Coming Home

There is a picture of my father growing up, surrounded by his family.  It is Kennedy-esq both in era and aesthetic.  The oldest of seven children, he stands with his brothers and sisters behind their seated parents, the youngest sitting on his mother's lap.  Several of the boys wear plaid jackets; one of my aunts has pearls around her neck and a Jackie-O flip to her hair.  My grandmother is turning slightly to look at her brood, a broad smile on her face.  They are all sun-kissed, laughing.  I have been told it was their parents' surprise anniversary party.  For me, the beautiful moment captured in this one photo contains, and does not belie, the many other (hilarious) stories I have heard through the years of life with these seven siblings.  Brothers ambushing their sisters' dates from the front door bushes with toy bazooka guns.  Breakfast trips to the local diner in their Sunday best in lieu of Mass, with the hope that their mother would not be the wiser (knowing my Grandmother even only for the brief time that I did, I would bet the joke was on them).  A pet duck that sadly did not survive the amount of love and tight hugs around the neck it received.  Babysitters who simply left mid-shift, the pranks having pushed them to the breaking point.  But in all of these stories of "misbehavior" a running theme of collusion, love, and the support of deep bonds.

This photo was on display as my family gathered this week to say goodbye to my Uncle Jimmy, the second of the seven.  Jimmy was a pilot, both by training and calling.  A retired Colonel when he died, he began his flying career in the Air Force, and served in many missions from Vietnam through the Gulf War.  One of my most pivotal moments as a teenager involved visiting Jimmy at the Air Force base where he served as Commander.  In addition to having the chance to explore the transport plane that he flew (massive, cavernous, and overwhelming even on the ground), we were on hand to witness the first plane of soldiers returning from the Gulf, the war having only recently ended.  As a relatively sheltered high school student attending a progressive urban school, I knew of the war only from the news and social studies class.  If I had any opinions on the conflict they were ivory tower at best.  But as I watched these families waiting for the plane carrying their loved ones to arrive, the kids holding signs antsy with anticipation, I had the honor of standing with my Uncle in his world, privy to his reality.  The wait was excruciating.  My heart began to beat faster.  I began to have irrational worries: What if the plane hadn't been able to leave? What if it had encountered mechanical problems on the way?  How could these families bear the disappointment with a promised reunion within their reach?

And then the wait was over.  They were here.  I saw the soldiers walk across the tarmac towards the hanger where we waited, potato chips and Coke set out for the celebration.  At first only small, beige figures in the distance, but then slowly faces began to emerge and recognition by the waiting families began to go off like kernels of corn popping, the momentum building to a fever pitch.  The families moved up....as close as allowed to the air field....closing the gap between them until - finally - they met.  I remember weeping openly as I watched them embrace. Wives hugging husbands, children hugging parents.  And I had the smallest of windows into their sacrifice, one that is always with me no matter my geopolitical views.

Being a good Irish Catholic family, there is nothing somber about our wakes.  They are celebrations of life, in the best sense.  We all share a similar laugh - loud, melodic, sustained - and I heard it echoing in harmony among the many relatives who gathered to pay their respects. The stories flowed...the oral history that has been a part of my life as long as I can remember, as well as new ones about Jimmy I had not previously known (not to mention new stories we managed to create just during our time together this week).  I observed the love being shared in the room, and looked at my uncle lying in repose in the middle of it all.  I smiled thinking of how much he would have enjoyed this gathering; of the stories and jokes he would have told; of his laugh....loud, melodic, sustained.  And in my mind, Brett Dennan's "Dancing at a Funeral" played: "Now's not the time, to be so sad and mournful, we are going to the funeral, and we'll be dancing the night away.  So so so don't be so shy, we are living and we're dying; we are laughing and we're crying, every single day."

Selfishly I cherished an opportunity to be with my extended family, even under sad circumstances.  These are the relatives (well, half of the relatives) that I grew up celebrating holidays and special occasions with.  They are the ones who helped form my sense of family and tradition; things that I now try to create for my own family.  Geography and the pace of life keeps me from being with them regularly, but the deep connection I feel to them (and their connection to who I am, and where I came from) is as strong as ever.  It was not lost on me, particularly as we entered the Church for the funeral Mass and found it still beautifully decorated in twinkling lights for Christmas, that although this is an awful time of year to lose a loved one, our coming together around the holidays nonetheless evokes a certain comfort ingrained by years of practice and familiarity.

At the funeral the priests gave a meaningful and personal tribute to Jimmy, focusing on his love of flying, his service to our country, his role in transporting people to their destinations both in the Air Force and later as a commercial pilot.  They focused on passages from the Bible that celebrate our safe journey home; home to God, home to be united with our loved ones who have gone before us. They celebrated the communion of Saints; the belief that we are all one, all connected in this life.  A sentiment echoed in the ee cummings poem that my Aunt reproduced in the program.  It begins poignantly: "I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart)".  A celebration not only of their love story, but the love and connection we all share.

Unlike my uncle I do not enjoy flying.  To me, an airplane is a large lead balloon, waiting to drop from the sky.  Although I know it is irrational and factually inaccurate, when I picture the cockpit of a commercial flight, in my mind the pilots have both hands on the steering wheel, holding on with all their might, keeping us afloat by sheer will and brute strength, yelling to each other every time a bump hits: "Hold on!  Hold on!"  I imagine that if they broke their concentration for even a minute, it would be with tragic consequences.  As I prepared to fly home following the funeral, I began my normal pre-take-off rituals: pop my "happy pill"; put on my head phones and turn them up as loud as my ears can stand to drown out the mechanical noises; pull up my hoodie over my head to block the window from my vision.  I settled back into my seat trying to distract myself from the moment when the acceleration would indicate our impending lift and imagined the pilots doing all the mandatory routine checks that I have studied in an effort to educate and assure myself that it is not just by chance that the plane will function.  But this time, in my mind, it was Jimmy at the controls.  Calm.  Confident.  Handsome in his uniform.  A smile on his face.  Happy and excited to be taking-off; exhilarated at the prospect of flight.  And I was enveloped in peace, knowing that he would carry me safely home.

