Nothing That (fill in blank) Can't Cure

Sun Sandwich, The Marsh, Jan 2013

I have been playing a lot of piano lately. A couple of performances coming up, and nothing like the threat of people staring at you expectantly to get your behind on the piano bench to prepare. Piano used to be my Thing. Somewhere along the way in life I decided it wasn't anymore and that being a doctor would be less hassle and more likely to allow life balance than being a concert pianist. No, I never used drugs and yes, I now see the flaw in that early 20's year-old logic. Even so, I still like to play sometimes and the same phenomenon occurs as did when I was hacking at the ivories 8 hours per day in the basement practice room in what was more or less the campus bomb shelter (as well as music school) of my alma mater: when in the thick of hard work on a piece of music, everything falls apart right before it gels.

Things Fall Apart. It is even required reading for most high schoolers. Construction, deconstruction. Ambition, the downfall of society. All I know is ambition and Chopin do not mix, and the only way to tap into the fluidity and romance is to completely let go. Pretend that you aren't swept away by the emotion, even though you are. Act cool. Walk away then come back and try again. This is starting to sound eerily similar to good advice for parenting teenagers.

2013 is well on its way and I still can't tell up from down. I expected more clarity. But everyone, from my family right on up to the nation and the world seems discombobulated. Even my golden doodle, currently relegated to the Victorian Cone, finds herself running into walls and just looks at me, bewildered. She is super grateful when you pet her though, especially right behind the ears. She just melts when you do that.

Which gets me to the point. Though in my profession cure is rare, in life, you don't usually have to look that hard to find a cure for what ails you or your fellow creature. Yesterday, I ran a 10K and didn't feel all that hot. Was leading, but was passed right at the end by someone half my age. My own fault, as I sort of gave up for all of mile 4. Then I scolded myself and picked it up for the last 2.2, but it was too late then. Cure? After my morning coffee settles, I'm going for a long run. Walk away, then come back and try again.

Other recent cures:
Hearing Beyonce singing THIS in my head while sitting in a meeting with a bunch of men in suits who believe healthcare should be a for profit business. And who are threatened by my leadership and vision.

Playing Chopin while my 3 children sit in the living room in front of the fire doing whatever they are doing, probably oblivious to Chopin, but there nonetheless.

Basic kindness.

The laugh of my little Dragon.

Chocolate milk.

The NYT crossword puzzle.

A slow walk in the woods with good old Buster.

A Sun Sandwich. Look at the picture: Can you tell up from down?
And since we effectively live on a ball, what does that mean anyway?

Seeing in the Dark

"It took me a long time to learn, but I knew now that the more I could let go of the adversarial reflex, the more energy I'd have for running. Conflict poisons the spirit, and probably the blood. Companionship strengthens the spirit."
-Ed Ayres from The Longest Race

I have had a struggle with vision since age 19. First, I had severe glaucoma that seemed to come out of nowhere with pressures high enough to explode my eyeballs. That got better, but then my corneas became something akin to the surface of the moon. And glasses help but not enough really. And contacts are no longer an option. I am 29 (or so) years old now, and already spend my days asquint. It is life changing: I cannot quite see when I am reading a complicated piece of music. And I absolutely cannot safely run in the woods by headlamp at night.

Granted, I still see. I can work and gaze upon my children and compared to true blindness, I have nothing much to complain about. But I do like reading complicated music and running in the dark.

I am reading this book right now about ultrarunning and how it relates to life. Many would say it relates to life in terms of a subpopulation of insanity, but this book argues that it is a metaphor for our very survival, not unlike the tortoise and the hare, which is not so much about that particular race between bunny and turtle, but rather about how you have to pace yourself in this here life.

I can see, but not as well as God and biology intended. And it has slowed me down. At work, I have to nose in to the computer and concentrate on the labs and Xrays just a bit more than I used to. At the piano bench, I can't glance and play an unfamiliar piece quite so offhandedly. Now I lean in and my brain asks itself about the structure and music theory behind my visual interpretation. I often see it one step off but my brain corrects so it makes sense in the music. My piano prof from music school would applaud this, because mindless tricks do not a solid performance make. Still, I miss the quick glance reading I could once do, when my eyes were not moon balls.

