songs of experience

My friend, Marion, sent me this quote from her Mr. Rogers’ calendar today:

“Fred Rogers February 14th…
As a relationship matures, you start to see that just being there for each other is the most important thing you can do, just being there to listen and be sorry with them, to be happy with them, to share all that there is to share.”

We had been talking about the ethereal quality of most modern relationships. Because of cell phones and the internet and the illusion that people on television screens actually care about us (my sister seriously thinks Oprah will solve all her problems if she write her a letter … but she’s saving that for a last resort), physically being there is a rarity. We drive around in our sound-proof booths (cars with tinted windows); we shop for most of our goods on-line without ever having to speak to another human being; meetings are held through conference calls; e-mail lists serve as group reunions; family gatherings are replaced with photo-shares. Just the other day I did a Google search to see what my nephew, Josh, looks like because I haven’t been with him, in person, for years (he’s a soccer player at Stanford, so I checked out their media guide and, sure enough, there he was … all grown and handsome).

As I sit here in the comfort of my home, fully enjoying the “modern” convenience of electronic communication, I can’t help lamenting the loss of old-fashioned get-togethers. I remember my mother meeting all the other ladies on the street every day at our group-mailbox - there were six in a row. My mom was often in her robe (they called them “house coats” back then) and a pair of rubber boots (easy to slip on, I guess). There, they would catch each other up on the happenings in their daily lives (Susan’s home sick, chicken pox is going around, Arty might need to have surgery) or neighborhood gossip (did Johpne and Larry really have an “open marriage”?) or plan coffee and bridge dates later in the week. They might not have been close friends or confidants in any lasting way (we moved, after a few years, to a house with our own singular mailbox) but those ladies meant somthing to my mom - and to me, who felt safe on a street with 5 other grown-ups whose names I knew, whose faces I saw every day, whose yards I played in, and in whose kitchens I drank cherry kool-aid.

I think running communities serve a similar purpose. Few American families still have kin living in close proximity; young people leave home for college and never return. We break from our first families and become “independent” without realizing the flipside of independence is isolation. For my entire adult life (and maybe even before, if you count my high school XC team) I have found/chosen/created an intentional family through running that has helped me feel seen and known and safe. Currently, my running brothers and sisters are the Trailheads and seejanerun, but at any given time in my life, it was always a running friend - out there on the trails or track or road, with real-life flesh and blood and sweat - “who was there to listen and be sorry with me, to be happy with me, to share all that there is to share.”

Thank you, Marion.