Songs of Experience

I have spent the last few days rummaging around in my past. I thought I would feel free and motivated and raring to go once Lizzie was in school full time, but I find myself wandering around the house, my empty nest, waiting for my life to re-start. Maybe, as my friend said, I am paralyzed with freedom. Or maybe it’s just plain grief. I hear phantom chirping from my flown little bird, “Mommy! Can we make some magenta play-dough?” but when I go to the kitchen, no one’s there. When I stretch out on the floor, no one jumps on me or squeeeeeeeeeeezes my neck with 5 year-old love. I want to call, “Lizzie, look!” when a yellow butterfly lands on the begonia by the window. But I don’t. My words stay in my head … or in my throat, with that damn lump.

It did make feel a little better when, in my rummaging, I unearthed something I wrote 10 years ago … during another life-changing time … because, hard as it is, this too shall pass. I think a good, long run would help right about now.

-from Bob Dylan’s Brownsville Girl

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Spiritual Crisis and the Need for Devotion

“The symptomology of a spiritual crisis is almost identical to that of a psychological crisis. In fact, since a spiritual crisis naturally involves the psyche, a “beginning mystic” may be unaware that the crisis is spiritual in nature and may describe his or her dilemma as psychological. The symptoms of a spiritual crisis are distinct however, and threefold:

The crisis usually begins with an awareness of an absence of meaning and purpose that cannot be remedied merely by shuffling the external components of one’s life. One feels a much deeper longing, one that cannot be satisfied by the prospect of a raise or promotion, marriage or new relationship. Ordinary solutions hold no attraction. Of course, some people have never found meaning and purpose in life, but these people are probably wrongly expecting life to deliver “meaning” to their doorstep. Chronic complainers and people who lack ambition are not suffering from a spiritual crisis. Those who are in a spiritual crisis, however, have a feeling that something is trying to wake them up inside them. They just don’t know how to see it.

Strange new fears are the second symptom of a spiritual crisis. These fears are not ordinary, such as fewrs of abandonment and aging; rather, they make a person feel as if he or she is losing touch with a sense of self or identity. “I am no longer sure of who I am and what I want out of life” is a standard report froma person saturated with the energy of the seventh chakra [our spiritual connector].

The third symptom is the need to experience devotion to something greater than oneself. The many psychological texts available today that describe human needs rarely mention our fundamental need for devotion, yet we all biologically and energenitically need to be in contact with a source of power that transcends human limitations and turmoil. We need to be in touch with a source of miracles and hope. Devotion commits part of our conscious minds to our unconscious eternal self, which in turn connects us directly to a Divine presence. Even brief and fleeting encounters with this presence and its infinite power help our conscious mind release its fears of life, and human power ceases to command our attention.

The absence of meaning, the loss of self-identity, and the need for devotion are the three strongest symptoms indicating a person has entered into the “dark night.”

from, Caroline Myss’s Anatomy of the Spirit

I just realized I have been avoiding thinking (and writing) about what is really on my mind by spinning my wheels over silly drugs. It hit me today when I was running with Dave’s ipod (husband, Dave … not Dave C). I was cruising along on random shuffle when Hank Williams, Jr.’s version of the song, Tuesday’s Gone, clicked on. The moment Hank wailed, “Tuesday’s gone with the wind,” I nearly stopped dead in my tracks. You see, Tuesday (before becoming my writing day) used to be activity day with my daughters. I have always arranged childcare for Mon., Wed. and Fri. mornings … so I could train or coach … but Tuesday was my day to take Sarah Jane, Rosie, and/or Lizzie out in the world – to the library or a children’s museum, on a bike ride, a hike, the coffee shop, Katie’s pretzels, the Toy store, a little friend’s house, a canoe ride, a creek walk, to Jordan Lake, Maple View ice cream, Paint the Earth (ceramics), tumbling class, kindermusic, indoor swimming, ice skating … in short, anwhere and everywhere – for the last 13 years. Early on, I met other mothers with their toddlers and we would wile away the hours at the local park. More and more, though, you don’t see mothers with their children; it’s all nannies and grannies. I have been lonely. Tuesday outings were crucial to my happiness and sanity and connection to “society at large.”

