Some days, my work feels mundane. I love what I do, of course, but the negative of working somewhere you love is that the place loses some of its magic. This afternoon, for example: I spent time reordering damaged books, pulling new teen books for a YA display, and talking to patrons. Good, happy work, but what is usual. 

But some shifts feel numinous, somehow. The library can never feel for me the way it felt before I worked here (I can't smell that library scent anymore, for example), but as I come to understand the library's moods, its weather patterns and shifting people, I find a deeper, more connected sort of magic. That is how this morning felt, so here is a story told in vignettes​ that perhaps will mean something only to me...

Before the library opens, I take thirty seconds to stand at the tall windows and look at the mountains in the morning light. The air is finally starting to get a little bit clearer here, and the middle parts of the mountains are starting to turn orange in spots; this view of Cascade framed by the library windows is one of my favorites. I turn on computers and set out newspapers and wipe down keyboards. Then I clean up the blue toner powder that someone must've splattered last night onto the black-and-white printer, and then I unlock the doors.

It is a Friday morning, so my father's old friend Craig stops by. We talk about hiking, and of the peacefulness of being in mountains that no one goes to. He tells me, as he does every Friday morning, how he misses my dad and wishes they could go on a desert walk with him again. "Of course, we were always looking down at the ground, watching for flakes of arrowheads," he says, because twenty years ago you could wander the Utah desert and find arrowheads. "I know now it's illegal and wrong to take them," Craig says, "so now I leave them. But when I find one I always think your dad lead me to it." I think about the morning we buried my dad, when I didn't want him to go into the dark without anything but his clothes, so I put one of his illegally-procured arrowheads in his pocket, and how the muscle of his thigh was also a stone. For a moment it is entirely absurd that my father's friend Craig, walking carefully and slowly with his cane on his stroke-twisted legs, is here in the library talking to me about books, hiking, and arrowheads, and my dad is...where, I don't know for sure, but his body is in the ground and in his pocket there is a stone.

I help an older woman learn how to download e-books onto her iPad. At first she is unsure but as we move through the steps she starts to understand. I think about how baffling our world can be to someone raised in the 50s, when refrigerators were finally affordable enough that middle-class families could have them, washing machines were becoming popular, and the credit card was just becoming a reality (but only, of course, for men).  Our technology now is nearly ephemeral...you don't really hold​ an e-book, you never touch an e-audio book, but it still gets you to a story. I can't help wondering, every time I help someone who is initially baffled by—or actually a little bit afraid of this technology—what the world will be like in another twenty or thirty years. What else will we invent before I am dead? And will I be the brave sort, always trying new things, or the kind who is afraid?

I help another older patron who tells me that she hates fiction, especially that "wild, made-up sciencey stuff" but she wants to read something from the Great American Read list. (Which doesn't have any non-fiction.) After we talk for a little while, I get her three books in large print: Anne of Green Gables, which she'd never read but enjoyed the movies, To Kill a Mockingbird, which she'd read "years and years ago" but would really like to read again, and Their Eyes Were Watching God, which she'd never heard about but agreed sounded like something she would love. I always ask the patrons on crutches or with canes if they'd like me to get their books for them, and she says she would love that. I do this to help them, but also as a sort of good-karma thing for myself, as one day I will be an old woman but still need books, and hopefully there will be someone in the future who will help me access them if I can't get to them myself.

I check people in to use our study rooms, I help a woman figure out how to see the order of a series, I tell another woman where to find Colleen McCullough's novels, and I walk an elderly gentleman over to the biography section. I have a conversation with a man who has the same name and spelling as my husband's deceased brother; we talk for a bit about how much more difficult it is to trace back Scandinavian names as the change from -sen to -dottir and back again through the line. I confess I don't know as much as I should about my husband's line, but I can trace my McCurdy line all the way back to the Scottish MacCurdy clans. 

I read my email and get caught up on book group reservations.

