The Willingness and the Stuff

When we moved into our house back in 2005, Dad and I painted the whole first floor while Nels was away on a business trip.  Mom found it endearing that the couple who owned the local hardware store closed early on Wednesdays so they could go golfing.  It was a memorable time with my parents, even as the painting process seemed impossibly long and tedious.  Mom said it was their best vacation, but that may have been the fumes she inhaled from the solvent she used to scrape old paint from the wood trim. 

Fast forward to the present and the need for change is in the air again.  But…but. You know how it is when something needs to get done, but the job is so big you want to pare your ambitions down to lying on the couch and binge-watching The Crown?  Luckily, when Nels asked when I wanted to start painting, I said, “tomorrow” and he thought I meant it.  The painting tools came out of the shed, new supplies were purchased at Ace Hardware, and raggedy t-shirts and sweatpants were dragged out of drawers.

We had to start where painting always starts, the ceiling.  After two days of moving paint sheets around and trying to determine if I had actually painted sections or was just painting the same space over and over, we were done.  The ceiling was a vast sea of whiteness and I couldn’t tell where I had been and what I had missed.  I still can’t.

After diving into Pinterest, I was convinced that the walls should be blue to contrast with the brown furniture.  Plus I wanted a darker color to pop against the new white windows we were putting in.  But what shade of blue?  How light, how dark?  How gray, how purple?  Then I brought home some samples and realized there was no freaking way I was committing an entire floor to blue.  I gave up on being creative and went with Benjamin Moore’s Edgecomb Gray, a reasonable neutral guaranteed to look good in sunlight and shade. 

There is a lot to know about paint and painting.  And what you know about painting, you have to know about yourself.  Benjamin Moore has a paint style called Aura which dries really fast and requires a different painting technique.  Sorry, no.  Neither one of us felt like experimenting.  This project also reinforced our knowledge of one another.  Nels is the detail guy and painted four coats of white, two of primer, two of paint, on all eight dark-stained window frames.  Because the semester was starting, I was only available in fits and starts.  While I was happy to take down art and switchplates, spackle holes, wipe down surfaces, and roll some first coats of color, he ended up doing 90% of the work.   I am proud that he let me paint some of the baseboard heaters.   That showed his faith in me, as those required some technique.  Our relationship survived because we stuck within our respective zones—I picked the colors and did the sloppy grunt work and Nels did everything else.

Speaking of couples who let each other do what they do, my Aunt Charlotte and Uncle Andy have been married for a very long time and are clearly used to each other’s quirks.  She still laughs at his goofy jokes and puts up with his stubbornness, and he ensures that she, who needs an oxygen tank 24/7 and can only see peripherally, has what she needs. 

Aunt Chartie (or as I grew up calling her, Aunt “Shotty” from my mother’s southern pronunciation) and I talked on the phone shortly after Thanksgiving.  She and Uncle Andy had gone over to a friend’s house, and the friend, in his 80’s just like them, had served cranberry sauce from a can.  Later that week, Andy decided he wanted real cranberry sauce and made it himself with her input.  She and I discussed what it took to do something like that outside the context of holiday requirements.  She said, “It takes the willingness and the stuff.”  Not only does a person have to want to put in the time, but they also have to obtain what is needed and have support. 

I recalled this as Nels and I were painting over the last six weeks.  It was a huge project and we just had to make the decision to begin.  Luckily, we could afford to buy the paint and our schedules are somewhat flexible, so we had the willingness AND the stuff.  Similarly, a student must be willing to learn, but she must also have the “stuff”--including time, support, and adult care, to do the work.   Too often we forget that there are multiple aspects to learning.

Aunt Chartie died last week at the age of 85.  Every time I look at our freshly painted home, or work with students, I will remember her words. 

Sept. 11: Memory and Unpredictability

        There are many ways to mark time.  Some do it in terms of decades or important events, like weddings or birthdays or graduations.  There are also the dates of catastrophic events, such as FDR’s statement on Dec. 7, 1941 as a “date which will live in infamy” when Pearl Harbor was bombed and the U.S. declared war on Japan.  People also remember where they were on Nov. 22, 1963, when John F. Kennedy was assassinated.  Those dates shaped their respective generations.  Sept. 11, 2001, the day of the World Trade Center and Pentagon bombings, as well as the crash of Flight 93 in the bucolic Pennsylvania countryside, shaped mine. 