Learning to Care

I attended the annual dinner of the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare last week.  The Schwartz Center is an impressive organization housed at Massachusetts General Hospital that is dedicated to strengthening the relationships between patients and their treating physicians in order to promote "compassionate care".  It was founded by Ken Schwartz, a health care attorney in Boston, as he was fighting a battle with lung cancer.  Before his untimely death at age 40, he wrote a moving article in the Boston Globe Magazine called "A Patient's Story" (http://www.theschwartzcenter.org/aboutus/ourstory.aspx) about how the compassionate care he received was as important as the clinical care.

What started as a small group of people dedicated to honoring Ken Schwartz's memory has become a national organization that provides "Schwartz Center Rounds" across the country, on the premise that compassion is not, as one might hope or assume, an innate skill -- at least not for everyone.  Rather it is a skill that can be taught -- a skill that can be learned.  The Schwartz Center teaches physicians and other caregivers how to care; not medically, but compassionately.

I didn't know Ken Schwartz; he died before I graduated college.  But I have known of his organization since I started working in the health law field many years ago.  I am awed by its guiding principle, at once both simple and groundbreaking -- if we stop, if we relate, if we really look at others, if we stand for just one moment in their figurative shoes, if we bridge the island of isolation during times of need, we can learn to care.  Like anything, even caring can be a conditioned response.

I consider myself somewhat of an expert in conditioned responses.  I seem to be particularly wired for them, a modern day Pavlov's dog.  When I was pregnant the first time, I was extraordinarily sick to my stomach for considerably longer than the books tell you to "expect".  During this time I would drive to and from the commuter ferry that I take to work and it just happened that Ray LaMontagne's CD was in my car's player.  Out of sheer laziness on my part the CD would play on a continuous loop.  I heard Ray's gritty voice and melancholic strains every day as I stepped out of my car, threw up in the parking lot, and got on the boat.  And again when I got off the boat, threw up in the parking lot, and got back in my car.  (Looking back I'm not sure a water commute was really the best thing at the time....)   To this day, years later, if I hear Ray LaMontagne (if I even think about his music) I could throw up.  Not like "Oh my God I could totally throw up right now!"  I could ACTUALLY throw up and have come very close before quickly changing the radio channel.

There are many other examples of this I can conjure up.  They have taught me that what we sometimes identify as "reaction" or "instinct" or "innate" is really nothing of the sort.  Our minds can learn to trigger a specific physical or mental response to certain stimuli (or even to certain thoughts).  And better yet (at least with respect to my example), our minds can also un-learn such responses.  The conditioned response can be broken as easily as it is forged.  Even for Pavlov's dogs, a ringing bell can once again be just a sound.

I look forward to the Schwartz Center dinner because it always honors a specific physician, nurse or other provider who exemplifies compassionate care, and it's wonderful to see who is chosen and hear about the work they do and the ways in which they put compassion first.  This year, the dinner not only honored a specific caregiver, it also honored all of the caregivers who helped to heal people following the Boston Marathon, in which I ran.  I must have not read the invitation to the dinner closely (or perhaps I simply blocked it out).  For whatever reason, it came as a total and utter shock to me when the video started rolling, detailing the specific recovery of one of the marathon bombing victims (Adrianne Haslet, a ballroom dancer who lost half of her leg in the blasts) and honoring the surgeon and other providers who have seen her through this unimaginable ordeal.  I'll be honest, I wanted to get up and leave the room but I had already started crying and shaking in response to the images on the screen and did not want to call attention to myself.  The video showed the early part of the race, the starting line, the happy excitement of the marathon before the bombs.  It also had up close footage of the explosions themselves; images that I quite frankly have not seen (other than a few still photos) since that day.  I still have not watched the marathon coverage my husband recorded for me on April 15 while I was running and my family waited for me on Boylston Street.  Sitting in that dark ballroom, I felt trapped; forced to watch my DVR against my will, yet simultaneously mesmerized by Ms. Haslet's story and its connection to compassionate caregiving.  I felt guilty; if someone so directly and physically impacted by that day can stand before all these people and tell this story, I figured at the very least I should be capable of listening to it.  But I was unprepared to say the least.

The specific physician honoree this year described compassion with adjectives such as caring, understanding, and loving.  He spoke of the simple power of relating to someone; understanding who they are and what shared experiences help bind you.  When I think of compassion (including the compassion that was shown to me on April 15 and the following days, weeks and months), I too think of those individuals who related to me.  Of the friends, family, colleagues and even mere acquaintances who had been through similarly traumatic experiences (some even through other terrorist attacks) who reached out immediately to connect with me; to share their stories; to let me know that I am not alone in how I feel; to give me guidance in navigating my post-April 15 world.  This was empathetic compassion.  I like to think of it as "Connection Compassion".  These individuals immediately saw in my experience something to which they could relate, and by sharing their experiences with me they helped me to see a path forward.  There have also been others who perhaps could not relate directly to what I was going through, but who nonetheless demonstrated that they cared.  People who admitted honestly to me that they really could not understand how I was feeling.  That it seemed strange and unfathomable to them that having survived "unharmed" from that day my family would nonetheless still be struggling, months later.  People who couldn't understand why I would be conflicted about whether or not to run the race again ("Boston Strong" and all...).  The compassion these individuals showed me was in some respects even more impressive because it came without a clear connection; it came in spite of a lack of understanding.  Their actions said: "It is not clear to me why you are having a hard time, but it does not matter.  I will show you kindness anyway.  I will try to make you feel better, simply because you feel down.  I don't need you to explain yourself.  I care in spite of all of that."  I think of this as "Selfless Compassion".  It wants and expects nothing in return.  It is kindness for kindness' sake.  It is relating through our shared humanity, if not through a specific connection.