A small blond girl in a pink dress, perhaps two, has wandered over the bridge to my side of the library, without her mother. I watch her for a minute to see if anyone is coming to look for her. She stands calmly by one of our sculptures, which is of a crouched man. Done in alabaster that looks like the flesh of raw muscle, this sculpture is either terrifying or fascinating to our little patrons. She just stands and looks at it, carefully touching the ear. I walk over to her and ask if she knows where her mom is. She pops her binki out of her mouth, shrugs, and says "nope. Let's go find her." She puts her binki back in her mouth and reaches up to hold my hand. Her tiny fingernails are painted turquoise. We wander over to the children's section and in a few minutes find her mom, who didn't realize her daughter Kate (she told me her name with another quick binki removal) was missing. As I walk back to my desk, I remember my own days of bringing my kids to the library. I can almost feel how it felt to have their little hands in mine, and the sound of their voices, and the deep, lovely exuberance they brought to finding books at the library. For a moment I feel like all of my life has already been lived, and that every sweet, gentle moment is behind me; I swallow that familiar lump and get on with it, as there is no crying at the reference desk. (Except I cry all the time at the reference desk. Reticently.)

One of my Skirt Sports ambassador friends, Sandy Stiner, wrote a post on her blog recently that moved me this morning. I was thinking about it while I showered and dressed and got ready for work. Partly because yesterday I was discussing with another Facebook group about the shame you feel in your 40s as your body starts to change, and how hard it is to see the beauty of sagging tricep skin and soft belly rolls and deepening wrinkles. I love the thought patterns and knowledge of my 40s, I wrote, but I miss the way my body was in my 20s, how I could eat whatever and never gain weight, how cuts and burns barely scarred, how my joints never hurt, my belly was flat, my teeth were white.

What would I tell that self I used to be, twenty years ago, when Haley was three and Jake was a baby, when I still had so many unknown difficulties in front of me, but also two more babies, a stint at teaching, and a job I never imagined?

Start running sooner. Stop drinking soda. Don't dread the upcoming adolescent years so much; they will be even more painful than you can imagine anyway, but also full of redemptive, joyful moments and besides, worrying about them won't stop them from coming.

Hold your babies, I might say, savor them, savor them. Inhale their scent and send it forward through time to me. But I already know that I savored as much as I could.

And I already know that the knowledge and thought patterns I have I could only attain by going through what those years, and the years of my 30s, brought me.

The only way to learn is by going where you have to go.

Instead, I found myself thinking forward, imagining myself in twenty more years. Who will I be when I am 66? If that version of me could send back a message in time, what would she tell me to savor about right now?? What will she know of losses and of blessings? How will she use this afternoon of our life? How will the world have changed, or our family, or our body?

I cannot change the choices I made in my 20s and 30s. But some of the work I am doing now is for that Amy in the future, who I will become sooner than I can imagine. Here is my letter to her:

I think often, right now, about our grandma Elsie, my dad's mother. We didn't know her very well, whether because she truly loved us less or because of the clashing of two women's strong personality (or some combination of both) I might never know. But I know this: she walked. Almost every day, she went for a walk, until only five or six months before her death. At 66 I think you will still be healthy and strong, not thinking about death, but still thinking about it because that door is closer. I hope you are still running, but if not, I hope you are still walking. And hiking! I am doing everything I can, right now, so that you are healthy in your time. I'm trying to keep our knees strong, and our heart, our spine flexible and our internal organs healthy. I still eat too much sugar but I will continue to work on that.

I would like to think the next two decades will be full of joy, but I also can't help but be myself and wonder: what sorrows have you suffered? Are you a widow, or an orphan? Is everyone I love right now still with you? From my perspective now, I am doubtful that there have been no losses. I only wonder who is gone, and how we bear it. But I also hope there have been additions, marriages and friendships and grandchildren. I hope you are the kind of grandma I imagine being right now, one who has drawn strong ties and whose grandchildren know an unconditional love like Grandma Florence gave us. I hope you have moved past this current painful time, when all seems full of doubt and unsteadiness.

