13 Miles

Tomorrow I run another half-marathon. Anyone who has trained for or completed an endurance event knows that the training takes so much mental and physical effort, that the actual race kind of falls of the radar, like you might as well do it in a dream because the real tough part is over.
Saturday mornings in many inches of snow and subzero wind chills made me think of the poem often. Good thing, because at times it was all I had to get through.

ATHLETE GROWING OLD*

By Grace Butcher

The caution is creeping in:

the step is hesitant

from years of pain;

a soft grunt bends the body over,

and straightens it.

The skin loosens; everything moves

nearer the ground.

To overcome the softening,

the yearning toward warmth,

she exercises,

makes her muscles hard,

runs in the snow,

asks herself when she is afraid,

“What would you do now if

you were not afraid?”

She listens for the answer

and tries to be

like that person who speaks,

who lives just outside

all her boundaries

and constantly calls her

to come over, come over.

*Thanks Michelle, for sending this to me. I will see you in a few hours for some pre-race chatter.

Easter

I know, Easter is several days over. This year it has taken me these several days to finally come around to Easter though. It occurred to me this morning that since Saturday I have gone through a shock, a period of observation and an awakening, making this morning my official Easter. Here is why:

On Saturday there was a murder in the house across the street from us. It turns out that a mentally ill son decided to shoot his parents, killing his father with one shot and critically injuring his mother with six. We did not hear gun shots or see anything out of the ordinary until I was leaving for my Easter vigil mass through an army of emergency workers. When I got home it was obvious that my street was a crime scene. This was not the shock* of my Easter, although it was a great sadness.

Yesterday the police tape came down. This morning I stood at my front door watching the family of the victims carry files and boxes out of the house. I was holding my daughter in my arms, noting how she did not see the people across the street, but was watching some birds tumble and play through the air.

I kissed her fleshy cheek and mumbled, "You must try to love the world in a way that makes the world think you are crazy."
This is our only obligation. This is our Easter.

*This post was originally more lengthy. My shock was about some of the reactions from my family/friends about this incident. However, writing about it is complaining, which serves no one.

A Holy Saturday Letter

Dear Sophia,

Today you turn 21 months, which is starting to seem a little old to me. Especially since you are running around these days with the intelligence of a 21-year-old. When I learned I was pregnant with you, I started negotiating with God. I don't usually do this at all, but when I became pregnant my mind started slowly unraveling. Just ask your Dad. Anyway, I pleaded with God that you would be healthy. Then I threw in some extras, "I would really like a girl. Oh, and please make her pretty, not intelligent, because life is easier for pretty people, and so damn hard for intelligent people...and please, please, whatever you do, do not let this one inherit a hyperawareness of the world from her mother."

Not too long after that plea, God, in God's typical wisdom and sense of humor, handed you over to me. You have my hyperawareness times ten at least. I cannot believe how you pick up on everything that is going on in the world around you. Now, not only do I have to learn what to do with my awareness, I have to watch you figure out yours...and this scares me in the way only a mother could be scared.

Sophia, did you know your name means God? The feminine God? And Wisdom.

Now there are a lot of Sophia's running around due to the popularity of the name, but I couldn't think of another name once I understood the meaning.

On this day, when you turn 21 months, with a 21 year old mind, I only hope that as you grow, you find meaning in a God that will bring you light and clarity in a world that is often confusing.

To be honest, I know I have nothing to worry about. You make joy out of ordinary things, over and over, every day. You laugh and dance without reserve and you are not thrown off track for long by anything.

Now I know that when I was making my plea to God, I had no idea what I was asking for because I was limited by my own experience, my view of the world was so small before I knew you.
I had no idea that there could be a person as everything as you, a true bearer of Wisdom.

Holy Thursday

Mandátum novum do vobis dicit Dóminus, ut diligátis ínvicem, sicut diléxi vos:
"I give you a new commandment: Love one another as I have loved you." (John 13:34)

"Are you family?"
"No. I am her hospice volunteer." In one quick motion I pick up the ID around my neck and let it fall against my chest.
"Ok. Let me know if you need anything." The aide steps backward through the curtain.

I can't take my eyes off of Helen's face. Her head is back, mouth agape and eyes wide with fear.
"Helen," I am practically shouting. "Its Amy. From Hospice. I am going to stay with you for a while."
No response.
I move to her bedside and brush the hair off of her forehead. She looks tiny and broken, almost half the size she was three days ago when I visited. They all look this way right before death, as if the human form is too cumbersome and awkward.
Now she moves her eyes to my face, and I still can't get over the fear that fills them. "Don't be afraid of this," I whisper close to her cheek.
She sighs and licks her lips. I swab her mouth with water before grabbing and kissing her knobby hand.

At once all momentum is suspended as I realize that I am exactly where I should be.

Many Holy Thursdays ago I attended mass where the priest washed the feet of parishioners. This display of humility was such a blow to the way I was living. In an instant I knew that leading a life without service would leave me lost.
The rest is history, and today is devoted to reconnecting with that history.

