I love you, 2!
Ahh, I am feeling rather nostalgic today. Two out of my three running groups are folding up their tents at the end of our fall season. Seejanerun’s goal race is this week-end …. a 7-mile technical trail race in which I plan to duct-tape my shoes so as not to get sucked off by the mud … followed by a luxurious afternoon at the spa. Nice contrast there. Sort of like when I ran my local favorite race, “The Misery Run” (through cow pies and over 5-foot high hay bales) in a skirt - one of those TRIKS (”skirt” spelled backwards). I was going for the oxymoronic effect!
I can’t wait to run my guts out on Saturday (does anyone else besides midwesterners use the expression, “____ your guts out”?) but I am truly sad that our time together has come to an end. Over the winter break all the mother bears go into hibernation. I will miss my friends’ company on long runs and at the coffee shop afterward.
I will also miss my Pacer bear-cubs on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Tonight is the end-of-year banquet and maybe I’m feeling particularly emotional because I have watched the slideshow over and over to iron out the kinks. My technically savvy 13 year-old put the whole thing together and I am amazed! She ended the piece with an artsy shot of the back of two older Pacers’ running away … running into their future, growing up and away from our safe Pacer family. She chose to play Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” as this photo faded out:
so, no wonder I’m feeling nostalgic!
I am tyring to come up with a few words to sum up the season and to thank the parents and coaches for their faithful work …. but all the usual exclamatory remarks feel canned (”amazing!” “awesome,” “couldn’t have done it without you,” - which I couldn’t - “something I’ll never forget,” - which I won’t - “I am honored” - which I am) … like some cheesy Toastmasters’ speech. I really just want to say “I love you” to be honest, but I won’t. I daren’t.
The overwhelmingness (NOT a word, I know) of I love you is a theme that recently gave me a jolt. I “found” this graffiti art on a brick wall in town:
and quickly zipped home to get my camera. Driving away with my digital find I was pondering the motivation of this anonymous lover (was his beloved one person or all of us?) when I nearly crashed my car into this SECOND universal love note:
If I have the nerve, I plan to add my own graffiti to the wall … the number “2″ underneath!
click on the song, “Many Things to Know” to listen.
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I was so happy to see the phrase cliche “fold up the tents” in your post! That is one of my favorites - right behind “circle the wagons” and “low hanging fruit”.
Comment by Dave — 11/30/2006 @ 11:44 am
The good thing about endings is that it gives us a chance to have new Beginnings!!
I grew up in Colorado, (not what I would call the mid-west, though some would call it that. I hear the midwest used for everything from Ohio to Colorado from Wisconsin to Texas.) Back home we used “____your guts out!” Lately that has been used to describe my 1/2 mile intervals, as in “run my guts out,” followed by “puke my guts out!”
Comment by George - FFSG — 12/1/2006 @ 8:32 am
We never said “puke” (I think of that as southern);
we said “barf” … talk about onomotopoeia!
Comment by Joan — 12/1/2006 @ 8:41 am
Hey, if you build up the nerve to leave a “2″ underneath, make it small, that’s the new Fleet Feet Incorporated’s corporate headquarters in the second picture. While I hate graffiti (so anonymous and often defacing) I haven’t covered up this one yet, we actually got 2, one on the entrance and one on the exit columns because I sort of like the idea.
Comment by Tom Raynor — 12/1/2006 @ 10:56 am
Much of this post is way too cliched (gotta find that accent!), but I love it. Call me sappy, but a lot of this stuff makes me get teary. Race well! and yes, I say, “puke your guts out” in NJ.
Comment by Scooter — 12/1/2006 @ 2:24 pm
Maybe those phrases are cliches because they are useful?
Comment by Fat Charlie the Archangel — 12/1/2006 @ 4:20 pm