And speaking of unsteadiness: I hope your world is better than ours. I hope we have found ways to heal the earth instead of continuing to ruin it; I hope the stress lines in our social structures have been smoothed and shored up. I know you are wiser than I am now, and I hope our world is, too. I hope there is still clean air and clean water, trees and mountains and wild, untouched landscapes.

I hope when I reach your time, I have fulfilled some of my goals. That long trip to Ireland. Some writing success. Stronger relationships with the kids and with Kendell. Hiking the Alps. Some way you have impacted society in a meaningful, lasting way. I know that is on me, to accomplish and not to leave until your time.

And maybe that is what I hear from you, sending your message back through time. That time is short. That two decades will pass before I know it. That I need to stop putting everything off, to seize right now and do what I haven’t done yet. I hear you.

The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.

What falls away is always. And is near.

Are we still reading? Do we still love poems? Are we strong and happy and successful? Less lonely, more content?

I hope so. It is what I am working for.

Love 46-year-old Amy

"The trick is, there is no trick.
You eat fire by eating fire."
(from the book The Electric Woman by Tessa Fontaine)

I planned on having these words drawn somewhere on me—my forearm? My calf? I wasn't sure yet—in henna for my running of the San Francisco Marathon. Except, my friend who does henna tattoos is taking a break, and I didn't trust anyone else to give me a long-lasting, beautiful tattoo like she did.

Even without the henna tattoo, that was my motto as I trained for the marathon. This is because I knew there wasn't a trick. I knew I would have to commit to every single run I could show up for when I was feeling healthy, and that I would have to commit to full-throttled rest when I wasn't. Because I was in the convalescent stage of whopping cough through most of my training (with two weeks in the paroxysmal stage before that), I had days when I felt OK and days when I felt awful. I never felt like my normal, healthy self, but at least after the paroxysmal stage (which was literally the most horrible illness I have ever experienced in my life) I had good days.

I definitely couldn't skip any runs on good days. I had no room for fudging. And I had no energy for anything else other than cardio training. To make it through the race, I just had to eat fire.

During my last few weeks of training, though, I started to realize that my motto was a little bit negative. It compared running—something I love to do—with something painful. Dramatic and intriguing, yes, but ultimately painful. By then I was also gripped by insecurity. I didn't have time to do a 20-miler and a taper, so after reading a lot of different sources, I decided to skip the 20-miler and taper. And then my motto became "trust the taper."

I told myself this as I walked, just a little bit nervous, toward the starting line near the Ferry Building in the Embarcadero. The Bay Bridge was all lit up in the darkness and the streets were crowded with runners. Trust the taper, I whispered to myself as I wandered until I found the trucks for the bag drop, and while I took off my sweats and sweatshirt, while I settled everything in its correct place (12 Cliff Bloks, two packages of Gu, and a chapstick in my left pocket, my cell phone in my right with the headphones threaded through correctly, my sunglasses on top of my headband, my number—4949—pinned so it hopefully wouldn't catch the breeze). Trust the taper while I found my corral (E) and listened to the countdown for the earlier corrals go. Then it was my turn to move toward the start line.

I took a deep breath (but not too deep, because that leads to coughing still!), and whispered it again: Trust the taper. By this I meant: I had run enough long runs, even without the 20-miler. I had my race plan firmly in my mind: run ten minutes, walk for three, keep my pace slow. I had rested during my taper, and made sure to drink more than enough water and eat plenty of veggies and get plenty of sleep. Trust the taper.

The starting bell sounded—in San Francisco, they ring trolley bells. I adjusted everything again before I got to the starting line, started my Strava, started my music ("Shake it Out" by Florence + The Machine was my first song), started my watch. Trust the taper I thought once more just as I crossed the line.

But you'll probably have to eat some fire along the way.