        As I ran through Colt State Park this morning, I was struck by how similar this morning was to the same date 16 years ago, a thousand miles apart.  Clear skies, cool and sunny, low humidity.  When I got home from my walk that morning, Nels was on the phone in his office and gestured for me to turn on the television in the bedroom across the hall.  The first tower was a smoking mess and then I watched another plane fly into the second tower.  I could only sit there on the edge of the bed and cry as the commentators tried to make sense of what was happening.  When I finally roused myself to go to work, everyone looked as shell-shocked as I felt. 

         It was clear from the very first plane crash that life was going to be forever changed and a deep feeling of dread lasted for months.  I had never, ever listened to talk radio, but found myself glued to NPR.  Steve Inskeep’s calm voice narrated the unfolding events each morning, and also provided glimmers of hope and moments of compassion even as the news remained dismal.   

For the first time in 16 years, I was caught by surprise this morning when I checked the date.  I often commemorated the date in my morning journal, but not always.  Here are a few excerpts from past years:

In 2002, my cousin, 42 at the time (younger than I am now), died suddenly of heart failure during the first week of September.  It clearly felt like too much to deal with post-Sept. 11 mania:

I feel like I’ve been riding this torrent of media overload the entire week prior to this day, and now it will be even worse.  I don’t understand this.  I don’t want to relive that day nor the weeks that followed.  Why do others want to do so? ...I still remember the shock, I remember the numbness of the day…Plus I’m dealing with my own grief about David’s death.  It’s not that I have cried.  I mostly have felt numb, again.  I keep thinking wow, I’m over it as I go about my daily business, but I’m not.  I think about him and his family often.  I just see him in the coffin with all that makeup on.  He didn’t look asleep; he just looked dead. 

In 2005, I wrote:

Four years ago today.  It seems longer than that.  It seems like we have always lived under this administration in this fear-mongering world, where a constant state of worry holds us hostage.  But then I look out and see the geese flying by, and I feel okay again about the world.  It’s a temporary feeling and as fictional as the fear, I suppose.  The world is what it is.  It’s just so difficult to see that and not all the crap we put around it.

In 2010, it was simply: “Here it is, September 11.  Nine years later.  I remember.”

On the tenth anniversary, I wrote:

It’s 5:55 on the 10^th anniversary of Sept. 11.  I have done my mourning and thinking already this week.  I just hope that there is no new fresh disaster.  Like others, I have remembered where I was, how I thought the world changed at the time…I see how I’ve changed now…I see how proud we can be of all who worked together to perform rescue operations.  But I also see that the over-patriotism, the arrogance, the ethnocentrism in those American flags waving from cars.  It feels like overcompensating. 

In 2013, I wrote:

Ahh…I just realized what day it is.  The 12^th anniversary.  I’ve been thinking about it on the beautiful mornings, because I’ll never forget how great that walk was that day, how I felt so lucky and encouraged, and then how I came home and saw the television.  The impact of that day is still inscribed in my physical and emotional body like no other non-personal event. 

In 2014, six months after my friend Jenn died in a car accident, I wrote:

And now today is the anniversary of Sept. 11.  When I think about days that changed me, this is up there.  In a way, it’s like learning of Jenn’s death.  It seemed so impossible that something like that could happen, and at first the dread that something more could happen, and then the long years of war afterward, which was about fear and mourning, but also about coming together.  Maybe that’s what needs to happen for those of us grieving for Jenn. 

            We all have ways of remembering the events that demonstrate the world is not orderly or predictable.  These same events also, paradoxically, remind us that developing a sense of calm and stability supports our best selves and work (maybe even survival).  As a character from Elan Mastai’s book, All Our Wrong Todays, said, “There’s no such thing as the life you’re supposed to have.”  True, but we have a responsibility to be our best selves regardless in spite of—or because of—events like Sept. 11.

From Neil Young to Jesus: Resistance has a Big Tent

Oh Alabama

Can I see you and shake your hand

Make friends down in Alabama

I’m from a new land

I come to you and

See all this ruin

What are you doing?

Alabama, you have the rest of the union

To help you along

From “Alabama” from Harvest by Neil Young (released in 1972)

When the first chords of any Neil Young guitar lick—as recognizable as my mother’s voice—hit my ear, I perk up immediately.  In the middle of a show at the Narrows from their strong new album, Duende, a member of the Band of Heathens said, “This is for Jeff Sessions,” and ripped into “Alabama,” Neil Young’s lament about southern racism.   After the raucous applause which included a yell of “Fuck Trump,” to hearty crowd affirmation, the lead singer grinned.  And then he said, “Music is about bringing people together, not splitting them apart.”

