rage :: rapture

It used to be so much easier to crank out an 8 miler. To swiftly jerk that notch to 10.

Instinctively, I know it's true: there is a direct correlation between marrow-deep frustration and a long distance run. Rage can fuel a tank.

At my angriest, I'd be out there with a determined, unbreakable focus that rivaled GORE-TEX in its water and wind resistance. Another hill, another footbridge and I'd level it, bulldoze by—fervid, impassioned additions of mileage. Snot rockets firing like stray bullets into innocently arching sidewalks, or defenseless brake-lit traffic, or into my own whipping knot of ponytail.

This was pure, pulsing frustration, deep-rooted down to the core. Motivator of up-and-go psychotic jogging proportions. I called myself a runner but I was running for all the wrong reasons. An exercise in releasing rage in the guise of health and fitness.

(And you're probably wondering, What. What made you so angry? It was any number of things. The wanting to be taken out to dinner and receiving a 2 am phone call instead. Three years on the college soccer team mostly relegated to the bench. That professor who so sensitively advised "You need to break out of the conditional tense, all these sentences driven by an 'I would' and 'I could'"—a resonating sign of how I wanted to be living, or more like, clearly, how I wasn't.)

Now, things are different. Amazing what happiness does. I start the weekend with John and the New York Times and a fresh zest of lemon in a midday Tom Collins. I've reclaimed the confidence to write. My frustrations are quick to fade and anger, once so all-consuming, is something to squash instead of carry for miles. In the wide, gentle band of afternoon I'm out there striding in the New Year air, gripping joy like a water bottle.

Only, here's the thing, and instinctively, I know it's true: contentment is not conducive to long distance running. Comfort can soothe the loins.

So I've been covering distance enough to look good in the dark. Signing up for 5Ks that offer free beer and chowder afterward. I've been Photoshopping saturation into my face as evidence of effort in every post-race photo I've taken.

All of this leading up to the past couple weeks and why they've been such a challenge. God love her, Ashley convinced me to sign up for a half marathon on the Cape. February 28th. A dead of winter 13.1-miler.

Last night we ran 6.5 miles, steady, talking as we went. Sometimes the roads were black-iced and difficult to traverse. The wind by the water was nothing more complicated than cold. The streetlights in harsh relief in the snow, like stakes in the heart of the earth if you were to let your mind wander to a darker place.

I honestly wasn't looking forward to this jog. But as we were stomping over the snow near MIT I couldn't help but think, How healthy. And how inspiring to have this kind of friend, someone who helps you forget what a struggle this is.

It's a lesson that I don't have to be batshit angry to go the distance. I'm learning to run for better reasons. For something closer to fitness of body and mind, and spirit.

wintry mix

barrage of wind and sleet and then this dandruff dusting of snow. 4 am had me thinking the building would blow down and now this colorless stillness, an oblique brightness of sky.

drafty windows, water-stained ceilings. our brownstone crumbling back to the land one moldering brick at a time.

the elements, always at you, rarely with you—stay awake. don't get too content. shovel, salt the street.

your throat a frozen downspout, each cough a clog in the gutter. your voice hardened over, silenced, stuck to the roof.

you can't see it, but you can hear it—a plane overhead. that rumble of low growling echo.

the plane lands. they collect their bags, a steady walk through the terminal. automated doors at the exit, a chill grips wrists and ankles. they shiver, shoulders buckling by the idling taxi stand, cowering into the crevasse of their chest, aching to dig through their ribs to their heart so they can hold it like a thermos.

winter in new england. unapologetic. a relentless, callous season.

there are warmer places, to be sure. and yet we stay.

Q&A

We're in a church, on Church Street, and it's Friday night. The pews are packed. Blue Bibles and Spiritual Singing hymnals surround me and Julie, and although swapping stories with her over martinis has always felt something close to spiritual, we've never spent an evening together in the house of God. A Friday evening, at that.

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love steps up to the podium. She's here to read from her new memoir, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage. I have yet to read any of her material (I swear, it's on my list), so I feel somewhat in the dark. But Julie insists, "You will love her."

And I do. She is charming, quick-witted, and funny. She reads an excerpt from Committed and I am completely enthralled. Her writing has these moments of beauty that skinny-dip the surface of sentimentality and then cannonball back into the narrative—you're looking on, seduced and humored, wiping water from your face, wondering if you've teared up a bit or if it's just that Gilbert splashed you. Either way, it's on your skin.

After the reading there's a Q&A. Having attended a couple hundred readings over the past few years, I instinctively shift in my seat. These sessions are typically a world of awkward, scaling between the Hiiiii, ohmiGod, I'm such a BIG FAN to the When you say the tonality is primarily impervious, how do you navigate an impermanent subject? Oh, shut up.

