Doing the Math

http://ivyleagueinsecurities.com/2012/04/half-his-age/

This is a post from one of those new blogs I'm reading that I'm in love with.

It has to do with 'doing the math', which is something that, I'm chagrined to admit, I do all the time--in my head. For a creative person, I do spend an awful lot of time thinking about numbers.

Truly.

When I read this post by the talented Ms. Rowley, I thought about how often I do this type of thing.

1.  I think about when I was half my father's age, ie, the age he was when I was born:

twenty-five.

2.  I think about how old he was when he lost both his parents:

thirty-three.

3.  I think about how much time he had left himself, to live, after thirty-three:

thirty years (less time than the thirty-three he'd already lived).

4.  How old I was when he was the age I am now, thirty-eight:

thirteen.

5.  On every piece of work I did last year, from contracts to quotes, to designs to letters, I look at the date and do some quick mental arithmetic (oh that was two months before he died. that was two weeks after).  Appallingly, I realize how, of all the work I did in about a six-month period, starting in March, when the prognosis dropped on us, to about September, when I got back from my first real vacation since it all happened, I don't remember doing any of it. As in, none. It's like someone else did all that work. Same with the banking, government, legalities, and all those other things.

Who was she?

How did she do all that?

I wonder still.

6. How long it's been since he died:

thirteen months, exactly, tomorrow. (thirteen. that number again).

7.  How long it will be before I stop doing this:

maybe there is no number for that.

Flight 948

That was the number of my flight home, seat 15A.  I had no seatmate (praise the lawd) and this turned out to be a very good thing--no one wants to sit next to someone who is crying off-and-on for almost ninety minutes.  This was after my airport crying, and after my car-crying, saying good-bye to Mike.
As he vocalized; "Why is it so hard this time?"
A good question.
After all, we're 'used to' good-bye. We're used to 'being apart'.  Not by choice of course,
but by sheer circumstance of our different citizenships, our respective careers, his home, my mortgage, the geography between us, the whole of our lifestyles built up around us.

But it doesn't seem to make the good-byes any easier. They seem to be getting worse.
I return to my cold Toronto home, to my beloved condo, but it's empty when Mike's not here.
I notice how little I want to socialize with anyone.

It's funny. In my twenties and early thirties all I did was work like a dog, I bolted out of the gate, with no inkling that I would burn out fast and that life would intervene and interrupt my quest for career domination.
At the time, I rationalized that since I seemed to have zero control over my romantic life (what little I had) I had to work on controlling the things I could, which for me, meant my career and investing in Toronto real estate, and not waiting for a man's help.
Now, I waffle back and forth between a frenzied city and an easy forest-meets-sea, and I am dumbfounded about how all my planning has brought me to this. This meaning the love of my life (Mike, of course), and our separated lives. How perfect it is when we are together, how we make it work even when we're not in the same place.

It goes like this; work, commute, my mom, my sister, my niece and nephew, my friends, my running, cooking, reading, this blog. It all adds up to a full life, but the missing piece pulls at me.

Earlier in my adult life, I had the missing piece of someone to love me--where WAS this person?
I remember crying to my boss after a disastrous trip with an ex-boyfriend to an all-inclusive vacation resort saying, Why can't I be married? And her sage answer, her calm answer, her wise answer:
"So many marriages end in divorce."

Too true. And I know that my timeline (late bloomer) was my timeline. I had to get all the crazy out of my system, I had to come to this place, the one I am in with Mike, with my whole heart. And I have, even though it sometimes feels like my heart is at the mercy of a map, of a bunch of kilometres (miles), at the hands of immigration officials for whom Mike and I are a number.

I don't want to leave this post in a whiny-state. I know I am enormously lucky. I reflected about that on the plane ride home--the luck of finding Mike again, of how every compass point of fate seemed so determined to lead me to him. And then I would fall apart once more, in tears, as I watched the clouds roll by the plane, the miniature-looking fields and roads, all zooming by, taking me away from him. I had a fresh wave of tears (NOT nostalgia for my city) as the plane raced toward Toronto, the Etobicoke skyline in dusky view, all my thoughts jumbled, wishing for my journal to record the fresh thoughts on the plane (I'm recycling right now--lately, all my best writing is done in my head, before I fall asleep, or when I'm on a plane or in an airport, without paper or blog-space. Where I have to digest it and not let it out).

It's Tuesday night, this is just throwaway-writing practice, and it's just proof that yes, I made it through a busy work day, I cooked a nice dinner for myself, and I'm really just talking aloud, listening to my own thoughts. 

But they wander back to Maine, incessantly.