I had a similar experience attending a live performance of The Moth at the Zeiterion Theatre last week.  It seemed like everyone I knew, from my mother-in-law to my yoga teacher to my colleagues to my students knew about this radio show/podcast except for me.  When I asked what it was about, they just said, “It’s so great!”  It turns out that the Moth is comprised of stories.  The host opened the show by noting that stories were for everyone, even in this acrimonious time.  Five people came onto the stage and shared 10 minute personal narratives of varying humor and pathos.   Even though Donald Trump played a major part in one of the stories, the point was not to praise or to denigrate; but simply to tell the story in which he was a character.

These experiences, along with listening to some of my favorite music this week (Avett Brothers, Frank Turner, Wailin’ Jennys, Mavis Staples and of course Hamilton), helped me understand and embrace the role I want to take in this divisive and scary time:  that of someone who brings people together.  I am not a moderate in my political beliefs: my lefthandedness and my leftist priorities are in harmony.  That said, I think it’s time to widen the tent. 

 It troubles me to make this kind of space in some ways.  For example, I never thought I would be cheering on billionaire Eli Broad, a pariah to public educators, except in his vocal opposition to Betsy DeVos.  I also wonder about those folks against abortion who name themselves as feminists.  Do we have to turn in our leftist credentials to include them in an anti-Trump movement?  It’s fine for us to question each other in ways to get each other to think, as in the women of color noting and critiquing the whiteness of the women’s march.  Where were white women in the Black Lives Matter movement, they ask?  I supported that, but I also felt a little queasy seeing it written across a white girl’s stomach at the Newport Folk Festival two years ago.  I have spoken to many white middle class women who don’t quite know what to do.  We don’t want to be colonialist, and we are not sure how to be activists and not speak for oppressed people instead of with them.   I hope this larger resistance will create space for all of us to feel comfortable talking and listening to each other. 

In this larger tent of resistance, I think of Jesus with the loaves and fishes, expanding who can be nourished.  We need the ranters who seem to be at the forefront right now, but we also need strategists and spaceholders.  How can we cultivate unlikely allies such as Eli Broad, anti-abortion feminists and radical people of color?  How about moderate conservatives in Congress who have been afraid to stand up to this administration and their leadership?  Do we all not at least agree that we want Trump and Pence out of the Oval Office?  Even as there may not be compromises on certain issues, I hope that inclusivity and peace can be the hallmarks of this resistance. 

Let’s remember:

-We are the majority.

-We want love and justice for all people.

-Politicians want votes and corporations want our business. 

That is, we have immense power.  Let’s use it.  Together.

The Politics of Friendship

“I am convinced people with opposing opinions politically cannot be friends.”

I was at the Women’s March in Providence when I checked Facebook and saw that post from one of my oldest friends.  I was excited to be at the rally with what turned out to be several thousand others—women, men, children, dogs and musicians of all ages and ethnicities.  Most had signs with clever sayings.  It was a beautiful day, unseasonably warm and sunny, and the feeling of dread I’d had since the election lifted.  If there were this many rallying in this small city, how many more were there across the nation (yes, Fox, even in the flyover states) and across the world?  The sense of community and shared energy was the perfect tonic for the toxicity of Trump’s Inauguration speech the day before.  

And then I saw that post from my friend, whom I’ll call Daren.  We have been friends since my freshman year of high school.  She introduced me to Planned Parenthood and Madonna’s first album, which we listened to all the time on her small boom box.  We made a lot of similar bad choices, especially when it came to boyfriends and overconsumption of alcohol.  Our friendship was off and on after high school, but when Facebook arrived, we reconnected and get together for coffee or lunch when I come back to Fort Wayne to visit family.   Daren is still the easygoing and generous person I remember from high school.  She is also much more conservative than I remembered.  To be fair, I did not realize how left-leaning I was until I went to college and felt like I finally understood how the world really works. 

Weirdly, our ideological differences have never come up when we are together, but are all too obvious on FB.  When I messaged Daren about her post, she said she had an argument with one of our mutual high school friends, a lefty like me, but also much more outspoken than I am.  It turns out their political differences turned personal, and what sounded like some long-simmering resentments came to the surface.  That made me wonder how political differences among friends and family members might not just be about politics, but something  a little deeper.  Feminists have always said that the personal is political, and I wonder if the reverse is not true as well.

