Getting out of a funk

Lately I have been in a funk - physical, emotional, and even a food funk.  I haven't wanted to leave the house, haven't been able to stop weeping, and haven't been able to stop eating.  I ran 10 miles a week ago Sunday - the longest I had ever run - and it took a lot more out of me than I realized.  I have my longest run ever - a half marathon - coming up on February 6th - and I am not at all phased.  To imagine that I, a formerly morbidly obese, totally inactive, out of touch, emotional wasteland, could be entering, running in and full well knowing she will finish a half marathon - is something of a miracle. I remember some years back, when I went to watch a friend Lauren run her first half marathon - I was amazed that a human being could run that far without dropping dead.  I happily accompanied her to the post race pancake feast, but what I didn't know was that a seed had already been planted.  But back to my funk…that 10 miles was hard on me, both physically and emotionally.  I finished, and I finished strong.  I wasn't fast, but there was gas left in the tank and I sprinted to the end.  I wasn't really phased by it the way I was wen I ran 8.  In fact, I was almost blase…but I woke up the next day sad; sad, weepy and very, very tired.  I couldn't finish my yoga class, and I could not eat enough carbs…so I started thinking about the body mind connection and the idea that feelings reside in the flesh.  I run because I like to eat, I run because I want to live a long long life, I run because somewhere in the motion, the silent repetition, I find some peace.  I like repetition and the meditative quality of doing the same thing over and over and finding the nuance, the kernel, the being, the spirit, the ghost in the machine.  So what had I accessed? What lingering pain did I tap into? There has been a lot of lingering pain.  I am feeling so much loss these days, and it is working its way out of me slowly.  It feels like a slow, damp, San Francisco fog, gliding over the hills, concealing Sutro tower, blanketing The City in a gray mood.  Lots of loss.  Loss of my dogs, loss of my yoga studio, loss of my town, loss of a friendship, loss of a love that amounted to much less than I had ever hoped, really, these are all things that I can have again, do have now in some ways, are all re-creatable, so why the attachment to the feeling? I have a three mile run tomorrow, this time with a friend, so in the motion of my legs, I will listen for joy and wonder.  I will dangle my toes over the groundlessness and move forward.  

Good morning

The morning after a light rain all is dewy and damp reminds me of Gerard Manley Hopkins'

Spring and Fall - worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie...



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Rainy Day in Malibu

Life Mew Gull and dozens of snowy plovers on a wet cold morning

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Good morning

Early morning today going to Malibu to catch some early migrants spring maybe more than a month away but not all the birds know that!








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Dropping you off at the airport

I know it is part of our reality I know it will be like this for a while I know I will get used to it but sometimes I miss you so much I think my throat will crack open and a waterfall of shrieking tears will cascade out




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Thinking about lunch before breakfast

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The miracle of hair dye

How can a simple haircut and blow dry totally change my perspective?


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Am I a quitter?

In my long attempt to convince C. that I was the one for her I suggested that a group of us runners do the Big Sur Marathon Relay…she suggested we do the whole thing.  I gave in, of course, to impress, and dazzle, but the day is fast approaching and I am terrified…terrified of the time limit, terrified of the two mile "hurricane" hill, terrified of being picked up at mile 22 and granted the almighty "DNF" (did not finish for those of you non-runners out there).  So I posed the question, to the rest of my friends that had signed up for the full marathon - shall we revisit the idea of the Relay? The unanimous yes was followed by a group sigh of relief…it seems my terror was not alone.

So now to assign the legs, and continue to train, with a new goal in mind, running my leg fast, and becoming part of a team.  I love each member of this team and am glad that this will be a group triumph.  I am glad that we were able to score one of the lat 6 team spots, I am glad that although I have converted to the relay, I have not abandoned this endeavor.  So no, I do not believe myself to be a quitter.  I am a group finisher!  

Leisurely Morning

When I am alone, the morning ritual of two cups of the most perfectly made coffee is often a lonely affair.  But when C. comes home from business trips (which lately are every week) we are reunited over our lovely morning time.  Today I was especially lucky

My cup runneth over...

3191 Miles Apart

I just found this blog:

http://www.3191ayearofmornings.com/

the story of two friends living on two coasts and since my very best friend lives about that far away from me I was moved…So Mrs. Smith - this is for you

Three day old pajamas

La Brea bakery sad and very expensive approximation of DeKalb Farmer's Market Fruit nut bread (can you please buy some and FedEx it to me?

Bialetti Fail!

Silliness and Cake Baking

There is little discernable difference between the cake decorated by the three year old and the cake decorated by the 44 year old.

