So you think you can run

So last week the fear of my own body's rapidly creeping girth and fluidity escalated and I decided the time had come for some wickedly serious dieting. It was time for some purposeful calorie reduction and getting this body moving.

As far back as I can remember I've been captivated by the strength, speed, and agility of runners, the power of the human body. All my life I've secretly wished for the legs of a giraffe or a horse- dreamed of four legs whisking me gracefully across the landscape. In my sleep I sometimes dream I'm running effortlessly and wake wanting to go.

I've gone through periods of running, the most successful being last spring and summer when I trained myself on the local (to Farmington, ME) half mile college gym track. I've never been a graceful runner and my lungs often give out before my legs. And I often give up when the knee pain or the inclement weather kick in.

I blame it mostly on the waxing moon but last week my legs felt surprisingly powerful and telling myself how the other guy doesn't matter, it's only about my body and my satisfaction, I let myself go as far as I could again and again.

No great accomplishment there. Not to anyone but me.

I don't know who the hell I am thinking I can run when the practiced runners are gliding by my plodding self, but I know we all have to start somewhere and I know I feel best when my body is lean and strong, and I know I am going to get my skinny back!

I also know there's little better than flying down the boardwalk or the road with the full moon over head and the breath in my lungs and the wind on my sweaty face.

Does anyone have any beginner's running tips or thoughts to share? Is anyone else trying to start a running program?

A link for the animals

I found the home page to this link last night, on http://2carolinacats.blogspot.com/

It is a tear jerker.

Busy Weekend

Interior painting is one of my favorite learned skills. How easy it is to make a room or a home I don't enjoy very much into a place that makes me smile every time I see it; into a place I want to linger.

My back is letting me know it isn't completely happy with me right now; warning me I'd best watch my step- and there are still books to return to the book shelf (at least 100 of them) and knick-knacks to replace and arrange.

It is mostly done though, and I can't wait to wake up to it all in the morning :-)


P.S.
I'm pretty new at this uploading photos business and they are backwards, ending with the photo of the happy painter pre-work (sideways as I forgot to edit first) and beginning with the finished product ;)

P.P.S.
Actually, they are all screwed up. But you are smart! and I know you get the idea:)

Little wonderment

My cousin's baby, now four months old.

How do they do it?

How do they go so quickly from being warm sleepy bundles of cuddly lump, to being interactiving, animated people?

More than anything else, the hope of this is why I wanted to move back from Maine.

My link,

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

... and share I will. I can't remember any more whose blog linked me to PostSecret, but I've grown addicted and check almost first thing every Sunday. Reading it makes me poignantly feel how very close and how much alike we all are, and yet how very alone and different too; how there is a place inside of all of us known only by ourselves, and the conjoined beauty and danger of that place.

sinking in

Have you ever eaten a mango? Sunk your face in deep til yours cheeks are wet and sticky and the threads of fruit are slicing between your teeth? Held it up to your face to tight you have to close your eyes and hang over the sink, syrup juice freckled with flesh dripping from the tips of your tightly flexed elbows?
Have you peeled off the skin to drag your teeth all the down sucking the meat off with your tongue and swallowing it in sweet gulps?

Who are the big cheeses around here?

Boyfriend gave me his previous digital camera with all the hardware for uploading to the computer and the television; with the battery recharger, the batteries, the bag- he really set me up! Of course, so far it's all nothin' but cats!!

The teeny silver tabby is Sylvia, one of my two kitties. She is 8 or 9. Honestly, I keep myself in denial that she is aging at all.

At 1 1/2 years old she became a rescue from behind a restaurant in Asbury Park, NJ. Two days after she was 'rescued', I impulsively walked into the pet store in Sea Girt, perused the cages, came to a little gray kitty who rubbed my hand and wanted to snuggle- brought my then-live in boyfriend (who is still a good friend) back to see her, and adopted her the very next day.

At first she did not know what to do with a full-time Human. If I got down to play with her, she took it as an attack and swatted my face. No holding, no snuggling, definitely no cuddling up to me in bed. We took it slow, and worked on the trust.

She became my best buddy and once you are accepted by her she'll cuddle on your lap, sleep up against you all night, stand on your shoulders. She barely weighs seven pounds. Never bites, never scratches, never hisses. Even if I am doing something she hates- like clipping her nails or cleaning a wound- she will lie in my lap and growl, but let me do what needs doing.

The little ball of black is Fuzz; or, as Boyfriend calls her, E.L. Fuzz, for everybody loves Fuzz- because they do :) She belongs to my sister, who does not know I'm pimping out her kitty as she sleeps. Fuzz is like a tube of fur covered cartilage. Fuzz is a nut. My sister tells her all the time- "Fuzz, you're crazy."

boring adult's Friday night

Two nights in a row, as the body unwilling to store rest and grow unweary dropped the window blinds on a shortening darkness, the moon struck my chest with its need to be noticed and I nearly hopped in my car and raced my barefooted self to the beach, Peanuts pajama set and all. (Yeah, this mama wants to be sexy, but cozy is my leader.)