Daren and I have some things in common—we both have been married to the same partner for over 20 years and are both subsequently devoted to our animals, although she is a dog person and I am a cat person.  However, our lives definitely took different trajectories, in that I chose to leave home for college and now live a thousand miles away, and she chose to stay in our hometown.  Our politics, values, and lifestyles are dissimilar.  So why do we maintain our friendship?  I think it’s because we knew each other when we were on our worst behavior in our teens and early 20’s.  Daren saw me at my most selfish and insecure, and I never remember her criticizing me for it (and she certainly had reason to).  I watched her engage in self-destructive behavior and tried to keep her from being too crazy. 

So, I am choosing to ignore her political posts, many of which I find hateful and offensive.  I try not to post those kinds of messages from my side, not because I don’t want to offend her and my other conservative friends, but because I think of Henry David Thoreau’s quote: “The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.” 

I will continue to actively engage in resistance to the Trump agenda and administration.  I will also keep Thoreau in mind and attempt to be strong AND tender in my words and actions.  Long-lasting, healthy relationships are worth keeping if we still value one another, even as we have different values.

Put Students, not Achievement, First

There are multiple reasons for the Elementary and Secondary Board to reject the request of Achievement First, a private corporation controlled by a private board, to increase the number of charter schools in Providence:  fiscal, educational and cultural.  The fiscal logic is overwhelming.  RIDE estimates that the Providence Public Schools will lose about $35 million dollars a year if Achievement First expands to 3,000 students.  When this taxpayer money is removed from public education into the private sector, it will also be removed from public oversight.  Privatization of public services replaces the public interest with private interest and control. 

From an educational perspective, there are two main problems.  First, according to InfoWorks, 28% of AF teachers at the Providence Mayoral Academy are not considered highly qualified, versus 3% of the state.  RIDE has developed a rigorous teacher certification system that AF has been allowed to ignore.  Second, while AF touts higher scores on standardized tests, these results are based on a narrow curriculum mostly confined to preparing for tests.  As a former AF teacher from Connecticut wrote in a recent blog, “It is much easier to teach behavioral management tactics than to foster deep passion and knowledge about an academic field.” 

Related to that is Achievement First’s focus on discipline.  The 2014-2015 rate of suspension for AF was 7.8 elementary students per 100, which is twice as high as the statewide average of 3.8 per 100.  According to the Civil Rights Project (2016), “there is a wealth of research indicating that the frequent use of suspensions…contributes to chronic absenteeism, is correlated with lower achievement, and predicts lower graduation rates, heightened risk for grade retention, delinquent behavior, and costly involvement in the juvenile justice system.” 

Even more disturbing is the lack of cultural responsiveness in a school where most students are youth of color.  In Linda Borg’s feature article two weeks ago, a senior leader at AF was quoted as saying, “We live in a white culture, so it’s important to learn these skills—making eye contact, shaking hands, speaking loudly and clearly.” Appropriate expectations for behavior are essential to student learning, but these behaviors should not be coded as white, nor should they be narrowly defined.  Students from diverse cultures have diverse cultural norms.

Finally, any expansion of schools should be based on multiple measures, which are currently unavailable on InfoWorks.  As a purely business proposition, it makes no sense to expand when there is not enough data to determine whether these schools are successful. Test scores are not indicators of child well-being, and the limited data available on the two AF schools in Rhode Island do not indicate that AF is significantly better than the rest of the state in most measures.

In order for significant positive change to happen in public schools, state and district leaders need to acknowledge that results will not change unless conditions change.  Blaming students for not meeting standards and teachers for student failures is misguided.  Research shows that poverty negatively impacts child well-being and ability to learn.  Furthermore, using test score data to measure student outcomes widens—not narrows—the opportunity gap.  This state is full of educators, researchers, parents and youth who are eager to find creative and culturally responsive ways to support learning for all children, and there are plenty of local and national public school success stories that can serve as models.  

My Post-Election Recovery Playlist

It’s been a month since this country, or to be precise, the Electoral College, broke my heart and elected Donald Trump president.   Solace has come in the company of like-minded others, which led me to the mantra of the Civil Rights Movement:  courage, compassion and creativity.  The arts, especially music and poetry, have always been a way to speak truth to power, and a generative place for addressing systemic injustice. 

The relationships among social change, intellectual curiosity and love for humanity generated this playlist.  Accordingly, this group of songs spans decades, crosses genres and weaves beauty, anger and sensuality with the call to provoke conversation and action.    

