Takes a Village

 takes a village

to get a lady and her dog onto a flight

It was a very busy time in my life. I had just run a marathon. Lots of fun but tiring! I flew home and straight back to work. 

My BFF let me know her son had died.

My other BFF got a cancer diagnosis.

Then a lady drove her car straight into my café!

I am so grateful for all the good in my life, and I always try to do my best to send love and caring, and actually DO stuff for people… but honestly I felt like pieces of heavy things were falling all around me. 

Could I keep everyone safe from harm? Where are all my five chickadees? (um, well they’re all over the world: little chickadees tend to grow up and fly…) Is my true love gonna be ok up on the mountain without me? What the hell if this crusty thing on the dog’s nose? Am I actually losing my mind? How can I be a better friend? Are my sons doing ok with their partners? Also, how are my sisters? Can I keep the world turning just by thinking good thoughts?

By the time it was the weekend before I was due to travel to Italy – me and our dog on a Transat flight – I was spinning in tiny circles.

And do you know what happened? A giant net of loving hands appeared and moved me along, carefully and with a great sense of humour, to destinations planned and half planned. Two friends took care of the dog so I could visit son #2 in Ontario. Said son and lovely fiancée showed me a wonderful time in their beautiful space. 

Son #3 and his partner organized packing the car and food… and actually packed the car… and were ready with jokes when needed… 

Son #5 played the ukulele accompaniment to our road music while we were driving… he is the calmest person I know and his waves of coolness kept me afloat…

All and sundry cooked dinner before my flight, drove us to the airport, helped me stuff the dog in her crate, touched my back gently when I was about to yell at the Transat gal who was ordering me around …

All I know is, sometimes it takes a village to live a life. Just take a moment to be grateful for your friends, and your family. If you know anyone who doesn’t have either of those, go out and find them! We were all born alone, and we will die alone, but in between it’s worth it to reach out and make a friend. 

Thanks guys!

26.2: Marathons are Fun!!

How was my second marathon? I had a really good time … I ran. I talked to a bunch of people from all over the world. I ran. I ran some more. I ran past beautiful scenery and got cheered on by many, many, many spectators (the Edinburgh marathon crowds are the best!).

Almost there! (mile 24)

The spectators? Families, lots of them. Small bands playing music – a family with mum and kids, mum playing the saxophone, kids handing out candies. Kids blowing bubbles, and us all running through them. Lots of high fives with tiny hands. Many families in their tiny front yards – music blaring, beers being drunk, candies being offered to us runners as we went by. The best? Around mile 24, a family had sliced thousands of orange slices – I’ve never tasted an orange so good!!

I hadn’t been feeling super well that morning. It’s tough flying into a new place and adjusting to the food and then running 42 k. It was raining very hard. The start of the race cured me of any doubts. There were over 7000 people racing and the energy was uplifting. We started, and ran through the old part of the city, then down to the water.

I stopped at mile 6. Nature called, and I was in and out quickly. By mile 13 I was feeling weirdly tired; I usually don’t get super tired until around mile 20. I slowed down, and started worrying about dying or not finishing the race…. then I thought about my special people. I started feeling the gratitude that I knew would carry me through. I am so grateful for the body I have: the legs that can carry me over roads and hills; the lungs that can breathe deeply enough to energize me for hours as I run; the metabolism that is fine with a little starvation or thirst.

At mile 14 I started a game. I pretended I was running a half-marathon. I imagined myself going out the door and getting on the metro, on my way to a half marathon race in Montreal. I picked up speed and my energy returned. I was psyched, and happy, I smiled throughout almost the whole distance.

We entered a forest and when we left it, at around mile 20, the wind started. Big time. Gusts up to 24 mph, and a headwind that made it hard to breathe. Last marathon I ran, I created a headwind out of my emotional state that held me back. This time, I was doing great, and the wind was physical and intense. I ran through it, and finally I reached the finish line. My husband was there but I didn’t even see him. He said I looked like I was gliding, and I was. I finished the distance, and I did it with gratitude in my heart and a smile on my face.

But my time? How fast did I go??? That’s the question on everybody’s mind, because after all, it is a race. Well, actually, I ran it 8 minutes slower than my first one, and my first one was 5:34…and I was super disappointed last time.

So am I disappointed now? No! Sure I’d love to run faster, and I have already identified some things I have to tweak. Logistics things, and training things (thanks Perse!) But I’m not disappointed because I realized that, for me, the pleasure is in the journey. I’m not talking about being super happy with a DNF. But I’m happy and proud that I ran the whole way, and that I succeeded in my goal.

