#19: Day One

First of all, as a follow-up to Thursday's post, I'd like to offer this list from Shane Nickerson's blog, which I found by way of Heather's weekly internet roundup.

Some of my favorites (which is to say, those that resonated most with me) are:

2. Trust your instinct.

If you’re miserable in your job, quit. If you’ve chosen the wrong career, make a plan to switch. If something feels wrong, you’re right. Fix it, and don’t look back. This applies to work, relationships, friendships, and life choices. Wake up in the morning the person you want to be instead of the person you’re constantly trying to change. Sometimes it’s hard work to stay true to the person you know you are. It’s always worth it.

4. Open your eyes to the right person.

The right person is so rarely the one you’ve imagined since you were young. The right person is someone you love to be around; someone who makes you laugh, makes you happy, makes you feel strong. Lots of times, they're so obviously in front of you that you look right past them. If you find someone like that, latch on and never look back. If your current person doesn’t do those things for you, move on. Seriously, today.

10. If you find the sweet spot, everything falls into place.

Get yourself to where you’re happiest in work, relationship, hobbies, social activities...and the world will open up to you. If you’re happy, people will want to be around you. If you’re miserable, you become a chore. 

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Today around 4:30 I went for my first run in four weeks. I deliberately chose to go during the heat of the day so that, should it feel wonderful, I would be too hot to go for more than the planned two miles. 

Good news? The first mile felt great. Bad news? The same symptoms flared up almost immediately after my watch beeped off that mile. I ran to the end of the street and, at the 1.5 mile marker, finished by walking home.

When I got inside, I immediately began foam-rolling. And there, nestled deep in my IT band, I once again unearthed an egg of a knot that stubbornly refuses to crack. The pain rolling on it and then kneading deep into it burns along the muscle fibers and blooms in my outer knee.

I'm telling myself to trust this process, too; trust the plan I've set out for myself and keep working at my knotted muscles. Keep coaxing them to let go.

I'll get them back to their sweet spot, yet.

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After dinner I ran some errands and got caught in a pop-up storm on the way home. 

Oh, 2013, your summer of crazy clouds will be forever remembered.

A sweet spot, indeed. 

Here Goes Nothing: Plan of Attack for #19

Tomorrow, after four weeks off, I will attempt to return to running. Tomorrow, my goal is two miles, pain-free.

I had my third PT session this past Thursday and when I told Morgan I planned to start back she wished me luck but cautioned, "Erin, don't think that just because two miles feels great that five will feel better."

Armed with her warning, I've come up with a plan:

The past three weeks, I've walked 12.5 miles per week over 4-5 separate walks. It's been a great way to keep me acclimated to the summer humidity and to warm up my muscles before beating them up on the foam roller. (So many knots. Every single time.)

"Well," Morgan said, "Running is hard on the body. You're lucky to have gone this long without any major challenges."

Ramping up slowly will be difficult, but by continuing to incorporate the walks, the muscle kneading sessions, and the yoga, I hope I can come back stronger and faster than before.

I'll need to to achieve the goal for the yellow box. It's #19 on my list and I very badly desire to cross it off this year.

But the full story of the list is for another time.

On Not Running Away

I have referenced a large transition in my life as of late but I have been cautious about detailing this transition because it involves someone else. At this point, however, there is no avoiding it.

This month, I have become a divorcee.

When I first told my family about what was going on, I was often asked, "Oh! So you'll be moving back to St. Louis then?"

The product of a large, unusually stable family, with dozens of cousins, aunts, uncles, and great-relatives of all kinds, I initially found myself turning to the most clearly explainable reason for my Midwestern family to understand my disagreement with their suggestion:

How can I give up the ocean being only a few hours away?

I have always been somewhat of a black (though beloved) sheep in my family. I remember a Christmas when it was suggested we all show up in pajamas...and I was the only one who actually did. I remember riding on a (broken) ten speed bike 15 miles from Frisco to Copper Mountain and back by myself while on a family vacation in Colorado. I lived with my boyfriend (who I didn't marry), a taboo in my Catholic family. I then moved a thousand miles away to be with my fiance, who I did marry, but have now divorced.

But, I have very seldom tried to apologize for who I am and what I've done. I like to tell myself that this - that I have tried very hard to be genuine, even if it shines through very late in the game - makes a difference.

Nevertheless, undertaking a huge change like I have was one I met with trepidation and fear. My sense of self was so wrapped up with this relationship and my fears of everyone perceiving that I had failed, that I had given up, that I was evil for walking away, nearly stopped me from doing it.

