This week I was supposed to run less than last week, which is a scary and unintuitive thing to do when you’re trying to build up mileage.
Tapering is about bolstering leg muscle power and blood content and otherwise revitalizing yourself for next week’s big run. The two weeks before the marathon, in fact, the longest recommended runs are 12 and 8 miles. Yikes.
But taper I did. And the upshot is realizing that 7 and 10 mile jaunts no longer freak me out. Seven, dare I say, has become a walk in the park.
It’s all a matter of perspective, isn’t it? Not unlike the moon that looked so momentuous to us just a couple of days ago and is now dwindling in our eyes and judgement.
Mileage for the week: 24 miles Longest run: 10 Grand total since I started training: 169
Quote for the week: As far as the Moon is concerned, he is always full.— Nathaniel LeTonnerre
The other morning as I set out for an early morning run, I suddenly felt the glow of daylight on my shoulders. I turned to face the moon, hugely swollen and sinking into the west like a well-lit ship. Rocking ever so slightly on it’s bright bow.
Turns out it wasn’t even full yet. Tonight it is, and closer to earth than its been in about 15 years.
It looks something like this, but don’t take my word for it.
Step outside and check it out.
In the meantime, or when you get back in, here’s what Ms. Dickinson has to say on the subject:
The moon was but a chin of gold A night or two ago, And now she turns her perfect face Upon the world below.
Her forehead is of amplest blond; Her cheek like beryl stone; Her eye unto the summer dew The likest I have known.
Her lips of amber never part; But what must be the smile Upon her friend she could bestow Were such her silver will!
And what a privilege to be But the remotest star! For certainly her way might pass Beside your twinkling door.
Her bonnet is the firmament, The universe her shoe, The stars the trinkets at her belt, Her dimities of blue.
— Emily Dickinson
The universe her shoe. Don’t you just love that line? So little and large, all at the same time.
The thing about a half marathon when you’re training for a marathon is that it becomes just another training run. And kind of a skimpy one at that, when you consider the 16, 18, 20 milers coming up in the next few weeks.
Still, up until this year, 13.1 was my ultimate goal, and the race I ran each January was a sign of success, in terms of intent and endurance.
So yesterday, as I was finishing the Decker Challenge (a halfer that just so handily fit into my training schedule), I consciously recalibrated my perspective for a minute or two and ramped it up to celebration mode.
Yes, I got to tick off another required workout. Yes, this means I’ve finished 7 of 18 weeks of training. Yes, I need new shoes and I need more hill training and I need to keep this up over the holidays.
Celebrating milestones and small successes is one of the best ways to sustain the energy of process. The occasional splash of champagne in the midst of a long slog is a good idea
I celebrate when I finish a manuscript. I celebrate when I send it to my agent. I celebrate when she sends it out.
I often tell my students that even rejection letters are worthy of celebration, in that they indicate the manuscript is yours again — to burn, revise or send back out into the world, sealed with a kiss.
I celebrate it all, and I celebrate half marathons.
I think that you should, too. Jump for joy…
Mileage for the week: 25 miles
Longest run: 13.1
Grand total since I started training: 145
Quote for the week: When you jump for joy, beware that no one moves the ground from beneath your feet. — Stanislaw J. Lec
I’m lurching along in my exploration of process. Have faith; it’s coalescing.
But today I don’t even have to be articulate about it because it’s Poetry Friday and I’ll let Alice Walker speak.
This poem hearkens back to my post on Tuesday when I talked about appreciating process, in part because every step of process is in the final product. The two are inextricable. What we make is what we’ve been through. The path is apparent in the place we reach.
How Poems are Made — Alice Walker
Letting go In order to hold one I gradually understand How poems are made.
There is a place the fear must go. There is a place the choice must go. There is a place the loss must go. The leftover love. The love that spills out Of the too full cup And runs and hides Its too full self In shame.
I gradually comprehend How poems are made. To the upbeat flight of memories. The flagged beats of the running Heart.
I understand how poems are made. They are the tears That season the smile. The stiff-neck laughter That crowds the throat. The leftover love. I know how poems are made.
