In Praise of Sleep and Soup

Sleep and rest. 

I'm starting to give myself full weekends, or at least trying.  When most of what you'd do for work is really fun, work and leisure get a little mixed up.  So, I'm starting to build in "easy" days before and after long days of travel.  I'm trying to give myself something the marvelous Linda Holmes of my favorite podcast, NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, calls "Stay in Bed Saturday." 

And soup.

This part is for my friend, Deborah Sue.  We share busy over-scheduled days, and when we're on the road all day, it is easy to slip into meals with poor nutrition.   I love cooking a big batch of soup and then putting individual servings in the freezer.

Today, we've got snow on the ground and I finished off my last frozen tupperwared portion of this yummy recipe. 

Frank and Glinda

 

 Last month, I had the chance to hear a remarkable story about self-doubt, a story about finding power and inspiration from within, and it came from one of my heroes during my high school days, 1972 Olympic Marathon champion, Frank Shorter.

Rod Dixon (l) and Frank Shorter (r) at the Rock N Roll San Antonio Marathon Expo

Standing in Munich's Olympic Stadium watching the American flag rise for his victory, listening to the Star Spangled Banner, he felt lost, wondering to himself, "so now what?"


And taking the bus back to the Olympic Village, he was the last to squeeze onboard.  Standing right behind him was his college coach, and Frank told him, "I'm not sure what I'll do next.  I guess I'll have to train myself now, without a coach and a team."


And the coach replied, "Frank, you already know how to train yourself; we taught you how to do it years ago, you've been able to do it all along.  Now go do it."


And so, the most human doubts affects champions too.  And, as Glinda the Good Witch told Dorothy, "You don't need to be helped any longer. You've always had the power to go back to Kansas."


So how many times has life turned on a dime and you're casting about for "what's next?" 


With all the traveling and long, long workdays this year, I've been in a cloud of doubt.  Have I reached the end of forward progress with fitness?  Have the months I've let weight-training lapse completely voided the gains I made in all those years of hard work?  Am I just getting old?


Even after riding 40 miles in the Marfa 100 in October, the doubts remained.


But then, at Thanksgiving we went mountain biking in Big Bend Ranch State Park, it clicked...to train well, you need to keep it fresh, you need variety.  You need fun.


I'd been having a hard time finding the fun, I realized.  I'd been measuring myself too much, expecting diminishing returns and it had become a burden.

And then in the middle of a tumbleweed-blowing dust storm, I came up with a 5K time in Marfa's Turkey Trot that was slower than my first 5K in 2004, but was respectable, enough to win 3rd place in my age category.  And I was very happy.


So Sunday morning, I ran up the rocky trail behind Fort Davis, a 300 foot gain in a mile, and then back down again, in cold fog.  It was something I'd tried last November, and it was HARD then.  Powering up a year ago was tough; I had to stop too many times and catch my breath.  But this time it felt relatively effortless and completely joyful.  I may not be logging faster runs all the time, but I still have the ability to get stronger, to tackle new challenges, and to still have fun.  That has not gone away.  And I'd always had the power to do it.  Frank and Glinda would have been proud.

Of course, stretching expectations is not accomplished alone...thanks goes to those who inspire...to Frank, to Arthur and the Houston running gang, the young fast Marfa crowd, and of course, Monte who has been there with a push, a nudge and always encouragement.

Things that make me happy

This  morning's trail run at Fort Davis National Historic Site

The view from the top of  my trail run, 300 feet above the trailhead

Finally, finally we're 10 trail directors strong!



Though we're more than a week from Thanksgiving, there are many thing for which I'm thankful, and things that make me very happy:

Living in a beautiful place, where I can catch a Sunday morning trail run in the mountains

A terrific Thanksgiving, where cooking and working out were equally important and equally fun (mountain biking!)

The trail program is 10 directors strong!

The thing that helps me sleep also makes me happy...my ipod loaded up with podcasts like NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour  (thoughtful and joyful commentary), the Tobolowsky Files (at times, truly extrordinary storytelling), New York Times Review of Books, Two Gomers Run a Marathon  ("Dude!" Two goofy guys set running goals and report on them.  Very goofy guys.)


A thoughtful partner who looks for opportunities to make the everyday special...who offered to set a table for two on my patio, and with an old family picnic tablecloth, thank you (and Happy Birthday!)