Holy Week Wednesday

This poem moves across my thoughts like a shadow on most days. I think of it when I am in quiet anticipation of a change. The tiny fear that nestles deep waiting to be transformed into spectacular growth. Perhaps this is Spring. I like to think of the seeds underneath the frozen soil sucking in air, before they emerge wearing their timid green.
Perhaps this is Easter. A final breath of passion that turns out to be not so final at all. Let this be a lesson to my fear.


Hidden
by Naomi Shihab Nye

If you place a fern under a stone the next day it will be nearly invisible as if the stone has swallowed it. If you tuck the name of a loved one under your tongue too long without speaking it it becomes blood sigh the little sucked-in breath of air hiding everywhere beneath your words. No one sees the fuel that feeds you.

Holy Week Tuesday--A Love Story

Bar Cervantes is perched in the corner of the Plaza Mayor in Salamanca, Spain. Inside sits a young woman of 20 years. She is an American student and finds this cafe touristy, but the surrounding streets are full with spectators of the holy week parades. Plus she enjoys the view overlooking the plaza, which is quite empty this afternoon, as most people are participating in the parades. In her small spiral notebook, she scribbles the beginnings of a poem. The colored bottles on the shelves of the cafe remind her of jewels through her teary eyes. She is a bit melancholy today, a product of being far from home but in the center of an exceptional city. The waiter brings her cafe con leche and a plate of patatas fritas, which she did not order. Because your smile is beautiful, he explains. She blushes, but she is used to this. Waiters are constantly bringing her free platas or bebidas because of her youthful prettiness, she suspects. Even in the States she was used to these extras.

She notices her friend Sancho strolling through the plaza. He is American too, David, but prefers Sancho as in Sancho Panza. Because I see the world with different eyes, he says with a smile. Sancho is stuffing the remainder of a cream filled pastry in his mouth, and this makes her chuckle. He swears by a two pastry a day rule. Soon he will bound up the stairs to the bar in search of her. They spend most afternoons together, after class and siesta, filling the hours with a stroll or a game of cribbage in a cafe. They have become quite close, and she suspects he loves her. She catches him watching her carefully and notices his light touch on her arm during conversation. It is strange though. This does not feel like the lustful desire that is usually directed towards her. This feels more patient, more present, almost indifferent.

She returns the feeling with a friendly indifference too. She is not interested in love. She came here to redirect her focus, to step out of the momentum of coming of age in the States. Yet she finds that she searches for him in the street, in the markets, in the nightclubs. He seems to appear only when she can hardly stand it anymore. At night, in her cot-like bed in her host home she often wakes feverishly, sure she felt a whisper of his breath on her cheek. The remainder of the night leaves her in restless wonder, what could possibly become of a love like this?

At this moment he knows she sits in Cervantes. He knows she is watching. He knows she is confused about this relationship. More than anything, he knows to be patient, that she will seek him wholeheartedly in time.
Everyone does in time.

Holy Week Monday

I do not have much to say about it being Monday of Holy Week. I am simply noting that it is the beginning of my favorite week of the year.

Oh! I have not blogged in so long that I fear that I have lost my one or two readers! I did take a trip to Florida, in my defense. I also have not been feeling very creative. There are few large life changes stirring under the surface of my mind and they are excellent creativity quelchers. One large change is that my husband is making a career move which will take our family of three to Michigan to live. Anyone in the Internet live in Michigan? Wait, I know my few readers do not live there.

That is another thing. I am still trying to find a place in the blogging world. I have to admit, the lack of comments has been more disappointing to me than I thought it would be. When I do get a comment, I find it fuels another post. When I started blogging, it was merely for writing practice and I did not care about comments. This must be something I have to work out with my ego. Perhaps a renewal in creativity will help maintain my vow of using this space for writing, not conversing.

I hate conversing. I hate talking about myself. If you were to have a conversation with me you would see how I use my superpowers to get you to stop asking about me so I could listen to you.
I would be a therapist's nightmare. Also, I am quite the bore in conversations about religion and politics. Pop culture makes me want to rock back and forth in the corner.
I know, I know...right now your stalking instincts are piqued because you are just dying to invite me to a party.

A Meeting by Mary Oliver

A friend of mine mentioned that he was wanting to read this poem again, so of course as I am faithful to Mary Oliver, I looked it up. It is about the beauty we can find in the wild, unscheduled movement of life. A movement that can really only be found if we stop and watch nature in this world. Or children. I am trying to incorporate more wild presence in my day-to-day...an unsolicited hug for my husband or a surprise tickle attack for my daughter. These small things can be the most grounding.

A Meeting
by Mary Oliver

She steps into the dark swamp where the long wait ends. The secret slippery package drops to the weeds. She leans her long neck and tongues it between breaths slack with exhaustion and after a while it rises and becomes a creature like her, but much smaller. So now there are two. And they walk together like a dream under the trees. In early June, at the edge of a field thick with pink and yellow flowers I meet them. I can only stare. She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Her child leaps among the flowers, the blue of the sky falls over me like silk, the flowers burn, and I want to live my life all over again, to begin again, to be utterly wild.