Eventually you will reach the sun.

Said Savanna.

This morning I sat with the music loud in my car. It was too loud but I felt it. I felt it hurt a little like the emotions dimpling my torso. For a minute the vibrations in the seat and under my feet filled the pit in my belly. I stared in front of me at the ridged gray clouds highlighted in morning. I tucked my fingers under my thighs. I waited. I'm waiting.

I need some fierceness. To touch something solid. To climb the tallest pine tree, see the white heron, and keep it to myself.

Spring is making a cameo today. The light is tender but unsure and will melt away too early. No matter. I need to feel it on my arms and legs. Breathing.
I need to run until I reach the sun.

White River Marathon!

I'm never really sure if I will be able to do it.  Seriously.  It's insane.

It was cold at the start, around 32 degrees, and foggy. We got a photo with a few other maniacs before we started running.

The first 8 miles or so are terrible because there are so many miles left.  At 9 miles, Carrie said, "Only 17 miles to go!"  I said something about not liking the sound of that, but in my head I thought, What the Fuck?  Seventeen More Miles? And I've Done This Before, You Say?  Seventeen?

I always mean to cover the spots on my feet and toes that blister, but half the time I forget.

I really like talking to strangers on the course.  It's the only time I will strike up a conversation with a stranger and be ok with some random guy admitting to checking out my belly.

I like new facebook friends after races.  More crazy runners, especially maniacs.

Everyone kind of hobbles around afterward.  Except that Conway girl who flits and sprints around.  What is UP with her?

Post-race homemade chili is awesome.


At the finish, some guy yelled out, "You only have one more lap!"  I flipped him off.  He and his friends thought it was hilarious that I did.  I'm glad.

My favorite thing to do right after the finish is fall in the grass and take off my shoes.  I felt hot when we finished and pulled off my shirts so I could be in short sleeves, but then almost immediately put my sweatshirt on.

We met a guy who had driven all night to get to the White River Marathon and was headed to Tulsa right after for today's marathon there. He is doing 52 marathons in 26 weeks or something like that.  Two a week. Makes me seem less crazy.

Corona is good with chips and salsa after a race.

Running with someone makes a huge difference.  Someone to talk to, someone to say fuck with, someone to push and be pushed by.  Thanks, Carrie!

Road kill on a course is not fun.  Cows by the side of the road are nice, especially when they bunch up by the fence to watch the race.  They wouldn't talk to me though.

The next race is in 2 weeks.  I wonder if I can do it? ;-)

Life is dotted with sadness and hope.

I was just looking at the past.

Quite a bit.
Here are some of the things I saw:

The bits and pieces of a poster making kit that I bought back in the spring so J and Ty could make signs for the Little Rock Marathon.

I thought, life is dotted with sadness and hope.

I found a picture of my sister and Ethan when E was a round-faced baby.  When his little mouth wrapped around my mom's dog's name: "Bo Bo."  Beauregard Manny has been gone for a few years now.  He loved my mom the most.  When I watched him, and she was gone, his tail would uncurl and he would lie by the door waiting for her to come home.

I thought, I need to put this picture out again.  So I found a spot.

I found a picture of the group that went to the Southwest in 2004.  I looked at myself, at my smile.  I thought of who I was then, what I wanted, who I was, where I was.  Who I thought I was.  Who those people were and who they are now. 

And I thought, hope and sadness.  Without hope there is no future.  But there is no sadness, either.  Hope.

I pulled out my mixer and that reminded me of mixing cookie dough with Kym several years ago while it snowed outside. 

There is a pile of stuff in the middle of my kitchen that I pulled out of a cabinet because my dad is coming tomorrow to start taking out that cabinet and installing a dishwasher.  I've been throwing away things that I kept because I thought I might need them.  I don't.

I found a flat piece of wood and a tiny clock kit.  J was with me at Hobby Lobby when I bought that, probably 5 years ago.  I was going to make a mosaic clock.  I'm going to add it to the pile I'm giving away. 

I've looked at the past with wistfulness, with anger, with disbelief. 
I've looked for something that I know.

I remember when I first read something by Dorothy Allison, and then something else.  I got a small book filled with pictures and just a line or two on each page.  It is called Two or Three Things I Know For Sure.  Her aunt would say that, and each time she knew one thing for sure.

I remember the hope that I found when I first started reading lesbian literature.  Hope.  From voices.  Stories.  Lives.  Pictures.  A population for my blank state of mind.

Joan Didion talks about needing to stay familiar with your past selves, even the ones you don't like or want to remember, because, if you don't, those selves may come knocking on your door when you least want them to.  Who is knocking on my door? 

I know for sure that throwing a ball for a dog is a hopeful thing.  That taking care of someone you love is a blessing.  That the sound of the voices in the songs I am hearing are bittersweet.

That I have some cabinets in my heart that I need to clean out.

Last week I went for a run in the dark.  Aside from Tupelo mornings, that was my first dark run.  It was different.  I was much more alone with myself.  I did not dislike it.  I need a better flashlight.

I have a marathon on Saturday.  Marathons are hopeful things, and optimistic things.

Midsouth Marathon.

Yesterday was marathon #7 in Wynne, Arkansas, the MidSouth Marathon.  It was great.

In the days leading up to the race, the whole idea of it seemed a little sketchy and negotiable.  I had missed quite a few weekday runs.  I told myself that as long as I had gotten all the long runs in that I would be fine, but I also just felt blase about the idea of running a marathon.  Kind of, oh yeah, whatever, guess I'll go do that.

But I got up there and we got started.  It was clear from the beginning that it would be a hot one--it was in the 50's at the start but would soon work up to at least 80, and there was lots of direct sunlight.  I have a nice little sunburn to show for it now.  

It was a really pretty course--trees and changing leaves and lots of views of open fields just post harvest, furrowed ground with baled cotton at the sides.  Even though there weren't many spectators, I really appreciated the aid stations at every mile.

I had to pick up the pace at one point to get away from an alarmingly stupid political discussion and caught up with a group of women.  That's when I started running with Kristin from Philadelphia.  She was a normally sub 4 marathoner nursing a hamstring injury.  Quite a few middle-miles went by quickly as we talked about favorite races, not-favorite races, running history, jobs, and the like.  She decided to drop back a little to take care of the leg, so I went on alone for a bit.

Just after the 19-20 mile point or so I caught up to Carrie from Cabot.  I knew she had said previously that her best time was a bit over five hours, and we were on pace to run around 4:30, so I asked.  Sure enough, Carrie was about to shatter her old PR.  We ran the rest of the race together with lots of talking and some laughing and the last 6 miles flew by.  I'm so glad, because it was hot and windy and I had felt myself falling into that place where it all starts to suck.

I said lots of prayers and sent lots of thoughts out to Reesey, my friend's baby who has just had surgery.  I sent my feelings of strength to her, gathered the beauty of the sunlight filtered through the leaves and the sound of the wind in the trees and willed it to her family because I think there is power in beauty and in appreciating it.  I lifted her up in my heart as I ran--the best time for me to pray, very much in touch with the strongest parts of me that are blessings to me, the times when I most feel the presence of God in my heart and soul and bones and muscles.

I realized while driving home after the race that this was the first time I have gone to a race without someone with me.  I was ok with it.  It was nice to hang out after the race ended, eat and talk to people and watch the awards.  (Very cool to see that Carrie placed in her age group to go along with the new PR).

And...marathon number 8 in 2 weeks...