The Relief of Vulnerability

Yes, it has been more than a year since my last post.  Yes, I've missed this.

To quote Queen Elizabeth, "1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure.  In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an annus horribilis." 

I won't elaborate, except to say the past 12 months have been among my most exhausting, where self-talk seemed to be on an endless loop, "Buck up, Beth and DEAL with it."  There has been joy too, and many, many blessings.  But mostly this has been an adult year with adult challenges, where a gritty strength was needed; a year when even kind and caring friends looked at the challenges ahead and counseled me to give up and move on.  And yet, stubborn as I am, I'm still here fighting.  And we won--a big "Round One" anyway.

And yes, things are better now.  I learned that democracy does work, even if people use it to be truly truly mean to each other, sometimes just for sport.  I learned that I am part of a team, a sometimes invisible network of people who believe in what we're doing.  And while they may approach life with a completely different view of things, they still may support me if I let them.  And I need to let them.

I'm fortunate enough to have two more years of employment ahead of me, while living in a safe and gracious space in a truly remarkable town with nice people.  And I still believe in the work we're doing, and know I have the energy to look forward to considerable challenges ahead.

So, I took it as a blessing to have a 15 hour train ride ahead of me when I boarded in Alpine almost two weeks ago.  And although there was an electrical outlet right by my coach seat and I could have worked onboard, I didn't.  Instead I watched my region pass by.  Sections of dark burned land gave way to the dry--but still intact beauty--of the region.  And as we pulled further east, more and more green.

I just let the experience and the scenery wash over me...not thinking, not working, just being for a change.

I saw the sun setting over Lake Amistad, dogs frolicking in an orchard after dinner, a large family enjoying a barbecue under trees covered with balloons.  And since we were moving east, the delicate choreography of a shadows pulling day into night happened more quickly than if I'd been standing still.

When it came time for bed, I stretched across two seats, eager to get comfortable.  As I watched Texas go to sleep, I knew I could finally relax.  The year had been spent steeling myself against my own vulnerability, now I was releasing into it.  Willingly, easily I fell into it with relief.

Preparing to let go

Daisy is sleeping peacefully at the moment, pretzeled around my legs on top of the covers.  She's been dreaming; I've been trying to nap after we've both had a hard night.  She didn't seem to be eating well a few days ago, and I canceled a night away from home because she didn't seem herself.  But she rallied and then I was on the road again, and yesterday returned home to a very sick kitty.

But such a good kitty.  Together for nearly seven years now, she's helped me through some of the hardest decisions of my life, through some of the biggest challenges, and through some of the very best times.  She was a shelter kitten, found with her litter in a cardboard box at Lake Darling.  Discarded, but then rescued, she helped me come home to a lonely house, giving me hope and companionship.  She'd wait for me in the window; her silhouette reassuring in the quiet of dark nights.  Since she was a midwestern girl too, she comforted me after particularly hard days of being the odd-woman-out in this often bewildering, sometimes unforgiving place.  We were comrades, buddies, girls with derring-do.  We fit.

I wanted to take her on adventures.  I wanted her to share in the good times; I wanted her to know how much she helped me turn my life around.  But she seemed happy to play with her Design Ranch string (Iowa Citians will know what I mean), her fishing pole feather, her stuffed catnip mouse, the water in her bubbler (she dismantled the first one as a kitten), the water in the shower (she pulled up the drain to get to more).  She even worked out with me:  being particularly helpful with ab work, climbing on my tummy adding extra weight; and making tricep work a bit of an obstacle course, lest I conk her in the head with the dumbbells.  Wary of men at first (except Monte whom she loved immediately) she enjoyed having people over, warming eventually to everyone.  Usually in the middle of dinner, we'd find her near the foot of one of our guests, on her back all four white paws up in the air vibrating in synch with her purrs.

On that first trip home from the shelter, we both learned she was not a traveler.  And she's proven herself to be so spectacularly not a traveler, the vet advised me to stop driving her the hour to the office, even for vaccinations and ordinary care.  So I knew we'd have this day eventually...the day she'd be too sick to not take to the vet, but possibly too sick to survive the drive there.  That she is not drinking tells me this is serious.  So I'm trying to keep her comfortable as long as I can, waiting for the vet to call. Perhaps we can try tomorrow.

Oh hell no.