I wish I could say everyone in the world, including myself, fell into one of those two buckets all of the time.  To be clear, I would never judge someone who could not relate to me, particularly with respect to this experience.  I would be thankful for them.  Before April 15, I don't think I would have been able to relate to me.  I would also never judge someone who wonders what on Earth I'm talking about, even after my detailed quasi-scientific explanation of why the brain takes a while to catch-up from believing that something horrible has happened even when it hasn't.  I can say with confidence that I had very little understanding of PTSD and the neurobiology of trauma before this event, and I can even remember feeling confused (and, if I'm being honest, uncomfortable) at hearing about others' experiences in this regard.  I think most of my reason for writing about this experience and sharing it publicly has been a desire to tell the whole story as I see it; to illuminate in my own way what I believe is the more nuanced reality of coming through such an event, as opposed to the media soundbite.  And now having the benefit of this experience, I can only hope (truly, completely, transparently, desperately) that I never make another person feel invalidated because I can't personally relate to or understand what they are going through.  My wish for myself--my promise to myself--is that I make caring a conditioned response, even when I am at a loss at how best to help.  That I look for a way to relate and show Connection Compassion, or when I cannot relate, and especially where someone's experiences or circumstances ignite fear by forcing me to face the unimaginable, I find it in my heart to show Selfless Compassion anyway.  To be kind and caring when I want to turn around and run in the other direction.

I also hope that one day I can watch coverage of the marathon with a smile on my face and Ray LaMontagne playing in the background.  Baby steps....

In the meantime, as we approach Thanksgiving, I want to say THANK YOU.  Thank you to all of MY compassionate caregivers, near and far.  Ken Schwartz had it right -- compassion is central to healing, no matter the outcome of your diagnosis.  But it's not only the health care profession that can learn to deliver compassionate care.  We are all students of compassion, and we can all try harder to make sure that when given the chance we turn towards, and not away from, caring.

Dear Matt Walsh: You are not Woman; Tone Down your Roar

I try to stay out of the "Mommy Wars".  Even that description of what this debate consists of is a third rail I would rather not touch, nor do I buy into its assumptions of "us" vs. "them", a dichotomy that I have not personally found exists in such stark terms, at least not in my own life and circles.  That's not to say I don't have my opinions; I have very strong, sometimes politically incorrect, opinions about women, about working, about parenting, and about why, for me and my family, having two working parents is the right model for us and for our kids.  But I recognize the limitations of my perspective; my opinions come from my life, my upbringing, my wiring, and the values my husband and I share.  They do not necessarily reflect, or speak for, any other woman or family or set of values.  And while (if I'm being totally honest) I don't necessarily buy into the "no one should judge one another, every mom is awesome and should do whatever she wants without being vulnerable to criticism" line of thinking (in an ideal world maybe, but the bottom line is that everyone judges and not all moms (or dads) are awesome in each other's estimation; denying that doesn't really move the discussion forward in my opinion), I do think there are some rules of engagement when one enters this conversation.

I read Matt Walsh's recent blog post ("You're a stay at home mom?  What do you do all day?") after it appeared in my Facebook news feed and had a visceral reaction.  I have been trying to pull that reaction apart, to determine exactly from where my offense derives.  So, Mr. Walsh, here it goes:

I certainly don't take issue with each sentence you write in a vacuum.  I agree that the anecdotal conversations you quote sound unfortunate and short-sighted, and that being at home with children full time (which I have done at various points for various lengths of time) is extraordinarily tiring and challenging and also fulfilling in incredible ways.  I also, however, happily work outside the home and have always had a career (albeit in various iterations); not because I'm "forced into it", but because it is important to me that I do for many reasons.  My job is not some Marxist nightmare, but actually something I care deeply about, and that fulfills me in a way that other spheres of my life do not.  I would not be the person, and parent, I am without that need filled.

But the cringe I felt when I read your post really didn't come from a strong feeling about working vs. staying at home; again, I've done both, I have friends who do both (or one or the other), and I think it's less of a line in the sand for most women than you make it out to be, your anecdotes notwithstanding.  For the most part I find we are all individual grains of sand, mixed together, doing our best before the tide washes in and our kids are grown.  My main concern is your totally unjustifiable conflation of what it means to honor mothers (and their children) with the side you have chosen to take in the "Mommy Wars", a "War" in which I'm not sure you should be fighting at all (and here I used the term deliberately because you are clearly choosing an us vs. them, and I am part of the "them" in your framework).  You don't honor women and motherhood by verbally denying membership into their hallowed halls to women who do not agree with your take on what the "ideal" balance is -- for women -- between working and staying at home.  Not to state the obvious, but you are not a woman.  Although I tend to believe everyone has a right to their opinion, here I have to say you are speaking out of turn.  This is not like Wally Lamb's invisible embodiment of a female voice in "She's Come Undone".  Your post, Mr. Walsh, is the opposite of that.  And to take up such an important cause on our behalf, with such a divisive message, makes me want to say "lay down your sword, Sir Walsh; your white knight services are not needed here."

I can't speak to whether your wife was flattered or bolstered by your words, or whether she felt that you were inappropriately speaking on her behalf; that's between you and her and really irrelevant to my point.  You may be able to speak for your wife; you may know her well enough, and you may have a relationship where coming to her specific defense against the specific critics you cite in your post is a positive thing for your relationship.  But you do not speak for all women, and you certainly do not speak for me.  I remain a woman, and I remain a mother, even with my career (I truly cannot believe I am prompted to write that sentence in 2013...but the fact that I am gets to the core of what is so offensive in your words).  Going to an office and contributing in that sphere of my life does not diminish my mommy-ness.  I suppose in that regard I agree (indirectly) with your description of one of the distinctions between having a job and being a mom:  I may have chosen to work "part-time" at various points in my career, but in doing so I do not (through some sort of inverse proportion) become a "part-time" mother.  I am always a mother, 100% and completely.  In the same way my husband is always a father, even though he goes to work in an office every day.  To suggest that women who choose (and are able) to stay home with the kids have some type of monopoly on motherhood (or at least a claim to the "ideal" or "revered" motherhood) is heresy.  It is the greatest insult to motherhood one could possibly make.  Not to mention, to fatherhood.  Because I personally don't want the exceptionalism you bestow on mothers, of which I count myself one.  Take me off your pedestal, Mr. Walsh, or I'll jump, a la Kate Chopin's The Awakening.

