How fickle my heart and how woozy my eyes.

Disclaimer:

This is a blatant violation of my discretion policy and is an account of Grad School Decision Drama. While I wouldn't want to inflict being in my head on anyone, I think that I am the quintessential epitome of the undecided, divided, noncommittal persona. And that, by degree, someone out there can probably relate on some end of the scale. Even if you don't give the same credence to the man upstairs. You've been warned, He factors in a lot on this post here.

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As usually happens when life gets complicated or overwhelming, lyrics pop into my head. Yesterday's choice lines brought to you by Spoon (who else, honestly?):

Everything hits at once/ what you need is just what you wants.

In an effort at brevity I'm going to try to start with the facts:

The relevant fact: After thinking about what I wanted to do with my life (infer from the word "thinking" excessive analyzing, late night internet searches, meeting with people, collecting and weighing opinions) for oh, the past 8 years of my life, I committed at long last mid October, 2010, to the pursuit of Grad Studies. At BYU. In French. Let's just say that the decision had been long in coming, that I had tried to decide otherwise, but that I kept coming back to this. And it felt, well, good. Logical.

Thus began GRE prep and the frantic and mendicant search for recommendations. In an effort to give my professors ammunition with which to write said recommendations, I went back and edited my capstone projects. I also reread one of my French texts and completely redrafted the original papers I had written on that text. It was a lot of work, yes, but purposeful. It felt good to have some direction in my life.

Fast forward to this week. I have been accepted into BYU's program. I have, quite unexpectedly, been offered a full tuition scholarship that will likely be renewed next year as well. I have been given a position as student instructor which is, not only one of the better paying jobs on campus, but, pointedly, a fantastic learning opportunity. I will be under the tutelage of some of BYU's master educators to learn how to effectively teach the French language. In the process, I will have experience teaching college aged classes. This is a chance to get direction in my teaching goals: children, or adults?

I meet with the chair of the department and find out that certification does not accompany this degree. As I study the coursework required, I notice there is little emphasis in methodology and pedagogy, which has been my expressed interest ever since having met with an advisor last spring and was also expressed in my statement of intent essay. The program overview on the website also specifies that this degree can help prepare students for a degree in education. All of the sudden, I'm wondering, "HOW?".

I wonder if I should have actually applied for the Masters of Second Language Teaching degree, also offered at BYU. I visit with the advisor of THAT program and am told that the French linguist is retiring this year, that they are not sure when he will be replaced, nor of the quality of his replacement. Apart from the other obstacles such as, oh, the fact that I don't quite yet have the credentials to apply for the program and that the application dates have passed, this is the greatest obstacle. Even currently admitted French students are being told to carefully consider their acceptance into the program.

I meet with another advisor, one who spearheads the secondary certification program at an undergraduate level. None the more promising, as I'd have to pursue a Master's program and an undergrad program simultaneously, which would drag out my program and probably result it cut funding. If that was even allowed at all.

This last person I talked to looking for advice runs the dual immersion program. She spent over 2 hours on the phone advising me that the best thing to do, if I want to be a competitive candidate when I am done with my studies, is to actually get a degree in, not French, but Education. Though apparently my French is not up to par and would simultaneously need to be improved upon. She told me that she has an MA in French and that all it got her were part time jobs teaching at the community college or university. No benefits.

Thus it was that in the course of ONE week I learned that the program I thought I wanted not only didn't offer what I thought it would (and here I had thought to have done my research) but I was being told that it was, in essence, redundant.

Everything hits at once, alright.

I was talking to my lovely roommate this morning about how sometimes life would be easier if one didn't in fact believe in signs. If I didn't truly believe that there was someone (with a capital S) who didn't have my best interest at heart and knew what was best for me and who tried to guide me along my happy way with a series of nudges and winks. Because the minute you believe in nudges, winks, and wrong, good, better, and bests for your life, you start reading into EVERYTHING. At least if you are me you do.