I rang in the New Year with a run in the dark, along with friends. At one point, I found myself separated from the group and alone in the woods, literally unsure of where to go because even with my head lamp, I could not see. One side was a drop off. Another offered 3 paths and I did not know which was right as they all looked blurry and, well, dark. There were roots and rocks at my feet and when I tried to run I was significantly at risk for a face plant. I stood there for awhile, gazing up at the stars and watching my breath fill the chilly air. I could hear fireworks in the distance. I was hoping they were warding off the lions and bears. Then I reached for my cell phone and called for help. Humbling to be led by the elbow out of the woods by a 15 year old girl.

Moving fast without concern is a joy. But it occurs to me that it is also the thing that makes us all so harried and prone to unkindness. I just read a thread on line about anger at doctors for making their patients wait. One could write a 23 volume tome on this very subject, but I can boil it down to this: when things matter, we all need to slow down and pay attention to each other. Anger is poison. Rushing often leads to mistakes, burnout and depletion. Doctors are not plumbers, technicians, retail clerks, concierges or Gods. They are just people trained to diagnose disease and attempt to offer healing. Rushing through that process is a recipe for disaster, and is driven mainly by our odd societal idea that medicine is a for profit sport.

I haven't decided about any New Year's resolutions. But I am considering accepting a slower approach to the moments of my days. Sometimes you just have to stop and gaze upward and breathe. And accept the kind arm offered to you.

Peace and Wild Things

Today is Beethoven's birthday.
That man was never really at peace. He loved macaroni and cheese. Despite deafness and despising the philistine masses, he wrote heartbreakingly beautiful music. I cannot imagine life without him.

I

Here is something that has probably been said since caveman days: We live in an age of anxiety.
I wonder sometimes how any of us get out of bed and leave our homes and send our kids into the big cruel world. How do we meet strangers in the street or the emergency room, strangers who might be angry or suffering, and make ourselves vulnerable just to ease their needs?

Seriously, I wonder. But then what is the alternative? It is like when old people laying there in their hospital gowns with some age-related ailment look at me and say "don't ever get old!" Which feels sort of like a curse some Disney movie witch might make on you and the only way to break it is to find some handsome, vacuous prince who looks like he never worked a day in his life, to kiss you. Because you actually would like to get old, thank you very much! "I hate getting old" they say. I, not unsympathetically, usually answer, "well, consider the alternative."

I have no words for the recent tragedies in my community and in our nation, not to mention the whole damn world. I am not sure if more bad things are happening or if our constant and ready exposure to all things internet just makes it seem that way. Our runners. Our beautiful family. Our children in Connecticut. Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt. Downtown Eureka. The DOA in my ER, all of 20 years old. The newly diagnosed cancers in mothers of children. The bad decisions teenagers make. The political divisiveness of a country that often acts like a teenager. This country I love, to be clear.

I can cope, because of Beethoven. Also, running in places that are so lovely I can hardly contain my joy, despite achy hamstrings and elusive speed. I can cope, because of my perfectly real and delicious children, family, friends. In our world, our anxious world, lies the Balm of Gilead.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with the forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

-Wendell Berry

Perception

True dialogue:
Me: "Husband, will you get me 2 bay leaves?"
Husband proceeds outside to Bay Leaf Tree.
Youngest daughter: "Oh. I thought you just asked Dad to get you 2 babies!"
Me: "Yep. From the Baby Tree."


Something came to me when standing outside at 4:40am in North Carolina last week.  Actually more than one thing. First, the moon casts shadows. Second, fireflies are still up and about in 28 degrees in December. Third, that sound could very well be a bear. Fourth, you think you understand what you are seeing, but it strikes you as so far out of expected visions that you doubt the very fact that you are even awake.

Moon, Planet and Trees, Asheville, December 2012

Today when I started running, I once again felt like I was weighed down with lead. I was listening to a podcast and it was not raining. My Garmin was taunting me and I was both pissed off and content. Pissed off at how easy it was in the not so distant past to run a sub 7 minute mile while training. Content because I was, after all, running.

Somewhere around 0.85 miles I kicked it up a notch. Still not exactly flying but I came up behind a guy at least 15 years my minor and he was nonplussed by this old lady passing him. Just me, Ira Glass and a week's vacation under my proverbial belt. "Whoa. You're fast." said young guy. "Oh! You too." said I. See ya', sucker.

Perception is just that. He perceived me as fast but put my kid and her Cross Country team next to me and I would look kind of adorably middle aged. And have you ever seen a whole forest of trees cast moon shadows? With fireflies? In December?

While walking in the Congaree National Forest last week, leaves rained down in a percussive cacophony accented with what were either tree frogs or crickets or both and I just could not close my mouth for the very surprise of it all. Thankfully autumn in South Carolina does not produce large quantities of mosquitoes and other such things that may find my gaping mouth a fine place to seek shelter.

Six other things I perceived this week:
1) Good friends are NOT to be sneezed at. Especially those that have known you since age 5 or age 19 or have seen you cry when a patient dies or have driven with you through the night with a car-full of teenagers or who know that your Dad was very funny or who understand you are broken but seem to love you just the same.
2) Professional success is in the eyes of the beholder and might involve a lot of accolades, but a job is nice to have and mainly because it feeds you and your family.
3) Not everyone in North and South Carolina is a member of the Tea Party.
4) Shrimp and Grits. For real?
5) It is about time to get a Christmas tree.
6) It is time and time past to scale back at work. Also, I signed up for the San Francisco Marathon. Mary made me do it. See that part about "good friends" above.

My Dad told me on his death bed (no, really. true): "Make the world a better place than how you found it."

Still working on that one, but I would say it is a pretty nice place already.

Leaf Shower, Congaree, Dec 2012

The Path of Least Mountain Lions

I realized the other day that I am happiest when training for a marathon. So, obviously, I signed up for a marathon.  The end.

Part Two: a week or so later, I decided not to do the marathon after all. The next best thing to training for a marathon is writing about how I have decided not to train for a marathon. At least not right at this moment.

It came to me when laying in bed, in my usual state of insomnia, that my schedule in the next 2 weeks leaves almost no room for running. So, I started planning things like "well, I will just get up at 4am and do a 15 miler before work." Then I was trying to figure out where to run safely, alone, at 4am. "I can get a quick 45 minutes in at 5:30 at the gym on the treadmill then shower there and head to work." Ugh. "I can try to escape during the day at work and run for an hour." Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. "I can run at 9:30pm after my 14 hours at the hospital." Then I was trying to figure out where to run safely, alone, at 9:30pm. Crap.

The thing is I LOVE running. I don't just like it for my health. I don't even like it for my jean size. If I could never run again, I will at least have these amazing memories, but I would grieve for a long time. Incidentally, I also love to play piano and very nearly cut the tip of one of my fingers off while making dinner for my family last night. Life without piano would suck beyond belief. If I was fingerless and could not run, I strongly recommend keeping a healthy distance between me and yourself.

Anyway, I was at the marsh the other night and was actually running relatively fast (for me these days, which is not saying a whole lot. See last post). And it looked so beautiful my heart nearly exploded (or maybe that was just the pace, but either way, it was nice). At first it was sublime.

Marsh, Nov 2012

But then it just declared itself and you could not help but see it for what it was.

 South Oxidation Pond, Nov 2012

And what it was? Just another sunset. And the only sunset there ever was. And that running path? I've tread on it a thousand times. After seeing these pictures, my daughter said something like "You always seem to run at the Marsh at the most beautiful times." Well, the marsh (our sewage plant, by the way), is a beautiful place, said I. And a thousand times there does not begin to scratch the surface. Except probably literally, in the running shoe path erosion sense of things.

Which path should I take? I think I shall not take the one that involves running at 4am with the mountain lions. If you haven't got a marathon in you, a half marathon will do. If you haven't got a half marathon, God bless you. 

Nice Path, Marsh Nov 2012

Where is my Speed?

I have been looking everywhere for my speed. Let me clarify right now that I am about as straight edge as they come, so what I am referring to has nothing to do with illicit substances. I am desperately searching my fast pace. Where is it?

I tried to find it in Anaheim recently. With an hour a day for lunch break during a week of meetings, I would dash up to my hotel room, change and hit the streets around Disneyland. Of course, the stoplights proved challenging (city running, ugh!). Also, it was hot, by my far north coast standards. Also, there was almost a constant stream of second hand smoke. Everyone seems to smoke in Anaheim. Excuses abound.

I surely was not going to find it on my run last weekend along the Pacific Crest Trail. This is not a terrain for speed. Switch backs, steep, vertigo-inducing drop offs, 17% grades to climb. Oh, and did I mention my issues with heat?

I looked for it yesterday, but it was not to be found on the steep trails of my forest. It showed me a faint glimpse of itself on the downhill of Fickle Hill Rd, but downhills don't really count. It was like a shadowy presence at the marsh, sometimes in plain view but quickly disappearing when I turned a corner to find 25 mph winds pushing into my face.

Speed Shadow, Marsh, 10/31/12

I strongly dislike whining, and therefore should by all rights delete everything I just wrote. Last night, in between shoveling candy into the hands and pillow cases of other people's children, I was chatting with my oldest kid, also a runner. I told her, "I cannot seem to find my speed." Says she: "Its OK Mom. Plus, you are training for a 50 mile run so endurance is really important right now." This is the same kid who shouted at me as I whizzed past her when we were out biking (she was about 8 years old at the time),  "Remember Mommy! Slow and steady wins the race!"

This is also the kid who could whoop my butt in a road race right at the moment.

Running is my meditation, so speed does not matter.
Running is for my health, so speed does not matter.
Running allows me to gaze upon beauty, to smell the eucalyptus after the rain, to greet my fellow humans without the ton of automobile steel encasing me, to feel my heart strongly pumping and to find bliss in a cold glass of chocolate milk at the end of a hard workout.

It lets me see stuff like this:

Marsh Run, 10/31/12

Still. I want my speed back. 

Where is it?????

Perfection

Running, Moss Beach Cliffs, October 2012

"Here's to the journey ahead. Cheers!"-Morgan Uceny

My idea of the perfect time to run is a fall day, with the sun out but with that crispness in the air that says that summer is fading away. The air smells especially clean in the clear skies after a rain. The variegated leaves crunch satisfyingly underfoot. Geese sing in a V-shaped overhead choir. Slug-dodging season starts in earnest.

Recent runs along the central coast lacked the crispness, but held another typical California autumn gift, with warm and stunning sunshine, not a hint of fog, and the last rasps of wind through golden-grassed hills not yet touched by the winter rains. I found myself on miles of dirt trails with a fog horn blaring for no apparent good reason. I was running above the surf, dreaming of how it will feel next September to be in such a setting but with 50 miles to cover, saying to myself, "well that felt good...only 42 miles to go!"

Perfection in running is a moment by moment thing. I felt fairly perfect for the first 10 miles of the Philadelphia marathon, then my body rebelled, and that was that. For me, it was disappointing but not devastating. I often wonder how the elites deal with heartbreak and the imperfection of bodies, race conditions, psychological well being, and dumb luck. Morgan Uceny should have medaled in the 1500m in the olympics. But she fell. Again.

Life is hard right now. As hard as I've seen. Perfection isn't even on the radar. I'm not even sure it would qualify for the seconds pile with an "as is, no returns" tag attached.

My coach once said running prepares you for the hard things in life. I used to think this meant the pain of running makes you tough. But I now think he meant that all you can do is lace up your shoes every day and do your best.

I guess if you are one of those barefoot runners, those will have to be metaphorical shoes.

Here's to the journey ahead!