At this point (at the risk of adopting an approach I have just criticized) I will come to my own spouse's defense.  Because he is as important and as central to our children's lives as I am.  He is shaping, and molding and raising them, just as I am, even though we both work (and sometimes because we both work, as I am certainly proud of the example I try to set for my three amazing boys who I hope will grow up to be three amazing men who value being intellectually curious, passionate about what they do, dedicated to both work and family, and who are not afraid of strong women).  Because that's what parents do.  And parenthood is not a zero sum game.  Isn't that why it's so beautiful?  All the fears about not having enough love to sustain multiple children are never realized.  There is always enough love.  Always enough energy.  Always enough devotion and dedication.  At least, that's my experience.  Like an elementary particle, my "motherhood" cannot be split or diluted.  Whether you work, whether you stay at home, whether you are a mom, dad, or other primary caregiver raising a child -- it is who you are, all the time; whether on the soccer field, helping with homework, or sitting in an office behind a desk.  That is what should be glorified -- not one model of achieving the ultimate goal of raising happy kids into successful adults.

Don't tell me what is best for me or my kids, Mr. Walsh.  Don't tell me what is ideal for humanity, and what my role as "mother" should be in getting us there, all in some supposed defense of mothers and children.  You are one voice.  You are not my voice.  And you are on thin ice claiming to represent a group to which you don't belong, in a "War" that most of us aren't fighting.

  

A Bad Breakup

As I lay on the X-ray table at the orthopedist's recently, the pain in my hip throbbed from the cold, hard table pushing through the flimsy hospital gown, not to mention the various physical manipulations required by the physician's exam (bending and flexing; hopping on one leg and then the next; probing the spots on my side and back that, when touched, feel like a hot iron poker is being applied).  As I stared up at the machinery above me, I felt uncomfortably exposed.  As though my insides, and all the emotions they contain, were as transparent as the X-ray films being generated in the adjacent room, a glowing skeleton of sadness against the dark backdrop.

My hip has been getting progressively worse since I injured it while training for the Boston Marathon this year, and over the summer it got to the point where I could no longer run or really do any form of physical exercise.  With an upcoming MRI scheduled, the doctor was clear:  no running until they figure out what is going on.  I understand that in the larger scheme of things, this is not a big deal.  People get injured running and pursuing other physical past-times.  People go to orthopedist's every day.  Hiatuses from exercise for various lengths of time are common (although for me, tortuous).  Physical therapy is a cottage industry.  There are others, many others, whose physical recovery since April 15 has been of a magnitude I cannot even begin to imagine, but I follow the coverage of their progress in the news with intense interest, relating in my very small way to the long road this has been on so many levels for anyone there that day.  My hip injury is not special or exceptional, nor is my situation particularly tragic or deserving of sympathy.  However, when the orthopedic fellow asked me to explain how I ended up at their office, I could not manage to provide a standard medical history without the emotions of the marathon rising uncontrollably and rapidly.  What should have been a cut and dry explanation of the progression of my injuries became words backed up in my throat, escaping haphazardly:  "I ran in the Marathon"..."Boston"..."My first"..."the hip...it's all connected"...Was all I managed before the tears came.  The kind fellow immediately passed me the Kleenex.  After a few moments hiding in my tissue, I lamely joked "You probably don't get many people breaking down at the ortho's office?"

"Oh you'd be surprised," she said; "pain is a very powerful thing."

The past few weeks I had been waiting anxiously for my appointment.  Counting on the fact that the doctor would know what to do.  That all I needed was a shot of Cortisone, or a chiropractic adjustment; that there would be an easy prescription to follow and everything would be better.  That at least physically I'd be in control of my decision whether to run again next year.  And that my physical rehabilitation would somehow complete the emotional.  But now I lay on the X-ray table, officially on the DL, with no sense of the time or effort it would take to be whole again (and the realization that I no longer know what being "whole" looks like, and that it probably will never look quite the same again).  My hip pain, an external manifestation and constant reminder that, in fact, I remain broken on many levels; putting the pieces together for sure, but the cracks where the glue has dried still evident and ever so fragile.  "Handle with care" I want to label myself.  "Contents may have shifted."

Until very recently I had intentionally accumulated only a vague sense of what happened to my family on April 15 as they stood on Boylston Street waiting to watch me finish the race, in a spot that turned out to be directly across the street from the second blast.  All I knew were really just the snippets that were told to me on that day as we walked in a fog across the city to find our car, most of which I was too stunned to really digest, and a few details my children have since shared.  I have not been able to look at photos of my family from earlier in the day, enjoying the race and waiting for me to arrive.  It evokes the feeling I have at the start of the movie Titanic, watching the steamer trunks loaded on the ship as the heroine Rose, stunning in her wide brimmed straw hat, looks up at the unsinkable masterpiece.  You feel the excitement and the beauty in real time, while another part of your brain is screaming "Don't get on that ship!!  Don't do it!!  I know how this ends!!"  I cannot bear to see my kids' smiling faces in these pictures, knowing that moments later their world would be upside down, with me unable to help them; trapped 3/4 of a mile away.  The other night I finally wanted to know.  I wanted my husband to go through it moment by moment.  I wanted to know what it sounded like, smelled like, felt like; what their faces looked like, who was crying, what were they saying.  I wanted to know how many minutes it actually was before they knew I was safe (and I knew they were alive).  How long were they in total chaos.  Where did they wait and how exactly did they find each other and then me.  I needed to know whether it was better, worse, or a little of both, than how I have pictured it over and over in my head, almost unconsciously.  And as I continue to connect these dots, as the blurry watercolor settles into a still life, I am finding relief.