The logic that followed the discovery that I may in fact need to rethink my whole education to include a PRACTICAL Masters of Education (and thus certification) and that this education could not start this fall but next fall, at an unknown institution went something like THIS (for full effect, read at speed times 1.5-2.5):

Deep breath. Deep breath. Listen to Spoon. Weird...that usually helps. K, so I thought doing the French program at BYU was the RIGHT thing for me to do. I mean, what the heck?! I've only been praying about it and felt good about it for year, possibly 2 depending on the relative usage of the word 'good'. But then again, I've felt good about things that have been wrong for me before. I mean, I even blogged about the futility of emotion, speaking of the frustration that comes when you try to assign meaning (especially moral meaning) to emotion. The Shins are genius: fatal flaw. So I felt good about something? So what? Maybe I assigned to that 'good feeling' the moral implication that that choice was 'right' and what if it being right has all just been in my head?! And I just kept feeling good about things because everything kept falling into place and now here I am, at a crossroads (ugh, cupcakes), "seeing the light" at the most inconvenient of times to see if I really have enough faith to take the plunge and do, not what I have been planning to do for the past year or so, but to wait a year and do what is practical. I mean, test of faith and all that. Like this is God's way of showing me that he knows best and that if I really believe that then I'll abandon ship. Because honestly the practical alternative doesn't exactly seem to GLIMMER with promise either. I mean, could things GET any more ironic?! And what if irony is the point? I mean, I think God wants us to act on our dreams and that he allows us that liberty and so maybe that's what he's been doing, just letting me tread my own path until he had to interfere, big time, with a sign or say, a phone call, with big red letters saying "Do not pass GO"? How many times have I heard that if we've made the wrong decision, He'll be sure to make that clear to us. So the ironic timing is not anyone's fault but my own for making the wrong decision initially. And really I'm just being ungrateful for feeling so inconvenienced. BUUUUUUT, maybe that's not the test at all. Maybe it's another kind of test...........................

Trust me, there's more. Much more. Lots of particulars. From which I'll generously spare you.

This or some point around this point in time is where there were tears. Most of the time, I cry because of overwhelming circumstances/feelings: joy, the absence of joy, hilarity, anger/frustration. Then there is the rare occasion when I singlehandedly induce brain coma, the trauma of which causes physical symptoms in the form of eye-duct leekage.

I did some room pacing. Listened to more music. Oh, don't worry, the Fray came on (don't judge me): We'd never know what's wrong without the pain / Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same.

Amen. But wait. So does that mean that because quitting my French program is hard that proves that it's the right thing? So sometimes things being hard is a sign things are wrong and sometimes things being hard is a sign that things are right........? Oh my stars. Just. Stop.

I called my mom. Those phone calls always help. Our joint conclusion was that I should stick with French. My personal conclusion was that I would rather make the wrong choice and be absolutely SURE of it being wrong instead of settling on another choice because my mind couldn't handle the second guessing; risking regret for the elimination of doubt so to speak. And then of course after the conversation was over I started to doubt her advice. Not because it is bad but because I am her daughter and it would follow that we draw conclusions from the same vein of inherited family logic and that maybe it was that logic that got me into this mess in the first place.

So I started a bit of research. I had been talking to my mom several days previously of my experience writing for the Century (institute magazine). It was on my mind. Then I remembered that I had in fact written an article about making decisions, drawing from other people's advice in turn to write it. I decided to track down that article, knowing that I had understood things once, and maybe a return to that understanding (especially as phrased by me) would be what I needed. Brought to you by my 22 year old self is the following article:

My father is fond of telling me, like an old war veteran who lived through the battles I am still fighting, how amusing he finds seeing me caught up in the “seeming cruciality” of life during college. Even with my eyes rolling at his amusement, I can’t blame him too much for the condescension of his post-crucial position; he has made life’s more crucial decisions and managed to live through them, and like a veteran, carries battle scars. That warrants a bit of respect, if not awe, as he was at the time a hippy, who achieved longer and blonder hair than I could ever hope for.

“Seeming” or not, however, I think it is a fact that as college students we are assaulted with crucial decisions all the time. Once we have chosen to “follow him”, becoming the person he would like us to be seems to be complicated by these decisions: Do I really want to date this person? Do I really want to stop dating this person? Am I going on a mission? Do I go to this college? What will I major in? Should I change my major? What classes should I take? Am I going to graduate school? Do I accept this job? Do I quit this job? Do I want to continue listing examples? No, not really. That one was easy.

Most of these decisions, however, are not. And if they are not necessarily difficult they are certainly important in determining our future landscapes and choices. And if you are anything like me, even the insignificant decisions can be overwhelming. I think, though I am not completely certain, that have pinpointed the cause of my habit of tardiness down to the failure of being able to make decisions: what shampoo do I use? What cereal do I want? What shoes do I wear? Do I really need a jacket? Yes, I am one of those people who cannot order until everyone else at the table has done so, until I have asked the waiter’s advice, and then thought about it for a couple minutes more. At which point, I will probably change my mind.