And after fighting that internal war and resolving what steps I would take, I was left with what was I to do. But that paled in comparison to the alternative.

Because, even though it sounded trite, my overly simple statement to my family was true: how can I give up what I have right now?

How could I give up a place that has, for the moment, become home?

A place that has sandblasted me, refined me into who I am?

And how could I believe that going back, that changing my location, would make it any easier?

I don't believe that people change. To (loosely) quote a fellow attendee from the writing conference I attended in April, I believe that we are all born into this world fully formed souls. Our experiences certainly shape us - chisel off some of our naivete here, smooth out some of our egocentricness there, burn off more of our innocence deep in there - but truly, we are who we are  from the moment we burst into this world.

I've met and listened to countless parents in the past few years who reaffirm this belief. How startled they are that their child, at three, knows so decisively what they want, asserts so clearly how they want to be presented to the world.

Last weekend, when I was at the beach, a young mother was there with her sister and her daughter, aged 18 months. I overheard her tell another mother, whose son was 3 years old, how last time they came they struggled because the daughter did not like the beach, did not like the feeling of her sand on her feet. Barely a year old, and already knowing what she did and did not like.

As I took my walk, I thought about this exchange. I thought about all of the things that my parents, my family, my friends, have done for me through the years. How they have all contributed in some way to my experiences (fate) but ultimately, I still made and will continue to make the choices (free will) that decide the path I take, the joy I will create.

So many people today want to link their experiences, the current state of their feelings, the quality of their life, to other people, the weather, the government. The problem is - there is only so much in our control.

I came into this life (mostly) intuiting that life is this glass of half fate and half free will - that things will be placed in my life and I will have a choice what to do with them. I am not promised anything except these two things. And my free will does not extend to other people. This - that I am the only person in my life that I can control - is a lesson we all speak easily but practice with difficulty.

The hardest is recognizing that I cannot control what other people think or feel about the things I choose to do or not do. That, if I spend my life worrying about that, I'll be cultivating a tangled mess of fear and stress instead of a garden of love and joy. And I believe I do more good growing my love, my trust, and my wonder and pushing it out into the universe.

I am not perfect. But I am in love with living, with this messy process that we call life. And I can't imagine running back to the Midwest, though it would probably be easier.

There are days when I wonder if I am making the right decision. Doubt is normal, natural, good. It reminds me that I don't know everything. But most days, if I sit quietly long enough, I feel the string from my heart tugging me forward down the road. And most days, it's enough.

Art in the Evenings

"A good snapshot stops a moment from running away." - Eudora Welty

On Friday evenings, the North Carolina Museum of Art puts on Art in the Evening, where the doors are kept open until 9, they crack bottles of wine and beer and offer small plates to nosh on, and bands catering to small audiences get a chance to bring down the house.

Last Friday, I was alone and had nowhere to be. So I went.

I stood on line for a drink and listened to Sidecar Social Club, their sassy vocalist shaking it in her backless dress. I had arrived halfway through their set and the audience was pleasantly buzzed - on drinks and on company.

"This is my first time here," I told the lady standing behind me. "What's the nametag you are wearing for?"

"There's a big group of us here for a meet-up - 40s and 50s singles group," she smiled, snapping her fingers to the beat, and gave me a quick glance over. "But there are younger groups here, too!"

I had no idea it was obvious I was here alone. 

I tossed back the rest of my shiraz and wandered into the galleries.

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The NCMA's West Building is wondrous, a delight in form, function, and beauty.

The music reached the back galleries rich and muted. I stepped around carefully, painfully aware of my heels clicking on the hardwood.

As I moved in to study a painting, I heard a stifled laugh and saw a flash of curls around a partition to my left. I leaned forward carefully and watched as a man dipped the woman in his arms back again, her long hair tumbling towards the floor and another squealing laugh tumbling from her lips.

It was one of the most beautiful things I saw all evening, that couple, dancing in the most remote corner of the museum. For a split second, I wished that I could have captured it with a picture - that moment when she appeared around the partition, her eyes closed, eyebrows arched, and smile joyfully big in the skylight's quickly dwindling sun.

But instead, as I quietly exited, I was just thankful for the small pleasure of having witnessed it.

Some art is better left unphotographed.

Raleigh on a Monday Night.

I took these pictures after dinner at Sitti on Monday night.

I've been trying to find the words to go with these pictures all week, but they are slow coming.