Gone Fishing (ok running)

I'm in Maine.
I promise pictures tomorrow.
I was out running tonight and there wasn't anywhere to stow my camera.

There are American flags flying from every garrison house (this is a housing style in New England, intriguing) and the beach was packed.

I ran alongside the Atlantic, past beach-bound families with their kids, dogs, and bright umbrellas.
I took my shoes off and finally gave this barefoot thing a try. NOW I get it.  When the sun proved too hot, I took off my running skirt (bikini underneath), stored my shoes, socks, and ipod on the sand, and dove into the ocean.

I'm eating lobster pizza, unloading my bag of goodies from Target, and trying to figure out how I'm going to leave this again and go back home til the end of August.

And then I pour a glass of chardonnay, put my arms around Mike, and push those thoughts right out of my head.

And then...

Reading leads to writing, and writing leads to more reading, and more writing, and then, more reading.
More curiosity, more fulfilment, more opportunity, more thoughts.
Through blogging, I've met (ok, sometimes only through an email here and there, or a thoughtful comment), some amazingly creative, insightful people who are not, (regrettably) part of my daily life-crew, but who exist, as I describe, in the 'constellation' of my life, there on the sidelines, on the ready.

I was emailing with my friend H. today, who I have (again, regrettably) met only once, for a pre-race lunch in mid-town TO. Her first message to me was through Facebook, she wound her way over to my blog from a mutual friend's sister, and it's title (which grabbed me immediately and still makes me smile) was something along the lines of "I'm not crazy I'm a friend of __________" (insert mutual friend's name here. I read her message and immediately knew two things:
1) that she was, indeed, not crazy
2) that I wanted to be her friend

Thankfully, I was right about these two things and here we are, emailing each other like champs, talking about everything and nothing (when I say "talking" I mean "writing") and somewhere along the way we both discovered running, then realized we loved it, and now here we are.

I love when that kind of thing happens.

I continue to trawl the web (is that the right word?) searching for inspiration, for people who write in ways I admire, for people who have quirks and know that quirks are sometimes the best part.
People who fall down, be it in life, in love, in family, without family, and admit it. People who are genuine about revealing their imperfect lives, people who get sad, and people who have this love, of writing, of reading, or who are just plain trying to understand it, the revolving-door lives we all so uniquely lead, on this revolving-door planet.

So yea, I'm still reading other blogs, and I'm still loving that.
I've learned some lessons, and one is that I don't like (and I never have) confrontation, and that I also don't like (and I never have) dishonesty, so I have stopped reading some of my previous favourite blogs. It feels right. I had a lesson to learn, and it was a bit prickly, but I learned it.

On that note, one of my continued quiet favourites (I say 'quiet' because it feels so safe and calm when I visit this blog, and I get lost in the dreamy, bright images of this talented New York-based writer) is:
http://www.juliaipsa.com/


And from her blog, I found this little one:
http://www.noodlesandberries.com/

I don't mean little in a diminutive way.  I mean--simple, but powerful. I mean--velvet-hammer-ish.
I started reading entries, and one of the reasons I wanted to list it here is so I can remind myself to return to it. Like Julia's blog, I calm down when I go to this blog. That's a big thing for me. I am not a calm person (I'm working on it. Endlessly. I've been working on calm for over ten years. Seriously).
The author has not posted since March, but I return to check on it periodically so I can savour a new entry.  For now, I just haunt the archives.

I found ths blog:
http://ivyleagueinsecurities.com/
on noodlesandberries sidebar (Julia Ipsa is there too, noodlesandberries has great taste).
I am just diving into the ivy league blog but I already stumbled upon (no I really did stumble, or was lead, to) a post on her late father. Late from cancer. I zero'ed in immediately. I got calm again (despite this blog being a bright, impressive site).  I like it here too.

A comment on ivy league, one I found insightful and extremely kind, led me to this blog, by a male blogger. I don't read enough blogs by men. Maybe men don't write as many. Maybe I just don't find them. Whatever, I really like this one. And his name's Mike. I trust the name Mike.
http://invisiblemikey.wordpress.com/about/

And this one, just adding now, as I receive an email notifying me about a new entry:
http://www.injennieskitchen.com/
Love this one.


Okay so...that what the last few days have been about.
Me, writing and reading, and learning the lessons I need to learn, and not reading other things, and generally minding my own business here on this internet.
But I remain:
my curious self.

Eat, Pray, Tuesday

I think I mentioned I went to the library early Friday evening.
I took out "Eat, Pray, Love".
I'm so glad I never bought the book, and I know I might not be being fair when I say I put the book down in 'section two' (not chapters, not parts, some constructed way of dividing up a book into parts that, even as I read the first....'bead' I was weary of).

