Play Me
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
I pulled on my running tights yesterday and laced up my new sneakers. I snaked through the streets in my neighborhood, up the hill past a golf course, along tree-lined avenues painted with picturesque houses, through a lonely college campus. It was Halloween and the weather couldn’t have been more elegantly creepy and magical. There was a forceful wind. It pushed me and I pushed right back. Leaves danced across the streets, bathed the sidewalks, and breezed with me as I broke free. From that world indoors. The one that I love so dearly; the one that pushes me to daydream about escape.
I ran hard. So hard, in fact, that I can’t tell if the ache in my legs is from exercise or from the threat of H1N1 that my boys have supposedly contracted. It’s easier to assume it’s from the virus, but I dare say it is not. I dare say it is from stretching and reaching and pushing myself for five miles. Five simple miles. The slow beginning to another marathon training schedule. But a fast, bright spot in my gloomy week. A week that was just like any other week, I suppose. Full of just as much predictability as surprise.
I ran through everything that had already happened this month, this day. I ran up against everything that was yet to come: school conferences, holiday planning, appointments, goals, games, budgets and blog posts. I freed myself from thinking about the specifics just by knowing that if I continued to put one foot in front of the other during this relatively short journey, I would do just fine the next time around. The next time I ran 5 or 10 or 15 miles. The next time I was challenged by the kids and the weather and my mood. Finding that rhythm within is so important for me. It gets lost. And, honestly, I do the losing. Almost willingly. I fall backward into the swamp of all that needs doing. The piles around the house swallow me. The dishes – clean, dirty, clean dirty, clean, dirty – swallow me. The nap schedules, bathroom splashing and dinner coercion: I’m swallowed. I get caught up in how tedious it is. I lose that sense of just putting one foot in front of the other. And when that happens, I start to lose my mind.
Music does a lot of good for me. And I forget. I forget that I need words and sounds beyond those that come from my childrens’ mouths, my husband’s mouth, my washing machine, my mind. My desperate mind. A mind that wants something different, something else, something more. But doesn’t quite know what different, else and more really mean. A mind that can’t quite figure out how to figure it out. But music helps. And running. And together they are brilliant for me. They put me in another place all together. A place that is a balance between the effort of my legs and the effortlessness of the music in my ear.
Yesterday I came to this song. The one that maybe you are playing right now. And I came to this line:
How far do I have to go
to get to you?
Many the miles.
In my runner’s mind the “you” was really “me.” I know, I’m stretching the metaphor here, but bear with me. It’s difficult to explain what happens to yourself when you are in the middle of something so physical. Jen described this so very, very well in “You have more to give.” I thought of this post when I was running. I thought of all the things that weren’t the way I wanted them to be in my life. I thought of my dreams and hopes for the future. I thought of that me out there. That one I wonder about. The one who thinks about what she really wants to be when she grows up. And I thought about what my husband told me during a tough 7 mile stretch of our 200 mile relay race: “sometimes it helps to shorten your stride, honey.”
Yes. It does help. To shorten my stride. Reach less for the big picture than for what is right here in front of me. Reach for what I can see. What I can hold on to. The me that is me here and now. The one I am likely to pass on by if I don’t shut up and listen. If I don’t stop whining. If I don’t stop dreaming about lifestyles of ease. I don’t need an easy life, I need a full life. I don’t need a perfect me, I need the best me that I can be.
I don’t want to be searching forever. Though I will run many the miles, I hope that each trip takes me right back to what is so clear to me in this moment. I don’t have to be disappointed in a person that I have not become. I am right where I am supposed to be. If I shorten my stride, I can move forward. These children, these maddening, sickly sweet, voracious children. They are exactly the people they are meant to be. And this is exactly the house that we are meant to live in. And these are exactly the words I am meant to write tonight, as scattered as they may be.
Read More in Best of 2009, mind/body, Sarah Writes, Sarah's Favorites, three kids
Add a Comment
Oh, BUMMER. The song is over. Oh. WONDER! Reading your words and listening to that song at the same time. Have I THANKED you lately? For this BLOG? Because, yeah, I can write. But you have done all the rest of this. I know what you want to be when you grow up. You need to keep doing this stuff. This creative, artistic, colorful stuff. I can keep the words coming (and, let’s hope, a little better words than these are, perhaps), but you need to keep doing all the rest. Not just because I don’t know how and I don’t care to know how, but because you are TEACHING YOURSELF HOW and you are GOOD AT IT are you are making this BLOG, our BLOG, OURS! So, keep running, and keep reading up on all this techy stuff. And keep linking songs to your posts. I LOVE it. (Don’t capital letters for emphasis drive you mad? Well, if I could call you right now and give you vocal emphasis, I would. But the house is quiet and my voice is strained from the world’s longest cold, so there.)