The first sign came a couple of years ago, when I turned over in bed and felt something between my shoulder blades.  "What the hell is underneath me?" and then there was the shock.  Nothing was between  my flesh and the rumbled sheet but my....own sagging skin. 

And then this weekend, while undressing in the questionable lighting of my B&B bathroom, I noticed a strange mark on my torso in my reflection in the mirror.  "What's that, a smudge?"  No, merely shadows from again--from my own flesh--and the teensiest bit of sag.

Oh hell no.

So despite the miles of training on foot and on the bike, and innumerable 'reps' of the weights, I'm here to tell you, the flesh does sag after 50...well at least at 51, almost 52.

And today, the life insurance salesman visited with all of us covered under the Town of Van Horn's policy.

Sigh.

I suppose this should be the place I talk about honoring the beauty of age...and I really do believe in that honor, in that beauty.  But did it have to happen to me?!?

I mean, really, what was I thinking?  That I'd somehow be forever immune from this sort of thing?

I remember a stunningly beautiful poster of a older woman swimmer, her back an origami of skin against the smooth fabric of her suit.  I can't find that image anymore, and when I google, "image old woman swimmer," I get images of Dara Torres, who has provided me with inspiration to keep fit, to keep active, to not be defined by "over 40," or even "over 50."

And so I just grin and bear it.  And I'm incredibly thankful to still be running and hiking, and cycling and lifting weights at this age.  Sometimes when I lack motivation on my runs, I use the name as a mantra, "Dar a, Tor res.  Dar a, Tor res."  It helps keep me going.

I have no doubt that I will be that wrinkly woman runner, swimmer, cyclist, hiker for a long time to come.  Still at it, still confident that the muscles will work, under all that sharpei-skin that's developing.

Back to maps and storytelling

Regarding storytelling and mapmaking, here's what has been on my mind:  instead of thinking about what we choose to show, and what we choose to tell, I've been considering what and why we omit.

One of my favorite aspects of creating of a map artpiece was actually the design and placement of the legend--that box that shows symbols and mileage measurements--the parameters of the map. The legend was fun to stitch because it had an established visual vocabulary--widths of roads, solid vs. dashes, a title, compass.  It gave my fiction credibility, too, as a "map."
As artistic cartographer, I had to decide where the legend would be placed.  In my Map of Great Pies piece, which showed Michigan and Illinois pies, would the legend be placed, say over Missouri, deeming it undistinguished in the matter of great pies?  Or would I place the legend over what would have been Kentucky, rendering it a place of second rate pies, unworthy of even appearing on a map?

In all the years I've looked at real maps, I've always wondered, what actually IS underneath the legend? They were usually placed in some obscure place in the ocean.  Was there nothing there?  At all?  Do fish swim there?  Is there not one speck of an island?  Was all of that place so unnoteworthy it had absolutely nothing to offer the map?

Were it not for its strategic location on one of the country's busiest transcontinental highways, Van Horn would probably be one of those communities obscured by the map's legend.  At least most people would be tempted to place the legend there, for whenever the region's virtues are mentioned, Van Horn is rarely among them.  It HAS assets and attributes--fine ones, actually--but depending on who is leading the discussion, it probably won't rise to the top.

In our statewide program, we know the political fallout from being omitted from the map.  Forty years ago, to publicize the state for the upcoming World's Fair, Governor Connolly set up 10 driving routes--one for every part of Texas--for HemisFair goers to discover the true Texas.  And thirty years later, those routes became the framework for our program and the ten heritage trails regions.  Some..many communities were left off that first set of driving tours forty years ago, and it still doesn't sit well.  We happily serve them, but they're not on the map, and that apparently still stings.

Clearly, no one likes to be ignored.  And some assets, some places, don't just jump up and grab you.

Part of my job is to find what isn't mapped, what isn't known, what isn't immediately apparent about a place.  Find, investigate, cheerlead, promote.  Our funder calls it "untold stories."

The longer I'm here, the more untold stories I find...the 1918 tent hospital in the desert near Marathon, set up for the influenza outbreak; the progression of design in family motor courts and small roadside motels; the history of my own building, first a fraternal hall, then a series of stores connected to other buildings in town by an underground tunnel.  There is also the story of the desert surrounding us, the silent, imperceptible elements of the land--like the character of the wind--that do not fit well on a map.