Though I have been told that my indecisiveness is not “normal”, I do know that I am not the only one who has found themselves wishing that for many crossroads I approached, a green flashing arrow would appear to point me in the “right” direction. Because believe me, I would take it. In many situations, it is not a failure to “choose the right”, but the lack of “an obvious right”. In the midst of so many possibilities, especially those which are often not black and white but equally favorable, I think we find ourselves wishing for an intervention, for an elimination of possibilities so that all that would remain is an outline of what “the best” way is for each of us to follow. Why is it that it is so tempting to wish away the very thing that our existence was fought over: our free will, our ability to choose?

It is not that many of us lack the desire to “choose the right“. That is why we seek the guidance of something we think greater and more correct than ourselves. But I hope to remember that desire is not enough when I am at that next crossroads. Choice is a defining action that is qualified by our possibilities. The ability to make decisions for myself and amount of decisions I have to make is something that separates me from the innocent person I was at age five. This ability-to go the extra ten percent from wanting to make a wise decision to actually making one- separates the complacent from the committed and is integral to the process of growth.

The inspiration to help make those decisions that really are “crucial” relies on the action on our part of making a decision first and then bringing it to the Lord: “There’s a fine balance between agency and inspiration. We’re expected to do everything in our power and then to seek an answer from the Lord, a confirming seal that we’ve reached the right conclusion.” (Bruce R. McConkie, New Era, Jan. 1975, 38 ). If we have the faith that those decisions will be taken care of with the Lord’s help, there is no need to become overwhelmed by many possibilities nor to take them for granted. The mere existence of possibilities is evidence that we are truly blessed. Rather than be hesitant or overwhelmed as we consider the decisions and possibilities before us, I hope we can remember that. Did you know, for example, that the University of Utah offers a “Pleasure of Chocolate” course? What kind of luxury is that!? Will I be taking that class next semester? Hands down. Probably.

Nothing life changing there, and I totally judge myself for using the word crossroads then and using it again today, but there was something in the juxtaposition about commitment and complacency that I needed to read. It was also nice to see that I have improved in some of my chronic indecisive habits. Or at least I hope so.

I continued my search for wisdom outside of the family vein. Courtesy of Elder Jeffrey R. Holland and perhaps what was to me the most helpful thing I read is this, excerpts from his "Cast not away therefore your confidence":

"It is the plain and very sobering truth that before great moments, certainly before great spiritual moments, there can come adversity, opposition, and darkness. Life has some of those moments for us, and occasionally they come just as we are approaching an important decision or a significant step in our life.

Moses' message to you today is, "Don't let your guard down." Don't assume that a great revelation, some marvelous illuminating moment, or the opening of an inspired path is the end of it. Remember, it isn't over until it's over.

I wish to encourage every one of you today regarding opposition that so often comes after enlightened decisions have been made, after moments of revelation and conviction have given us a peace and an assurance we thought we would never lose.

If it was right when you prayed about it and trusted it and lived for it, it is right now. Don't give up when the pressure mounts. Face your doubts. Master your fears. Stay the course and see the beauty of life unfold for you."

Elder Holland's words struck a chord and made me think of Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist, which is essentially the story of a quest for dreams and the signs along the way:

"Before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we've learned as we've moved toward that dream. That's the point at which most people give up. It's the point at which, as we say in the language of the desert, one 'dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon'. Every search begins with beginner's luck. And every search ends with the victor's being tested."

The advice from these two men complements each other. Each is essentially saying the same thing in different terms, and from a different context. But isn't encouraging when your sources add up? Ben oui.

At some point I remembered the maxim of my current Bishop: "Don't take counsel from your fears-it is bad council ALL the time. Take counsel in your faith."

Essentially, my fear was making the wrong decision and being too stubborn, too blind, or too mind-spun to recognize it or being too stubborn, too lazy, or too proud to make the right one. I thought a lot about fear. I got a little philosophical, perhaps.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized what a silly waste of time it is: fear of pain, fear of loss, fear of failure or anything is usually worse than the pain the loss or whatever else itself. I think someone has said that originally. The reason why the fear of the thing is worse than the thing itself is because, in fear, the thing is not a reality. It exists as only a figment of a handicapped imagination and depending on one's prowess in the realm of imagination, can become quite the monster. Because it is only a figment of the imagination, one is immobile and cannot act in that same realm. When you are in a position that is unpleasant, you have no other choice but to act, to deal with it.