And at first, it's the familiar geek-out and showboat. Until this nervous man stands to ask a question. He says, "...Umm. ...Umm. ...Umm, I don't know what to say!" and there's a choir of laughter and clapping. We're intimidated by her, too.

But then he collects himself, starts again. "I was experiencing a great heartache. I decided to go back to Panama, where I was raised. And my friends told me, they said 'You should read a book. A book will help you heal.' Well, I read your book. It was very, very healing," and there's this perfect religious moment where everyone is clapping, jubilantly, applauding the both of them for being so brave and open. And he continues, "But here's my question: How do you know when you're healed?"

Pandemonium. Because it's such an honest, heartfelt question. Because it's such a vulnerable thing to ask. I'm hurting. When does this end?

We all look to Elizabeth Gilbert. She is obviously touched. And she responds with a wisdom of experience: "Well, I don't think healing can be a destination. You don't just wake up one day and say, 'I'm healed.' No, it's more like a matter of feeling good enough. Like you've walked away from a firing squad and one day [motioning toward her limbs] you think, 'Hey, I'm doing alright.'"

Another question follows but that's clearly the message most of us are left with.

Leaving, Julie and I are spellbound. Drinks follow at the Miracle of Science, and like the name, spectacular things happen: Björk is there, along with Michael Gondry, director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Also bar side, that cantankerous Jim Morrison-crooning contestant from American Idol's recent Boston tapings (alright, I'll admit it, I watched it on Tuesday).

But much later that night, in bed, in the dark, I go back to that question of being healed. Despite all that money wiring into Haiti... Despite every prayer for the loved one no longer with you... Despite all the support in the world...

Lying on my back, I remember that game "light as a feather, stiff as a board"—we'd play it during sleepovers in middle school. Me, Julie, and a handful of other girls on our soccer team.

Someone would lie down, close her eyes. We'd circle around her, place our fingertips beneath her body. Someone would tell a make-believe story of how the girl died. At the end of the story, silence. And then a chorus of whispered voices: "Light as a feather, stiff as a board. Light as a feather, stiff as a board."

And no one would ever admit it, but it wasn't supernatural. We'd lift her. Plain and simple.

It was like we'd brought her back to earth. Her youth, her health, her soul intact. We'd giggle, high on our morbidity, sneak upstairs to the kitchen and delve into the freezer for ice cream. Our dreams ahead 8 hours long, warm, uninterrupted. The dreaming process, what supposedly heals you of the day's complications, commencing like a sun into dawn.

And yet some mornings, I'll wake up with this alarming sense of dread. How is it possible to feel so grateful, so unbelievably lucky, and yet—

revelations

The last time I saw him he was standing off to the side of the farmer’s market in Copley Square. A sentinel of stillness amidst a commotion of hands reaching into coolers for apple cider, into bails of Hubbard squash. Adjusting something in his backpack, he suddenly looked up—he looked right at me. And he waved. I waved back, and smiled. Continued on my way to work.

This morning he was outside Back Bay station in a camouflaged winter coat. Same backpack, a trash bag and worn bundles at his feet. Maybe the tenth or fifteenth time I’d seen him since I started working at Pearson. And just like every other time—whether I was walking alone or within a crush of people—he found me. His gaze was peaceful.

As I walked toward him, he said hello. A mild, tranquil hello like we were distant neighbors who’d been tilling the same fields for years. I said hello back, slowly, in as soothing a voice as possible.

Mid-stride I asked, “How are you?” and then felt sorry because maybe that was an insensitive question. Maybe that was too simple and too big of a question to ask him. He said he was doing well, “And how are you?” he asked and I said, “Good.”

I walked toward Dunkin’ Donuts, the one that’s right inside the station. My dad had given me nearly 40 bucks in gift cards over the holidays, passed on from the kids on his bus. In line, I looked out the window, thought about how blisteringly cold it’s been.

I bought a medium coffee, extra milk, no sugar. And then what would he want? A medium coffee. It would be insulting to get him something smaller than what I’d ordered. With milk and sugar.

I never do anything like this. I don’t reach into my wallet for spare change. I always doubt the validity of the despairing need for 5 more dollars to get on the commuter rail. Call it heartless, call it selfish, call it completely inhumane to just pass by, shutter my heart, untouched and unaffected in the homeostasis of my privileged, comfortable life. It is all these things.

But something about this man’s eyes, the way he appears to set me apart.

It was early enough in the morning that something so mystical didn’t seem so half-baked. What was he trying to tell me?