A man walked by me the other day wearing a Boston Marathon jacket and I found myself asking him if he had run this year.  "Yes, you?"  "Yes."  I answered, smiling slightly.  "It was a bad day," he said.  I nodded, although in truth when I answered his question what I felt was not sadness and anger, but more a wistfulness akin to learning that an old boyfriend or girlfriend is getting married; a softness for what you shared together, framed by the time and space that separates that experience and a recognition that you no longer have (or want) a claim to it.  "Are you registered for next year?" he asked.  I paused; "Well, I'm registered", I said tentatively, "but I'm not sure I'll be able to run.  My hip is still really messed up..." and then in a moment of over-sharing, I added "and so is my emotional state."  He slowed down to actually look at me.  "Well, I think you should worry more about your emotional state than your hip," he said.

When I got home later that day, the mail, wet from earlier rain and our defective mailbox, sat in a damp pile on my counter.  I went through tossing things out one by one:  catalogues, credit card solicitations, the local newspaper that was disintegrating from the rain water.  I reached for a plastic wrapped magazine that looked like another running catalogue and was moving towards the trash when I saw the label warning me not to throw out the address card because it contained a "Runner Certificate" on the back.  And then it came together.  The "magazine" was in fact the "Racers' Record Book" from the 117th Boston Marathon and the certificate was my evidence that I participated; my "projected finishing time" (calculated based on where I was at the last checkpoint) printed under my name.  I stared.  Although I had received an email alerting me that these were being mailed out, I certainly hadn't digested the significance.  This was the last step of a process that had started almost exactly a year ago.  This should have been the "frame-able" memento of my undertaking.  But I felt no connection to this piece of paper, or to my "projected time".  That time never existed in marathon reality.  There was, in fact, no marathon underway at that moment; I'm not even sure if the race clocks were still functioning.  I wondered where exactly my family was, at the moment of my projected finishing time.  Whether we knew by then that everyone was physically ok.  Looking at the certificate, it seemed to me like a fictional end that I did not want.  An effort to close the time-space vortex in which I currently find myself; to end the limbo.  Because it was this time last year that I debated whether to run and then applied to be on Spaulding's Boston Marathon team.  It was this time last year that my running partner and I started pushing our miles a bit on the weekends; just dipping our toes in the water to see if, in fact, this might be within our reach.  And part of my brain doesn't seem to recognize that a year has passed.  That this experience is actually "over".  That the Runner Certificate, albeit projected, signifies the real end to something that in many ways feels like it never started.

Suddenly the feeling I've been having all fall is not that hard to pinpoint.  It is the stuff of love poems and breakup songs.  I am realizing that the Boston Marathon cycle has moved on, with me on the sidelines, and that I am jealous of others (younger, prettier, "trophy runners"...with better hips) who are running next year for the first time, just starting their process from registration through their own "Runner Certificate".  I haven't had many bad breakups thankfully, but if Adele has taught me anything it's that what I'm feeling right now is, simply, heartbroken.  And what I want to say (dare I, sing?) to the Boston Marathon is: "Never mind I"ll find someone like yoooooooouu"; or, more aggressively, "Well I'm here, to remind you, of the mess you left when you went away"; or, more definitively, "We, are never ever ever...getting back together.  Like ever."  But I know I'm not really angry at the Boston Marathon (or even my hip for that matter); in fact that would be irrational.  It's just that if we are going to break up, for real this time, I can't help but want to be the one who does the dumping.  Because it hurts too much to have that decision taken away from me again.

Crossing the Straights

It was 10am on Monday, the Labor Day holiday, and I needed Diana Nyad to make it to Florida.  I know that most people who may have been paying attention to the story of the 64-year-old woman on her fifth attempt in 35 years to swim the 110 miles between Cuba and Florida wanted her to succeed.  Or at least I can only presume most people didn't have any reason to want her to fail.  But I needed her to make it.  And although now it seems obvious why, it certainly wasn't obvious to me as I sat glued to my computer checking Nyad's real-time position, watching the dot in the ocean representing her coordinates move closer and closer to Key West.

To be frank, prior to Monday I may have heard of Nyad (in the context of her prior attempts a few years ago), but I had never really focused on her.  If anything, I likely thought she was out of her mind for devoting her life to this goal (who on Earth would want to swim from Cuba to the United States?  Why??).  And yet, on Labor Day I found myself fixated and agitated.  I felt anxious for her.  I worried about box jellyfish sightings.  I wondered whether the mild electrical field around her would be enough to keep the sharks away.  I wanted to know why her speech was slurred when her team called her in for hydration and nutrition that morning. (Was it the special -- albeit scary -- face-mask to prevent jellyfish stings interfering with her speech?  Was she experiencing some type of allergic reaction to something in the water??  Her team reported that they were worried about her airways but had not yet intervened -- why hadn't they intervened???).  As I called out to my husband in the kitchen "she's five miles out!", he gently asked "do you think this is marathon-related?"  I looked at him perplexed, my brow furrowing.  And then my face relaxed into recognition and acceptance.  Ah yes.  Of course.