If one thing can be said of the human race it is that we are no strangers to adaption. And that ability to adapt is no more apparent in our ability to find contentment regardless of circumstance. But when we fear we don't allow in our imagination any room for the ability to adapt. Because adapting exists in the now. As does acting. The other thing I know about us humans is our ignorance of our own strengths and limitations. Often I will live through something unpleasant and then, once the moment has passed, I look back with both relief and awe, and either a kind of remembrance or a kind of forgetting. Somehow, looking back, things don't seem as hard as they felt at the time. In a sense, it's as if we don't realize our own pith until we are seeing ourselves from a distance.

Basically, my conclusion didn't change from my conversation with my mom but I do feel better about it: I am still going to pursue French. Even if it is a pointless degree and even if that is hopelessly naive and quite possibly not the 'right' choice. If there even is one to be had in all this. This kind of optimism and naivite arises from the fact that I already have a degree that is deemed useless by most and have landed the best job a person can ask for. I just want more options, more schooling. And is it so horrible that I think that things can get even better?

Taking again from Coelho (this time from Manual of the Warrior of Light): "On some nights, [the Warrior of Light] has nowhere to sleep, on others, he suffers from insomnia. ‘That’s just how it is,’ thinks the warrior. ‘I was the one who chose to walk this path.’ In these words lies all his power: he chose the path along which he is walking and so has no complaints."

I guess in the end, perhaps the most important question I can ask myself is the rhetorical, 'How can a decision be the right one if I am not willing to fight for it?' Even if that means being proven wrong in the end. French, as silly and slave driving as it is, is my dream. And if I don't have the wherewithal to pursue it, I can't really claim it as mine. If things blow up in my face or if at some point down the road I have regrets, at least I will know that I chose this, that I did so out of faith, and that I can adapt to meet the difficulties WHEN they come.

And there you have it: the inner working of my brain complete with pep talk and lyrics.

/ Awake, my soul /

13.1. Ish.

My dad asked me yesterday if I remembered "Sunny the runner!" He was met with a raising of eyebrows, not only from myself, but from my mother as well.

So let me tell you about Sunny the runner. Apparently when we moved into this (being my parent's) house there was something about the long stretch of uninterrupted sidewalk that fascinated me. And of course as everyone knows, the beauty of sidewalks is the breaks in them: the cracks that, if stepped on, won't actually break your mother's back but rather break up what would otherwise be a monotonous stretch of concrete. I can't imagine what my childhood would have been like had sidewalks not had cracks in them.

(It just so happens that the cracks are not designed with my childhood happiness in mind. It turns out that breaking up the concrete in the form of a sidewalk allows for contraction in hot or frigid temperatures. I imagine some engineer figured the ideal length for each particular section. Calculations. Trial and error. Either way, I think it's perfect. Not too short, yet not too long.)

Now to tell you the truth, I can't remember that fascination. But I can imagine it. Which is almost as good as remembering. Really the only details I have is what my father recounts: that I used to run back and forth along the sidewalk in front of my house and my dad would cheer me on from the sidelines (likely the grass or the porch), saying 'Sunny, the Ruuuuuunnnnnnneeeeerrrrrr".

"Did I run barefoot?" I asked him.
"Probably" he told me.
"Of course I did."

I don't even know why I asked the question. I may not have any substantial memories of Sunny the Runner but I do know that I never enjoyed wearing shoes as a child. And I do know that I cannot possibly recreate a memory of my younger, freer self running along the sidewalk, dodging the cracks with all the agility a child under 5 can possess while wearing shoes. Shoes just don't hold any place in that memory. They don't hold place in most of my childhood memories.

Thus today was the fulfillment of a long forgotten prophesy: Sunny the Runner!

Because this day has been long in coming, this story is going to be long in the telling. You've been duly warned.

I woke up Friday morning. I was well rested. I had slept soundly, peacefully. It was 5:45. I was awake. I was alive. And I was not nervous. I took a deep breath. Whoooooooh. This is it, I told myself.

Except that it wasn't. Because my race was on Saturday.

