Songs of Experience

*
A trailhead running buddy just sent me this link to a six-word memoir contest sponsored by Smith. That’s right … SIX words. Apparently, when given this assignment, Ernest Heminway wrote:

For sale: baby shoes, never used.

Lord, how does one follow that?

I plan to make this my spring assignment for seejanerun, so if any of you Janes are reading this blog, you get a head start.

Here’s what I sent in (seeing as how I’m in a bonafide mid-life crisis):

So much promise!
Such potential!
yet,

The Friendly Beasts

Jesus, our brother, kind and good,
Was humbly born in a stable rude;
The friendly beasts around Him stood.
Jesus, our brother, kind and good.

“I,” said the Donkey, shaggy and brown,
“I carried His mother up hill and down;
I carried His mother to Bethlehem town.”
“I,” said the Donkey, shaggy and brown.

“I,” said the Cow, all white and red,
“I gave Him my manger for His bed;
I gave Him my hay to pillow His head.”
“I,” said the Cow, all white and red.

“I,” said the Sheep, with the curly horn,
“I gave Him my wool for His blanket warm;
He wore my coat on Christmas morn.”
“I,” said the Sheep, with the curly horn.

“I,” said the Dove, from the rafters high,
“I cooed Him to sleep that He should not cry;
We cooed Him to sleep, my mate and I.”
“I,” said the Dove, from the rafters high.

Jesus, our brother, kind and good,
Was humbly born in a stable rude;
The friendly beasts around Him stood.
Jesus, our brother, kind and good.

Merry Christmas!

For Christmas this year, I offered my little brother an expert shoe fitting at our local Fleet Feet along with a “professional” (me!) 13-week training program to help him become a runner. Like Terri, my brother is diffiult to buy for because he is working on not “wanting” anything. I’m actually quite jealous of him right now as he’s in mad pursuit of spiritual enlightenment – like I was in my 20’s when I read Sartre, Camus, Heman Hesse, Thomas Merton; watched countless Vittorio de Sica films, and Ingmar Bergman (dahhhling, you must see Wild Strawberries if you call yourself educated). I recently convinced my brother, John, to rent My Dinner with Andre – claiming it was #1 in my all-time top ten movie list – but he couldn’t make it through because Andre’s voice bugged him. “I love Wallace Shawn,” he said, “but he never talks.” He listens.

John also declined my offer to coach him, honestly confessing, “I’d like to, really I would, and I do know what a generous present this is …. but it sounds like too much work,” which got me to thinking about how I have proselytized for running my entire life. I might as well have dressed up in a white shirt, black slacks & tie and gone door-to-door like the Mormons. Only difference is, my “mission” has lasted 25 years, not 2. What is it about running (and runners) that makes us all go out and preach the gospel? How many times have I begun a sentence with “You should run …” fill in the blank with any race, or trail, or work-out that I love. Maybe it’s just human nature to want to share, but I think there’s more to it. Most runners I know (not those who run to burn calories or work on body beautiful; I call those runners “exercisers”) use running to make meaning in their lives. It truly is not that far removed from organized religion.

Just yesterday I was out on a trail with a friend who said, “Yeah, I go to church – every Friday out here (on the trall) for two hours.” So, you can understand my impulse to give John running as part of his vision quest. Is it the discipline, the solitude (and its flipside, communion), the ritual, the prayer, meditation? What?

I need to ponder this some more.

In the meantime, maybe a membership to Netflix is a better Christmas gift idea for brother John.

Are you sleeping,
are you sleeping,
Brother John?

Not anymore.

I usually end my seejanerun seasons with some poem or carefully selected reading. This fall I chose to send out a list of my favorite goal-race memories. Formal reflection really does help with closure (I don’t like that word, but it suits). Think of graduation speechs and epitaphs and good-bye notes – all ways to express what poet, Emily Dickinson, calls that “formal feeling.”

Good Morning, Janes -

My Lizzie’s kindergarten teacher often tells the kids to raise their hands and then reach behind and pat themselves on the back. She tells them to say, “Good job, Me!” So, dear Janes, that’s what I want to say to all of you. We had such a powerful showing on Saturday out on the trail – both running and cheering – and afterward under the awards tent that I am still saturated with pride and happiness this morning … two full days later. However, I am also a bit sad that the season’s over – seemingly so quickly – and when Kelly MP called this morning to ask, “How are you doing?” I could only mutter, “uhhh, okay, a little glum” because it was 9:00am and I wasn’t rushing around to get out the door in time for our 9:30 Monday practice. I am content to begin a well-deserved break, but it feels sort of weird.