In these times of self-aggrandizement, mutual back-patting, and public vilification, everybody wants to post about how well they did: I beat my PR! My birth was just what I wanted! I am the best volunteer person in history! I lost 375 pounds in a week! And on, and on, ad nauseum.

What’s behind this nonsense though? A simple human need, that has grown pathologically because we have so much time on out hands. The need is simple: everybody wants to be loved; to be special; to matter. And so we create a persona for ourselves that our tricky minds convince us will better reach that goal. How much do you leave out when you’re posting all your stuff on the social media? More importantly, because who really cares about a reality made up of electrical impulses (oh, I forgot, that’s the human physical reality…), more importantly, how are we damaging ourselves when we create incomplete or misleading stories about ourselves?

Alcoholics Anonymous has helped millions of people live with their addiction. Addiction never really goes away, but people learn to manage the fact that they are addicts and they can live happy, productive lives. The organization, of course, has its critics, but one of the main tenets is honesty. That is, the ability to describe yourself honestly to yourself and others.

I’m struggling with this idea. To try to be honest to yourself? Always! That’s part of the main tasks of life itself, I believe. To discover who you are and to refine and make that person better, and to live “yourself” as honestly as possible. To try to be honest with others? Mostly, and mostly superficially, it’s a good idea. Don’t lie, swindle, cheat.

But are some secrets better kept … secret? A difficult diagnosis, for a while. A difficult past. Some traumatic events that don’t need to be talked about. Sometimes, an inconvenient emotion. I’ve kept some secrets for many, many years. Mostly from people I don’t know: I’m not one of those people who tell their whole difficult life story on air and feel the public love because of it. But some secrets I’ve kept from people very close to me. Is that wrong? I’m not sure.

So, from the profound to the superficial: I’m an amateur runner, and I run at a pretty average speed for my age. I’m a “back-of-the-pack” racer, and happy and grateful that my body works so well. But I still felt a twinge of self-doubt when I looked at the results and saw that embarrassing number. 5:42:20. Sheesh. Couldn’t I have run faster? Hey, I ran a full marathon, and I did it with a smile on my face. What could be better than that?

Grace and Racing

Last year on Mother’s Day I ran my first marathon. I was a little disappointed: not really because I had expected to run it faster, but because it wasn’t really fun. That is, there were no moments that stood out for me. I know why: it was completely my fault for taking a load of emotional baggage along with me for the full 26 mile run. I had a spirit animal last year who ran with me and who personified me: Mrs.Tiggywinkle is a short, stout, prickly hedgehog who keeps a clean house and takes in laundry. I had taken in way too much laundry last year, and during the three weeks before the marathon instead of tapering and trying to gain strength and revitalize after months of training, I spent my time cleaning, cooking, and taking care of other peoples’ business.

This year, I’m running as a human. My spirit animal may be a donkey, as I am stubborn and strong. I’ve been training since December 2018, every month, every week, but not every day. I ran through the winter, and it was a doozy this year. We had snow, rain, ice, freezing rain, ice pellets, and everything in between. Temperatures hovered between -25 and +10 for most of the five months I trained. I put screws in my shoes and bought ice cleats. I ran a half marathon in deep snow and got my slowest time ever. 

“Fitness is classist AF,” wrote a young relative of mine. Certainly, what we understand to be Fitness is a privilege exercised by a small group of wealthy people. Pun intended. But we were born to run. Humans were made to use their bodies. We were made to sweat, and feel our muscles, and push our physical limits, and we were also made with an urge to play. 

I love going out to play. I am so grateful that my body is healthy enough that I can go outside and run around, for twenty minutes, for an hour, or for almost a whole day. I am always aware that I am privileged: I have a body that functions, and I can spare the time to run with no particular place to go.

This year, my dedication to training my body for this race has led me to understand some techniques for running, and also some techniques for living.

1. big things can be broken down into little things: one step at a time

2. a lot of stuff just isn’t that important

3. love is all we have

4. you never know what might happen

5. smile

6. drink water

7. be grateful

8. always bring a hanky

9. talk little, breathe deep, tie your shoes well

10. laugh at yourself

And finally, you need to learn to submit - to surrender - swim upstream by going around the obstacles instead of using all your energy to fight them. Grace is a wonderful characteristic to explore.

I’m hoping to finish this marathon in less time than my last. I’m hoping to finish. I’m keeping some people in my heart as I run the last five miles or so: Becky is my cousin, and her body is hard to use. She has cerebral palsy and eats twice as much as me just to do a simple day. She perseveres and doesn’t need help, and she’s one of the people I am in awe of.