San Francisco is the first big-city race I've run. I did run a race in Brooklyn last fall, but it had only something like 600 runners. This was my first race in a big city with more than 25,000 runners. I wasn't sure what to expect; I thought at least the first mile would be slow going among a crowd. But right off the bat I felt OK; surrounded by other runners, yes, but not really crowded. I could move at a pace just slightly slower than what I had planned on running.

It was still dark when we started, but just on the edge of sunrise, and there were enough street lights that it didn’t feel really dark. I was able to get into a comfortable groove right off the bat. I'd also made sure that my playlist had a song and then a metronome track, song then a metronome, right at the beginning so I could get my cadence right. (Usually I have two songs and then a metronome; the metronome track is 1:15 with 80 beats per minute.) In fact, I felt so comfortable my body was like, "come on! We can go faster than this!" but I politely refused. I tried that on my 12-mile run a few weeks ago, pushing hard at first, and I totally hit the wall on that run. I did not want to hit the wall in this race, because I knew I'd be cutting it close to the 6-hour time cut-off anyway, and the miles you do on the wall are far slower than the speed you do when you're pushing hard at first. It's not worth the trade off in minutes.

One thing I really loved about this race was that I could divide it into sections. Somehow it feels easier to run * *-mile-ish sections than 26.2 miles. The first section was one of my favorites. We ran right along the water for most of it, with the city on the left and the wharves on the right. Kendell and I had walked along part of this section, so I had a sense of how long it was. Plus, it felt like a little pocket of support from him every time I ran past a place where we had walked together. I ran the first two miles with my white long sleeve on, and then I felt warm enough to take it off and tie it around my waist. (Racing tip: put the sleeves UNDER your bib, and then tie them in a double knot that's slightly off to the side. The bib on top of the sleeves helps to keep them from shifting, and if you tie it in a double knot you don't have to keep fussing and retying.)

As we got closer to the bridge, the view to the right got prettier; fewer buildings and more beach. At one point, I glanced over and saw a girl squatting in the bushes, clearly having a severe brush with the dreaded Runner's Belly, and I tried to send her some positive vibes!

The bridge came into view. I loved this section, too. It was another part that Kendell and I had walked, so I knew to expect some uphill and a short out-and-back section. That bridge! It's really one of the biggest reasons I picked this marathon. I love bridges, whether I'm hiking or wandering a city; I'm not sure I can explain why, except for the idea that you're moving on something suspended in air maybe. I could see the bridge for about a mile, I think; we ran almost underneath it and then turned around to weave back up the road to the start of the bridge.

During this section I had to decide how dedicated I would really be to my walk-10/run-3 plan. In normal running circumstances, I never walk up a hill. A hill is always a thing I put my heart in to; I know it's strange but pushing hard up a hill brings me a very specific sort of running happiness. It makes me feel strong because I am confident I can get to the top without walking. The first big hill of the course, the Fort Mason hill, was pretty steep and I took it slow, but I ran it all because I came upon it while I was in a stretch of running. But just as I turned to go up the hill toward the Golden Gate Bridge Pavilion, I got to the start of a 3-minute walking stretch. My usual runner self was like, "COME ON. You don't walk on hills! You pass runners on hills!" But the memory of hitting the wall guided me, and my logical side said "nope, stick to the plan."

So I walked the hill. I savored the view, which was a path lined with trees and flowers and more bridge.

The second section was the bridge, an out-and-back run. One of my Skirt Sports running friends had told me that I would want an extra layer for running across the bridge, which felt like the second section. Once I got up on top, I discovered she was right: it was so windy and cold! I slipped my long sleeve back on once I'd gone about half a mile across. It was foggy, as I had expected, but still clear enough that I could look across to Alcatraz. When we'd visited Alcatraz a few days before, I had looked across at the bridge and thought about running the race. So even though we hadn't stood on the bridge together, that was another little burst of time-with-Kendell energy, looking at the island.