There is a place the loss must go. There is a place the gain must go. The leftover love.
"What do you do?" is sort of the quintessential American identity question.
The poser of the question is asking about your job, or career, with the presumption being that the answer will say a lot about you. About your interests and passions and skills and values. About who you really are. Or at least about where you fall in the socioeconomic pecking order of our capitalist society.
What the person is not asking is "What do you do? Really. What is the practice and process of your daily life?"
Nope. That’d be way too much information. Either way too perplexing or way too boring or way too scary.
I mean, let’s admit it right here and now. Many of us don’t know what some of our best friends really do everyday. Some of us are a little foggy on what our spouses do everyday.
Which is kinda too bad. Because to me, that’s really the interesting question. I mean, yes, we may be able to capture a certain sort of biographical snapshot when someone says, "I’m a lawyer (or engineer or rock musician or rock climber or waitress or gumshoe or pharmacist or curator or crook)," but the really revealing question is, "How?"
How do you fulfill those roles? How do you feel fulfilling those roles? How do you manage the tasks associated with filling those roles? How do you think you’re doing in the scope of those roles? How does that role fit with your life and your heart and who you really are?
It’s really that stuff — the practice and process of one’s daily life — that starts to tell us something real, I think.
For example, "I’m a writer" is an appropriate and expected answer to the quintessential American identity question. But, I mean, big whoop. Right?
Does that mean I’m good with words? Or that someone once told me I’m good with words? Or that I just believe myself to be good with words?
Does it mean I write newspaper articles or ad copy or computer manuals or pulp fiction?
Does it mean I like to be alone?
Does it mean I drink a lot of bourbon?
Does it mean I’m happy? Or unhappy?
See what I’m getting at here?
So, really, I’m more interested in the process. The ups and downs. The thrills. The doldrums. The doubts and fears. The celebrations. The pride. The shame. The what you actually do everyday.
Me? My process has a terrifying amount to do with a wing and a prayer. I am not a novelist (or rather I don’t think I’m a novelist) (or rather I’m not a novelist yet) so there are no 1,000-words-a-day parameters to keep me honest. 1,000 words might be two or three picture books, for godssake. In a day. I’m getting kind of faint just thinking about it.
Instead I have some secret Indiana Jonesish-type equation — some mysterious alchemy — of planned time, goals and deadlines combined with utter flexibility, receptiveness and riskiness. This is what makes my writing life work and, at the same time, is what nearly sends me to apply for jobs as a bank teller numerous times a year.
It’s all about working to manage that process so that I survive and my work thrives or vice versa or, sometimes, on the very best days, both together at the same time. Thriving, that is.
And I know I said I was going to talk about managing process today and instead this is just a long and wandery introduction, but that’s the way it works when you build utter flexibility into a system. So. Managing process tomorrow. I promise…
I interrupt my fledgling series on process to share my sadness as what is being called Black Wednesday in the publishing world.
Hardly nothing nor nobody’s sacred, it seems.
You can read a little bit about what’s going on here and here and here, but the bottom line is that houses are hurting and, as a result, editors and authors and illustrators and designers and booksellers and the whole long string of us are hurting.
I have a personal, vested interest in Simon & Schuster, which got hit hard, but the truth is that there’s got to be an all-for-one mentality here.
Writers and readers, booklovers and bookmakers.
Let’s hope we can ride out this recession together, with words still valued and stories still standing — and the good people who have made words and stories their life work still around to bring them to life…
It’s been a long time since I’ve been a reliable blogger, but I’m jumping back in with a post that will be the first in a series exploring the horrors (and occasional gleam) of process (as it looks & feels to me).
We hear often, from the experts, that it’s all about the process.
The journey. The gettin’ there.
Not just writing, but life, too.
This isn’t always easy to swallow.
We want to believe that there’s an endpoint that will make the fear and self-loathing and doubt and effort and second-guessing not just ‘worth it’ but ‘gone’. There’s a self-protective desire to be knocked out for the tough stuff and wake me when it’s over. We want to skip ahead to product. To success. Fame and fortune. The finish line.