My friend Perse is an athlete and survived a particularly rare and vicious type of cancer. She’s my oldest friend (over fifty years and counting!). She is enthusiastic, tough, and just doesn’t let anything push her around.

My friend Syd fought an addiction and won. She spends her life putting love into the world. 
Kimberley is my running  buddy. When we run, we talk. We weave and untangle, laugh and analyze. Agree and build. I hope she’ll be running next to me for many years to come!

I hope that these strong women will be beside me when I am pushing through those last kilometers. 

See y'all ‘round the bend! I will definitely let you know how the cookie crumbles!

Gratified Desire

From my living room, from the time I was 5 until I left home at 16, I could see the outline of the Rocky Mountains puncturing the sky behind the provincial city called Calgary.

In my Grade 10 classroom, the enterprising teacher had printed a few lines of a poem by Wordsworth and stuck it up all around the room, above our heads:

"The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—

Little we see in Nature that is ours"

The rest of the poem describes the Romantic's dilemma: that we have removed ourselves from nature, and that removal has cost us dearly. Wordsworth was writing 200 years ago; how much more we are getting and spending now!

The young romantic in me escaped the banal ugliness of a soon-to-boom oil town and ran to the mountains. I spent days in the Rockies, observing the slowness of so-called "Mother" Nature as the seasons ground from one to the next. I met animals, marvelled at wildflowers, grieved for my young friend who died from hypothermia during an ill-timed May camping trip.

City life intervened, as it does, and I spent years in cities doing city-like things like work, study and city play. But in 1985 I moved to rural Italy and there I learned about living in and with nature.

Farming is hard work, especially when you don't know what you're doing. We had a big stone farmhouse, 7 acres of land, a wheat field, a vineyard, a huge vegetable garden, a muddy pond, many poultry, a dog, a cat, and four small boys. There was a spring down a muddy green path where I would go every day and collect my 18 litre jerry-can of water for the day. There was a big grass snake who lived under the wall. There were wild boar who trampled the vineyard until we put a radio down there and played opera at night. There were badgers, porcupines, foxes, weasels, nightjars, cuckoos, and peasants who surrounded us and wanted to teach us their trade.

Nature isn't unforgiving, or gentle, or kind, or threatened, or dominated, or forgiving, or logical, or chaotic, or female. Nature is beautiful. Nature couldn't give a rat's ass about you. Nature doesn't care. Nature does what it does. It is unknowable, and mighty, and extraordinary. Nature wastes: things die all the time, unnecessarily. Nature attacks: weird bacteria, viruses, and prions love to inhabit their hosts. Nature kills.

But, of course, we are part of nature, and nature has taught us over the years that it is a good idea to respect the immutable laws that nature dictates. If you're going to say 'aw this is airy-fairy leftie bullshit', might I remind you that even the most powerful human has a maximum 10 degree centigrade window in which to survive. And that most powerful human, even if he did survive birth, fever, hypothermia, infections, accidents and so on... will still be completely absorbed by nature in the end.

That teacher also introduced us to Shelley's Ozymandias: "Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair!" The will to power, domination, kingship, command... it's all horrible if you're one of the dominated, or thrilling if you're the king, I guess, but you'll die like the rest of us and be buried in the sand. As will your great achievements. So, then, what's a thinking teenager to do? Nihilism was an option, but I had a handicap there, and I shared that with William Blake.

In The Tyger, Blake suggests that something so beautiful, ferocious, complicated and confusing had to be created by a higher power. Well, even though I was brought up by a communist artist and a scientist, neither of whom shared my deep-founded belief in The Divine, I was pretty sure Blake was right. How else could you explain that I had miraculously survived all of the shenanigans that I took part in as a young teenager in the 1970's? How to explain why that big mama moose and her baby walked beside me for a few kilometres and didn't attack me? How did I stare down that pack of dogs in the middle of a snowy night on a field in Calgary? Why wasn't I one of the young people who went missing or died during those ridiculous years? Not because of nature, or luck. Not due to atoms, molecules, or any number of metaphors. But because my path wasn't that one. The tapestry that was made before any of us was born included me living at least for 62 years.

I was making our bed a few weeks ago and was brought to tears because I felt the enormity of the failure of our task. I thought to myself that I might as well just go shopping.

