Sunday Serenity

Longview Dike

I took this picture when I went running on the dike last June.  I'm dreaming of running again.  Running was once one of my greatest joys.

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Sunday Serenity #405

Sunset Beach Garabaldi, Oregon

 Mom, my two sister's and I went to the beach yesterday.

One Way to Stay Warm

 It was supposed to be a warm day but the ocean breeze overpowered the sun.  Mom and my sisters spent most of the two hours in the chairs bundled in jackets and blankets.  I stayed warm by staying in motion--running, spinning, slopping through the shallow surf.

Taking pictures.

Sun Dazzled

Wet Sand and Shallow Surf--Made for Running

A Couple and Their Dog Cavorting

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Room to Run (ROW80 Check-In)

Room to Run

We went to the beach today.  Mom my two sisters and I.

It was Sunset Beach in Oregon not far from the mouth of the Columbia River.  The expanse of sand at low tide is vast, flat and wet.  It is possible to drive the car onto the packed sand right to the edge of the wet sand and park which allowed Mom to walk to the spot we set up the chairs to watch the surf.

It's possible to drive on the wet sand uncovered by the low tide but not wise to park there for long if you intend to drive off of it again.

Between our chairs and the surf line was an expanse of wet sand at least the width of a quarter mile racetrack.  I knew from experience that this it the best possible surface for running.  It's nearly as low impact as a trampoline.  I took off running toward the water.

I actually never sat in a chair the whole two hours we were there.  I ran and wandered, slopped through the edge of the surf, spun in circles with my arms stretched out until I was too dizzy to walk straight, stumbled zigzag fashion until I could hold a course and ran some more.  And started all over again.

It was the first time in decades I was able to full out run without hesitation for there was no fear of tripping, stepping off the edge of a narrow path or running into someone or something in motion darting out from the dark periphery of my visual field.

Having heard it was going to be warm--high 70s or 80s, I'd dressed in layers starting with shorts and a tank top.  Over the tank I'd worn a hooded, long-sleeved, lightweight cotton pullover for the ride against the car cooler's icy breath.  I fully expected to pull it off once we arrived.  My sister came prepared to body surf on her boogie board.

But we were met with a stiff churning breeze. Chilly and stinging with the moisture and sand it carried. I had to put on a hooded windbreaker and a cotton scarf around my neck.  With my legs bare I was still tensing with the chill.  Which is why I started running and then stayed in motion the whole two hours.

Those two hours freed me from the oppressive caged feeling I've been struggling with for months.  Fifteen minutes in I found Happy.  It lasted until at least an hour after climbing back into the car.

The breeze seemed to have swept my mind free of clutter giving me clarity of thought.  Briefly, but enough for me to latch on to an insight or two.

Seeing the sand stretched out all around reminded me of a motivational story I'd read on line recently.  One I'd heard before:

There was a speaker (preacher or motivational) who set a large transparent bowl before his audience and put in it several large rocks until there was no room for another.  

He asks the audience if the bowl is full and they chorus 'Yes!'   

He then adds a bunch of stones half the size of the rocks until there is no room for more.  

'Is it full now?'  and again the chorus answers 'Yes.'

Next he adds rocks small enough to close up in his fist until there is no more room.

'What about now?'  Still the chorus of 'Yes.' but maybe fewer voices, maybe a drop in volume.

Now he pours in gravel.  And asks again.  The yeses are mixed with noes many sounding like questions themselves.

And sure enough there is still room for sand, filtering down through the crevices and crannies all the way to the bottom.

'Surely it is full now, eh?' He asks, pouring himself a drink from a pitcher of water.  The chorus is divided into firm yeses and noes.

He grins, pouring the pitcher of water over the surface of sand.

Retold in my own words.

The rocks, gravel, sand and water represent items on a todo list.  The main point being made is that in order to fit in the biggest things--the highest priority or most time-consuming--they need to go in first.  The secondary point is that many tasks can be fit into the interstices--standing in line, waiting rooms, stalled traffic.