So this past Tuesday, my last Tuesday as a stay-at-home mom … after 13 years alone (mostly) with my kids, scraping and scrambling for meaningful, memory-making activities, poof, it all comes to an end. Truly with a wimper, not a bang.

Human beings have rituals and celebrations for every rite of passage under the sun. Childbirth, baptism, first communion, birthdays, anniversaries, bar mitzvah’s, graduation, engagements, marriage, house-warming, retirement, death .. but there will be no party for me next Tuesday, when Lizzie walks through those kindergarten doors. No one will send me a card or phone me to ask how I’m doing or to say, “congratulations for a job well done.” It is an invisible job we do. Rather, it was an invisible job. Tuesday’s gone with the wind.

Train roll on, on down the line,
Won’t you please take me far away?
Now I feel the wind blow outside my door,
Means I’m leaving my [old life] at home.
Tuesday’s gone with the wind.
My baby’s gone with the wind.

And I don’t know where I’m going.
I just want to be left alone.
Well, when this train ends I’ll try again,
But I’m leaving my [old life] at home.

(chorus)
Tuesday’s gone with the wind.
Tuesday’s gone with the wind.
Tuesday’s gone with the wind.
My baby’s gone with the wind.

Train roll on many miles from my home,
See, I’m riding my blues away.
Tuesday, you see, she had to be free
But somehow I’ve got to carry on.

I just sent the following statement in support of clean athletes to http://www.athletesagainstdoping.com/

“I wholeheartedly and whole-”soul”edly support AAD in their efforts to shine a spotlight on clean, honest, law-abiding athletes. I believe performance-enhancing drug users, and their drug peddlers, should be prosecuted as criminals; clean athletes – past and present – deserve their day in court.”

I encourage you to check out their website and add your name to the list of supporters.

Live clean.

One more thing about drugs and then I’ll try to shut up, I promise!
What I hate more than sly cheaters who skirt the issue by saying “I’ve never tested positive,” or busted cheaters who say, “not to my knowledge” did I take drugs … I despise drug users who blow their compeitiion away with cyborg arms raised, then kiss their hands and point to heaven … as if, AS IF, God somehow sanctioned their sorry cheating asses. I have a personal UN-favorite in this category – another one of tricky Trevor Graham’s crew. During interviews after her nefarious victories, she smiles through steroid teeth, her once-beautiful face now truly distored with human growth hormone, and has the spiritual audacity to make God complicit in her sin … yes, I’ll say it, SIN. “I just want to thank God; without Him none of this would be possible.”

Is G.O.D. an acronym for a new PED, like HGH or EPO?
Check out the photo below. With the head cropped off, can you tell … is that a man’s body or a woman’s?

To God be the glory?
Puhhleeeeaze!

Halleluiah! They finally caught super-cheat, Marion Jones …

Now, maybe all the distance runners using EPO will be scared cheatless.
Be scared, be very scared … we know who you are.

And, while they’re at it .. why don’t they release all the positive drug test results from the 80’s that are sitting in a vault somewhere. It’s time for all those dirty Nike athletes to be exposed for the filthy cheaters they were/ARE.

My brother has been stoked about this book,
so i decided to order it. I used to have this iron-clad rule where I would read a book after I’d heard it mentioned by three different sources. And, in my English major days, I would always ask friends their favorite book and then read it (ostensibly, to get to know them better … but, really, because I’m a nosey-Parker). It seems that fewer and fewer people are actually reading whole books these days, so hearing “This book changed my life!” is rare indeed.

But books did and do and can and will change lives. I credit Ayn Rand (of Atlas Shrugged) with my first All-American race in NCAA cross-country. And had it not been for Anne Morrow Lindberg’s Gift From the Sea (A Vintage Book), I might never have surrendered to motherhood. My life-changing book-list is long and goes waaaayyyy back … to gradeschool and The Search for Delicious, which allowed me to understand individual perspective.