I just know this; if this book is out there, published, movie'ed, adored by women everywhere (shame on you), I feel good about my future as a writer.
I'm sorry.
I just do. She starts the book off by admitting, defensively, she won't reveal her marital issues. WHY? I ask you? WHY write a book then? Why, though (this is the REAL biggie) get a book published?

It's like that adage "There are no bad dogs, only bad owners." Maybe, just maybe, there are no bad writers, just bad editors, and bad publishers, and the only 'bad' we read are things that were never meant to see the light of the bookstore. Sure, there are lots of 'unreadable' books to each of us, just like we all have individual taste in movies, tv shows, clothes, food, and places. But the fact that this particular book was so immensely popular (with women) and the fact that I never felt compelled, in any way, to pick it up before Friday evening (my defense, I was bored, zapped from the work week, the library was closing, blah blah blah.... doesn't absolve me I know).
But nothing about the book caught me, made me say, woah, hold on a minute here.

So, it's going back to the library.
Just glad I didn't buy the book (or see the movie. Julia Roberts is bad enough as it is, without this script behind her. Ugh. That's another thing I absolutely hate, and I HATE that writers allow it--have their books optioned and made into something unrecognizable).
A favourite of mine, The Time Traveller's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger, was made into a substandard movie, woefully miscast (in my head, and the head of the friend who gave me the copy of this book--we had it ALL planned out who was to play who in our movie version).
I managed to put myself to sleep on the plane that showed the movie, so I wouldn't have to have it visually imprint me and upend the visuals I already had after reading the book about ten times.

Anyway.
It's Tuesday night, I'm tired, and I've entitled yet another post with a day of the week in the title.
So sue me...in four days I'll be in Maine and this will all be a dim memory.

Long Weekend

Well, it's nearing its end this long weekend is.
It's late in the day, early in the evening, and as I relax on the couch with a book, I reflect that the same way certain lighting flatters people, it also flatters places, my loft being no exception.
Dusk is its best time. The gray-based green on my dining room and kitchen walls seem to have a patina at dusk, and my ceilings and walls seem to blend into one.
The floors look clean, honey-coloured and muted, and there are none of the sharp angles that bright sunlight can lend to a place during the height of the afternoon.

I had a full 100% Carolyn-day today. I guiltily admit to not leaving the house, not even for the run I had planned (discarded the plan with a few glances at the tv weather station). It was just too hot, too bright, too..everything.

I woke up, with the birds, at 6:30 am. It was bright, then, too. A more ambitious runner would have taken this as a sign to get that coffee brewing and get ready to GO, but this runner was in too much pain. Even last night's heating pad on the back did little to quell my body's insistance that today was going to be a 'day off' and not just from work.
I padded about my apartment for a good ninety minutes upon waking, sipping water, checking emails, looking out the window, longing (guilty again) for clouds, before doing something I never do: go back to bed, not just to read for a bit, but to actually sleep some more. And I did, falling back into sleep within minutes, for another two hours.

I had the type of late-morning dreams that imprint you for the day. Really, the last dream was more of a nightmare, but a nightmare with a message.
I was in my childhood home, the one we moved from when I was aged fifteen, so, yes, twenty-three years ago, but there it was in my subconscious, brilliantly detailed as ever, the stacked town that it was, the many steps, inside and out.
I was there with my parents, me, the age I am now, them, the age they were when we lived there (just a bit older than I am now). Something outside was threatening to the three of us. Something outside, an unseen, but rather felt, menace. In the dream, I called 9-1-1, to be connected with an extremely unsympathetic operator who, as I realized during the course of the call, was going to be of no help to me or my parents whatsoever. I was powerless to stop what was happening outside. I warned my parents, who were downstairs in what was, when we lived in this house, our family room, not to come up. It was dangerous. My father came upstairs, armed with a knife, (I have no idea where he found this knife), and motioned to me he would take care of things outside.
I woke up before this part of the dream-nightmare progressed, as somehow, we always seem to.
The dream stayed with me as I awoke, and I turned its meaning over and over in my head, and two things came to me;
One, I felt as I always do when I dream of my dad, that he just wanted to pay a little visit, say hello, and if my dream storyline is less than stellar, well, who is he to re-write it?
Two, he was hell-bent in the dream (my dream) to protect his family despite the fact that a) it was a dream, and b) he's dead.
That part of my subconscious, I reason, the part that lets me return so vividly to my childhood home, still allows me to also revisit that part of ourselves that believes, (we have to) that our parents will always be there to protect us from the dangers of the outside world. That they will never leave us to fend for ourselves. Which, of course, we reasonably know is not true, but as I mentioned one of my friends said a few weeks back, we can't conceptualize this shift.  When a parent dies, that is. It's imaginable, but not considered. It's just a concept, a remote one, as all of these types of thoughts are.
So, there, in my dream, in the safe stacked townhome of my childhood, my father continues to take care of things and I am able to relax and somehow be kept safe.