The corn shall be mine, all mine!!!!
All five ears I have eaten- I have eaten all five. How can I not when the kernels glide off between my teeth to dissolve meaty and sweet on my tongue?

Random thoughts

These things catch my eye from the side and I turn, always turn, to see the toddler in a stroller smiling and grabbing at things, or the infant laid back half sleeping in a hand carried package.

In Barnes and Noble today, at my corner a metal edge that might have been a satchel of child somehow but proved only to be a hand-pulled cart;
Let the babies go, I told myself. They aren't going to be yours. You haven't led the kind of life that leads to babies.


Tonight I realized my there is such a thing as too much ice cream, two nights of little sleep with a concert in between knocks me flat on my ass, and I don't want the bed all to myself anymore.

Happy Vacuum Day to me

I wasn't sure what you get when you think you are thirty-four, but find out you are still thirty-two, and your birthday comes along. Apparently in this situation, you get thirty-three with the sensation of receiving the life-long gift of two retroactive years. So I am officially thirty-three years old as of 5:35PM today, but feel like I'm thirty-five and getting away with the mother of all youth-fountain tricks. Ponce de Leon, take that!!

What I firmly believe is that March 2006 through late December 2006 was so harrowingly stressful and full of depression and warped changes I emotionally aged two years. At some point during those nine roller coaster months, I began to mentally feel two years older.


I've never had as much fun in a doctor's office (umm, never had fun in a doctor's office ever) like I had this morning with Boyfriend. Needing someone to drive him, he let me be the one. Granted, up until we heard his doctor yell in reference to the facility that still hadn't sent over Boyfriend's MRI results, "I want to talk to their manager! They (meaning us) have been in there (the exam room) since eight o' clock this morning!" -
up until this point there were times we thought me might die forgotten in there and at one point I got slaphappy (neither of us slept well the night before) and started to laugh the kind of laughter that always leads Boyfriend to say, "Will you stop that? You're freaking me out!" (only today he let me go :)
...that kind of laughter that comes for no reason obvious to the non-laughing, but goes on and on and on... . the kind I love to laugh and will lead myself back into if it starts to go away, simply because it's free laughter and feels glue-sniffing good :)

-and at one point I said, "Why don't I take my pants off or give you a blow job because then someone will definitely come in - you never get away with those kinds of things!"

-and at one point we thought about playing darts with the used syringes from the Sharps container on the wall, but neither of us wanted to be the dartboard first.

Several times he apologized for making me sit in a doctor's office on my birthday, and thanked me more often for taking him; but frankly, I had a very good time.

All day I had a very good time.

Thank you Boyfriend; for all you do for me and with me every single day, for loving me so much and so well and wanting my love so much in return, for loving to get my massages because I truly love to give them, for wanting to talk to me and to hear from me each morning and night, for the hugs and the kisses and the snuggles and almost seven months of better life and fabulous days since the moment we met.

I love you ;)

joining the village

It struck me oddly to hear myself calling teenagers 'kids'.
It struck me very strangely when traditional college students became 'kids' to me.

Now when I look at children the residual trauma at the hands of my classmates is gone, and I see small people who will one day be adult men and women, people who need structure and great role models now so they can be their best and their strongest all life long.

And I find myself stepping out instinctually to guide and protect, to stop rolling balls, to keep them from traffic, to save them from waves or other strangers if need be.

We've all heard, "It takes a village to raise a child." Most of us have heard that doesn't happen any more. But I think it does. Maybe not as overtly with neighbor women calling mothers and hanging out the window, but I know I'm not the only non-parent watching out for the younger ones.

Born Again

Sometimes all I need to remember who I am and to get my head screwed back straight is to be beaten by the ocean for a while and watch my sweatpants float around my legs.