The meal was fantastic - far too many plates laden with concoctions of chickpeas, olives, tomatoes, cucumbers, cheese, honey, dates, assorted pickled vegetables, chicken, and yogurt sauces that we sopped up with endless warm pita. The red Lebanese wine blend was delightful; the baklava dense with pistachios; the glasses of madeira we passed around the table, the perfect lingering finish.

I was sated beyond belief, walking out, taking these pictures. Raleigh's streets at night are beautiful in an entirely different way than the sleepy neighborhood I currently call home. And yet, I love it just as much.

I drove home and went for a walk when I got there, my head still fuzzy with the madeira, my belly still stretched from the meal. One mile, two miles. My body hummed from the day, from the dinner, from the heat, and my mind wandered as my legs carried me over the familiar pavement.

It sang soulfully, like the city.

Numbers

First of all, today is my father Michael's birthday; to me, birthdays are best celebrated by coming together with people you love to remember the past years and to look down the road at what's to come, but mostly to just enjoy the moment and create some new memories.

And while I hate I can't be there today to raise my glass to him, he and my mother Janet will be coming down in five weeks to celebrate her birthday, so I will get the chance to toast them both then.

Part of our agenda? Going to the beach.

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I have a running list of things to do this year and a few weeks ago, I added Spend at least 10 days at the beach.

Today I crossed off day number five.

Surf City on Topsail Island has become my go-to spot. Eighty-five miles of country driving down blue highways 111 South and 50 South started no later than 9 a.m. guarantees my toes are in the sand 90 minutes later.

Last week, on the Fourth of July, I noticed this sign in a different light. My birthday is 4/22 (4=2+2) and these days number 22 is coming up everywhere.

I glance at the clock and inexplicably it's 3:22 or 9:22 or 11:11 (11+11=22).

I look down at my Garmin and I've walked 1.22 miles.

It may just be the psychological principal of the recency illusion and it's only these moments that are registering because I've attributed significance to the number. Maybe it's merely an OCD tic that's kicking in. It is most certainly profoundly egocentric. Nevertheless, these sightings of 22 have become a touchstone. A moment to remind me to breathe. To smile.

...as has the return of the sun!

Today's waves were fairly large and more consistent than they have been in my recent visits; the surfers were out in full force. After doing my fair share of playing hard, I took my walk.

One mile up the beach, one mile back. Hundreds of footsteps on infinite grains of sand.

Progress

Take care of your body. It's the only place you have to live. - Jim Rohn

Not in the way of the storms moving out. No way, no how.

Driving home under these skies last night, though, I was thinking not about the weather but rather about my first PT session with Morgan from Raleigh Orthopaedic.

I found myself saying hello to a brunette sprite with warm eyes. She listened as I babbled on about my experiences these last several weeks. After an assessment, she determined that my strength and flexibility were pretty high, but that perhaps I could benefit from some manipulation with some implements.

She brought over a piece of metal and had me lay on my side and she began running this tool down my IT band. At first, I felt nothing, but I could tell by her face that she did. After a moment, I began to sense something bubbling from my muscles to the surface.  "You have pebbles in your legs!" She then moved the tool down to my calf. "See how that runs down smooth?" She went back to the right IT band and then I could feel it, as the tool caught on dozens of micro-knots.

She continued to work it, plying the tool in smooth motions down my leg and gradually, they went away.

"Now, it's going to hurt tomorrow, and, depending on how easily you bruise..."

The tool she used is part of a modality called the Graston Technique. I've extolled the virtues of my foam roller here many times before and the Graston Technique works in the same way, but allows for maneuvering around tighter areas. It hurts...but it's the pain of healing.

And that, that is progress.

Would Rather Walk

The clinic waiting room was spacious, well-lit and clean. While I waited, I absentmindedly scanned my phone, idly ripped at the skin around my nails, crossed and uncrossed my legs, chewed my gum a little too loudly.

"Erin?"

The staff were efficient; my x-rays taken in no time. All too suddenly, Dr. Barker was there in his white coat holding his laptop, my x-rays a ready file on his desktop, asking me what the trouble with my right knee was.

I had been thinking about this for so long - I wanted to be specific and precise - but, of course, my nature took over and the words came tumbling out.

He gestured to the table, "I have a good idea of what it might be, but lets check a couple of things."

He pressed, flexed, stretched my right leg, then my left for comparison. Everything felt fine but - "There, that hurts?"

I winced. Indeed, it did. He did it again, again, and again. 

"That pain you were feeling, that is actually a small knot there where the muscle connects to the leg bone. So, the good news is I suspect it is IT band friction syndrome," Dr. Barker said cheerfully. "Bad news is...I suspect it is IT band syndrome."