These thoughts, while comforting, are also extremely weighty. Today, when I called my mother on the phone, she picked up the receiver and paused before speaking, something my father always, habitually did, and I had, for one split-second, the thought that I was about to hear his voice, distinct and remembered, but it was not to be. Of course, not a logical thought, but my mind crossed over to dream-territory where anything was possible. My mother said "Hello?" and I cleared my mind and made no mention of my whimsical world.

So yes, that's the end of the weekend for me, in a nutshell.
The things I haven't done today far outweigh the things I did, or should have, or wanted to.
A full moon looms tomorrow, giving reason for alot of the strife surrounding the week that just passed.
My short sojourn to Maine also awaits, giving me some buoyancy and defense for the coming week that might hold  more moon-weirdness, hot-weather-oddness, storm-bringing chaos, and then, my flight touching down, some well-earned calmness. Seeing the face of my husband, the slant of the sand as I run beside the Atlantic, bites of lobster, sips of American chardonnay.

Summer awaits, even if I sat it out today.
Happy (holiday) Monday...

Sunday (Canada Day!) Run

I ran with my sister today. That is to say, she pushed me well into the territory of the nine-minute mile that has proved so elusive to me the last nine months or so.
Meaning: I charted our course for a swell 16 km/10 mile run starting at 10 am this morning, before (not by much) the heat would reach its zenith.  And we did the lakefront trail so we had a great break from the hell of the concrete/hot air/people/noise while we ran.

Let this be said: She smoked me.

I hit the wall at mile eight. (Mike reminds me that mile eight is not wall-hitting, mile eight is a run well-done, but ...but..I'll explain).

I brought a water bottle, which we shared, although my sister, the camel, didn't seem to need much.

When we ran single-file along Queen St. on the way to Kew Beach, I admired her stride, not duck-footed like mine (I am duck-footed. I'm working on it, but my shoes are done-done-done, and I need new shoes to really work). 
Into mile one, cruising along, we were running side-by-side, and we caught each others' eye.
We switched off our ipods.
Her: "Your right foot bothering you?"
Me: nodding.
Her: "Yep. I could tell. What's wrong with it?"
Me: "Turf toe. Hard to explain".
Her: "Your stride is weird right now".
Me: nodding.
We switched our music back on.

The run was a good one, make no mistake. My sister pushed me, and not in a bad way. But walking two humiliating miles home (my sister "I just want to sprint home", me, "Go, godspeed" in my head "WHAT!!")  was not in my game plan today. It occurred to me that my sister could run that half tomorrow, without alot of fuss or muss. I, however, will need the next four-odd months to continue to train, refine my body, lose the last of the winter-weight, and generally moan and whine about the fact that when it fundamentally comes down to it, I do not, and will never, possess a classic "runner's body".
Meaning: lean. Meaning that, when it counts (and in running, everything counts), I can't always pull it out of my hat.
My back absolutely screamed today. My feet were okay (except for the grumbles about new shoes, can't blame them for that). Arriving back at my three-storey-walk-up loft the first flight of steps was agony. I quickened the pace after that because I needed water so badly.
But here I am, post-run, wanting to do it all again tomorrow.
Yes, that's how crazy I am.
I think about my friend K.'s daughter, training for her first half end-of-August (she's in her early twenties).  About all that time to become better. For me, my entry into the Toronto half marks my first and last year as being classified as a 'young' runner.
Then I think about my friend H., who is about my age, running at amazing times, not taking it too seriously, and just loving the hell out of running.
My other friend K., who I worked with back in the day, a recent running convert, has pictures on her facebook wall that show her with an enviable physique, and she has two little ones (as does my sister).
I keep them all in my mind as I run--as inspiration.
I remind myself, when I get down--on my times, on my own physique (not great this year), that it's the joy of the run. I know it is, I know, I know. I don't force myself out for these insanely long runs, I anticipate them.  They have the power, as that wonderful quote I read says to "lift me out of my life".

So I keep running.
In the heat.
In the morning (instead of lying in bed reading).
In the shade.
On the track.
On the trail. 
On the street.

Not because I have to--because I want to.
Big difference.