Finding Goldsworthy

Now that the year is winding down, I'm trying to post entries I should have written earlier in the year. Here's one that should have been posted in June:

Whilst the family was off exploring the Scottish coast and researching our family roots, I had the day to myself to enjoy the countryside. I stuffed a pork pie in my daypack and with the brochure "Walking in and around Thornhill" in hand, I headed out on the road. I figured out I could connect the 3 mile Nith Bridge Riverside Walk (Nith Bridge at left) outside of Thornhill, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland; to the 3.5 mile Penpont to Keir Mill walk with a mile or two in between, and then a brisk walk back to the Trigony House Hotel.


It was a lovely day.

And then, on the road connecting the walks, I saw this far off in a field:






A rock cairn.




Then the town of Penpont.


















And then onto my second walk, but as I trekked by the riverside, I could not shake the image of the cairn set alone on the hillside, in full view of the road, without a mention in my brochure.

















The cairn seemed too modern to be one of the ancient memorials found elsewhere in the country. It was perfectly placed, deliberately placed, gracefully, sensitively set on the hill. On my way back, I stopped quite a long time to have a better look.











It was solid, beautiful, and it continued to be in my thoughts throughout the trip. Yet it wasn't until I returned home when I realized what it was, the work of Andy Goldsworthy, and an artist whose work I'd admired for some time. And a long-time resident of Penpont, a local. It was a happy realization to find something so deliberately made could hold its own amongst all that gentle beauty.

The act of placing stone on stone, or Goldsworthy's other work connecting ice to ice, stick to stick, frond to frond appeals to me. It is meditative, instinctual, and calculated, just as the process of placing stitch next to stitch.

For a look at Goldsworthy's work, click here.

One of the advantages to hiring Paul and Pauline, our guides at Homemade-Holidays, is the ability to take personal days away from the family. To read more about their services--and I highly recommend them--take a look at: www.homemade-holidays.com

A Year of Running

As the year winds down, I'm remembering all the great places I got to see because I laced on my shoes in the morning. Mind you, it was tough getting out of bed some mornings, but because I did I got to run:

• through an organic pea field, then an early 1700s graveyard, then straight through a Scottish farm,
• in full view of the stormy Gulf Coast at Corpus Christi...it was too windy to run outside, so I did this from a treadmill at the hotel's fitness center,
• on a trail in Tucson, past towering saguaro cacti,
• between Fort Davis State Park and Fort Davis National Historic Site,
• around Memorial Park in Houston (with so many great dogs running with their human friends) and then downtown and back,
• through the beautiful arts campus at the University of Iowa before it was damaged by flood,
• around my old grade schools in Bloomington,
• across the UT campus and the state capital grounds in Austin, then down by Town Lake and the Stevie Ray Vaughn statue,
• on the road leading into the old Corn Ranch where I was dogsitting,
• countless hotel fitness center treadmills across the state,
• through downtown Dahlongega, Georgia,
• on the taxiway of the Fredericksburg airport, next to my hotel, The Hangar,
• through Gatlinburg, Tennesee and down the Sugarlands Trail in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
• and of course, my beloved Van Horn Cemetery in full view of Turtleback and Six Mile Mountains, and the always wild and absolutely quiet Hwy 54 north of town.

I'll beat last year's mileage by more than 180 miles, but experiencing all those places made it a great year of running.

Christmas Day run

Monte and I ran five miles late this morning; when he's in town we can run safely in the mountains around Van Horn, I'm not restricted to the cemetery. The variety, companionship and coaching does me a world of good. And the weather, though windy, was lovely.

Senior Ambition

Today's New York Times quotes Philip Seymour Hoffman, “I’m going to be 41, and I’ll go to the bathroom and get a good glimpse of myself in the mirror, and I’m like, What happened?"

I probably felt this way myself at 41. On and off a little doughy and getting little to no exercise, there was the occasional shock of recognition I was getting old, usually in a brutally lit dressing room at the mall.

This is not the way it is today.

Sure, aging slaps me in the face still. Joints creak. Skin looks tired. Eyes droop. But rather than being an occasionally stunned spectator to the march of time, the effects of bad eating and a slovenly lifestyle, I'm in building mode.

I'm building endurance, strength, muscle. Sure the skin may not cover the frame as tautly as before, but instead of looking at a deterioration of things, the focus is on what can be built up. The quadriceps and triceps gain more definition. Stamina increases. I log longer distances in my running journal with less effort.

It was still a revelation when a running friend mentioned I was now qualified to compete in the Senior Olympics. Yeah, I could do that.

When I go back to Illinois, I try to run around Oakland School, the site of so many old humiliations. It is a point of victory for the 10 year old who did not qualify for any event at the all-school sports jamboree in 1968--the only student in the school in this predicament, mind you--to be considering any competition at all. And when I looked at last year's Texas Senior Olympics results and learned I could have easily, easily won a silver medal in the 5K, I smell redemption.

Those following the antics and demographics of the Baby Boomers know that I'm a walking, running, cliche. We're expected to have active Senior years, to channel our defining ambitions in new directions, to strive for new goals, to thrill-seek, to embody Citius, Altius, Fortius. Yet, I suspect the label "Senior" is discouraging Boomers from participating in the Senior Olympics. As a group, we hate the notion of getting old. Elderhostel is having to rebrand...we also hate the idea of becoming "Elder."

This is something I don't mind, the idea or the label of getting old. I may be getting a bit wrinkly, but I'm also getting Swifter, Higher, Stronger, and that feels great.