Two weeks previously I had registered for next year's Boston Marathon.  Those of us who crossed the half way mark but were not able to finish due to the attack were given a special registration period (about ten days) during which we were permitted to sign-up for next year, to have the chance to run again (without meeting any qualifying standards or fundraising minimums) and presumably finish what we started.  I have been openly conflicted about this and most of me believes next year is not my year.  After I registered, to keep my options open, I proceeded to cry intermittently for days.  I'm not sure if I was sad for what was lost this past April, or already anticipating my disappointment next year when I don't show up to the starting line.  And yet, in the weeks since registering, I admit that I sometimes find myself day-dreaming about the stretch of the course that passes Wellesley College (about 13 miles into the race).  In my day-dream, the sides of the road are lined with yellow daffodils (I read somewhere that somone wants to plant bulbs along the race course so that they bloom in April; a kind of force-field of flowers carrying the runners through to the finish).  In my day-dream, I am surrounded by people who understand: people who ran last year and couldn't complete the race; people who were at the finish and saw the horror; people who want Patriots Day to again be one of innocent celebration.  Although technically further away in time, I imagine that the world on race day 2014 feels closer to the events of April 15, 2013 than it does today, five months after.  There will presumably be reflections on the prior year; a resurgence of stories both sad and triumphant.  In my imagined April 21, 2014, the reinvigorated focus on the marathon bombings and its aftermath is something to which I feel connected, and which connects me with the others who come out for the race, whether to run or to watch.  The feeling I have when I envision being there is not really one of vindication against the attackers; I don't feel motivated by bravado.  It is more a feeling of understanding by, and commiseration with, my fellow runners and Bostonians, of communal recognition that even a year later (a generally accepted period of mourning), there is still a rawness (as I expect there will be), but nonetheless an exuberance in being together to pass this anniversary and welcome the new era of the Boston Marathon.  Changed, but not necessarily for the worse.

A friend recently shared a Rawandan proverb with me:  "You can out-distance that which is running after you, but not what is running inside you."  If I'm honest, I had to read that a number of times before I could make sense of it.  I have concluded that there is a lot of wisdom in it.  But what happens when what is "running inside you" is a race that cannot ever be finished?  A distance that cannot ever be covered?  After completing her swim, Nyad shared several words of wisdom.  "Never ever give up."  "You are never too old to chase your dreams."  And "find a way" to make your dreams happen.  That is inspiring but also a whole lot of pressure.  Not only to pursue your dreams at all costs, but also to know what those dreams are; to know what is running inside you and how to make it stop (or at least slow down).  Nyad has arguably accomplished both, outdistancing sharks and jellyfish while also finally achieving her long-standing dream of crossing the Florida Straights.  She had said that this would be her last attempt, no matter the outcome.  I wonder if that would have been true, if she could walk away having not succeeded.  I also wonder whether the moment she touched Florida sand, after 53 hours in the water, erased her prior disappointments and failures.  Was that the end to her 35 year journey, or just the end to her 53 hour one?  I wonder whether what is running inside me is really anything to do with not finishing the marathon, or much more to do with the threat to my family that was too close and too real.  A matter of seconds and feet that made all the difference.  One side of a street as opposed to the other.  What I do know is that right now my tolerance for disappointment is extremely low.  In recent weeks, when people or circumstances have failed to meet my expectations, I have felt it with a depth and duration that is abnormal.  That's not to say my disappointment isn't real or justified; just that my reaction to that disappointment is disproportionate.  On April 15 the world did not meet my expectations.  It defied expectations.  And I now find myself trying to make sure it doesn't let me down again, feeling that if I stare hard enough at the dot on my computer screen I can force Diana's arms and legs to continue moving her forward; I can telepathically push the sharks and jellyfish away; I can will her to the shore.  Because I needed her to make it there safely, this woman I've never met.  I needed her to go before me, and to not come up short.  I couldn't bear her disappointment, or mine, if she had failed again.  Because I know I'm still in the water; but if I squint hard I'm fairly certain I can see twinkling lights letting me know that land is within my reach.

Becoming an "ish" Kind of Girl

A good friend recently gave me one of the most thoughtful gifts I’ve ever received.  It’s one of those “runner stickers” that you put on the bumper of your car.  You know the ones; they are oval and say 13.1, 26.2, or even, God forbid, 70.3.  (One of the funnier ones I’ve seen says “0.0 I don’t run”.) 

The one she gave me says “26.ish”.       

My friend was apprehensive handing me the sticker, concerned that perhaps it would offend me given my conflicted feelings surrounding my almost-finish at the Boston Marathon this year.  To the contrary, I thought it was just perfect.  In fact, that one “ish” says more than I have been able to say in all of the words I have written since the marathon.  And as I face the impending “registration period” (when those of us who did not finish but crossed the half-way mark are permitted to sign up for next year’s Boston Marathon), and find myself wishing I did not have the choice to make, I am starting to wonder whether perhaps I need a little more “ish” in my life.

Growing up, a common refrain in my house was “almost doesn’t count, except in horse-shoes and hand grenades.”  In other words, you generally don’t get any points in life for “almost” succeeding.  This is not to say that I was not permitted to fail; to the contrary, it was encouraged as an important learning experience.  It was more a caution against using “almost” as an excuse for not trying your hardest.  Notwithstanding the unfortunate image that saying conjures in the context of the marathon bombings, I think it’s fair to say that my general approach to life has been consistent with its philosophy.  I don't believe in short cuts.  I am not one to take the easy way out.  I believe (rightly or wrongly) things are worth more if they are harder won.  I don't believe in mulligans (ok, maybe sometimes I believe in mulligans…).  I am someone who keeps score, who keeps track.  I catch typos.  I don’t like when people use the word “fortuitous” to mean “fortunate”.  I am not a sophisticated cook, but I am a decent baker (the former requiring a sixth sense for estimation I lack, the latter requiring close measurement.)  I believe that for the most part, almost doesn’t actually count.  Those characteristics are fundamentally part of who I am, and that’s ok.  They have served me well.  I am, in most regards, precise.  I am, in most regards, a “.2” kind of girl.

When I was preparing for the marathon, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital gave our team a training schedule to follow.  For each day of the 18-week training program it showed a suggested range of miles to run (1-3, 3-5, 4-6, 6-8…19-21), all culminating in “The Big Day!” (an implied 26.2).  Using the Garmin running watch my husband gave me for Christmas, I would clock my mileage each time I ran, making a note on the schedule of the exact amount, down to the second decimal point.  No “range” for me!  I wanted to know exactly how far I had gone.  Some weeks I would add it all up, and reflect with amazement on the distance my legs had traveled.  It was really one of the most meaningful aspects of the entire experience; seeing the proof of the transformation that was occurring in my body.  My strength and my endurance increasing, almost beyond my control.  I was living proof that really anyone can run a marathon; that if you put in the time and clock the miles your body will learn how to sustain that distance.