1.      One Voice/The Wailing Jennys

2.      Ohio/CSNY

3.      March of the Billionaires/Cracker

4.      Enough/The Band of Heathens

5.      I Will Not Go Quietly/Don Henley

6.      Joy/Lucinda Williams

7.      They Want More/Ages and Ages

8.      None of Us Are Free/Solomon Burke

9.      If It Takes a Lifetime/Jason Isbell

10.  Hole in the World/Eagles

11.  Blooming through the Black/Parsonsfield

12.  Find the Cost of Freedom/CSNY

13.  Finlandia/Indigo Girls w/Girlyman

14.  I Wrote a Song for Everyone/Mavis Staples

15.  Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee/Indigo Girls

16.  Blanco Y Negro/DeSoL

17.  My Shot/Hamilton Original Broadway Cast

18.  The Revolution Starts…/Steve Earle

19.  This Land Is Your Land/Neil Young & Crazy Horse

20.  Divisionary (Do the Right Thing)/Ages and Ages

The Wailin’ Jennys tap into the beauty and spirit of human potential, an important place to begin.  “This is a song for all of us/singing with love and the will to trust” reminds us that we all have what Ralph Waldo Emerson called the “Divine spark.”  

Songs 2-5 identify how institutionalized power causes human suffering and political imbalance.  “Ohio” reminds us that what is happening now is nothing new—that song was written in 1970 after the shootings on the Kent State campus.  “March of the Billionaires” by Cracker is particularly appropriate with Trump’s chosen cabinet.  This sentiment is echoed in “Enough” by Band of Heathens:

You got enough seeds for all your farmers
You got enough mouths for them to feed
You got electricity and coal mines
You got enough poverty and greed        

While Cracker and the Heathens name the injustices, Don Henley offers a clear response in “I Will Not Go Quietly”:

Yeah, I'm gonna tear it up
Gonna trash it up
I'm gonna round it up
Gonna shake it up
Oh, no, baby, I will not lie down

This song riffs off Dylan Thomas’ classic poem “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night,”  demonstrating the power of language as protest.

Songs 6-10 speak to the darkness--and the hope--that comes on the heels of disaster.  Lucinda could have spoken for me on Nov. 9:  “You took my joy/I want it back.”   Following that, Ages and Ages sing about how overwhelming it can be to work toward justice.  You could see this vision as bleak, but you could also see it as realistic. Solomon Burke captures this feeling of hopelessness in “None of Us Are Free.”  He sings:

And there are people still in darkness

and they just can’t see the light                                                                                                       

If you don’t say that it’s wrong                                                                                                   

That says it’s right

His roots in 60’s soul have a deliberately gospel feel connecting to the spirituality of the Civil Rights Movement.  By shining a bright light on how “none of us are free as long as one of us is in chains,” he shows the universality of our humanity.

Jason Isbell expands on the theme of being chained in “If It Takes a Lifetime”—whose major chords and contrasting stoic lyrics show the time (a lifetime?!) and patience it takes to overcome one’s demons, whatever they may be.  But ultimately, there’s hope. That’s echoed on a larger scale with the Eagles’ “Hole in the World,” written in the aftermath of 9/11:

They say that anger is just love disappointed.
They say that love is just a state of mind.
But all this fighting over who is anointed
Oh, how can people be so blind?

Ironically, that cataclysmic event united the country in many ways, but unfortunately our designated common enemies—Islam and Iraq—turned out to be false foes.  Perhaps that’s where this current divide resides: not just in economics, but in determining who is standing in the way of the American Dream, real or imaginary.

Songs 11-14 are sometimes sober, sometimes uplifting, sometimes both.  From Parsonsfield’s “Blooming through the Black”:

She's blooming through the black
born of destruction
burned but she's coming back

The next two songs are about patriotism, albeit from different perspectives.  There is the inevitable point where the ultimate loss has to be acknowledged, which CSNY does so beautifully in “Find the Cost of Freedom,” the B side to “Ohio.”  This focus on loss moves to a song of hope for unity, not only in the words but in the harmonies, where the Indigo Girls and Girlyman sing “Finlandia” together.   

Mavis Staples closes this set with a John Fogerty song, “Wrote a Song for Everyone.”

Saw the people a standin' thousand years in chains.
Somebody said it's diff'rent now, look, it's just the same.
Pharaoh spins the message, round and round the truth.
They could have saved a million people, how can I tell you?

 Her version turns this swamp rock masterpiece into a gospel stomp: seeing the truth clearly requires some energy and verve, which Mavis delivers.