Thanks for leading off NaBloPoMo! Yippee!!!
“And these are exactly the words I am meant to write tonight, as scattered as they may be.”
Your words are scattered. From me, that’s the highest of compliments. Words should be scattered, uneven, unvarnished. Words should not be arranged like puzzle pieces and made perfect. Words should mingle honestly and humbly with one another in such a way that meaning snakes through. Meaning that cannot be concocted with half-baked thoughts and linear precision.
I love this post because you talk about the commingling of the physical and the mental. How easy is it to forget about our physical selves when we are weathering the predictable anxieties of the every day? How easy is it to forget how strong we are, how we can persevere in the face of relentless tugging? I love this post because it makes me want to go run, to blast good music full of good words, and plow forward. I love this post most of all though because it reminds me to focus on the exquisitely imperfect present moment.
Yes, the “commingling.” Yes, to “persevere in the face of relentless tugging.” That’s what it is. Constant tugging at me from all directions. Everyone needing something from me. (I’ve already gotten up from this response three time to fulfill the needs of little people and animals.) The running does help. There is freedom in pushing yourself. And so much of that is about living in the present moment, as you say. Living for the now. Being content with the now.
thank you so much for this inspiration.
“i have been so busy these days,” seems to be my fall-back excuse when anything is asked of me, whether it relates to how i have been or why i haven’t been here/done that/called/emailed/etc. i have let myself go. i have let myself off the hook and blamed it on busy-ness and hormones.
i needed to read these words – i needed to be reminded that my body is important, too. my physical self; muscles, bone, tendons, ligaments, lungs, brain, they are all missing the pain and the sweat and the tears (yes, there are tears!) and the competition between my mind and my body to see who will call Uncle first.
i need my clarity back. isn’t that the place where all the other good things spring from? once your mind is clear and your body is tired, priorities seem to arrange themselves. it’s like sweating and grunting out all the excess words and thoughts kicking around in your brain until all that is left is what is necessary.
This is absolutely perfect: “it’s like sweating and grunting out all the excess words and thoughts kicking around in your brain until all that is left is what is necessary.” And a line that I will remember next time I am reluctant to get my butt out the door. Because I need to condense things up there. My brain is so full I can’t even figure out what’s important anymore. Is getting apple juice more of a priority than switching the laundry? I just can’t figure out how to live some days, and so I drift from thing to thing instead of defining my time in any way.
It’ early. I’m tired. But this is the best I got. Now go and write a post of your own based on that last paragraph. Because it’s brilliant.
I love that last paragraph. Your words may be scattered, but they make so much sense.
I’m going to try to keep the phrase “Shorten your stride” close to me these next two months, with so much craziness going on. I shudder just to think.
Sometimes the brain is so foggy, isn’t it? Sometimes you just don’t know if the thought you are having is being conveyed even a little bit. Sometimes I feel lost just trying to find meaning.
I have come to have a bit more faith in my words and thoughts recently. If I agonized over the page as I am accustomed to doing, nothing would ever get posted.
So instead I scatter words and I edit as many times as my patience will allow and then I just publish it. Knowing that you make sense of the scatter is such a gift for me. A simple gift.
And yes, “shorten your stride.” It’s a good new mantra. Especially for today. I am exhausted. My body is ravaged by this flu and I can barely stay upright. I need to look at the time from now until sleep in more manageable chunks. So I will shorten my stride and keep going. No other choice really, but this way I have more acceptance and more resolve.
I’m so glad I discovered this blog! (I found you after the Scary Mommy contest.) I feel the same way about running. I’m training for a marathon relay, and ran 7 miles yesterday…with the dog. So that gives me extra points when he tugs me over to some bush or piece of trash to sniff it. ;) And running is my entryway to escape, too.
I can’t imagine running with an animal! Kudos to you. And I’m so glad you found us, too!
If we feel we need to escape, at least running is a positive one right? Keep moving forward!
I may be the queen of snark but you my sister from another mother are the queen of beauty.
Please tell me this beauty you speak of will not negate my status as one of your “pig bitches.” Oh I would be so sad. I love your snark. And your ability to still see what’s real.
You are forever a pig-bitch. I have a new one up if you have a sec. Writer’s block be damned! Oh and I am totally counting reading your post as my exercise for the day. I felt like I was running along side you.