We had a particularly grueling New England winter last year, and for many of our long training runs my partner and I would head off to a local state park where the main access road, always plowed, provided 5 clear miles of hills.  We would run up and down this road, sometimes three times as we got closer to the race, talking about everything and anything.  One Saturday morning after a particularly large storm I remember the tree branches, frozen with white ice and heavy with snow, arched over us with the sun glinting and ricocheting between them.  It felt like being in a snow globe filled with glitter.  Our shadows stretched ahead on the white ground, the two of us, side by side (me always on the right, my friend on the left).  I reached for my phone, hoping to preserve the amazing moment.  But it was about 30 degrees and my phone was frozen, rendering the camera non-functional.  So instead I just looked around at the stunning beauty of my surroundings, breathed deeply the cold winter air and felt the contrast of the strong sun on my face, and thought how lucky I was to spend a Saturday morning with one of my best friends in this peaceful place, running.

Not too long ago I was commuting home from work with my husband and another friend of ours, who has run Boston before.  I was expressing ambivalence over whether I would run again, next year or ever.  He assumed I had run Boston prior to this past April, and when I said that this was my first marathon attempt ever, I admitted to feeling that I cannot actually say I have run a marathon.  Although many people have since told me “of course you ran a marathon, you were right there near the finish”, or “everyone knows the last .5 mile is nothing at that point”, his words were slightly different and much more poignant.  He said that he always felt that for Boston the marathon happens over the winter.  In other words, the marathon is getting up early in the cold dark and running.  The marathon is running up and down a plowed road in a state park, over and over and over, until you’ve hit your miles.  The marathon is running in the rain and wind, with soaking shoes and numb toes.  It’s doing the final long training run on the race route and seeing—and conquering—the hills for the first time.  It’s learning how to drink while running, how to eat GU Chomps while running, how to get rid of a cramp while running.  That’s the marathon.  Race day, he said, is your reward for all of that hard work.  From his perspective, I ran the marathon; I just didn’t get my reward.

When I got the email the other day notifying me that registration for my category of non-finisher would open in the near future (next week in fact), my heart sank.  99% of me knows it is just not possible next year.  Physically.  Emotionally.  Timing-wise.  But I also know I’ll probably register, leaving the door open and also dragging out the decision process uncomfortably.  It has forced me to really think about why I ran in the first place and whether the same, or different, motivations would push me to ever try again.  A large part of why I ran had to do with my running partner (and good friend) subtly suggesting that maybe I wasn’t up to it; maybe I didn't have the time or the dedication to join the Spaulding team.  This was brilliant reverse-psychology on her part because she knows me well enough to understand what motivates me.  I don’t like being told I can’t do something.  (And she was right; I doubted whether I could do it.)  I prefer to think that everything is in my reach and it’s up to me to decide where I put my energies.  And so I put my energy, all of my energy, into training.  And I clocked my miles, and I wrote down my distances.  I followed the recipe for marathon success like the meticulous baker I am, because I know that if you measure carefully and add the exact right amount of salt, baking powder, vanilla, flour, eggs, cinnamon, and sugar, you will get a coffee cake.  And if you run X amount of miles in the right order over 18 weeks, you will get a marathon. 

Obviously all the training in the world won’t prepare you for a terrorist attack.  But what I got that I didn’t expect were weeks of hard (very hard), but also enjoyable, preparation.  Moments like the snow globe (and countless others) that I won’t forget.  A perspective on my town and its beauty by foot, a new view of all the various roads and routes we ran that one doesn’t see while driving.  An education in fueling and hydrating long distance running.  Hours and hours with my good friend that no one can take away.  My own marathon.

It has been said, “life is a journey, not a destination”.  Even Miley Cyrus agrees, singing:

There's always gonna be another mountain

I'm always gonna wanna make it move

Always gonna be an uphill battle

Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose

Ain't about how fast I get there

Ain't about what's waitin' on the other side

It's the climb

Oh Miley.  So young; and yet, so wise.  In truth, I’m probably somewhere in-between.  It’s not only about the climb for me.  I do actually care what’s on the other side of that mountain.  So maybe what drives me is the .2; but I’m learning that what stays with me is the “ish”.  Even if I originally agreed to run the marathon to meet the challenge put to me—to cross that finish line—there is some truth that what truly transforms us is everything that comes before that point.  And that transformation can be blurry.  It is not really amenable to being defined or measured.  That is the “ish” of life (to me at least).  And in that regard, although I will likely continue to be motivated by what I perceive to be the reward, I am beginning to understand that the gravitas of the experience has already occurred long before the medals are handed out.

As simple as it sounds, maybe it's time to leave my running watch at home for a while and just run as fast as feels good, until my body wants to stop, enjoying the views instead of tracking my distance and pace.  To make my next goal, my next mountain, the challenge of being motivated solely by the “ish”.  To run another marathon, if I ever do, not so much for the finish but for the random beautiful moments along the way to the start.  Or at the very least to get comfortable with a decision not to run next year because I know I’ve already been transformed.  Who knows, maybe I will find I’m more of an “ish” girl than I thought.  Heck, I may even try cooking without a recipe…

The Things We Keep

I am a recovered hoarder.  Ok, fine, recovering hoarder.  Since a young age, I have imbued inanimate objects with life, personality, and significance beyond their molecular or monetary value.  I remember as a young girl finding a piece of thread in my room; I mean literally a piece of navy thread.  Perhaps it had come off of my comforter, or my school uniform?  Rather than toss it in the trash, I found an old small box, filled it with cotton balls, and created a little “home” for my new friend—the thread—and kept it on my bedside table.  I don’t remember what ultimately happened to it, but I am proud to report that I do not still have it.  That said I have an admittedly hard time letting go of the tangible evidence of my life.  I want to trace the “Y” carved into the old New York subway token; feel the worn tufts of fur on my first teddy “bear” (which is really a kangaroo); wear my high school team jacket; see just how small my child’s Crocs were at age 18 months.  Or at least I want the option, because in fact I never do those things (although all of these items are currently in my closet). 