My life has been a life lived in the physical world. I farmed, I carried water, cement, and wood. I birthed babies and breastfed them, and held them, and fed them. When it was time for me to work, I worked as a farm labourer, picking peppers and tobacco, and as a domestic, cleaning peoples' houses and washing dishes in a cafe. Then I learned to attend births, and I rubbed feet and backs, held women as they birthed, cleaned messy pads and bedding and clothing, ... and then caught babies as they slipped from their mothers' bodies.

When that work stopped, I started to prepare and serve food. It's physical. Life is physical.... except. Except that so many people don't know so much about the physical world. There are fridges for sale for thousands of dollars, and people no longer cook and eat at home. People can't fix something, they buy a new one. Do you mend holes in your clothes? Can you light a fire? Can you distinguish dandelion flowers from coltsfoot? How does a duck look when it flies? What is the difference between Water Hemlock and Queen Anne's Lace? How do you mix cement? What berries can you eat? What do you do with a tree once it is felled?

Nevertheless. Nevertheless. The final poem that I only just figured out is this one:

What is it men in women do require? 

The lineaments of Gratified Desire. 

What is it women do in men require? 

The lineaments of Gratified Desire.

When I was in high school my teacher, my classmates, and every literary critic of the time thought this was all about sex. It's not. 

It is about being gratified. It's about living your life fully, as a life. As a life not dependent upon things, upon getting and spending. It's about loving someone who is happy, and having a hard time loving someone who is miserable and unfulfilled. 

We have been misled. Women especially. We've been led to believe that it indeed is a life-threatening and dangerous event (not to say an expensive one) to bring a child into the world. We've been led to believe that our children need to be socialized by someone other than ourselves. That our shitty job is somehow more fulfilling than caring for our offspring (I'm not talking about that fine mother who needs to work three jobs to support her family, nor the professional who loves her work as much as her children). That in the name of equality and because we are so damn exhausted it is fine to bully one's partner into folding baby clothes at 10 pm (who folds baby clothes anyhow? But I have seen it with my own eyes). That nature is something that needs protecting, and that weirdly we need to protect ourselves from it. That our bodies cannot be trusted. 

So I say to you: Take a hike. Say something controversial. Get off Facebook. Don't get the epidural. Stop folding laundry. Don't have a baby, if you don't want to. Think twice before buying a new thing. Be kind. Be sassy, or not. Be yourself. 

What am I gonna do? I'll keep on making food and serving it; I'll teach women about maternity care and childbirth; I'll think my thoughts and mostly keep them to myself.

I don't have a rootedness in a physical place. My mountain hideaway is mine for a while. My bungalow in the 'burbs as well. My rootedness is a long and straggly root that winds past minds, poetry, essays, manifestos, novels, long conversations, thoughts. The place of the thinking person. A place I've yearned for my whole life, and visited once in a while. But I always know its there, and it's home.

The other day I went for a 15 mile run. It was tough. My body was ploughing through some bad emotions. But when I got to Mont Royal, our lovely mountain at the centre of our city, I went to the trails, away from people, and ran. It eased my heart. Let us reconsider our relationship with nature, with each other and with ourselves.

The Runner's Alphabet

A is for Attitude.

B is for Badass

C is for Calories

D is for Depression

E is for Endorphins

F is for Friends

G is for Gym

H is for Happiness

I is for Intervals

J is for Joints

K is for Knees

L is for Love

M is for Marathon

N is for Victory

O is for Oxygen

P is for PR

Q is for Quads

R is for Runners

S is for Smile

T is for Training

U is for Underwear

V is for V02

W is for Woman

X is for Cross-training

Y is for You!

Z is for Zen

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTU and VWXYZZZ now I know my ABCs
next time won't you run with me?

Dreamchasing Trails

In 2003 my winter blues reached a breaking point and we decided to leave the city for the summer, use our savings to buy a piece of land in Italy, and start building. This is what we bought, the second year after that - when we first bought it, you couldn't even see the house because everything was so covered in greenery.

But I knew when I first stepped out of the car and breathed the clear air, and looked down into the valley and saw this:

that I was as home as I would ever be. Time passed and over the summers we made the house beautiful. Then we started working on the barn:

This fine structure is a drystone construction, with high beams and rafters, and an original thatched roof that had been covered with corrugated metal at some point. It housed animals, shepherds, resistance fighters, snakes, squirrels and other assorted creatures. We found in it many wine bottles, the old blown glass kind wrapped in straw, two army helmets (one German, one American..), lots of old shoes and garbage, and some religious postcards.

A few years ago we started work on it. I wanted to do some upper body work that summer, so I figured a good start would be hauling 20 cubic meters of dirt from where it was down to another terrace. After the dirt was hauled away, we started building a retaining wall or two,

And we ended up with these pretty terraces.