When was the last time a book changed your life?

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book)

1. Be Impeccable With Your Word
Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

2. Don’t Take Anything Personally
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you wonít be the victim of needless suffering.

3. Don’t Make Assumptions
Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

4. Always Do Your Best
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

Here’s an ethical question for you.

Suppose you were shopping for lawn care supplies at Lowe’s home improvement. You have a shopping cart full of weed whackers, gardening gloves, Round-up, a power washer, etc. You also push a brand new lawn mower through the check-out line. They scan everything, including the lawn mower, but – weirdly – the mower doesn’t show up on the receipt. You try to tell the cashier, “Excuse me, the mower didn’t scan” but she waves you through. You drive away with the goods in the back of your truck knowing you didn’t actually pay for the lawn mower. Suppose this happened to you, would you:

a.) Consider the lawn mower a gift from the universe because, hey, at least you tried to do the right thing by telling the check-out gal.

b.) Rationalize that Lowe’s is a huge, multi-million dollar company so one little lawn mower doesn’t matter.

c.) Tell all your friends they’re giving away free lawn mowers at Lowe’s.

d.) Take your receipt directly to the manager to actually pay for your purchase.

e.) I before E, except after C (that’s for you, Barb).

I ran this morning, but I shouldn’t have. I should have stuck to my guns (where does that expression come from?) and taken a full 10 days off after my goal race. Harry Wilson once advised me at the end of the year to take a month-long break from running. “Get so fat,” he said, “you can’t fit into your britches.”

6 days just isn’t enough time to get all that fat. I’m working on it though. So is my teammate, Kelly. She phoned me from the new French pastry shop in Hillsborough, NC to leave this message on my machine: “I’m on the highway to heavy.”

Me, too, Kelly!

Geez, I just spent (wasted?) an hour cruising around on Google and Letsrun to read about testosterone and other PED’s (acronym for performance enhancing drugs) and I am feeling truly sick to my stomach. Even my delicious cup of coffee and a heavenly, ultra-rich pecan bar can’t take away my nausea … because it’s a nausea of spirit, not unlike what Sartre describes:

In Nausea (New Directions Paperbook), “Antoine is facing the troublesomely provisional and limited nature of existence itself; he embodies Sartre’s theories of existential angst, and he searches anxiously for meaning in all the things that had filled and fulfilled his life up to that point.”

(from wikipedia)

My beloved sport, track & field, is beginning to lose all meaning to me. After reading accounts of East Germans, the Finns, the Chinese, the Russians, the Portugese, the Americans (a damn long list), English, Belgian, Romanian, African, Turkish, and Cuban cheats, I wonder … was it ever clean? I read of East German swimmers who didn’t even know they were taking drugs as young girls, only to find out after their babies were born with severe defects. Missing limbs. Mongoloid features. Mentally retarded.

What other defects are we birthing in our win-at-all-costs culture?
Will this sickness trickle down to middle school cross-country, pee wee football?

The whole Floyd Landis thing has taken on a life of its own, hasn’t it? I guess after Barry Bonds and Justin Gatlin, Landis’ gaffe reached the tipping point for mainstream media. Even our local storage rental store had this posted on its street-front letter board: “Oops, Floyd.” It’s no longer news that professional athletes are using drugs; drugs become newsworthy only if the athletes are stupid, or sloppy, or unconnected enough to get caught. And what happens after they get busted? In track & field, it’s a measely 2-year slap-on-the-wrist ban or what is laughably lax – a “public warning.”

Public caning would be more effective.

As I mentioned earlier, a couple of my seejanerunners and I decided to try something new this summer. We trained in 100-degree weather, doing middle-distance sprint work on a melting track with high hopes of running near 10:00 in the 4 X 800m relay at the National Masters championships. We hit a few bumps in the road (rocky mountain spotted fever, sinus infections, a family crisis or two) but we made it to the starting line yesterday with all four runners ready to rip.