Three weeks prior I had done a 10 miler in my vibrams. The last 1/2 mile was tiresome but I felt good. I was due to run 12 the following week and then scale down the last two weeks before the race. My foot had felt a little off before the run and even more so after. It was like the front end of it needed to pop but couldn't. It was more uncomfortable than painful. I ran 3 miles the following Tuesday and hypothesized that maybe I wouldn't get my 12 miler in after all. I stayed off my foot the rest of the week and instead of feeling better, the discomfort turned into pain that never stayed quite in the same place and actually got worse.

The result was an obsessive harassment in the form of 20+ questions to anyone who had ever had a running related injury, knew about feet, muscles, tendons, bones, and running shoes. I bought 4 pair of running shoes in one week, deciding to keep the new vibrams and the Nike Frees, which are about as minimal as you can get. They are supposed to promote a midfoot strike, like the vibrams and felt more natural than anything else out there. Not wanting to subject my tender feet to 13 miles of concrete, I opted to do my last two 3 miler training runs the week before my race in these shoes. It wasn't what I would call natural but then again, it had been over a year since I'd run in actual shoes. and I was sore afterward in muscles I don't usually feel sore in after running, but the verdict was that I was not injured and would run the race anyway.

Friday night I go to bed, my foot a little sore from running around in boots picking up my race bub. It was later than planned and I meticulously set two alarms on my phone. One for 5:26 and the other for 5:32. Because I am more-than-slightly paranoid, I set, on a whim that turned out to be inspired, a third alarm for 5:45. That was later than I needed to be up, but it was my backup, in case I somehow managed to be so tired that I turned off my other two alarms instead of snoozing them when I woke up. My phone told me that I had just set the alarm for two days 7 hours and 36 minutes from now. I had set the alarm for Monday, you see. Luckily I changed the day, went to bed and slept a not-entirely-peaceful 7 hours and 36 minutes.

If you did the math you would realize that I woke up, not at 5:26 nor 5:32. Because both those alarms had been set for M,T,W,TH,F. Not Saturday. My backup alarm turned out to be the only one that sounded. I sprung out of bed. Thank-you-for-an-excessive-awareness-of-my-own-shortcomings-or-obsession-compulsion-disorder-or-whatever-it-was-that-made-me-set-that-third-alarm, was the entirety of my breathless morning prayer. P.S. Please let me not fall and break my face, finish, and not break anything in the process.

I let with plenty of time to make it to the starting line. I had planned to park at the stadium and take trax. Get to the stadium and the parking lot is closed. Park at the institute. Run to the trax and then realize that I left my bib, which is simultaneously my entrance ticket and my chip, in my apartment.

So by the time I get my stuff, park and speed walk to the start line since Trax is no longer an option, I am just in time for the announcement and for the national anthem. The moral of this part of the story is that I am basically incapable of being on time. And that my brain doesn't work that early in the morning.

The race starts off so slow people can barely walk for the first quarter of a mile, let alone run. There were around 8,000 participants. Part of me just wanted to be able to see the road laid out in front of me and the other part of me got this huge thrill akin to butterflies in seeing the crowds filled the blocked off streets. It felt like we were taking over the world.

Once we got running it was chaotic. There was the guy in the speedo. The guy in the spandex cheetah suit that covered everything but his eyes. There was the old man that was pushing 90, no joke. The kids that had to be younger than 8 and doing, I'm guessing, the 1k. About a half mile in I passed two women running in vibrams. I pulled out my headphones and asked them if they were doing the 1/2. They were. And I wanted to tell them my whole sob story/obsession about the vibrams. Mostly I wanted to run with them. And hug them. They were, after all, my people. But instead I told them they were awesome and just kept running.

Three miles in found me doing a 9:12 pace. It was almost effortless, all that running downhill. I kept getting distracted looking at people's shoes, analyzing their feet striking and marveling at how skinny some people's legs were and how defined others were. Running styles are a funny thing. It's amazing the things that some people make work for them. I'm sure people look at me and think the same thing. What I have always wanted was to run like one of those people who make it look like breathing; who make it look so natural you can't help but want to get up and run, no, sprint. Watching people sprinting doing this is one thing. People who can run like that at a marathon pace though, now that's something to aspire to.