Or do we?
What’s occurred to me lately is that if I wish away process, I’m wishing away the better portion of my days. Better, as in larger. But also better. As in, more good.
Because really, is there anything more good than getting into the zone — working your way through the fear and self-loathing and doubt and effort and second-guessing, and getting into the zone? Logic disappears, logistics vanish, time suspends, fingers race. And somewhere in the midst of that dreamy, muse-driven floatiness your brain says, "I’m onto something here." That is pretty sweet.
I’m thinking specifically about writing, but really, isn’t there a mama zone and a runner’s zone and a teaching zone and a gardening zone and, well, you get the idea.
Isn’t there?
Which makes me think, "There are no short cuts to the finish line and thank god."
Plus, even those moments (which are many) that don’t qualify for dreamy, muse-driven or floaty, even those all feed who I am and what I do, such that not a single line of poetry or a story idea would have legs or hold water if I hadn’t done what I did to get there.
So, I no longer wish process away. But I still try to manage it. Because the arbitrary, unscheduled, unpredictable riskiness of the artistic process is something akin to tightrope walking. I think. Although I don’t know for sure, because I’m too scared to try. If you see what I mean.
So, how do I manage process so I can enjoy it a little and not just bite my nails and beg someone to institutionalize me? More on that tomorrow…
Things have been so crazy here that I’ve barely been keeping up with my minimum training schedule. And I certainly haven’t been posting about it. That said, I ran 13 miles yesterday so I’m still in the running. So to speak.
Mileage for the week: 25 miles
Longest run: 13
Grand total since I started training: 120
High point: The annual Turkey Trot on Thursday. Nearly 12,000 of us kicked off Thanksgiving Day with a festive little jog through Austin.
Fun Fact: 77 Days ’til the marathon
Which sort of seems right around the corner when you take into account the holidays and all. I am daunted when I think that what I ran yesterday is just half of what I’ll need to run in February. But then I just put my nose down, lace up my shoes and try not to look too far forward. Having a long view can be helpful when envisioning a big life, but so much of getting there is simply doing what needs to be done. Right now. Today.
Quote for the week: Our grand business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand. — Thomas Carlyle
I am grateful for my husband, who is funny and supportive and patient and tender and dear.
I am grateful for my tall one and her deep heart, and my small one and her quick wit.
I am grateful for my mom and dad, and their constancy.
I am grateful for my mother-in-law and the still-very-nearness of my father-in-law, who have always made me one of theirs.
I am grateful for my sister, who lives back in this country again — just one time zone away.
I am grateful for my sisters- and brothers-in-law and my neice and nephews and countless cousins and aunts and uncles, of whom I got more than my fair share.
I am grateful for Goodness, capital G.
I am grateful for friends, true blue, and students, old and new.
I am grateful for my writing chums, without whom I’d hurl myself from windows, and my agent and editor and illustrators, for whom I’d hurl myself from windows. So to speak.
I am grateful for libraries.
I am grateful for the hike-and-bike trail and Ladybird Lake and the Rocky Mountains and the deep blue sea.
I am grateful for running shoes, yoga mats and tents.
I am grateful for good cheese and fine wine.
I am grateful for music.
I am grateful for unlimited long distance and email.
I am grateful that email has an off button.
I am grateful for my cats and my old white dog.
I am grateful for the muse and the mind, the body and the breath.
I flew to California last week to talk about books, art and process with my editor and current illustrator, and I got all caught up in things.
In a good way.
There was humor, wisdom and inspiration to spare, and I hope to access a little of that once I’m settled back at my desk.
But in the meantime, I am pausing with my family to say farewell to my father-in-law who has finally succumb to a seemingly endless one-on-one with cancer. Dear Jack — husband, dad, and granddad, lover of dogs. Attendant to poetry lovers and hummingbirds. You will be missed, but we’re grateful you’ve finally been given real rest.
We shall find peace. We shall hear angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds. — Chekov
Be well, everyone, and I’ll be back with regularity soon.