Sarah–
I find your posts so raw and right on of late, I almost can’t bear them. You are articulating the longing, the desperation I feel at this stage of midlife parenting, wondering where I am and where I’m going. My spiritual practice tells me this is the only moment we’ve got–why am I so often wasting it with regret or longing?
This mood reminds me of the “divine discontent and longing” Kenneth Grahame’s Mole felt at the opening of Wind in the Willows. I recently wrote a post of the same title:
http://www.mindbodymama.com/2009/10/mind-body-mama-divine-discontent-and.html
My high school English teacher wrote me this email after he read the post:
“Please know that Mole’s DD and L phase will be with you all your life. Should it go away would be cause for alarm, for contentment is the death knell. Restlessly we go on.”
I thought that was pretty awesome advice. I’ll struggle to take it to heart, but I was glad to get it.
Wow. Much much much to think about there. I left a comment on the post you referenced that has me inside of a thought I am too tired to pursue. But I will try just a wee little bit:
While I do not recollect the story of the Wind in the Willows, I understand your reference to divine discontent and longing. It is a state I recognize within myself. But it is a state that I do not so much enjoy. I want to be peaceful with the now. The me that is now. Know that tomorrow is something else altogether, and that if I look toward that with optimism I am missing out on the moments that make up my life.
I am not so very much convinced that we must learn how to live in a stat of discontent. That if we find peace in the presence it means we are giving up something. Giving up on life. Giving up on life. I’m not so very much convinced that being content is negative. I do not believe it goes hand in hand with extinguishing one’s dreams. I’m a bit fuzzy right now. Illness is pushing my limbs to exhaustion. But my brain remains in focus on one single solitary thing: letting go.
I’m sure it is a jumping off point for another post. And a time when I am coherent enough to work the thought through from point A to point B. :)
Isn’t this the paradox: that we learn to live content in the present moment AND that the enormity and wonder of the world should inspire us to be ever seeking?
Sarah, I am, once again, speechless, and embarrassed that I keep telling you the same things over and over again. First off, I sometimes feel like you and I are in the EXACT same place in our lives…the lives in our heads…. You so often write about what i feel, what I think…and then damn it, you go and give me a running post to boot. Did you know that I decided to start my blog while running one day? Did you know that I say I feel most like ME…most bared of everything else in life…most capable when I run? I will be sending this one to Hubby to read. And this: “I don’t have to be disappointed in a person that I have not become. I am right where I am supposed to be. If I shorten my stride, I can move forward.”??? I am adding that to my other Momalom quote on my wall. (I think the other one was Jen’s, so now I gotcha both…)
This is the connection to other bloggers, other women, that I am talking about when I talk about connections! I mean really, how good does it feel to pop online and read something someone else has written and just “get it.” Get it all! Understand. Feel understood. Read words that we so often think on our own. Hear another voice saying the same things in a different way. Listen to different perspectives on the same topic. Over and over again I come back to the blog and I read the comments and I just feel so…ahhh. So so so “ahhh.” Thank you for you, Liz. Thank you for you. I know that you are out there. I think of you often. I imagine a day we would meet in person and how natural and familiar it would feel. Now go for a run! Come up with another great post. I’ll be reading!
Sometimes it helps to shorten your stride, honey.
I mean really. Just really.
First of all, it’s such wonderful advice, as you so eloquently said in your post Sarah. But what really struck me, I do not know why, was that your husband said it to you while running in a loving way and followed it with Honey! It just made my knees weak.
That moment of deep connection with your husband during that marathon, when he noticed you were struggling…he didn’t take it upon himself to fix you, no. He took it upon himself to notice you. And to lovingly offer a path that MIGHT help you. Allowing you to still be you in your space, but reminding you that you were not alone. No, never alone.
Maybe that’s just my interpretation because that is what I crave the most in my marriage. Nonetheless, it is a wonderful, wonderful, tear jerking post. As always.
I think I love you. No, no….that’s not true.
I know I do.
I love this post! And like so many others who commented, I feel like you are wiretapping my mind. (Are you? Are you??)
The music, the running, the desperation and striving to find yourself and pursue your greatest ambitions…but all the while trying to make peace with the here and now. Seriously, I struggle with these every day.
And nothing, absolutely nothing gives me more clarity than running. I often wish my legs could keep going forever, or that I could bottle the energy and insight that I gain during a run. So often they seem to slip out of my fingers the moment I hit my front porch.
I wonder what kind of writers we could become if we had treadmills in our offices…run, write, run, write. We would be brilliant!
.-= Liz @ Peace, Love & Guacamole´s last blog ..Repeat repeat repeat =-.