Remembering

About five years ago I saw a mockingbird make a straight vertical descent from the roof gutter of a four-story building. It was an act as careless and spontaneous as the curl of a steam or the kindling of a star. 

The mockingbird took a single step into the air and dropped. His wings were still folded against his sides as thought he was singing from a limb and not falling, accelerating thirty-two feet per second per second, through empty air. Just a breath before he would have been dashed to the ground, he unfurled his wings with exact, deliberate care, revealing the broad bars of white, spread his elegant, white-banded tail, and so floated onto the grass. I had just rounded a corner when his insouciant step caught my eye; there was no one else in sight. The fact of his free fall was like the old philosophical conundrum about the tree that falls in the forest. The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there. 

-Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Somewhere around the time that the birds were warming up their singing pipes this morning, I rolled to my left in bed and saw a light behind my closed eyes. Huh? my fuzzy sleep-wrapped brain mumbled; my myopic eyes opened and squinted through the open blinds. The light came not from the horizon but from the sky. From the nearly full moon on this crystal clear morning.

How often are you woken by the light of the moon?

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I read the excerpt from Dillard's book in The Sun yesterday while travelling with friends down to Wilmington. It with with this reminder - that we are not the reason for the existence of beauty, that we merely have tools with which to appreciate it, should we choose to - that I strolled the streets of this coastal town.

Admiring equally the beautiful, old homes and their manicured gardens and the spray of wildflowers growing around the fence of an area in development. 

What is it about the bones of an old house? Beautiful yet treacherous. Directly across from one well-preserved was another that had been condemned. Chunks of wood tore from the front porch, the windows boarded up.

I want to know the story of that house. 

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Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, Dillard writes. 

Sometimes, I get so frustrated and impatient with trying to foresee the next turn that tracing will take. 

But sometimes, the light of the moon behind closed eyes is enough to wake you to the beauty of it.

Mountains

I know I've been posting irregularly but I've been busy going from the mountains in the east...

...to the west.

Be back soon.

28

I am flying to Denver, having been sent there for a conference that my new employer wishes me to attend. I am typing on my employer-issued laptop (never had such a thing), marveling at the shift my life has taken in the past two weeks.

Two weeks ago, I was flying home from a weekend in St. Louis where I celebrated the first three decades of my life with family and friends, with libations and foodstuffs, with talking and running.

My actual birthday dawned relatively clear and I took myself up to Raleigh, to the North Carolina Museum of Art, hoping that the weather would hold. Historically, it rains on my birthday; I tell myself this every year so that I am not disappointed when it does.

I bought myself some bread, some cheese, some fruit and headed there to the great expanse of green. The museum itself is closed on Monday, but the attached park is open all of the time. It was chilly when I arrived, the wind blowing across the hill, the sun trying to poke through the clouds.

I spread out a blanket and sat back. The sun, she came through.

From late morning until midafternoon, I laid about on that blanket in that park. Listened to the birds, watched a group of schoolchildren. Noshed on some bread with goat cheese, nibbled on some unripe mango. Savored the slow passing of time, loved the warmth and then even the burn that the sun gave my cheeks. Walked the paths, wondered at the trail of my life.

I thought about the upcoming weekend, the writer’s retreat in Little Switzerland, North Carolina at Wild Acres, on a hilltop near the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The afternoon turned rather warm and my face flushed painfully. I gathered my things and headed home, where friends waited to toast me.

And as evening, fell, it rained.

The rest of the week passed slowly; much like the laziness with which North Carolina has been getting around to summer, I tried to study this last week in slowness. I laid in the sun, shading my red face with a floppy hat. I went to town for iced tea. I did yoga, I ran. I gathered myself.

I read the stories assigned to the workshops I wanted to attend. I toyed with packing my coffee making equipment, wondered if my assigned roommate would find it charming or snobbish. But on Wednesday, I almost panicked, almost gave up my place, because I had to write an introduction to myself in no more than thirty words. As if I were going to be published in the magazine.

But you are not a writer, the voice in my head said plainly.

I stared stupidly at my email, thinking about the note I would compose. But then I stopped; I sat with my coffee and thought about what I have been doing the past few years of my life. Then, the introduction came easily, rose up from the depths:

Erin is a Midwesterner living in the North Carolina sandflats. Though dubbed “spatially challenged” by close friends, she has managed to run and write about twelve half marathons.

28 words to introduce myself to over 100 strangers.

30

In seven short minutes, it will be April 22, 2013 and I will turn thirty years old.

I've just arrived back in NC after a long weekend at home in St. Louis where I was pampered, fed, and toasted more times that I can count.

(I have a really amazing family. I can't thank them enough for the outpouring of love this weekend.)

