Racing for everyone.

Today started early with Race for the Cure.  I picked up my sister (who was ready!!) and we went on downtown to find Lee Lee (a 9 year survivor and absolute badass) and put on our super awesome pink feathered headbands.  Katie and I did our best to keep up with her during the walk.  We had a great time, made some memories, and stayed around for the survivor parade at 9:30.  It was really powerful to see all those women holding signs saying how many years they've survived.

I encountered some negativity on facebook (imagine that.)  I can understand, to an extent, where it comes from.  Where are the 44,000 people walking for AIDS or FAS awareness?  All I can say is that negativity doesn't grow anything.  Race for the Cure didn't grow from negativity, it grew, I'm assuming, from determination.  I don't argue for the perfection of anything, but I think showing love and support always comes before discounting the importance of anyone's effort.  I'm grateful for today because I got to show my love and support for someone who, in the past few months, has become more important to me than I could have known, someone who has beat breast cancer twice and come through with a grit that I very much admire.  And because I got to be with my sister.  And because we looked fabulous.

When I got home I decided, despite the breakfast Katie and I downed at IHOP, that I wanted to go ahead and get my long run out of the way instead of saving it for tomorrow.  So I went out for 8 miles.  It felt good and solid and my knee didn't give me any problems.  I was happy to have it done, and I'm happy to feel like I'm back in training.

I spent a lot of time during my run today thinking about how to make bad situations better.  I had some students on Friday who really brought me down, and I want to make that situation better for both me and those kids.  I have an idea of what to do, and it shows me how much I've changed over the past year, how maybe my mind and heart are shifting from "How to justify the suckiness of this situation" to "How to make this situation better regardless of who created it."  My sister told me (in an unrelated conversation) that the anti-depressants may be making me think I can do crazy things, but if that's the case, at least I'll try some crazy things and maybe they'll work.  (She's on them, too, and they make her think she can be PTA president, which she is doing--and I'm proud of her!)

And I thought, again, about how much running is like life.  I will never be an elite runner, but I hope to always be able to keep running, keep getting out there and doing what I do.  I'll never be an elite teacher, either, but I want to keep getting better and thinking up new ways to make kids laugh or feel like they belong. I'm not the best mom in the world or best partner or sister or daughter, but it matters to me to keep thinking about how to do it better.  Just keep getting out there.  Every run is a new opportunity, and it may be amazing, or solid, or ok, or sucky.  That I can do it at all is a blessing.

On running in the rain--

Wednesday afternoon it was raining when I got home.  I fiddled around the house, got changed, and checked the weather a few times to make sure there wasn't lightning headed our way.  I got a rain jacket and left the house.  For the first mile or so it wasn't raining and I quickly got too hot for the jacket.

The rain picked up.  It was still light, but I got wet.  I put the jacket back on, but didn't zip it, so the front of me, my face and hair, got more and more soaked.  I looked up at the sky occasionally, trying to catch a few raindrops.  At about the half-way point, I heard the National Anthem coming from the air base, so I stopped.  I stood there in the rain, chilled but warm, and said my own thank yous for the gift of being out there, for being stubborn enough and carefree enough to head out in the rain on a fall day.

The rain let up as I got closer to home.  The sun came out, and I started looking for the rainbow.  I didn't see it at first, and soon my back was to the direction I knew it would pop up, as afternoon rainbows in my neighborhood always do.  I started to see it as I glanced over my shoulder, very light at first, and intensifying.  I hit the five mile mark about a block from home, stopped, and turned around.  There it was, spread across the sky, an arc of vivid color jumping from pine tree to pine tree.  I couldn't stand to keep my back to it, so I walked home backwards, keeping my eye on the second gift of the day, loving the blessing and remembering another rainbow, the one I saw the day my Grandma died.

Life is, itself, pretty simple.  The heart beats and loves and cries and looks.  Life ends.  We may complicate it, but the simple blessings are still there if we go looking.

I did 7 miles this morning--I'm starting to build back up for training for the Little Rock Marathon.  I'm hoping everything goes well but planning to keep a bit lower of a profile this time around.  Earlier this afternoon Ty and I met Lee lee and J and the dogs in a field by St. Patrick's Church.  We laughed at the dogs, I lay in the grass on my back and looked up at the trees, and then wrestled Ty for a while.  It was pretty simple and lovely.