Today was one of those days when my head turned my world inside out and by 7PM I was certain Boyfriend and I were doomed to ruin one another's life, and I wanted the world and every stranger in it to go away. Not knowing what awaited me but certain the fix was lying in wait, I headed to the inlet- my old haven where down among the rocks and wave-bathing barnacles I could be a mermaid in paradise and solitude, just another piece of the sea.
I climbed out once last year but my 30-ish self was unsure and afraid of climbing. Tonight though, the fearless climber was back. So, however, was everyone else- and more graffiti than ever; and a teenaged couple making out in the daylight. The castle had been over-run.
Having climbed back to the surf line I stomped through the sand knowing I'll never return to Maine and leave my family behind again, but wishing and dreaming my self the Hell out of here all the same- houses on my left, people talking behind, and no where truly to run and hide.
Shortly I sunk my hind end into the sand and my back followed quickly, arms crossed beneath my head. If there's one thing I excel at, it's getting sand into every crevice even when fully clothed on a windless day. An ex, and later friend, of mine was convinced my body made sand. He'd find the stuff left behind in his sheets when I hadn't been near the beach for days.
This water has its way and the pools of gathering high tide collecting between rocks lured me out-I didn't mind my tushie getting wet if I sat to dangle my feet, but wouldn't it be more fun to stand in the water pits, and Remember when I used to jump in on a whim fully clothed?- Ah, now where might this be headed?
I grew up at the sea, and I know with my ears when to get away from an incoming wave, and I know how to turn my body to minimize the knock and the splash- and I know damn well how to get soaking wet only in up to my knees.
I could feel the smile on my face, and in my head, walking back to the car, sopping sweat pants sliding down my ass, sand gold and black stuck to my feet and calves.
And then the voicemail came from Boyfriend who hurt his knee playing softball and was in the ER, "Don't panic."-
and all that mattered was that he was okay, and I am so glad to be his Woman, and I can not wait to go spoil him on Thursday- the visit I almost canceled earlier, so blindly certain I was becoming his ball and chain.
Over my bed is a greeting card I bought myself, and framed and matted, of a young girl leaving her roof in flight, jacketed arms outstretched, to join the birds. I stuck a seagull feather under the nail in the wall, and every so often I look at her and quietly fly away myself.

So nice to go

Oh but you're right I am elsewhere daydreaming here only in body paying no attention....

Walking barelegged, August sun hot and dry on my head, feet kicking up grasshoppers with every shake of the dark green-sharp, brown-crunchy grass...
sawmill on my right closed for Sunday, or doors open, men yelling, pickups parked by the dozen...
and a quick run for balance and stability over the uphill roots on the 4-wheeler trail of Day Mountain, shade falling suddenly cold on my cheeks.

bedtime blathering

I'm not sure how I expect to start a blog just before midnight and have the energy to get up at 6AM tomorrow for my healthy breakfast over an educational magazine succeeded by weight lifting and calisthenics with steam left over to carry me through the work day.
It may be a morning of hitting the snooze button, not shaving to shorten shower time, and carrying my toast out the door to eat on the drive to work, where I will be out of steam by 1PM.
Which reminds me how I feel like karma gave me a freebie when my toast falls peanut butter side UP. Sweet:)

These days I feel like I could be something more. I see potential in myself and in my future. Flotsam and jetsam of hope and optimism, old friends; not sure who left whom by the roadside, but what a crazy reunion it could be.

from the mouths of idiots

Last night Boyfriend and I were filling out the calender through September. My birthday falls in July.
I thought about for a minute, and then for a minute more before turning to him and saying, "I am going to be... 33? I am going to be 33 right? Wait- 1974, 7 minus 4 is 3- Yep, 33!"

Sadly, I was quite serious.

and the life in between

Normally, society functions as a set of wheels and we are the cogs- but for a birth or a death we are allowed one at a time or in groups to step out of our places in line while those ahead and behind take over our burdens until we can take them up again.

The grandfather of a dear old friend died over the weekend. It was expected, just not this soon. He had a fall last month and as these things go the injuries took the rest of him down successively.

I have a photo on my dresser of him holding his great-granddaughter, the first child of my friend and his wife, the first child of this man's only grandson. He cradles her in his arms, smiling down face full of glee and pride- beaming, you know?

My dresser's surface is changing, with my values I suppose and with the map of my life. There is the photo of my grandfather holding four month old me, and on the back my mother has written how he loved this photo and carried it in his wallet (it is creased down the center, between him and me) and how she took it from his wallet after he died. I am lying upon his outstretched arm smiling at the face smiling back at me, likely in much the same way my friend's grandfather was smiling down. It is a 3x3 and I toted it precariously through move after move until I found a frame to fit. It's lived on my dresser ever since.

My grandparents took their turns slowly disappearing from my life. I lost them over a period of 17 years rather than all at once. I think of them each now and again, but doesn't an event in another's life also call up your own past experiences?

On my dresser is the photo of my 26 year old mother holding me to her chest. She kept it on her own dresser until she decided when I turned thirty the time had come to pass it down.

I have a picture of my cousin's new son staring wide eyed at his father, and a photo of my four year old self in 70's era piped shorts and bedroom slippers sprawled across my father on a lawn chair on my great grandmother's Florida yard. We must have been watching for peacocks.

Work is allowing me to slip away to attend the Thursday services in Pennsylvania and I am grateful for there are certain decisions I have made along the way and once upon a time I knew I would do whatever I could to be there for my friend when the time came to send his grandfather off peacefully.