I believe this to be a good thing

From Elizabeth Barrett to Robert Browning and from me to you, miamor

It seems to me, to myself, that no man was ever before to any woman what you are to me – the fulness must be in proportion, you know, to the vacancy… and only I know what was behind – the long wilderness without the blossoming rose… and the capacity for happiness, like a black gaping hole, before this silver flooding.

Is it wonderful that I should stand as in a dream, and disbelieve – not you – but my own fate? Was ever any one taken suddenly from a lampless dungeon and placed upon the pinnacle of a mountain, without the head turning round and the heart turning faint, as mine do?

January 10, 1846 & January 11, 2011

When you look back on your life...

Don't stare. Easily said, not so easily done. But oh what a difference it makes, not pondering, not ruminating, leaving the past squarely where it is, in the past. For all my going on about living in the "now" my affection for Flavor Flav and his credo of "what time is it?", (should I start wearing more watches?) I am easily seduced by the long look back. And exactly to what end? All week, as snow has fallen on my previous address, I have "longed" to be back there, longed to rewind the clock so that I too could be sledding, sipping hot tea, bundled up, having a snow day, watching the dogs crunch though the drifts, listening to the quiet. I assign a feeling to those days, that place, and fear that once I have left, I will never recall that experience, or feel that feeling again.

But does my joy, my love, my feeling truly reside in a place? a time? or within me? And what magic potion must I mix up to re-enact them? I spend an awful lot of time down the rabbit hole of memory, but I need to remember it fully, and not pick and choose.

Why is it so hard?

To interact? To relate? To be in the same space as another? Why so insular, so protected, so excluded? But I find this is the case with many people, who prefer email, texting, instant messaging, to actually speaking, prefer a virtual relationship to a real one…the never ending conversation on facebook ha provided me with entre into the lives of long lost family and friends, but it has also created a voyeuristic sense of interaction…you tell me what you want me to know about you, and I get to react to that small slice of the reality you have provided me with. We are all, now, our own PR firms…I am beginning to wonder what I am so afraid of. There is a very large hurdle to surmount, the social Everest, of meeting and getting to know people, of committing to friendship, relationship, anyship, of allowing my heart to open and extend to others, risk rejection and indifference, or better yet, reciprocation. I would like to chalk all of it up to Aspberger's syndrome, but really it's not. It is the bumbling, fumbling, retreating safety of an insulated, it shan't hurt life that I so desperately try to create for myself. If I am to live the life of "the fool" the life I claim so strongly to desire, then how on earth can I restrict my interactions to these quips and well researched retorts, to the photoshopped and hipstmatically altered photos of all the good times I am having. If I were to tell the truth about my life today it would look like this: snotty, unwashed and wrinkled…I am sick with the flu - going on day 8 - and I look like crap. I am out of work, enrolled in community college, out of money, fumbling through a divorce, and aside from the snot and coughing, generally very very happy. My days amount to, when not languishing under the virus, being a housewife and tending to my partner. I clean house, cook and make love, all with great passion, I watch too much television, run about 20 miles a week, and fold a lot of laundry. And I am painfully underachieving right now but not entirely ashamed of it. I have so much I am "meant" to do, and yet I find little desire beyond my bread baking and vacuuming. I am not deriding housewives, but I am not really one of them, I am more aptly described as "on hiatus" from my real life. I am making short forays back, but they are not without angst. This week I attempted to connect with my oh-so-distant (he lives in New Zealand half the year) father. He pounced on the fact that I had the flu and asked me not to visit. It was so thinly veiled I had to laugh (privately) at it. It seems he suffers from stay-away sickness as much as I do. Alas, if I believe what I say I believe, then I must continue to love my father and continue to be a generous hearted daughter, without ever getting what I "want" in return. If I am to live with an open heart, I must unfetter myself from the conditional love, the meted out in teaspoons love, the tit for tat love.

I don't know if others have their own love barometer, but I do, I get to a certain level of millibars and suddenly cannot go farther (further? I never know which) I do not allow myself to venture into the territory of unabashed, unrequited, unrelenting love. Scary monsters like rejection and broken hearts live there, gnashing and panting in ghoulish anticipation of my "wet red stain" of a heart to saunter unawares into their lair. Not I, in my red riding hood, there is a wolf at my door. And he is hungry for blood. I stay a breath's distance from the edge, peer over the precipice but do not take in the panorama offered only from the cliff. Vertigo kicks in and slowly I back away, taking my heart back with me in a tightly clenched fist. Or do I? This life that I have been so blessed to be given, freely and in such great circumstance, is "wild and precious" and I will push myself closer and closer to the edge. So, if I call you, please pick up.