Being in St. Louis, I also made sure to, once again, visit Queeny Park. I intended to run there each of my four days, however Mother Nature had some other plans. I landed early Thursday morning amid a torrential downpour that literally lasted all day. I had to avoid the park Friday because I was unsure of the trail conditions. But Saturday dawned bright and blue.

I ran the Hawk Ridge Trail, the path I cut my running chops on. I ran it, admiring the work and care the staff have put into the trail the past several years. I ran it smiling, loving the rich green of the rolling grassy hills.

Spring in St. Louis is beautiful.

I returned early Sunday afternoon, with a non-specific agenda. I knew I wanted to run the trails, as many of them as I could, and cover some distance.

So, much like 15 years ago, I simply headed out the door.

I let my feet carry me over gravel that I explored first cycling, then walking, then running. For the first time in a long time, my thoughts quieted almost instantly. They were there, they were rambling, but they murmured considerately. My head felt spacious.

I smiled at all of the folks I ran past. I admired the equestrians. I ran up and down hills, following the rolling ravines that is Queeny Park.

I thought, again, about how grateful I am to have been able to finding running and to have stayed healthy enough to continue with it all of these years.

I thought about how no matter what I bring to running, what I release through my feet into the ground and through my mouth into the air, I always walk away better for it. I always feel expanded. Broadened.

It is now 12:21 am and I can celebrate being on this earth for three decades.

Here's to many, many more.

Second Annual RunRaleigh Half Marathon

Today featured another predawn morning. Today I drank coffee, ate a bagel, and danced joyfully from foot to foot in anticipation.

Today I ran my twelfth half marathon.

(Today, thirty years ago, my mother was wondering why she wasn't in labor.)

Today I ran the race showcasing my favorite half marathon route in Raleigh. Today I thanked the stars that it was cool, it was dry, it was calm.

Today I laughed hard when I read the sign "Running is stupid" because nothing is further from the truth.

Today I ran my last race of my twenties, alongside 1200 other runners.  Today I hoped to PR overall but was confident my course record would be smashed.

Today I once again threw up a prayer of thanks for my health. Today I laughed and celebrated loudly - the gift of running, the beauty of this life, and the strange ways of the universe.

Today I ran a 1:52:45 - came 23 seconds shy of beating my Richmond time - and shaved over 7 minutes off last year's run time. (And today, I didn't walk up the dreaded hill on Ashe.)

Today, though I struggled, I finished well. Today I heard countless spectators say, "That's right!That's how you do it - run with a smile."

Today, I smiled. I smiled big because on mornings like this, I know I've lived a good life.

And today, I'm reminded: it's only going to get better.

Rest

Last Saturday, my friend Glenna and I went to the second annual YogaFest NC and were treated to a full day of well-planned amazingness.

I feel like I should recount the whole day to fully give props to the organizers, but I'm a tad distracted right now and there are two things I keep returning to:

1) Morning Meditation. The instructor who led this class spoke something to this effect: "Many of our experiences are emotional and do not require immediate action. In fact, they suffer from it. Get angry, get sad, get happy - observe it, process it, and then act on it."

2) Yoga Nidra. Yoga Nidra is referred to as "yogic sleep" and it uses savasana as a tool to take the student into different levels of consciousness. Our guide for this practice was a lively sprite of a yoga instructor who gave us a roadmap for where we were going by explaining she would first call our attention to each part of our bodies - twice - and then proceed with a visualization process.

The room was dark and slightly chilly. Nearly two hundred students lay in various forms of corpse pose. Glenna shared her sandalwood spray with two ladies near us. We all settled in. Our teacher began to speak.

Your right hand. Your right thumb. Your right second finger....

....Your right wrist. Your right forearm....

Up the right arm, down the right side, then she began again on the left. I felt a momentary warmth in the places she called my attention to. My breathing continued to level.

Now here's where it gets weird.

Somewhere around her pronouncing Your left shin my mind, my consciousness, went somewhere else. I heard her speaking but the words were washed into the hum of the harmonium. I was settled in my body, my skin a thin shell containing my soul.

What brought me back was a pain in the back of my head. I can only assume that my I had cut some circulation off to a surface vein on my skull in my stillness. When I swam up, our teacher was in the middle of ascending the chakras. She was at the root chakra when her words regained meaning. I followed her words as she ascended through the pillar of the body and then she had us take leave from the cave that she had brought us to while I was out hanging on some stars.

I think I'd like to go back there sometime.

Alive, I promise

Just finding my footing in this brave new world I've found myself in.

Two things of note:

1) This past Saturday I attended YogaFest NC. I will be back and I will encourage other Triangle-Area folks to check it out. March 22, 2014. Do it, y'all.

2) I ran 15 miles yesterday in cool spring winds and warm spring sun. I may have gotten "lost" but was happy all the same.

I'll be back with a more detailed post about YogaFest soon.

Promise.