Here Comes the Rain Again

I love rain. It's my favorite kind of weather. I love waking up to a midnight rainstorm and listening to it hit the roof in the dark. I love how home feels cozier when rain is falling. I love the smell that wafts from concrete as the rain wets and cools it. I love puddles and rainbows and the birds made happy by an abundance of fat, dripping worms.

Plus, I live in the desert. Rain here is a blessing. Rain is rare. When it falls I think of the trees in the mountains, drinking deeply. I feel my own dry, dusty spirit reviving. The anxiety that builds deep down in me lifts when it rains because I feel that all will be right in the world. Rain in the desert is ephemeral hope turned to indelible moisture, at least for a few hours.

But, I confess: I cry uncle to the rain.

This May, we've had about four days when it hasn't rained. The snow continues piling up in the mountains. The clouds gather daily and the rain falls, and part of me revels in it, but by now the rest of me is water logged. The very anxiety that's usually relieved by the rain now burgeons each time I hear the wet patter on the sidewalk.

I live in the desert. I love the rain but my body is accustomed to endless sun. Dry and dusty is my spirit's natural state. Rain revives my secret places but too much, I have learned, drowns; I cannot keep my head above the rising water. By which I mean: it has been a long weekend in dark places. My eyes are tear burned even though nothing seems to matter enough to cry over. The only thing I want to do is sleep.

I need the skies to dry out and the sun to come back.

Return of the Bad-A Runner

I confess: over the past six months or so, I have been a fair-weather runner. Exhibit A: none of my winter running clothes were used even one time from November till March. Exhibit B: Two weeks ago, when I really needed to get out and go, I instead just sort of hung out, talking to the kids, stretching, doing a few sit ups, and then when I finally stepped out the door, one tiny raindrop hit my forehead so I went back inside, called my run for rain, and played Just Dance instead. Exhibit C: my persistent back pain, which I am certain came because of me being lazy. Exhibit D: the ten pounds I have packed on since my last race.

Still, I have finally gotten myself back into my running groove, which means that when I drive somewhere I think about what it would be like to run there, or what it was like when I did run there. That I once again have runner’s feet: blisters and a missing toenail. And that I’ve been slowly building up my mileage again.

 All of this is good, as in less than a month I’m running the Wasatch Back Ragnar (with Becky and 10 other people), which is a relay race that covers almost 200 mountainous miles. Each runner has three legs in about a day and a half. My legs go like this: almost 4 steep uphill miles, 5.5 flat-ish miles, and 7.3 extremely steep downhill miles (a total loss of 2091 feet which I just yesterday started sort of—read really—freaking out about). 

So I’ve been running a lot of hills, and making sure to keep my weekly mileage growing. Yesterday I needed to run 4.5 miles, and Kendell was heading out somewhere, so I had him drop me off 4.5 miles from home. It was windy when we left, and the clouds a little gloomy, but just as I stepped out of the car, rain started falling. At first it wasn’t so bad—a bit cold, of course, but manageable. Then I turned a corner and started running downhill. Running downhill right into the wind, which was blowing so hard that the rain was perpendicular to the road. Blowing so hard that, despite the gloom, I wished for sunglasses just to keep the watery shrapnel from hitting my eyeballs. 

But, rain or no rain—even if it started hailing or snowing or sleeting—I still had to make it home. No one was coming to rescue me; I could only get out of the rain on my own two feet. As I ran, I thought about this training run I did last fall, when I was training for the Halloween Half marathon. That run, too, was done in pouring rain and vicious wind. Remember—I passed that other runner and he shouted out “we are bad asses” just to keep me motivated.

 Running in the rain, I thought about running. How each and every run you do is unique to itself (the weather, the route, the way you feel, the music that plays in your ear) and yet each one also builds upon the others. Running 11 miles in the rain last fall made it much easier to run 4.5 equally-wet miles last night. Running these training runs will help me enjoy Ragnar, which will help me enjoy my summertime half marathon and whatever autumn marathon I finally choose.

 As if to confirm that unknown, fellow-insane runner’s encouraging words, “Headhunter” by Front 242—a song that, as it evokes my teenaged adolescent rebellious identity, also makes me feel like I am undeniably a bad ass—popped up on my shuffle list. It was just the five minutes of music I needed to pull me through the rest of my rainy run. My rainy run was just the thing I needed to continue my running return. And, just as I made it to my front porch, as if to confirm my just-run-more motivations, the weather nodded its head, shook off its clouds and stopped raining.

I Don't Like Bees

I mean, I like what bees do. I don't ever swat one unless it's in my house. I like that they pollinate our flowers and fruit trees and vegetable plants. I like honey. But me, face to face with a bee? They freak me out. It's the way they dart and buzz, and the way their creepy legs dangle down limply when they're flying around. How  you're supposed to be able to hold very still when one's buzzing around you, so it doesn't get you, but it's so very hard not to run away screaming and flailing your arms. The way they're supposed to be able to smell your fear and to want to sting you because of it. And of course, that ominous stinger itself.

Honestly: I'd rather have a spider on me than a bee, and I am none-too-fond of spiders either.

I think my anti-bee stance comes from the time I got stung as a kid. The hapless bee was simply hanging out in a patch of flowering clover in our grass, and I stepped on it, and it stung me, of course. It took another thirty years or so before I learned that bee venom in the foot isn't the most painful place to be jabbed. That'd probably be the eyeball, or maybe the tongue?

Still, I count it as a blessing that, despite the bees smelling my fear whenever they are near me, it took about three decades before I was stung again. The second time happened during a hike last fall. Kendell, Jake, our friend James, and I were coming back down the path after reaching Squaw Peak. (You can see a layout about that hike here; just scroll down a bit.) Kendell was farther ahead on the trail, and then Jake, James, and me in the back. Someone's pack must have bumped against a bee hive because almost simultaneously both Jake and James were bellowing and flailing their arms and swatting at themselves, and as I watched and tried to figure out what the heck was going on, another bee got me, right in the neck. (Cue shocked entire-body flailing and a thoroughly embarrassing wail, all of it completely uncontrollable. I'm glad there are no hidden video cameras in nature.) I think mountain bees are more viscious than suburban bees because I had an enormous welt for two weeks after.

Today, I got to mow the lawn. I say "got to" because these days, it's become a privilege. I love mowing the lawn, but I've also got two adolescent boys who need to learn to work. Today, I insisted it was my turn. It was a great day for mowing the lawn—beautiful and warm after a week of rain. I put my headphones on and sang along to my music and mowed away, happy as anything. Until, that is, a bee flew up the leg of my running capris and stung me. Cue shocked entire-body flailing and a thoroughly embarrassing wail, luckily drowned out by the hum of the mower. Because, yeah: I totally kept mowing while flailing. Only—not so straight. Well, straight into my gorgeous purple iris, which have just blossomed. Hadjust blossomed. Now three of them are decimated by the lawn mower and my spazzy lack of control.

I just don't get the bee. The suicidal bee. I might have brushed its flower while I passed it with the mower. Perhaps the mower sound sent it into a frenzy of anguish. Maybe it was just an easily-annoyed individual. Not that I can't relate to that. But what did it accomplish besides killing itself in stinging me? Other than a red welt and some iris that look like a machete went a little haywire around them? Wouldn't it have been better to endure the drone of the mower and the swaying of the flower, as opposed to the other outcome which is, you know, death?

Bees. Not only do I not like them, I don't understand them.

on Winning (part 1)

In general, I'm not a person who wins things. When I played Bunco, for example, it was a rare, rare night when I went home with anything other than a door prize, and when I did win something bigger, it was usually for low score. Drawings at work parties? My name is never pulled out of the hat. And bloggy give aways? I don't usually even enter anymore.

Whenever I have a race approaching, one kid or another will ask me, "Mom, are you going to win?" and rather than going into my complicated spiel—the one about how, when you're running, you win if you beat yourself—I usually just laugh and reply that I'm not fast enough to win. In fact, the last time I won an athletic first place, it was at my last gymnastics meet, in 1988, when I won first place on bars and floor.

Last Saturday, I broke my losing streak.

Our area's scout troop organized a 5k fun run for a fund raiser, and so of course I showed up to run it. In fact, I even took time off of work to go. It was pretty small—I think about 50-60 runners—and laid back. I was counting on it to get me to the right number of miles for the week, and to have fun with a few friends. The race started, I ran the course, I finished in 28:50.

And I came in first out of the women.

Of course, I only won because the field was so small. Everyone knows I'm not very fast! And luck played into it: as my neighbor's daughter (and Haley's cross-country teammate) pointed out, she would have won if she wasn't running on a sprained ankle.

But, you know, luck sometimes does play a part in winning, even in athletics.Odds are I will never be the winner of any other race. In fact, this might be the last time I win in my life. So I savored the moment. I felt like I had been reintroduced to a younger version of myself, the one who took confidence in knowing she could do something better than everyone else. (Back then it was uneven bars, of course.) And while there are caveats to my win, I still find myself energized by it. Willing to push myself harder and go just a little bit faster. To let my competitive spirit—long squashed by daily life—blossom just a little.

Classy

So, this afternoon I went for a run. Four and a half miles, up two big hills, down two big hills. Past lots and lots and lots of traffic.

And it was only after I got home, stretched, drank my protein shake, did some push ups, and looked at myself in the mirror that I realized why my shirt had been bugging me:

it was on backwards.

Sweet!

Know What I Miss?

 
Fall of 2004; Haley was 9, Jake was 6, Nathan was 4. I was about two weeks pregnant with Kaleb, just starting another new year (destined to be my last) of teaching.

Those days: I miss those days. And not because there were only three of them then, and I still got to have one more pregnancy, one more newborn. But because they were all still little. Because the maelstrom of adolescent hormones hadn't dervished up yet. Because they couldn't yet see all my faults. Because they didn't know, yet, how to tell me what I was doing wrong. Because troubles were only about not getting a Happy Meal every day of their lives.

Because things were more simple.

And yes, sure: I'm altering history. Rewriting it. It's never easy to be the mom; our memories filter out the details of unpleasantness and just leave the good bits. I know they frustrated me then, too. I know we argued and I was unfair and I let them down. I know it was hard to juggle my role as a teacher with my role as a mom. I know their sorrows were over more than just chicken nuggets. I know I felt, then, as shaky about my mothering skills as I do now.

And I also know: I should savor every phase of their existence. And I shouldn't get caught up in thinking the past was the only best part. And it could be harder than it is. And I do love them, desperately. And I am proud of them. And it is only painful because I love them and want to have good, strong relationships with them.

But I still find myself missing those days. When I could make everyone feel better just with a trip to Sonic during Happy Hour. When they liked to talk to me before they went to bed. When they would tell me all the details of their days; when they came to me with their hurts because they still knew I could fix them. When even the joyfulness wasn't tinged, yet, with misspoken, pointed words, failed expectations, and dire consequences. When it didn't feel like they were slipping away all too impossibly quickly; not just slipping, but fleeing. When their mantra wasn't "away, away." When just loving them was enough.

Those days. I miss those days.

the Spaghetti Resistance

Haley comes upstairs into the kitchen. Sniffs the atmosphere, which is fragrant with oregano and onion, garlic and yeast. She peers into the kettle-wide sauce pan and stirs its depths. Then she sighs.

"I thought this was the good sauce."

Kendell comes into the kitchen shortly after her annoyed exit. His shoulders slump in exaggerated disgust. "What? We're having spaghetti for dinner tonight?" His tone suggests that I might as well be cooking up a big batch of appetizing horse manure, he's looking forward to the meal that much.

When dinner is finished and served, Haley will eat breadsticks and salad. Kaleb will eat plain spaghetti with just a little bit of butter and parmesan. Nathan will dutifully eat, but only after picking out every offending mushroom. Jake's plate will be cleaned, but he won't comment or compliment. Kendell will have seconds.

But I will be in bliss.

Because despite my family's lackluster (and, frankly, rude) response, spaghetti with red sauce is my favorite comfort food. It is the good sauce: tomato rich, generously garlicked, spiced exactly right. I use a mixture of sausage and hamburger; I saute the mushrooms—cut chunky yet small—in olive oil and burgundy cooking wine; I puree the tomatoes until no offending lumps remain. I toss in a bit of sugar and I let everything simmer as long as time allows. I serve it with as many handfuls of (real) Parmesan as you want.

I'm not sure how that can't be the good sauce.

Haley's version of "good" comes from a jar. Granted, it is good: I only buy the Bertolli Marinara. It's an excellent sauce. But still, not as good as my red sauce.

Kendell's spaghetti disgust comes from his claim that it's what every member served him while he was on his mission. He tells one story about going to dinner at someone's home; the family had steak and shrimp in the dining room while the missionaries ate spaghetti with Ragu in the kitchen. He doesn't like it runny or lumpy. In fact, he only doesn't complain over spaghetti if I make it like his mom did: a can of cream of mushroom, a can of tomato. Soup. Soup as spaghetti sauce. I love my mother-in-law but I don't love her spaghetti sauce.

Kaleb, of course, doesn't like anything. The boys are generally OK with the meal; it's not their favorite but they willingly suffer through it. (Especially because those garlic breadsticks nearly always accompany our spaghetti.)

But to me, spaghetti with (my) red sauce is the ultimate comfort food. I eat an enormous portion because, honestly, it makes me feel happy. It reminds me of my childhood, when my mom made a similar spaghetti sauce, only hers had tomatoes she'd canned herself. Michele would mix hers with peas and freak us all out, every time. Becky would poke through hers, making sure there wasn't a tomato lump in sight, and I would hide (or not) my irritation over her anti-tomato sentiments. We had Parmesan from a can (didn't everyone in the 80's?) and some sort of vegetable (because my mother never, ever serves a meal without a vegetable) and tall glasses of milk. Because of when my gymnastics workouts were (5 to 8 p.m.), I ate plenty of these spaghetti meals late, alone at the kitchen table, muscle-weary and bloody-handed. Sinking my fork into that steaming mound of noodles and sauce was nutritional solace.

I was comforted.

Of course, now I am nearly 40. Now my longest workout is only about an hour. Now I have to be more careful of what I eat. Now I live in a household overrun by a family who doesn't love red sauce. They tear me up a bit, the negative comments. The spaghetti resistance. But not enough that I plan on ever ceasing my own spaghetti nights. Instead, I feed everyone else first: the noodleless, the sauceless, an extra napkin for the mushroom discarder. I wait to eat until everyone else has left the kitchen. Then I butter my noodles, just a bit. I make sure the sauce is hot. I toss a handful of cheese onto the plate. (I don't even save room for the breadsticks.) Alone, I don't simply eat, but feed myself; I don't simply feed but I nurture. If there is emotional healing to be found in any food, it is here, on the plate of spaghetti, in the way the plump noodle nestles the savory, fragrant sauce in a nest, how it feels in your mouth, how it tastes on your tongue. Surrounded by the spaghetti resistance, who would thoroughly disagree, I feel I have come, at last, to the end of my day having done some good thing for the world.

What is your comfort food?

Marathon Update

(as I know all of you have been sitting around wondering "did Amy manage to get in to the St. George Marathon?")

On Tuesday, this message popped into my email box:

 

Wouldn't that email title make your hopeful heart flutter with a "YES! I totally got IN!" kind of response?

Luckily, the day before I had already checked the lottery results, or I would have gotten all fluttery and then crashed even harder when I actually read the email:
 

Yeah, I didn't get in.

This discouraged me for awhile. After all, St. George seems like it's THEEEE marathon to run in Utah. You're a real runner if you've run it. But, onward and upward, right? I still want to accomplish my marathon-before-I-turn-40 goal, and while I could run the Salt Lake City marathon, which is on April 14 or so, that would mean spring training and, you know: the older I get, the less I like running in the cold. As our recent springs have been nothing but cold, I want to avoid a spring marathon if I can.

So now I am considering these marathons, which I am listing in order of appeal for your convenience:

• the Mesquite Marathon. Pluses: an enormous portion of this race goes through the Virgin River Gorge, which is one of my favorite places to drive through (I always think "I want to run on this road," every time we drive it); the course winds through three states (Utah, Arizona, Nevada) which is just cool to think about; the timing is good because it's not until November 19, which gives me more training time. Negatives: the timing is bad because November 19 is Nathan's birthday; the last six miles (which I'd imagine are the roughest part of any marathon) are in a stretch of ugly desert and what will sustain me for the last hour if the scenery doesn't?; the farthest away (more driving and who knows, by November gas might be $8 a gallon or so)
• the Top of Utah Marathon. Pluses: it's a classic Utah race starting at the top of a canyon and working its way down. Lots of downhill, and running in the mountains: what's not to love? also, perhaps my friend Sophia might let me crash at her house, thus saving the expense of a hotel. Negatives: it's the earliest one, September 17, and that gives me only 18 weeks to train. I think I need more time so I can build up more slowly.
• the Layton Marathon. Pluses: holy cow, this is a cool race. It starts on Antelope Island, which is in the Great Salt Lake and home to real, live buffalo (also antelope, obviously, but that's not as exciting). A big part of the race is along the causeway between the island and the shore, which seems like it would nearly be like running on the beach. It's October 8, which gives me 21 weeks to train. Negatives: no downhill at all. Sure, it's flat, but I also love a nice downhill stretch in a race; I like uphill, too. October is the tentative plan for Nathan's 11-year-old trip and I don't want to mess that up for my own racing needs. Plus, there's that "Layton is a scary place" rumor, and honestly: I've never been to Layton. In my head it's full of gang graffiti and whizzing bullets, which are definitely undesirable during a marathon. (If you know more about Layton, please enlighten me!)

I'm still waffling. I need to decide soon, as I imagine there's another 10,000 St. George Marathon rejects also scrambling for an autumn marathon to run. Tell me your vote!

the Woman at Target

Last night, after running a million places and doing a hundred different things during the day, I took Haley to Target for some consolation sushi. (Please note: I think sushi is icky, but she is of the opposing opinion.) Consolation because she'd received some disheartening news the day before: she didn't make it into the choir she wanted for next year. All her friends made it. (Please note: while I am not the mom who thinks her children deserve everything special and perform perfectly at everything they do, I am completely stunned by this news. My soul aches for her. I don't understand at all how we could arrive at this destination. I intend on calling her teacher when I can talk about it reasonably.) We talked and laughed and picked up a few other things, and then went to pay for our stuff.

The woman in front of us was buying lots of groceries, plus a little pink plastic gardening set for her daughter's third birthday. When all of her stuff was rung up, she paid with a $20 gift card, then had $100 and some change left over. She reached into her back pocket and discovered that the $100 bill she'd stored there was gone. Gone. That look came over her face: part panic, part embarrassment, part devastation. "Oh, I am in so much trouble!" she wailed. "That was my grocery money! What will I do?"

I started looking around the register and down the aisle behind us, hoping it had fluttered to the ground somewhere near. It hadn't, though. She piled her stuff off to the side and went wandering through the store, hoping for a miracle: that she'd dropped it in this store and not in the parking lot, that someone else hadn't picked it up and tucked it into their back pocket.

And I wished.

I wished that someone honest would find it and turn it in. More, I wished I were that woman at Target, the kind who could say "It's OK, I'll just get it for you" and then swipe my card and buy her groceries. The kind of woman to whom a hundred bucks is no big deal.

I wish I could have helped her.

Instead, I left the store, oddly, helped by her. I realized that while I'm not wealthy enough to buy her groceries, I am wealthy enough to buy my own. I have enough that if I were in her shoes, missing a $100 bill, I would be panicked and embarrassed but not devastated. I could recover. I could still feed my kids and buy a birthday present. I left the store with a renewed sense of the blessings in my life. Not the wealthiest; not able to swoop to the rescue. But I have enough to buy groceries and a few little extras, and that is enough.

Her plight also impacted Haley, who told me as we walked to the car that she felt better about the choir thing. "Who cares that I didn't make it?" she said. "My life could be so much worse than it is."

I took a deep breath of the cold spring night. I hugged her shoulders briefly. And we drove home, content.

on Celebrating my Motherhood

Yesterday I had a Mom Meltdown. You know how it goes: one random kid manages to push just the wrong random button and it was the wrong button to push for no apparent reason. Cue Mom Meltdown, which is just as ugly and devastating as a nuclear meltdown; the poison is all metaphorical, but still. And the thing is, it's not just the surrounding people who bear the damage, but the reactor, too. So I wandered through the rest of the afternoon feeling dejected and horrid and pathetic.

Then I had a chat with one of my Costco friends. (Yes, it's true: I go to Costco enough that I have friends who work there. I mean...I don't know her last name, but we talk like long-lost pals every time she gets me my food court order.) She wished me a happy mother's day and my eyes started leaking (and yes, another truth: I wore my sunglasses the whole time I was shopping for groceries so no one could see my red eyes) and we both said at the same time "I don't really like Mother's Day." Then I said, "I'm not sure anyone but the perfect mothers do" and we both laughed and I felt better.

This morning I woke up to an instant, clear thought: just celebrate your motherhood. Not because I am perfect at it—I am not. I have far too many nuclear reactor moments. My house is rarely picked up enough and I can't manage a dinner that makes everyone happy and there's almost never fresh baked cookies after school. Last week (yes, all five school days) everyone had to fish for their socks in the clean socks bucket instead of pulling them out of their drawers. My toilets need to be cleaned and I haven't taught any of my kids the habit of making their beds every day.

Actually, the list of my failures is too long to continue writing.

But I felt, with an astounding clarity, that the failures weren't the point. The successes, also, didn't matter. Instead, the prompting was simply: celebrate the fact of your motherhood. Be joyful that you were given children. Be certain that you are giving them strengths.

And so, all day, I have been thinking about that. Although I am often overwhelmed with those failures, and with feeling that I am doing far less than I am capable of, I don't want my children to think that I am not grateful to be their mom. In ways I almost don't have words for, along with stories I cannot blog about, I am grateful for my motherhood. Grateful for what it has taught me, to be sure: patience, and the boundless capabilities of love, and the sheer miraculous joy of being alive. But grateful, also, for what it has given me: these amazing children—these unique, individual people—with their strengths and personalities and dreams. I ache for them and rejoice with them and cherish them beyond everything else.

The path that brought me to motherhood was an unusual one. Things happened that created many changes in my heart. Had those hard choices not been made, I don't think I would have wanted to have children. The hard things happened in order to create that desire within me. Perhaps, had I not become a mother, I would have accomplished the other goals I had: living in a glamorous city with dozens of friends and a PhD on my bookshelf. You know—the bookshelf full of my novels. But now, knowing what I know—the sheer happiness of seeing one of them do something amazing, or that exhausted contentment when an illness finally passes, or the quiet peace of reading together—I couldn't give up what I have for any dream.

I wish I were better at it. I wish this because I want the best for them. Because I want them to never feel hurt or dejected or discouraged, especially because of me. Because I want them to stride forward into the world with certain knowledge: my mother loves me. I want that knowledge to be a strength to them. I want, more than anything, not to fail because I want them to be happy. They are the best part of my life.

I am blessed beyond belief to have become a mom, and that is what I celebrated in my heart today