I found myself running past my street and was half tempted to go off course a 1/3 of a mile to say hi to the fam. Just then one of my fellow runners started moving his hands to the beat in his eardrums. I imagined that he was listening to something on broadway, or maybe Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's "The Details of the War" the way he was getting into it. He reminded me of my summer in Colorado and of my many runs that ended in my victory dance lap around the soccer field at the bottom of the mountain in which I ran/skipped/dance to one last song. If I hadn't been running I might have hugged him and thrown an impromptu dance party right there.

A mile and a half later I decided to break out my shot blocks and get some carbs and electrolytes into my system. Try as I might, my little fingers were slightly swollen and numb and I could not for the life of me tear the wrapper. Naturally, I attacked with my teeth. This went of for about 3 minutes. I'm sure I look ridiculous and I have suspicions that I ran sideways, back and forth. Like a drunkard, but not.

Finally I gave up on that end of the wrapper and turned the darned thing around. Same thing. But I managed to make a tiny hole and attacked again, with all my little teeth had in me. I tore away some of the plastic. And. You guessed it. I inhaled it.

So there I am running along sugarhouse park and gagging like a maniac. The good news is I'm pretty no one really paid any attention to me. The other good news is I spat it out, didn't stop running and well, didn't die.

A few minutes later at mile 6 I met up with my parents who were waiting diligently with my vibrams and my dad's camera phone. I was feeling good about my Nike Frees and so I told them to keep the shoes but take my jacket. A quick hug later and I was jumping the curb and turning onto 27th.

I saw two kids from my school along 27th and felt like a superhero seeing their eyes light up as the recognized me running by. Of course, they weren't watching for me but I was the benefactor of their presence nonetheless.

Somewhere between mile 7.5 and 8 my hips started to hurt. I tried to concentrate on maintaining my form. But the pain moved to my knees and my IT band-on both knees. Now it should be known that after 3 months or so of trying to get into running way back in 2009 I hit a wall. That wall was IT band pain. I couldn't get past 3 miles without it and it would put me out of commission for about two weeks every run. That wall is what led to barefoot running and the fact that I never had to deal with that pain once I started barefoot is what kept me doing it. That and the feeling like I was a gazelle when I sprinted at the end of my run. Don't overestimate that gazelle feeling. It totally compensated for torn up, blistered feet.

So here I was at mile 8 and I was in pain that wasn't getting better but worse. it was at this point that I started to wish I had taken the vibrams. Actually, I wished I had just done the whole thing in vibrams and kept asking myself why I thought shoes would be the answer when I hadn't learned to keep my form while running in them....

I ran through the pain til almost mile 10 when I got desperate and called my Dad. I had to start walking. Dad, I said. I think I need my vibrams. My knees are killing me. Do you think you can find me? Not that I didn't know where I was. I just didn't know where I was going to be by the time he could drive to meet me. Basically I was asking him to navigate and tell the future. Sure, he said. Naturally. I held onto my phone waiting his call. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.

Like a champ, he navigated the side streets of downtown salt lake and met me at liberty park, out of breath because he practically ran to get to me. I plopped on the grass and wrestled to get my feet into the vibrams. I almost left my phone on the grass and decided, on a last minute whim, to keep my shoes after all.

I'd like to say that once in the vibrams everything was as it should be. I'd like to say that I ran the rest of the race.

The truth was, the damage was already done. I got another mile and a half out of the vibrams and while it was wonderful to be in them again, the transition was awkward. I trudged along and luckily I was still running like a champ when I passed another kid from my school. This one I yelled at. Pretty sure I only got his attention because I was waving to him with hands holding bright, clean, white shoes. I like to think that the kids get the same kick out of seeing me as I do from seeing them but I'm pretty sure I get way more out of it. That kept me going another quarter of a mile or so and then I was convinced that whatever muscle or tendons that attached themselves to my knees were going to snap and I stopped to do some stretches. Thus began the stretch, walk, run series that lasted another mile. I can't decide if those stops, those lulls in momentum make things worse or better. All I know is that I was mad at my body. It had never given me that much grief at 8 miles, not even ten. And I had taken those miles easy, slowed down, changed shoes and still no respite from the pain.