I was suddenly nervous with my two coffees, walking awkwardly with my gym bag dangling off my left elbow, my oversized purse inching toward the edge of my shoulder. Although constantly aware of it I was shamefully aware of it now—was it really necessary to carry so much shit?

Outside, he hadn’t left. He was turning through pages of the Metro. I quietly approached and said as confidently and casually as possible, “Hey, I got you a coffee.”

He turned, the familiar gaze. Slow to start, he warmly said, “I do appreciate your generosity. That is very kind of you,” but he wasn’t reaching for the coffee I was offering. He continued, “I don’t use anything with agents. Bless you, but also, I do not take part in commercial institutions. But bless you for your kindness.”

Or something to that effect. Because I was smiling nervously, I was nodding and walking away while saying, “Yes, okay, alright,” and “Have a good day,” with a gravity of tone I hadn’t used in years. It was a tone of bewilderment, guilt, and respect. It was a tone of knowing that on a very real level this man was far more enlightened than me.

It was a tone of damn it, Amanda, you should have known that it wouldn’t be right, or enough. You woke up this morning with the arms of someone you love around you. You woke up in a warm, Queen-sized bed with sheets that had been misted with Egyptian Cotton bed sheet spray. You own bed sheet spray. As if you could ever understand what kind of mornings this man has. As if a coffee would make a Goddamn bit of difference.

I wanted to tell him that I was only buying coffee on my way to work because I have these gift cards. I wanted to tell him that otherwise I’d use my French press at home, or that I’d use the coffee machine in my office. I wanted to shout, We really are kindred spirits—I don’t usually do this.

Pausing outside the Copley Fairmont I put the coffees down, readjusted my bags. Secured my scarf around my neck in the wind. Reminded myself as I carried on “The cup in my left hand is my extra milk, the cup in my right is his.”

But it wasn’t.

run to eat (repeat)

The gym is in the basement, and only half of the treadmills have fans.

Mid-afternoon, maybe twenty people working out and the air is rank as a trunk full of meat and cheese, car parked and groceries forgotten for days in a deep, hair-pitted stretch of humid June.

The treadmill is the only equipment I use here. Mostly because the idea of openly altering a hulking machine to fit my 5’2” frame only serves to remind me that I’m outwardly diminutive. I’d rather not have to look like a gnome trying to mold a muscle truck around me in public.

The fan on this treadmill is more of a placebo than anything else. A mind-over-matter reminder that something has been set in place to cool me down. Nevermind that my core temperature happens to be volcanic, whether it be my combative Irish and English heritage or missing both of those #1 buses as they roared by back to back or the fact that my industry is dying.

In any event. The fan speeds are “High” and “Low.” “Low” is like a dozing baby kicking in its sleep and rasping intermittent fits of breath. I hit “High.” The propellers spin for effect, and I’m reminded of when you have that initial realization that your train is pulling in: you’re underground, it’s stifling, and then from the depths of that tunnel there’s a quenching surge of air.

At first, it’s pure relief. But then you’re pressed to wonder where it’s been circulating. How much of that is rat’s breath? Am I breathing in pure chemicals from the middle partition’s asbestos? How much of this air just roots around, scraping along the tracks, the discarded Dunkin' Donuts cups and condoms and rat shats, wafting up to my freckled, open nostrils?

The treadmill vibrates. I plug in my headphones. Tune in to Channel 77: Bon Jovi, “Who Says You Can’t Go Home.” It’s alright It’s alright It’s alright It’s alright. Absolutely not. Channel 79: The Seven Things I Hate About YOU! Stick to partyin’ in the USA, Miley. At least that makes me want to dance when I’m shitfaced.

I finally hit my stride on Channel 85, “Alternative Hits,” where the volume shunts from merely tickling to outright booming and songs are interrupted with don’tcha-do-that gym commercials reminding me to wipe down equipment, to not ellipse over 30 minutes if someone is waiting in line.

Why do I come here? Yes, it’s convenient. And the stiff, itchy, non-absorbent towels can only prove that a heavy-duty cleaning system is in place despite my overriding concerns about the stagnant meat locker stench.

But still. There’s a whole city of roadway out there. And the impulse to run—outside, up hills, over bridges—is the steadiest aide I have amidst the This Is How We Move On From Here confusion, the I Need Time to Incubate meditation, the I Want to Eat a Steak Sandwich With a Dry Manhattan and Heaping Side O' Onion Strings happy hour option.

Running on a treadmill, I’m the rat. I’m sniffing through the fumes for my favorite music video—maybe that will get me running faster.

When what I really need is to do is get out of here.

The esplanade awaits.