"Better news is, your knees look beautiful." He opened his laptop, my femurs, patellas, tibias and fibulas glowing white in the gray darkness of skin and muscle and blood. 

No running for two to four more weeks, take NSAIDs regularly, ice and stretch, and "Sure, you can walk. And I know you're probably itching to get back, so come see me in a month if you want to try a cortizone injection."

(No thanks, doc.)

I would rather walk my way through this hiccup. I am so glad I can. 

Walking

Yesterday I went back to the beach.

Once again, it was a sun-drenched day. Once again, I walked. But this time with friends.

Tomorrow I go see an orthopedic specialist about my knee. I've gone from running between 20-25 miles a week to walking between 8-10. I'm not sure what I'm going to say if he says I have to stop any kind of activity all together. Or, if he tells me no amount of rest is going to fix it, only surgery will.

But yesterday I tried not to focus on that. Yesterday I went to the beach with two lovely ladies and we sunbathed, talked, played in the surf. We walked.

And then, we took ourselves out for a late summer supper, complete with watermelon cocktails.

This summer has contained so many unexpected things that have left me unsettled, particularly the rain and the pain.

But the surprise of new friendships is a grounding experience and pretty awesome.

They Were Right

The sandflats are waterlogged right now, after a week? ten days? two weeks? of almost nonstop rain. Finding a moment to turn my face up towards the sky and catch the sun has demanded a bit of prophecy, a dash of good luck, and an unhealthy attachment to watching the radar. 

But last night I went for a walk under the first starry sky I'd seen in a long, long time. And seeing those pinpricks of light in the inky black sky flooded me with hope for a similarly clear sky in the morning. 

The night was thick with humidity, my hair curled against my neck. The air hung heavy with water vapor and sulfurous smoke from neighborhood fireworks. The frogs sounded out their symphony. Some screamed, some actually said "Ribbit." 

I kept looking up at the sky, at the stars. I thought about how one individual star doesn't mean much, in the massive firmament. We have assigned places in constellations to find them. Patterns we have found in the sky. Above all, I kept hoping this clear night sky meant a clear morning.

I have so missed the sun.

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Today's holiday dawned shrouded in mist. I made coffee, packed my car, and headed to the beach.

To Surf City.

To sand dunes.

To waves.

To sun.

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For nearly four hours, I basked, I walked, I swam, I surfed, I read, I watched, and I loved.

The waves pounded the beach - churning up sand, turning the ocean at the shore brown. 

Walking alone down the beach, I looked at people - on the shore, at the water's edge, in the ocean. The towheaded ten year old boy surfing with grace; the chubby two year girl flopping around and squealing with delight; the leather-skinned couple holding hands as the shuffled along. I thought about these people - these individual stars - and wondered, if I stared long enough, if I would be able to see the constellations they formed. If I could divine their connections to the bodies around them. 

And I was reminded that I had a place, whether I can see it or not. 

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(I am so glad they were right about the sun coming back.)

They Say

The sun is due back at the end of the week.

Lord, I hoping. Without the sun it's hard to appreciate the full glory of this summer of #crazyclouds (follow me on instagram @erinwouldratherwalk)

This morning, I received a e-newsletter from Blue Lotus, a yoga studio in Raleigh I am hoping to visit soon. The meditation that Jen offered was this:

Whatever it is that you are holding on to--and the list of possibilities is long: childhood baggage, unforgiven hurts, unhealthy habits, toxic relationships, I could go on and on-- chances are good that you didn't pick it up last week. Part of the holding on is, itself, a habit. And a habit takes time to really cement into your way of being.

So you recognize that you've got something tight in your fist (or your mind or your heart) that is holding you back. Whether it's animate or inanimate, it regularly has your attention, your time, your energy, and you've determined that there are better places to put those precious resources. How do you actually let go?

I love the quote "the only difference between a groove, a rut and a grave is depth". In yoga, these habits, or ruts can be called samskaras. For a quick definition, a samskara is the way you've always done it before- always leading to the same result.

While eventually we'd like to be free of samskaras, living ever-present in the eternal Now, that's a pretty lofty aspiration for most of us on the mortal plane. Unless you're clothed in gossamer, wings a-trailing behind you with a harp soundtrack, that might just not be for you this go round. What to do?

Start by doing something different. Make a new, healthier, more productive, accepting, compassionate groove. See the pattern about to repeat itself, white-knuckled and closed-hearted, and make a change. It can feel terrifying or exhilarating, but over time it feels lighter, more free. And eventually you look down and see that closed fist has softened to an open hand. Ready to receive something new.