I was reminded once again that writing needs to be one of the big rocks.  Although many of its related and component tasks can fit into the interstices it needs also a block of dedicated time.

Which has given me the missing motivation to return to the early bird schedule.  A motive that is purely my own.  Not an attempt to please my husband who is a natural early bird.  Nor to comply with anyone else's idea of what I should be doing or even my idea of what others think I should be doing.

I will be easing into it though.  For to start off with expectations of an instant and perfect switch would set me up for failure.  Still I don't think it will take me as long as it took last year when I began the transition the first time.  The insomnia is not as intransigent and I won't have to relearn the same lessons from all the trials and errors from that time.

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Sunday Serenity #395 Running Blind

See Joy Run

Running was once one of my passions and I thought for years that because I was so severely visually impaired now I would never run again.  But I learned that it was possible with a running partner and a safe location so in January I put it on my Bucket List.

Then in April I shared with my 2nd cousin's wife (a runner) about my running history and she offered to take me running after she finished the May half marathon she was training for.

Finally last weekend I shopped for running shoes.

Today Mary took me out to the west Longview dike to run.

Well, run-walk.  And it might have been first cousin if not sibling to jogging. I could not sustain the sprints past 30 seconds. Which is just a guess.  I just know they were short.  50-70 paces maybe.  But several of them over the nearly mile long stretch.

Baby steps.

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The Ultimate Bounce Back

After falling flat on your face...What would you do?

I'm going to watch this over and over until it starts to stick:

After the fall, get back up and keep going.

Don't even bother to dust yourself off.

Just get up and GO

She actually won anyway!!!

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Sunday Serenity #373

© Photographer Andrew Kazmierski | Agency: Dreamstime.com

This is an ongoing series from my Bucket List
of things I desperately want to do before
I loose the rest of my vision

My Bucket List
#13 Regain the Strength and Stamina to Run Again
(and then find a safe place for running with impaired vision)

Joy Runneth Over
at age 6
hanging my dolls' clothes
on the clothesline

From as far back as I can remember until my late twenties I was a runner.  I ran everywhere inside and out.  Running landed me in the ER three times before I was 15 and almost in a lake when I was three.  Only the quick thinking and legs of my uncle grabbing me up one or two of his strides before the grassy slope I was running down dropped off saved me from that lake and possibly another ER visit--or worse.

At age four I was running circles around my Daddy laying on the living room floor to decompress after work and fell breaking my left collar bone.  At six I broke my nose on a door jamb running down the hall.  The day before my first day in Junior High I was chasing my brother who ran into the house slamming the door and my arm went through the window as my foot missed the step and I fall hanging my upper left arm up on a jagged piece of glass.

None of that slowed me down. For running was my bliss.  Though I did not understand it as such then, running was my stress relief.  It was the one safe way to express exuberance in a family where all strong emotion was held suspect.  It was my main defense against playground bullies and an expression of my impatience to get to the future.  

I preferred to run the two miles down the hill from my Junior High school rather than take the crowded noisy bus and be subjected to the teasing.  If I left immediately after my last class without going back to my locker I could easily be home ten to fifteen minutes earlier.  I ran in dresses and Waffle Stompers with my books clutched to my chest by one arm and my clarinet case swinging from the other.  

Sometimes the bus caught up with me and I heard jeers and that would spur me to run faster, catching up and passing it again each time it stopped to let kids off.  My triumph was to cross the railroad tracks at the bottom of the hill ahead of the bus.

When my 8th grade PE coach had the class running a timed 440 two at a time, I pulled ahead of my running partner immediately and by the time I was on the far side of the track from the coach and the rest of the class she was still on the first turn and I heard the class erupt into loud hoots and hollers that continued until I crossed the finish line where I learned that I had just broken the school record for the girl's 440, shaving over ten seconds off it, bringing it to within ten seconds of the boy's record.  My time was sixty something and the boy's fifty something.

My coach said I had run the 440 like a dash, sprinting the whole way unlike most experienced trained runners who pace themselves on the first 220 and sprint the last 100.  She told me I had raw talent and good form for an untrained runner and said that with training I could compete in the Olympics.