I finally decided that the vibrams didn't lend themselves well to speed walking and I changed back into the shoes. The pattern then became run-until-I-start-to-almost-cry and then speed-walk-until-I-am-angry-enough-at-myself-and-the-irony-of-not-hurting-when-I-walk to start running again. I told myself that once I got to the top of the incline leading to main I wasn't allowed to walk anymore. Again, that lasted only 1/5 of a mile when my body started to rebel and threaten what I was sure was snappage. Why do I willingly inflict this much pain on myself, I kept asking myself. I know I'm masochistic but really, self, this time you've taken things too far. It's not like I'm getting a baby out of it. Yes, I was convinced that the only other self-inflicted pain worse than running at that point was childbirth. So I just told myself to take deep breaths.

It didn't matter that I had the best playlist in my history of running playlists. Kings of Leon, Regina, Phoenix, they just weren't taking me outside myself and beyond my pain. Not even Kesha, who I sold out on and actually purchased just for that run. Go ahead and judge me. Your love's not my drug anyway. And you probably don't have a beard.

I was torn with both inspiration for the people who kept running by me and deep resentment for their ability to do so without pain. I wished I was telepathic so that I could know if they were in just as much pain as I was and not being pansies like me just so that I could reverse-pschyologize myself into running without any walking breaks. I tried sprinting, hoping that the obligatory change in form that sprinting necessitated would assuage my grinding joints. No such luck. My muscles, my lungs, everything felt fresh. It was just my joints that cried out in protest.

But that last 1/2 mile, that was golden. I did not stop to walk. I was passed by the man who finished the marathon first. Yes, he had run and finished a full marathon before I could finish a half. It inspired me. The narrowing route and the thickening crowds offered a kind of consolation. As did the notion, which was as good as truth as I thought it, that, like the Grinch's heart, my calves had grown three times their size that day. I would be a liar if I didn't confess to the fact that I love what running (barefoot!) does for my calves. So yes, my own calves inspired me.

Like everyone else at the finish line, I sprinted. There was a moment that I got emotional and I thought I was going to cry but as I was still in pain I thought it best to not start because the emotional tears could get physical. I was probably the only person in all those 8,000 to cross carrying shoes. When I stepped over the finish pad and clocked in my 2:21 I was just so glad to be done with it on the one hand. On the other was the dissatisfied "That's it?! Now what?"

So there you have it, the evolution of Sunny the Runner, from sidewalks to shopping plazas. Am I glad I did it? Yes. Did I become addicted to the race mentality as I feared? No. Will I do it again? Of course.

You see, I live off of dreams, not accomplishments. Having a goal makes feel more alive sometimes than achieving it. If I have a goal, I know where I stand. If I accomplish something, I feel lost in the possibilities of trying to figure out what to do next.

I'm always wanting things to change me. To leave such an imprint on me that I am never the same. I thought that finishing a race would do that to me. I read in a book last night the description of a character: "Manna was one of those people," the author says "who would experience ecstasy but not happiness". I think that I am one of those people who would experience more happiness were I not too preoccupied with waiting for ecstasy. You'd think that I'd have learned by now that the things that change a person happen in the quiet of the journey.

The best thing about this race is that it left something to be desired. Namely, a race RAN in its entirety and in one pair of shoes. My new goal: train on whatever terrain I want and in whatever shoes I want for 16 miles. Do not fall and hit my face. Do not break anything in the process. Then run another half. And run it. Not because that one race will change me. But because of all the sidewalks the cracks the cheers from grass the running skipping dancing laps the feel of the ground beneath my feet the wind in my hair the rain sometimes the pain in my side and of course the pain in my feet the beat in my head the muteness of sprinting in almost bare feet the taste of the sunset at dusk that make me remember give me something to look forward to and make me free.

Lie #5

Two birds on a wire /
One tries to fly away.

..and the other....

je croirai tout.
il y a rien que je comprendrai pas.

Beenalittletoomuchtruthandnotenoughmonster.

Fall in the Springtime

Wrote this in February. Seems appropriate now. Yeah, pretty much.

Mid-February
of a pregnant winter
and still they cling.

As faint and tattered stains
terminating the dark silhouetted tree branches:
the gray sky like a sidewalk stricken with cracks.

Somehow, where the lines are thinnest,
they catch the wind;
the branches to which they hold,
less still,
and out of place.

Still,
a slight rustling,
like hands waving.
A reminder, of sorts:

That after hours,
seasons, minutes, days
of weathering
the snow sleet icicles wind rain,
defying gravity, (among other laws):
they will not fall.

Until the branches bring forth blossoms,
that push in a refusal of cohabitation,
and grow them out
and into downward flight.