This summer we have to redo the roof. It's gotta be done. If we don't do it, it will fall in. Not a good idea. So, we have to take it down, remove the beams, then make a new roof. Don't worry, I'm not the master builder. There is actually someone in the picture who knows what he's doing. But I have built a couple of roofs with him, so I'm pretty handy with a cement mixer and all that.

This place contains some of my dreams. Not all of them, because I'm not that rooted in place. But I have plans to create a space up on the mountain where people can come and retreat. They can come and run, eat, think, create. Or just play nutball, which is played with unripe walnuts and a stick.

What I love to do there is to run on the trails. I have been running in the mountains since I was young. I love the feeling of my breath, my legs, I love taking in the air and the sights, the sound of my feet on the ground...

But you don't have to run. You can slowly walk up the hill, to the abandoned village, then take a left and go to the fixed-up house, or follow the road past the evergreen grove and past the house and then follow the bend which takes you up further, where there are often deer, and the best St John's Wort on the mountain. Then straight, and up and up and up, until you reach the logging patch, and then you go further and further and further, up and up, until you reach the ridge where you can look down - you are at about 1000 m above sea level now .... and running this trail is such a pleasure. You're sweaty and breathing hard. All around you is green, peace, and the sound of the mountain's breath. 

Life on the mountain is good. It's understood that you mind your own business. The road is treacherous and not for the weak-hearted. Occasionally a hiker passes by, or a cyclist, or a Scout. Often lost. It's quiet at night, and sometimes the whole mountain is lost in a cloud and the wind howls up from the valley.

There are buzzards in the sky, cuckoos in the spring; wild boar, deer, badgers, porcupines, snakes, lizards, all sort of bugs, honey bees... scorpions ... wild flowers everywhere, cherries, plums, apples, medicinal herbs of all varieties, mushrooms poisonous and otherwise. Nature is present, and thriving, as it does.

The green heals my soul. Running the trails on my mountain, I find peace from the human world, where cowardice and selfishness are fast becoming desirable attributes. Wordsworth wrote over 100 years ago:

"The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours"

Yes, we are getting and spending, and wasting ourselves. We imagine that busyness is constructive and useful, but it's not. It is much better to be consciously not busy; to have time to look around at the world, and to look deep inside yourself.

Don't be too busy to go for a run.
Don't be too busy to lend a hand to someone in need, even if it's inconvenient.
Don't be too busy to spend time with your child.
Don't be too busy to spend time with your lover.
Don't be too busy to give a friend some time.
Don't be too busy to cook supper, to eat with others, to feed yourself.
Don't be too busy to make the world a better place.
Don't be too busy to do hard things. It is the stuff of life, and it centers us in this marvellous world.

Stuff and Memories

My mother died almost five years ago, and when that happened my sisters spent a weekend sorting through the house and sending me a Pod full of stuff. Well, no, a lot more happened of course. My sisters and I buried my mother, and we grieved and fought and made up again and grieved some more... but one big thing that also happened was that this Pod landed in my driveway.

It was full: antique furniture; bedding; medical equipment; books. Lots and lots of books. Kitchen stuff; art; stuff from Botswana; more books; some clothes; knick knacks. Every single one of those things - every book, and piece of art, and small tea strainer, was a vessel full of memory. Some of the stuff was ugly and old and had no sentimental value for me. Other things were part of my life since I could remember. An old carved stool that someone in Uganda had carved for my parents back in the Colonial times when I was tiny: they brought it to Calgary and I remember how comfy my feet felt fitting so snugly on to the seat of the stool.

We got rid of some of the stuff and filled our house with most of it. I put some of the stuff in my cafe. 

There's a thing going around these days about the "spark". Pick something up, if you feel the spark you keep it, if not you chuck it. Nah, not for me. I love to keep stuff, especially if it is the stuff of memories. 

What is the stuff of memories? 

I love to remember different times in my life by using my senses to bring me back. The taste of a papaya brings me back to Uganda when I was tiny. My mother's purple cardigan gives me comfort. Her paintings give me joy. Her art journal gives me sadness.

When I'm running, I listen to music. If I hear a certain song in a different context, I am drawn back to that bend at 16 k when the song played during my first half marathon. My medals remind me of each race - the triumphs and the struggles. All of my books give me memories; my clothes are all from here and there and usually connected to a good friend or a sister or someone who gave me a gift.

Part of life is enjoying the process of making memories. Take a look around you, right now, as you read, and remember this moment.