Archive for May, 2014
Accidentally Blonde
I was a blonde once, by accident. For a year, maybe more.
It started with my sneaky hair stylist, who sported a spiky platinum ‘do herself. I wanted a change, nothing shocking. Just a spot of blonde, a wisp at my temple.
I was mid-divorce and needed something new. Something bold. Something me.
Or maybe something not me.
The wisp became a streak. The streak multiplied asymmetrically and soon became reminiscent of a zebra. Not so much later, the stripes became a layer and, shortly, the layer a helmet.
One morning as I brushed my teeth I caught my own eye in the mirror and gasped, stunned to find that I was blonde. I didn’t know, then, how it had happened, with me unawares.
Maybe I lost sight of who I was.
Or maybe I never knew.
I went out for a run to think on it, and it brought me to my senses.
The next day, I came back to me. Brunette. Mostly. Except for the wisps of gray sometimes peeking out at my temples.
Now in the mornings when I brush my teeth and catch sight of myself in the mirror, I know exactly who I am.
I smile through dribbled toothpaste, and then go out for a run.
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Happiness Is…
Peace. Calm. 
That’s the conclusion my friends and I came to this week. Peace and calm, we realized, is actually the precondition for happiness, at least for the three of us.
Each month, my friends and I meet to talk about the issues that pertain to running a business, leading as a woman. This month’s topic: happiness.
What makes you happy? The question that launched the discussion, based on an article we read in USA Today. Our answers weren’t what some may think—not money or material goods, not power or prestige, not hedonism. They are, in fact, the simple things.
Running.
Practicing yoga.
Sitting on the deck in the sun listening to the breeze stirring wind chimes.
Cleaning the garage.
Spending time with people we care about.
As we worked through the question of happiness, we realized that a sense of order, peace, calm was part of the equation. Creating order is a necessary component of happiness. The symmetry, cleanliness, beauty, peace come first. The result? Happiness.
Not the cleaning itself, but the having cleaned.
Not the writing itself, but the having written.
A goal met. A sense of achievement. And in the midst of it all, the flow of time suspended.
Which is what I get when I run.
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To Say It Makes It So
I’m in the process of writing a book about—wait for it—running. I know. Who’d have thought?
The book is part memoir—how running has transformed me personally and professionally—and part community collaboration. It will include the stories of remarkable women I’ve been fortunate to know here in San Antonio and how running has transformed them too.
It’s because of these women that I found the courage to write this book. And I was lucky enough to meet them because of the work I do as council director for Girls on the Run of Bexar County. Through it all, I am learning what it means to be part of a community. And I am learning so much more.
Writing is a tricky process. It comes in fits and starts, and sometimes goes even quicker. There are days when I can’t wait to get in front of my computer to dump out the piece of story that’s written itself in my head, and days when I can’t, for the life of me, string together one true sentence.
But it’s coming together nevertheless, slowly but surely. I’m half way there. Over the hump. Which is why I feel safe enough to say it out loud. And you know how words work. To say it makes it so.
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Dodging Hurdles, or the impetus to run
image from cutestlife.com
The first time I took up running it was because of a boy. A crush. I was starting junior high, seventh grade, and he was a year ahead of me. Naturally wavy blonde hair. Blue eyes. Athletic. I was tall and had long legs, and he suggested I try out for the track team. So I gave it a go.
The first day of try-outs, the coach looked at me, my height, the length of my legs and said, “You’re running hurdles.”
Hurdles? You mean my feet have to leave the ground and I need to open my body like a jackknife over that thing that looks like a traffic barricade?
The eighth grade boy nodded vigorously. I gave it a go.
“How about the high jump?” the coach suggested as she picked gravel out of my bloody knees. My body was not built to open like a jackknife. It preferred a straight line. If I could simply run and weave around the hurdles, straight flat-out running, maybe it would be all right.
I kept a brave face, even though my knees stung and the skin hung from them in tiny flecks like shredded cheese.
But the eighth grade boy nodded vigorously. So I gave the high jump a go.
On the first try, I sailed over the horizontal bar. Never mind that it was less than two feet off the ground and I could have hopped it on one foot. The coach clapped her hands and raised the bar twice as high, level with my waist.
I stepped back to the start line, sweating, and eye-balled the bar. Surely I could do this. The eighth grade boy was watching, as was the coach, my friends.
I ran toward the bar, planted my foot at the base, and sprung into the air, landing on my butt in the sand trap on the other side. I heard a sound like a bell clanging, and my forehead stung briefly. I blinked sand out of my eyes, pleased that I had made it, for the split second I thought I’d made it, and tried to stand up.
But all eyes were on me, and all mouths were open.
“What?” I said, but before I could say more, my eyes were forced shut. Blood poured down the right side of my face, into my eyes and the corner of my mouth.
I yelped as my hand flew up, swiping at the blood. I looked toward the bar, but it was not held aloft on the pegs. My foot had hit it, dragging down the support poles, one of which knocked me in the head.
I sat on the curb in front of the school alone and waited for my mom. Several stitches and a concussion later, I decided that running was not for me. And maybe neither was this eighth grade boy.
It would be twenty years until I took up running again. The second time, I took it up because of me.
There would be no one to impress. No one to determine my ability based on my appearance.
No one to tell me how far I could go or how fast, or to place obstacles in my path.
There would be only the long-fingered mango leaves beckoning me down the road in the star-soaked, pre-dawn darkness of Guam.
This time, I more than gave it a go. This time, it stayed.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Too Many Mind
In The Last Samurai, Captain Algren learns the Samurai way of life—and fighting—while held captive for a winter in a mountain village. During one brutal lesson in sword fighting, practiced with long sticks, Algren loses each bout pretty quickly.
Finally, Nobutada pulls him aside. “Too many mind,” he counsels Algren. You’re distracted. Stop paying attention to the spectators, the wind, the noise around you.
“No mind,” he instructs. Focus on the stick in front of you.
Clarity. Mind over matter, mind over body. No matter how many other ways I try to achieve it, for me it happens best when I run. My mind is often cluttered with noise, distraction. What I need most is clarity of mind over mind. Fortunately, I get that when I run.
Which is a good thing. Because, I’ve learned, if I don’t focus on the stick right in front of me, I may very well get beat with it.
I’d rather run.
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More Than Running... 