The cheering from my class that day woke up a deep yearning in me and also healed some deep wounds created by the grade-school playground bullying some of those same girls had participated in.  I was told the cheering began when the coach told them that if I held that pace I would break the record.  When I crossed the finish line they swarmed me, pounding my back, grabbing my hand, jumping up and down congratulating me as they continued hooting.

As I made my way through the halls and across the courtyard to my next class the news had already spread and kids were calling out to me with congrats, claps, fist pumps over their heads.  And the teacher herself in the classroom all the way across campus from the track and gym, congratulated me as I entered the room.

Later that week the boy's coach had his class on the track with mine, invited by my coach to see me run and pit me against his best.  One after the other I ran the 50 and the 100 against his best sprinters, winning the 100 and staying on the heels of the boy in the 50.  My weakness was in the take off and the building up to speed in the first 20 yards or so.  

Then it was me against the boy's best miler on the 440.  We ran the first 220 neck and neck but that was only because he was pacing himself like a miler and when he pulled ahead at the halfway point he had plenty of reserve for a hard push while I was already pushing my envelope so that when I tried to stay on his heels I ended up with a severe stitch in my side on the last turn and collapsed.

In spite of that tho, the boy's coach was impressed and lamented that it was too late to jump me through the hoops to get me onto the boy's intramural track team that year.  Deadlines for permissions and such had passed.  The girls at our Junior High did not have any intramural teams so occasionally a girl with talent would be invited onto the boy's team.

In tenth grade I joined the girls track team but I had just spent the school year without taking PE or racing the bus down the hill--my walk home was simply crossing the school parking lot.  I'd lost my edge.  So the next year I took PE in the fall and it was probably the drinking fountain in the girls locker room that gave me Mono.  The doctor would not sign off on me joining the team that year.  I joined again for my senior year but I had not regained my strength and stamina.  

For several years after the Mono, running--all physical exertion actually--betrayed me by causing excruciating pain and profound fatigue. Even relapses.  By the time I hit my mid twenties I had gained 25 pounds and lost motivation as well as muscle mass and stamina.  By my late 40s I weighed 120 pounds more than the day I broke the record in 8th grade.

Over the last four decades I've missed running, longing for it with an intensity akin to unrequited love.  Running had been my Joy.  Pun intended for it had been so integral to my I.  Without it I hardly recognized myself for years.  

Recently running has returned to my night dreams where I am running towards something not away and now I'm daring to hope I can have it back for since January 2009 I've lost 70+ pounds, 30 of them in the last year.

It will take more than loosing the last 40 to 50 pounds to get running back though.  I need to build back muscle and stamina.  I need to regain the desire to exert myself again.  I need to spend less time sitting at the computer, less time crocheting, less time watching videos.  In other words I have to loose the habits of a sedentary lifestyle.  Running won't return to me via simple wishing or daydreaming.

I know how to do it.  Getting more 4th stage sleep where muscle tissue is built and getting back on the mini-tramp for 30+ minutes per day would get me there in a few months.  The question would then become where would I find a safe place for running while all but blind?

I imagine the wet sand beside the surf as the best bet--always one of my favorite places to run--but that isn't something I'm likely to get regular access to.

But I can't let that question stop me from preparing.  I need to trust that the answer will manifest once I've manifested the muscle and stamina.

I would like to be ready for a place to run no later than Memorial Day this year.

My Bucket List

#1 Hot Air Balloon Ride
#2 Play on a real drum set
#3 Swim with dolphins
#4 Visit Shakespeare & Co. Bookshop in Paris
#5 Visit the Library of Congress
#6 Attend a Performance of Beethoven's Symphony #9 by a top notch Orchestra

#7 Visit Hawaii
#8 Visit Russia 
#9 Learn Russian
#10 Learn Braille

#11 Celebrate Christmas in My Own Home with All the Trappings

#12 Add Petit Point to My Fiber Art Repertoire

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