run to the corner. Well, maybe not that corner. Maybe to the tree. Yes. Stop at the tree. 

Stop at the tree.

Look at the app.

15 minutes running time. Five minutes fewer than Santa Barbara. 

Oh, dear. Walking fast, I headed for the fitness trail, an internal battle raging in my head. Clearly, I'm not making progress. Clearly. I'm three weeks from the end of this training program and I'm no where near comfortable running 3 miles. I'm not cut out for this. Clearly. 

I continued to walk. The app chimed the end of the workout.

.63 miles walking. 1.19 miles running. 25 minutes. 

 I kept walking the trail. I've read a ridiculous number of running books. They seem to fall into two camps. In the first camp, there is gentle encouragement to walk/run/ waddle if necessary. It's all good. In the other camp, there is the keep pushing, hone your work ethic, reach your goal and set a new one philosophy. 

My body is in the first camp.

My head, my heart, and my soul, and every male in my family is in the second. We eat the second philosophy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It seriously never occurred to me that I would commit to a 5K and walk a single step of it. I'm going to run the whole thing. Or not run at all. 

Because I'm married to a man who has raised elite athletes and apparently it's rubbed off on me. 

So, after the app disclosed the dismal results of the day, I decided I'm not going to sign up for the 5K.

Still, I kept walking. Because I love to be outside and I love to walk, too. (I think I might love to run, just not very far?  I don't know. I can't even figure out why I stopped. I just stopped.)

I thought about all those really long walks last summer. I thought about the early runs, on this very same trail, where running a full minute seemed hard. I thought about Isabel. 

You see, I told my kids about the 5K, and Kristin rallied a whole bunch of them. They said they wanted to run it with Kristin and me. Mary Beth, who has yet to even start training but is in great shape, told her friend, Isabel. And Isabel has already signed up. I haven't registered my kids yet, but if Isabel's already in, I pretty much have to register them.

I thought about how hard it would be to go and just cheer them on from the sidelines. This running thing? 

It was supposed to be what I could do with them. It wasn't supposed to be from the sidelines. 

I forced myself to look up. And there, was my familiar trail, looking all golden in the morning light. 

Nearly eight weeks until Thanksgiving. These woods, this trail--they are going to light up in the next few weeks. I don't want to miss it. I want to be out there, anyway. Might as well keep trying to run it the whole way. 

The app isn't going to work. Until now, I've trusted the app, but I spent the next half hour of my walk, thinking it through and holding it up to what I know about my body. By the time I got home, I wasn't going to quit. I was going to revise the plan. I texted my friend Nicole and ran the new plan by her. She assured me I had time to get to a place where I could run the whole way and she found a printed plan that looked very much like the one I'd devised for myself. 

I'm still dubious. But in this house, we don't quit. And we don't walk. 

So, Wednesday morning, it will be time to head out anew and work a brand-new plan.