Because don't we do that for each other, for our friends? We are there to celebrate the births, and commemorate the lives before the deaths, and for everything in between.

The price of fear

I am in a self imposed painful place just now and afraid of self destructing because of my self inflicted fear.
What a thorny circle.

My last relationship started out with me madly in love, albeit occasionally crying and feeling neglected- but I stayed, for almost four years, because I loved him and I knew that in his own way he loved me. Even if his way didn't fulfill my emotional and social needs, I loved him and he was my man so I stayed and nearly married him. It took three severe panic attacks and losing 15 pounds spontaneously to realize that just maybe that relationship wasn't truly the best thing for me.
Most of this you have all heard before.

In December I met a fabulous man, a man who was all my dreams and fantasies rolled into one and wonderfully real and exactly what I needed. After nearly one year's hiatus each from dating, we were ready and we quickly fell closely together. We couldn't believe our good fortune.

After a while I started to notice little things that reminded me faintly of my last relationship but I didn't want to speak my doubt. Boyfriend had been hurt a lot in the past and I didn't want to hurt his feelings. But these things, these things they festered in me fertilizing the doubts from sprouts into great trees with deep and gnarled roots and suddenly one day when I was scared of being hurt down the road and more scared that I might be unhappy one day and hurt Boyfriend, I decided the best thing for both of us would be to leave him now- even though every time I was with him there was nowhere else I wanted to be and even though every time I was not with him I missed him and looked forward to the next visit.

And so I broke up with him only to hear the one thing I so desperately needed to hear but was afraid to ask for- he was madly in love with me and thought I felt the same.
Well, I did.

And off I tore to his house pushing 80mph in a 60mph zone, and then in a 50mph zone. And had the wisdom at least to plead straight from the heart. And he loved and wanted me enough to let me stay, to give me another chance.

If I hadn't broken it off with him in my confusion we could have happily talked about wanting to marry each other without it being peppered with his fear that I will dump him again some day. I wouldn't now be riling with fear myself that maybe I scared him so much we won't recover from it. And now I am backpedaling furiously and starting to feel a little desperate to do all I can to reassure him my gigantic mistake sacked my own fear and showed me how much he does love me and how much I love him- how unless he breaks up with me or does something undeniably horrid I will not leave him again.

I can ask and tell him anything. I knew that before I flipped out. I know that now. I just don't want to bite my own nose off again out of fear of the fear I gave him and guilt for hurting him.

Oh, what a thorny circle.

Showing off again

Me holding my cousin's son on Mother's Day.

Everyone was concerned I wouldn't be able to eat if I had to hold him much longer.
Have to hold him?
Eat?
HA!!
What's food when you have an infant on your chest?
He is about six weeks old now, and so alert! How wonderful to see those big, gorgeous eyes wide open and looking about.
How wonderful to lean my face down to nuzzle, smell, and kiss his precious sleeping head :)

traveling back

(a post I began last week, figuring I'd 'finish' it later- silly me; muses can't often be reawakened; here it is as left)

While photographing the things I love in my days, montages of my homes are invariably recorded for posterity but often before I move away I'll purposely capture each room before the packing begins so that years later I can rewalk it by looking at 4x6.

Last night before bed and after hanging up with boyfriend I replaced the Mosby's medical encyclopedia directly beside a packet of stashed motley photos. Of course they were excavated and there lay pictures of my home with Harold, his jacket lying near the air compressor in his studio, the latex dust on the floor tiles; my Christmas garland and icicles strung upon the over hang.
There was my home with ex-fiance, his science fiction novel on the kitchen table beside my book of wedding plans; and later on, as I tucked one photo behind revealing another, his face popped out at me; my engagement ring proudly displayed in pictures to send home to my cousin, my kitty splayed in the sunspot windows she loved.

the life inside

I lied to a professor once. He asked me, regarding the way I moved when walking, if I was a dancer and I, answering from my heart before thinking, said, "Yes."
"I can tell," said he.*

My disclaimer before attending weddings is that I do not dance. Don't even take me to the floor. Stage fright sets in and I begin to swivel into the ground.

But I dance in the car, on the bar stool, in my seat at the reception. I sit here at the computer now jolly to have accidentally found a favorite song the name and artist of said song unknown- but here it is on my headphones and the butt is grooving, the hips are shimmying, the head, neck, and shoulders in groove.

Music moves me deeply inside and there I am such a dancer, but in public my legs lock up and I am afraid to let it show.

I love to watch the human form in motion. I study how others walk, envy the strength of those who run, marvel at the sculpted musculature in cyclist's legs, and diviningly hope to be a fluid dancer in my next life.

I am a dancer in my heart in this one.







(taken blindly this sounds like it could have been a pick-up: you'll simply have to trust me that it certainly was not :)