The whole masters atmosphere was more like a festival than a track meet … with its fair share of “freaks on parade” (said our #3 runner, when a 70+ year old woman jogged/jiggled by in a stars-and-stripes bikini racing suit). I went to the track early to witness John Hinton win yet another national title and stayed around to hand out awards as a guest presenter. The meet was in Charlotte, NC my old high-school stomping ground, so there were a lot of familiar faces … older, yes, and changed, certainly … like me – like all of us. But, it’s funny, I didn’t feel old on the inside when I stepped out on to the mondo and took my position as achor-leg. It had been 25 years since I ran a relay with a baton but yesterday I was magically 18 again, waiting for the stick (hopping up and down, staying loose, doing strides in my new,”fly” spikes, whistling across the track, screaming, “Go, Terri!” or “Stay strong, Mimi” as they rocketed by on their first lap, keeping my peripheral eye on the race clock to register each runner’s splits). I had the vitality of youth that running – that racing – eternally provides. No wonder all those “freaks” – myself among them – keep coming back for more, year after year, as they age up and up and up. There was even a 92 year-old triple jumper. Imagine …

So, this morning when I was reading/reflecting on the week-end, and I came acoss a list of ways to “simplify your spirituality” (from Carolyn Myss’s Anatomy of the Spirit), I had to pause over this:

“Change is constant. Every life goes through phases of difficult change as well as peace. Learn to go with the flow of change rather than try to stop the change from occuring.”

We four may be 40-something moms with crows feet around our eyes from too many days running in the sun; we may have loose skin on our bellies from birthing babies (11 children between us!); we may have finished way slower than our goal time (officially we ran 10:26), but DAMN was it fun!!

Sign me up for next year’s parade.

The other day my 5 year-old decided to draw a portrait of me. She got her colored-pencil box and some fancy card-stock (from the secret stash in her big sister’s closet) then set to serious work drawing my face. She’d draw a few lines, then look up at me, draw a few more, look up again … with a furrowed brow, gazing hard, and then hunch over the paper, her canvas, to carefully draw some more. It took her quite a while to finish this masterpiece … faces are difficult to draw and she wanted to get it just right.

“There,” she said, when it was complete. She pushed the page across the kitchen table. I was a tad nervous; no one had ever done my portrait before. I turned the card around, right side up, and there it was – Gogol’s nose in the middle of my face.

“Wow, that’s a big nose,” I said (immediately regretting what she might perceive as criticism).

“Yeah,” she declared, “you have a big nose.”

There are a lot of things I still miss about being a professional runner. I miss the intensity of purpose … you know, that on-a-mission feeling you have when you are going for it. I miss being in such amazing physical shape that I could actually feel [maybe even hear] the blood flowing through my body. I miss dreaming on long cool-downs after a PR when my legs were sweaty and loose and strong. I miss knowing my fastest races were yet to come.

I also miss being alone on a plane or in my car, headed to some new city or country for an adventure … where I’d be a stranger, watching another world … other lives.

In Marilynne Robinson’s dirty realist classic, Housekeeping, one character (a waitress) says, “If I had the choice, I would work in a truck stop. I like to overhear the stories strangers tell each other, and I like the fastidious pleasure solitary people take in the smallest details of their small comforts. In rain or hard weather they set their elbows on the counter and ask what kind of pie you have, just to hear the old litany again.”

I can’t remember the last time I sat alone at a cafe counter in a new city with fastidious solitary pleasure. Running, and racing, took me far away from home. Being a stay-at-home mom is just that. Staying. At home.

But sometimes little pleasures find their way to my doorstep. Like today! A box arrived with the familiar red and white New Balance packaging tape. Could it be!? I rushed to slice open the tape with my car key, then tore at the box. Inside were the track spikes I had ordered weeks ago … not knowing if I was still “on the list” (for free shoes), yet hoping there was some vestigial memory of my past professional running life on the part of New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc.

Sure enough, they had remembered. I will be sportin’ these beauties at the Master’s Track nationals come Sunday.
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