I’ve managed to keep this proclivity in relative check.  I have never had a compulsion to buy things I don’t need (much though my husband might dispute that…).  I don’t believe my house is significantly more cluttered than others who have young kids.  I have never actually become “buried alive” as the TLC show on hoarding dramatically describes.  But I get how it could happen.  I understand what drives the impulse to surround ourselves with proof of life, and how under certain circumstances it could spin out of control.  I admit to having said out loud at some point “well, I might actually need these” when referring to a random assortment of hundreds of paper cocktail napkins I had stored (no, I won’t), and have felt my heart ache at the thought of putting an old Pottery Barn crib bumper in the “donation” pile (even though due to safety concerns it was never even on the crib at the same time a baby slept there).

In preparation for moving houses a few years ago, I committed to cleansing my home of excess.  Going forward I would live like the Amish.  I would have only the clothes that I wear on a regular basis in my closet.  I would have only the toys that are currently in favor.  If a piece of furniture didn’t fit in the new house right now, I wasn’t going to keep it with the idea that someday it might.  Being the consummate preparer, in advance of the move I watched episode after episode of “Hoarding: Buried Alive” to remind myself how bad things could get.  I read “Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things” (by Gail Steketee), a psychological exploration of what drives people to hoard.  I hired two friends who are ridiculously organized to help me sell and donate anything I didn’t want to bring to the new house, and weed out as I unpacked in case anything slipped by.  (Fact:  if you ever want to cure yourself of a tendency to hoard, hold a yard sale and observe the die-hards who show up early.  I actually found myself, in a moment of paternalism, refusing to sell an egg-poaching pan to an individual I was certain would not be poaching any eggs.)  And I found it was true what they say in the books and on the shows: when you realize you don’t need something—when you realize you are saving it solely out of fear that letting go of the “thing” will cause you to lose the experience behind it—the weight that is lifted is more tangible that the item itself.  Now, whenever I find myself making piles of the kids’ schoolwork I can’t part with, or catch myself putting something into the back of a closet or under my bed so I don’t have to decide what to do with it, I channel that lightness; that feeling of total liberation that comes from saying: “Goodbye; I don’t need you, you ‘thing’, to demonstrate that my life has actually happened.  My experiences exist in me, in real-time, even without you as a reference point.”  (I recognize the irony of speaking directly to an object that I am trying to de-personify.)

It’s never easy to admit to relapse.  But here it goes: 

Right now, in the corner of my home office is the sweaty, blue, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital singlet I wore running in the Boston Marathon this year, with all of the personalization I carefully added with a Sharpie the night before the race.  It is crumpled in a ball, in essentially the same spot I left it on April 15, nearly four months ago, when I finally got home, hours after the race was stopped in the wake of the terrorist attack.  I remember peeling it off, still so wet and cold, wanting only to dissolve into tears in a hot shower.  It sits next to my “Runner’s Passport”, the packet of logistical information they give the runners before the race, which happened to have been left on the same file cabinet.  Until very recently the running shoes I wore that day sat by the bottom of the stairs directly outside my home office, exactly where I took them off on the way upstairs to my room.  Recently I debated whether to bring my shoes into the memorial set up in Copley Square, hearing that it would soon be dissembled and moved to an off-site location.  Not able to decide what to do, I instead moved them into the front hall closet, where they still sit.  My number…oh the coveted number (I can almost not bear to look at the photo I have of me picking it up before the race, smiling and unaware of what lay ahead).  I carefully removed it from the sweaty singlet (returning the shirt to its crumpled pile) and pinned it to my bulletin board, even though, like my childhood phone number, it’s a numerical sequence I doubt I could forget if I tried.  Leaning against the wall by the bulletin board is the poster my kids made for me, to cheer me at the finish that never was.  It miraculously survived, and is rolled up with care.  Our DVR still stores “The Boston Marathon”, my husband having thoughtfully set the recorder before he came into the city that day, so I could later watch the pre-race coverage of Hopkington and other race-related news.  I have never watched it.  He asked the other night if he could delete it and I simply shook my head no.

To be frank, I don’t notice these items when moving about my house; yet I know they are there.  And like the muscle strain aggravated from training that has sidelined me from physical activity this summer, and the stark line on the back of my right leg of once-burned-now-tanned skin where the strong sun hit the hem of my running pants for almost 26 miles, they are lingering reminders of April 15 with which I am not yet ready to part.  I suppose that I am not yet ready for the relief that might come by getting rid of them.  Or perhaps I know that there would be no such relief because these items really aren’t at all like too many paper cocktail napkins or an egg-poaching pan.  Any attempt, including this one, to define why they are significant will necessarily fail; their importance exists on a purely emotional and visceral level.  And although the brown line on my leg currently feels like a tattoo, I know that it will fade, most likely in exactly the right amount of time.  But that doesn’t mean I won’t be sorry on some level to realize one day that it is gone.  Because it’s possible to miss even reminders of hard days; to feel their absence.  At some point I am guessing that I will either wash or throw out my singlet, and at some point I will likely no longer be compelled to write about the marathon; it will be a distant memory, too many good (and bad) days having intervened.  But April 15 will remain woven into me, part of who I am in every present moment, a destructive day that has also made me better in many ways.  And as with all formative experiences, there’s no real rush to destroy the evidence.  Because this really isn't hoarding; it’s more like “holding” – and I think I, for one, do it for very different reasons.  For the same reasons I still have a bottle of my Grandma’s perfume, and every now and then, on both good and bad days, I just need a quick sniff.  A hug from a long time ago.  A hope that endings aren’t always permanent, and through some sort of “choose your own adventure” magic we can re-write the past.