Songs 15-16 get at the individual and collective history of the United States: the indigenous and the immigrant.  In “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee,” the Indigo Girls rock this Buffy St. Marie song, particularly appropriate with what is happening at Standing Rock.  DeSoL take a another approach in bringing a Nuyorican feel to “Blanco Y Negro.”  This song is about how difference shouldn’t make a difference in how we see one another.

Songs 17-19 are patriotic, but not in a jingoistic way.  “My Shot,” from the Hamilton musical, is nothing less than a summons to speak out and speak up for the ideals of democracy.  This call for revolution against the British leads into a modern revolution with Steve Earle singing “The Revolution Starts…Now.”

The revolution starts here
Where you work and where you play
Where you lay your money down
What you do and what you say
The revolution starts now

 Both songs are calls to act—immediately, wherever you are, whatever you do.  Because, as Neil Young channels Pete Seeger, “This Land Is Your Land.”   This 60’s anthem reminds us that those of us who object to the current president-elect are not moving to Canada.  This place and its ideas and ideals, as flawed as they are, belong to us. 

And then there is the last song:  “Do the Right Thing.”  This is more than a call for revolution.  This is a call for love and justice. 

Music has always been a way of responding to our fears—from hymns to gospel to folk to blues to jazz to rock to hip hop.  This playlist covers my many emotional, aesthetic and political responses to the election.  Despair and hope.  Diversity and unity.  Fighting back and building community.  I would love to hear what your playlists look and sound like.  Feel free to respond to this blog and share what has offered you emotional sustenance over the last few weeks.

"What is it for?"

I had dropped off Nels at the start line for the Newport marathon, parking a few blocks away with the goal of getting back in time to see the race begin.  The rain and wind picked up as I trotted by a line of cars diverted from the course.   A man rolled down his window and beckoned to me.

“What’s it for?” he asked in a British accent.  He had on a suit and so did the other man in the car.  It was a Sunday morning so I assumed they were going to a church service.

“It’s a marathon and half-marathon,” I said. 

“Yes, but what is it for?”

That brief exchange reminded me—again--that there are many people who don’t get the “what is it for” question when it comes to running and racing.  There are as many reasons to run as there are runners, but it doesn’t have to be “for” anything. 

Just a few days before, I was in tears because there was no time to fit in a long run that week.  I am planning on running a half-marathon on Nov. 6, and the half I ran a couple of weeks ago was a reminder that I was not where I wanted to be.  How could I improve my time if I couldn’t get in some more long runs?  I sought advice from Nels, my partner in life and running.

“You’re not in PR shape,” he said.  “So it doesn’t really matter.”  Ohhhhh.  Ouch.

PR means “personal record.”  It’s one of the gold standards for mid-packers like myself who will never win a race, much less my age group.  My PR for a half marathon was back in 2012, when I ran 1:59:58 at the Shamrock race in Virginia Beach.  That was a 9:09 pace, fully a minute faster than where I am right now. 

Nels provided me with some perspective.  Nobody but me cares what my time is.  But I care.  A  lot.  It is not just about ego.  I can’t run a race without at least some training, hoping for some feeling of accomplishment.  Running distance races is just too damn hard to do as a lark.  I take running seriously, but most of my runs are usually about being outside, observing nature and talking politics, sports, music and gossip with Nels, as opposed to preparing for a race.

On the other hand, I find it upsetting when some folks treat running a marathon as simply an item to check off on a bucket list.  To me, they are not respecting the distance.  Running a marathon is a huge deal, especially for those of us who are not athletically gifted. 

Runners do things that non-runners probably don’t get.  For example, Nels was sick last Sunday, but he had trained for running 26.2 miles, and damn it, he was going to at least try it.  He looked good at mile 13 when I gave him a gel, not as good at mile 17 when I gave him some Gummy Bears, and by mile 20 he was shivering and feverish.  I picked him up in the car, cranked up the heat, and we headed for home.  He had to see what he could do, though.  He had put in the miles, did his strength training, tapered properly and was not about to let some sniffles get in his way.  Until they did.    

What is running for? 

Running is for something and it is for nothing. 

It is for expressing joy and dealing with grief. 

It is for accepting your limits and testing your mettle.

It is for companionship and self-knowledge.

It is for discovery of the new and remembering what you already knew.

It is for wondering if that raptor overhead is an eagle or an osprey. 

It is for bunnies in spring and egrets in the summer and geese honking overhead in the fall.

It is for talking to Chris, our 95 year old friend, who walks in Colt State Park every morning.

It is for acknowledging and enjoying good health. 

In the words of Ray Wylie Hubbard, it is for keeping your gratitude higher than your expectations.