Do any of the rest of you feel weird today?

Maybe it will help if we all write in to the list with some of our favorite impressions from the race week-end. I’ll go first! (don’t get your hopes up; this will be no Letterman Top Ten list)

1.) Julee striding up the hill to finish as the #2 Jane. When I high-fived her and said, “You are one tough old b____!” I hadn’t yet seen that she was without ONE SHOE! Tougher than tough, you are a running Goddess, Julee.

2.) Susan’s pom pons. When Susan told me she’d be at the race with her pom pons I thought she was speaking metaphorically, as in “I’ll be there with bells on,” but she actually – literally – had shiny, cheerleader’s pom pons to cheer us on! Thank you, Susan!

3.) Kelly’s glowing face and truly STONED demeanor after she came out of her “stone” massage at the spa [where we went after our goal race]. You were doubly glowing, Kelly … from taking pain and pleasure in one day.

4.) All of our cobalt blue seejanerun shirts! Thanks, Terri, for making that happen this season.

5.) Anne’s joyful face – looking like a kid racing across the playground during recess when she finished – and knowing we’re never too old to be doing this. Never.

6.) My own child-like pleasure as I raced like a maniac with absurd SPIKES (who do I think I am?!) over slippery rocks and mud. Making Randy laugh over wine at the cabin when I confessed my frustration at having to pass all those “pesky 14-milers” – heh heh.

7.) Afterward, hearing everyone say, “I loved this race!” when I’ve picked a couple of loser races in the past fall seasons.

8.) Karen NOT MISSING A GOAL RACE! You kept your skinny butt in shape at the gym despite what should have been a season-ending injury. You also had the cutest running outfit. The black tee looked great under the singlet.

9.) Liz adding her final artistic tough to the “GO seejanerun!” van. It needed your blessing, Liz.

10.) All of us, under the tent, at the table having soup and crackers and just being together, relaxed and happy like a good family.

I could go on, but I want so save some for the rest of you.

Thank you, friends, for yet another memorable season.

After great pain, a formal feeling comes–
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs–
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical, go round–
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought–
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone–

This is the Hour of Lead–
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons recollect the Snow–
First–Chill–then Stupor–then the letting go–

– Emily Dickinson (1862)

I did my best to correct a mistake, so now I must turn the page. It’s December, for crying out loud, and I need to start thinking of Christmas presents. Yesterday, I went to a little celebration for one of my best friend’s 45th birthday. This friend is one of those people who can do anything; we joke that for Thanksgiving she hunts, kills, plucks, dresses, serves, and eats her turkey while the rest of us just buy our birds at the Harris Teeter. What do you give a woman who has – and can DO – just about everything? I’m sure there are people on your holiday list who fit this category.

Here’s what I came up with:

I painted her a stick. It’s not really a walking stick; it’s more like a sculpture, an “art stick,” (something to put on a mantal … or, in your coat closet, perhaps only to be displayed when friend-who-gave-it comes to visit ). On a trail where my friend and I often run on our easy days (with happy dog, Max), I searched and searched for a stick that seemed “trail-like.” What makes one stick stick out from all the others? Lumps. Curves. Knots. Discoloration. Are they flaws or flourishes? The perfect sticks were boring; I wanted one with a little history, some evidence of hardship endured.

Then I found it, a simple stick that had these beautiful, intricate carvings all over it. The carvings looked like our trail, winding up and down, around and crossing back over itself. The bark was already mostly gone, so you could clearly see all the engraving left by the critters who had lived there (wood mites? worms?). I ran the rest of the way back to my car with my friend’s birthday present bobbing up and down like a parade baton.

Back home I cleaned and sanded and started painting Terri’s stick with joyful vigor. Dinner was on hold, homework went unchecked, and my daughters became invisible as I lovingly painted each trail line. At one point, my youngest said, “Mommy, that looks like something a real artist would do.” Well, not really, but I felt like one because real art is inspired by great feeling.

This may well be an art stick Christmas. Coat closets beware!

Back in August I wrote a post about a lawnmower that has been eating away at me ever since. It was wrong to judge my friends and it was even more wrong to post it on my blog. It is dangerous to tell the truth slant. The straight story is, I was hurt and angry (over another matter entirely) with the friends who told me this story, so I used my blog to lash out at them. That is wrong any way you turn it.

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant
by, Emily Dickinson

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—
Success in Cirrcuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightening to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind—