In the Dark

Woods Run at Dusk, March 2014

It is best to have a goal which puts you solidly in control of your days and minutes and longterm future. It is best to aim high and to just smile and look away when people doubt you and make you wonder whether you should even try. Look up at the ceiling like something is interesting there and sigh. I used to believe this and without it might not be a doctor or marathoner or half decent pianist or be growing my hair long again. Maybe I still do believe it except I know now that control is remote at best and I pine away for the days when one had to get up out of their chair and change the channel, with a finality and commitment that is foreign to modern times. We think we are aware like we invented Zen and with regular runs everything can be right again and we won't need to buy new jeans for an expanding waist line or start lipitor. We go to the gym to strengthen our core. 

Goals can change, but  mine remain a sub 3 marathon and memorizing and performing the entire Well Tempered Clavier, though I cannot imagine who would want to sit and listen to all of that. I might have a recital where beer is served and people can chat during the boring moments. I could finish with some Liszt or Rachmaninoff or finally learn to play jazz and people could dance to stretch their legs after the long night of fugues. My kids walk by when I am playing impossibly magnificent passages on my piano and don't really even notice or so it seems. One woman said to me she remembers her concert pianist mother playing all the time and it is a source of inner comfort, that memory. Mostly though I think they see it as a bother or distraction. Except the one time my little Dragon was suddenly behind me while I played, thin arms wrapped around my waist and her face nestled by my ear, whispering "Mom, you are really good." I will take that to my grave.

To reach a goal once seemed a linear path of fighting resistance when it threatened progress. I did this with mathematics which I had to do to become a medical doctor, for some reason I will never understand. I did this with birth and adoption which both require strength and tenacity and ignoring the noise which gets in the way of your purpose: to love and hold your child. To love and hold your children who eventually leave and live their own lives, with their own goals, and their own beautifully delusional sense of control. I dream of my eldest who is off to college all too soon, and in my dreams she keeps disappearing and I cannot find her, but she is small and vulnerable. Now she is a young woman and astounding in her presence and gifts. She will write her way into the future and she will not disappear so much as reappear at my side as a woman and not the newly-minted toddler who needed to be walked with two hands in a back-breaking several weeks of bent-over mothering. Linearity is rare, and I am glad I took algebra, when all is said and done.

Physics I am less certain about and as I watch my body age I sometimes fill with a certain rage I cannot explain. If I had it to do over, I would've tried for that sub 3 marathon in my 20's, but was too busy planning my longterm future. I tolerate less now, physically anyway. I tolerate much more in terms of disappointment and surprise. I am lucky to have a wise husband who makes me my PB & J for my long work day and a son who constantly makes me feel alive. With worry, with wonder, with anticipation. What will he be? No hurry to answer that because he already is and I love him for it. What will any of us be after all? When you hit the wall in a marathon or life, nothing else exists. It is the most Zen place to be, because you cannot be bothered with thoughts of anything else. Your mind is clear. Shot through with pain and certain failure. But failure is my favorite motivational speech, "nowhere to go but up from here", and it is the best catapult into the next moment when hope sneaks under your skin and makes you tingle with power. This. I. Can. Do.

I ran in the near dark in my woods after a long day and week treating patients who hit the wall. In my experience, one either gets smushed and slides in a cartoon heap to the floor, or stops and is still for a moment, says some choice words, then sees the wall for what it really is: a facade that one can simply walk right through. On the other side is some more living or perhaps some dying. It might be birthing or it might be a trip to the ICU. Chemotherapy or hospice or an earnest hospitalist hovering over you. My run in the dark after my long day and week was with JS Bach plugged into my ears. The Well Tempered Clavier, book I, Glenn Gould's young years. I ran in the dusk in my redwood temple, and the walls came tumbling down. 

I can do this. Sub 3, maybe, but to try is where life is. And Bach? Well every self-respecting pianist knows the WTC like the back of their hand. The answers reside within preludes and fugues and the creepy sounds of Glenn Gould humming along to his singular interpretation. He brings out voices from dead Baroque notes on a page. His choices are not always appreciated by the mainstream musicologist. 

Run in the woods in the near-dark. Play Bach so people listen. Fuck the critics. Look at the ceiling and smile. 

Paths Chosen

When running in my woods, I sometimes wonder why a path rarely taken seems more dangerous than a path I have run hundreds of times. Are the mountain lions and creeps more likely to lurk on a path just because I don't use it regularly? Is it because I do not know every detail of its switchbacks, roots and shadowy sections?

Do not worry, I will not be quoting Frost here. I have been thinking a lot lately about life choices, though. For one thing, I have three teenagers, and they are getting to that point where their choices can make a real difference. I fear they look at me, ragged with so much work, and wonder what the point of excelling might be. I push myself hard, and that has just always been my personality. But now that I have arrived (family I love, a nest we built, a career that matters), I feel unsettled. I am sure they notice this. I think kids with parents who are still struggling just to get by have more motivation to do well in the world. Kids who have grown up in a comfortable nest with a constantly fretting mother bird probably wonder if such a nest is worth all the fuss.

I actually love medicine. I despise our healthcare system. I think a lot of what we do is dubious at best, and harmful at worst. But the act of being a healer--that is right livelihood. Over the years since I finished my training, I have had multiple job offers to change my path, even to move away from the cherished nest. Each time, I have pulled back and gathered my chicks to me. I hate change.

Not running has pushed me to look change in the eye. That is, months of barely having the energy to do what I love: run, see my kids, play piano, cook a meal, shove my hands into my garden's dirt, these things are part of right living. And right livelihood without right living is a German-Irish-English-Lutheran-Buddhist-wanna-be-girl-from-the-midwest's worst nightmare. My Dad, who died fifteen years ago today, said many things to me in his last days. One of them was: make the word a better place than you found it. He was serious about this. But he also was a man who met each day (literally) with a song. Which, as a teenager I found highly annoying. But now as an adult I see it as the miracle it was.

Recently, I saw a friend/patient have a stroke. I see this often, strokes. Heart attacks. Cancer. Bad infections. Horrible accidents. What struck me about this particular stroke though, was the mixture of love, strength and laughter that surrounded this person. And emanated from this person. I've witnessed this before, like with my cousin (now gone a year). A few other patients here and there. My parents.
When you see this, or experience it, you are forced to consider what matters.

For my teenagers in the nest: what matters is loving others and making the world a better place. Also carving out time to enjoy the gifts of life. It is not always easy or fun, but it should never be a constant struggle. When your path feels toxic, change it. The firm hand of familiarity is not necessarily the best guide though life.

Dear inner hospitalist, I am not exactly abandoning you. But in 48 days I will be shoving you aside to try something new as a healer. I have sometimes enjoyed our time in the trenches. But being a pacifist, I am tired of having to use war analogies every time I put on my white coat. I think the hospital will miss you, but then again it might forget about you instantly and find another hospitalist to lure with its adrenaline highs and doctor's lounge donut lows. Its been a crazy ride. Love you.

But now, I gotta' run.

Why Marathons Matter

"I didn't go out looking for negative characters; I went out looking for people who have a struggle and a fight to tackle. That's what interests me."
-Philip Seymour Hoffman

Training for a marathon is about paying attention to yourself. It presses you into a small, pure space in your body and mind that can be otherwise lost in a world of sedentary living and shocking headlines. Though your training is expansive, this space is focused. It demands your whole presence. It feeds you with endorphins, it settles inner debates about what matters, it tightens your ass for your favorite pair of jeans. It is existential and physiological. It fills you with delusions of grandeur and a mundane sense of having something important to do. It is painted in colors of pleasure and pain. When everything else is uncertain, I like to go to this space.

I could easily substitute "heroin" or a multitude of other evil things for "training for a marathon"in that paragraph. Heroin took the life of Philip Seymour Hoffman today.

I do not think marathon training is like addiction though. True, endorphins are nice. And the fitting into jeans can be good too, though superficial of course. But really what marathons represent is tackling something difficult that also gives pleasure and purpose to what for most of us is an unfocused existence. Or perhaps an existence focused on things that make us feel toxic and ungrounded.

Today I took a traditional Sunday long run with a friend who is faster than I. My role in this was tortoise to his hare. His role, I suppose, was to make me a faster marathoner.

I do wonder though, with all the swirling hullabaloo surrounding life as a parent of teenagers and a doctor of patients, if marathon training is sensible. Why not just run 6 miles a few times a week and leave it at that? I have certainly had that question posed to me many a time. Is there not struggle enough?

People need a focused space for healing, gratitude, escape, wonderment, and for paying complete attention to the body and soul they possess. At least I do. I have found that in other places besides marathon preparation. Being on the outside, sitting on a surfboard, waiting. Getting completely dissolved into the playing of music. Sex, of course. And birthing.

What is different about marathons is the process of preparation. If wise, you are given a four month task with something assigned each day. Life will try to derail you, but in the process you learn to listen to what your body needs and you learn to love the very act of that listening. So, it is not actually an escape, or a delusion. It is not an opiate to the spandex enwrapped masses. It is a struggle. It is the key to your own heart's contentment. It is as mundane as bread and butter. It is a way out of the darkness.

Wanna Race?

I was almost done working and came across a very sweet patient of mine who was going home soon, and doing laps with his walker in the hallway as I had asked him to do. I came alongside him and said, "Wanna race?" He proceeds to bolt down the hallway and let me tell you I almost had a heart attack. But I also had the first good laugh for a long while.

I like to write about running. Running in the redwoods, on the beach, through the marsh and even on the track, as I am a fool for a good interval workout. But if you are not running, you cannot really write about running. The brief, panic-stricken jog down the hallway of the hospital with my walker-driving opponent is as about as close to a real run I have had for awhile.

It is not that I cannot run. I am not (knock on wood) injured. I am packing extra pounds for sure, from lack of activity, lack of sleep, and too much snack-scrounging from the despicably unhealthy doctor lounge. It is just that a 150 hour work week sort of takes the wind out of my sails. Plus, my community has become so laden with crime (methamphetamines, heroin, methamphetamines, pot, methamphetamines, poverty) that running in the dark seems a lot scarier than it used to. In my town, a gentle priest is not even safe from the violence. And when I now realize it is necessary to ask even the septuagenarians about their meth use, because apparently there is no age limit to this shit, my illusion of a sort of peacefulness in rural living is shot quite dead.

I will run this weekend. 13.1 miles with my eldest kid. Her first half and my first half where I am not trying to break any records and just hope to God I can finish the thing. The course is described as "one of the fastest in the San Diego area and the US", which makes me picture one of those moving walkways like in airports, but instead a moving half marathon course and man does it move fast.
I mean, doesn't the runner do the fast part? What exactly does the COURSE have to do with being fast? Yeah, sure, it is flat or lacks wind or whatever. But really, fast runners run fast wherever. This weekend, I will not be among them. I shall be very happy and content though for two reasons:
1) not at work
2) with my daughter

Running is not just about not being the blob I have become in recent weeks, thanks to work.
Running is not just about winning races or being a fasty.

Running, like Beethoven and sleep, is about survival. And I have not had any Beethoven, decent sleep or running since

since

I cannot actually really remember when.

Also, Buster died. Just a dog. But the grief is heavy.

It makes me wonder: what am I doing, exactly?

And what really matters?

Thanks

This time of year, the coast beats the inland mountains for warmth. In summer, it is 60-70 degrees here, while inland, by the rivers and mountains, it will be 90-100. This time of year, it is 55-65 degrees here, while inland, by the rivers and mountains, it will be less than 60 degrees.

The rivers and mountains, they are changeable and extreme. Here, we are steady in temperature, though unpredictable in fog and sun. If you don't like the weather here, it is said, wait ten minutes.

The last several days have been generous in sun and warmth, allowing runs in shorts and a t-shirt, necessitating sunglasses, and almost (but not quite) too warm for comfort. Yesterday I ran along the coast north of here, and swooned with the scent of eucalyptus, freshly trimmed along the road side, and tried to avoid falling off a cliff while under the hypnotic spell of Mother Nature and her spectacular ocean views.

It makes me thankful. Because life is hard.

I have many things for which to be thankful. Like, last week's mammogram was normal, and given my family history, that rocks. No pun intended. Also, I learned to purl, so now I can both knit and purl, and as a meditative practice, this activity is unparalleled. Buster is still alive. And seems content. I am off for a long stretch from work, and next week I head to Orlando to see my beloved Godmother. ORLANDO, people! Godmother and I shall see Harry Potter World, where I will buy her a butter beer and shop in Hogsmeade village.

I will run in Orlando too, which leads me to my gratitude for my ability to run, and the chance to explore cities on foot for miles and miles.

My children? They are the core of my contentment, my biggest worry, the loves of my life (along with their father). Thankful for watching my eldest daughter head to state in cross country next week. Thankful for my son's bright mind and tender heart. Thankful for my baby girl's strength and determination. Teenagers, all of them. Who came up with the idea of adolescence? They have some 'splainin' to do.

I am thankful for my Dad's siblings. No really, they are amazing. They have just been on my mind, and thus I mention them.

Family. Extended family. Biological and adopted families. Friends. Neighbors. All crucial.

The buck that greeted me at the base of my driveway on the way to work the other day: his antlers looked fake. Probably they were real though. I like that he was there, fakey antlers and all.

Thursday is Thanksgiving. A weird holiday but one of my favorites, not least because on Thanksgiving it becomes socially acceptable to play Christmas music. Also, I get to make my Mom's stuffing recipe which is nutritionally scandalous but gastronomically fabulous. I will run the Turkey Trot, though I loathe 5K's with a fiery passion. I will bake pie, and bury myself in the sweetness of it to make up for the pain and humiliation of running 3.1 miles.

So much sweetness to make up for the pain of life. For this I am thankful.

Neurotic Poodles

Buster

Before I discuss poodles, I must pay tribute to Buster.

Buster is almost 16 years old. He is a Border Collie, though a large one, so maybe there is something else in there too. Once I met a Scottish woman at the beach and she said she has seen working dogs his size in her homeland. It doesn't matter. He has the stance. The smarts. The obsession.

His obsession is/was rolling boulders (backwards, with his front paws, for as long and as far as he could, with a happy yelping bark of delight the entire time) and running. Also very large sticks, sometimes actually they were small trees that had fallen, and as he seemed to believe I have the strength of Atlas, he would drag said tree to me, expecting me to throw it for him to fetch. And he could outrun every dog on the beach to get balls, much to the chagrin of their owners who thought, like parents do these days (at least in Northern California), that all dogs should have an equal chance to shine.

Buster could tell when I was upstairs putting on my running clothes. Somehow he discerned putting on of running clothes from all other outfits. Did he smell the woods and beach on my shoes as I lifted them from the closet? Could he sense my own excitement at preparing for the run?

Buster is now in hospice. This is how I think of it, because he cannot hear. He can barely see. He can hobble to the door and maybe make it outside to do his business. A walk around the house leaves him exhausted. And he gets a special diet that leaves the other dogs quite jealous: rice, ground beef, chicken broth...really, whatever tickles his doggy fancy.

Buster is the only truly cool dog in our house.

Which brings me to the poodles.

 Zoe

Miles

Now technically, one is a standard poodle and the other a Goldendoodle. Disclaimer: I take full responsibility for the choice to bring a designer dog into my home ('doodle). Designer dogs are especially designed to be neurotic. In terms of the standard poodle, I can blame those I love that own/owned poodles. They know whom they are.

Today, I ran a workout I have named "easy run with neurotic poodles".

Miles was first. He is terrified of surprises. In his world, that encompasses the following:
-butterflies
-a puddle
-a sneeze
-an unexpected breeze
-the wind blowing a leaf in our path
-a neighbor walking by
-and don't even get me started on the unexpected charge of the chihuahuas

Zoe came next. Normally, the only thing that motivates her to go outside and exercise is the off chance of getting to eat some horse shit. To her credit, she is not easily surprised. But she loves horse shit so much that she will do what one friend has dubbed "the breastroke" to get to it. I have learned that having a supply of hotdogs or cheese in my pocket will decrease her desire for the golden horse deposits. She is the spazziest being I have ever met.

Both of them look at me like I am insane for running. Yes, they will do it, but Miles soon starts lagging behind and acting like he might mess up his curls if we go any faster, clearly a very distresing prospect for someone with his fine looks. Zoe will run if there is some good horse shit ahead, but otherwise she really does not see the point.

Ah, Buster. If only. Despite his age, his senility, his weakened limbs and impinged spinal cord, he still perks his ears when I get ready to run. He looks at me with those eyes, as if to say "There is something I remember about you and me and it is good."

Then he leans up against me. And my heart melts.

In my defense:

Those poodles are dang cute.

Also, they make me laugh every day. Not in a Hallmark sort of way. A true belly laugh. They are hilarious, raunchy and weird. I love them.

Just wish we could have a run once in awhile with Buster-style athleticism, grace and bliss. 

And without the neuroses.

Like Sows Pissing

When she was about 8 or 9 years old, my eldest daughter approached me with a simple question. "Mom, next time you go running can I go with you?" So we did. And 8 years later, she has not stopped. Well, she stops to go to school, eat and do homework, watch "Glee" and sleep. But she is a Runner, with a capital R. My other two children shun running. It is "not my thing, Mom." Not to mention the fact that it is "booorrrriinngg" and also involves way too much, well, running.

My husband recently dubbed me "the bible-banger of the book of running", a true proselyte of the sport. Though in defense of myself, I run by example and only rarely recommend it to others. Certainly, I have had no success with 2/3 of my teenaged ducklings, and if we were like that duckling family in that children's book about finding a safe place to live in Boston, I would probably be arrested for duckling neglect when I was off running the Boston marathon.

Since my last marathon, I have been profoundly fatigued. I feel like a morbidly obese T. Rex when I run. Which is to say heavy, with pounding thighs, a thick middle, little wimpy arms and a strange and powerful craving for meat. I likely need to get my hemoglobin checked. Ah, doctors.

But I cannot resist the run. I am not the fastest nor the best dressed nor the one with the most mileage. I often head out without a clear plan beyond "a good, long run, maybe with some fast stuff thrown in". I run at all hours of the day and I sometimes skip running when I put in 16 hours at the hospital and have succumbed to the evil (and, may I add, stale) doctor's lounge donuts. But I cannot resist the run. It is not optional,  like water, food, sleep, sex, music and the absolute desire for the safety and health of my children.

I have a favorite Mozart quote, which goes something like this: "I compose music like sows pissing."

Now, listening to Mozart one hardly imagines a urinating pig. But his point, I believe, was that he does it with the ease of a bodily function (not one to be taken for granted--ask any patient on dialysis!) and with the necessity of a bodily function. The ease? Well, he was a genius after all. Certainly his Dad gets a lot of criticism for his overbearing and likely exploitative parenting style. But truly, even without Herr Johann Georg Leopold Mozart lording it over him, I think Wolfgang would've been a sparkly, perfect prophet of classical music.

I wish I was Mozart, except for the living in the 1700's, being a man and dying in my 30's thing. I can relate to his need to do music. And this need for me extends to running. If only someone wanted to pay me well to be a proselytizing musician/runner with the build of a Tyrannosaurus Rex!

I am reading a book right now that was a bestseller 35 years ago or so. Running and Being by Dr. George Sheehan. He says a lot of things about the deeper meaning of running. Some of which touches me, some perhaps a little too over the top for me (being a midwestern, common sense girl at heart). But he does talk about loneliness and how running serves to heal, and takes one off the treadmill of life (no pun intended, but ha ha ha!). Life really is something we try to fill with success and the gathering of stuff and accomplishments, only to realize in the end or somewhere along the way that what is important is not found in our perfection, but rather in our failures and how we still wake up in the morning after those failures, and take our coffee and toast and ablutions and go out to meet the world once again.

And, of course, go for a run.