I had read some race reviews that said they found the bridge section to be boring, because with the fog it's almost like you're just running on a socked-in road. I really loved the bridge section, though. I liked looking up and seeing the cables disappear into the fog, and the way the support columns gradually revealed themselves. Plus it just holds that pull for me: to run across a bridge. I was playing leap-frog with a girl who was running in a knee brace; I kept passing her and then she'd catch up to me when I walked. I really wanted to strike up a conversation but we never ran together, just passed and repassed, so the last time I passed her—when I was almost at the Marin County side of the bridge—I said "great job!" but I'm not sure she heard me.

Off the bridge, there was a water stop and a row of porta-potties. Trust it to me to end up in the one without toilet paper, which was pretty gross, but I was fast and at least there was hand sanitizer. (This was my only bathroom stop.) The course curved around a parking lot to a water station, and they were already starting to clear away the tables, which made me panic a little bit. Another thing I'd read about this race is that they tend to close the water stations down before the last runners come through, and I worried that if they were already closing this one I must already be pretty close to being the last runner. After the water table, we ran down a pebbly path (I thought of all of my trail running friends in this little section), under and around the bridge and then back up to the roadway. Before I got to the bridge I passed a man with his shoe off, and his friends were helping him put a bandaid on, which made me remember I'd forgotten to bring my blister tape and to worry, for a little bit, about blisters. But I decided I'd deal with it if I got any, and kept going.

Back up on the bridge going the other way, I thought..."hmmm, wait a second. It felt like I was running uphill in the other direction. Can this bridge be uphill both ways?" My stats say it was uphill on the way over and downhill on the way back...but it felt like uphill both ways! Usually one side of the road traffic is closed during the race, so runners get to run on the road instead of the sidewalk. That changed this year (I think the city decided it wasn't safe?), so we were on the sidewalk. I think I liked that better, as running on the sidewalk felt like being closer to the water. Also, I know not everyone loves an out-and-back section in a race, but I always love a bit of it, because it helps calm my nerves to know there are still people behind me. Even when I was almost to the end of the second part of the bridge, there were runners just starting onto it the other way, so at least I knew at that moment I would probably be able to finish before the 6-hour time cut-off.

Off the bridge started section three. We ran through some wooded areas and along the shore (I think this is the Presidio?). It was such a beautiful section, with up and down rollers. I was a little bit frustrated because I finally saw a course photographer—and just as I approached her she stopped shooting to readjust her camera. (I was hoping for some awesome course photos. I would've been happy to pay for them, too, but alas, none of them were very good.) I was feeling really calm and strong on this section, just happy to be running and not feeling any pain or tiredness yet. I took my long sleeve off about a mile after the bridge and was happy at my choice of layers instead of just wearing a long sleeve. It was barely 50 degrees, I think, perfect for a tank.

One thing I really appreciated about this course was that there was no shortage of water stops. I alternated: water, then water and a Blok, then water, then the Nuun beverage they had. I was taking a risk with that, because I had only tried Nuun one other time (at the 13er I ran in June), but it was perfect for me. I felt like it refreshed me but never made me feel like I was blasted with sugar like Gatorade does (even when I'm not running Gatorade nauseates me). At one of the water stops, I asked for a Kleenex because I was dying to blow my nose (running+sniffing is not pleasant). They were out but the medical staff tore open a package of gauze. Scratchy, but effective!

At another stop, they were passing out Stroop waffles, another thing I had never tried. At that point I was feeling actual hunger, like my stomach was growling, but the thought of my Gu was just gross. In general I am not a fan of gels, because oh, that texture. I don't like yogurt or pudding or soft bananas either. But I DO like caramel, and so the Gu I always get is the espresso flavor. It actually doesn't taste much like coffee, more like salted caramel, so my mind gets tricked at the flavor and my gag reflex doesn't trigger. But for whatever reason, I on this race I just couldn't stand the idea of any Gu (even though I had two in my pocket).

I carried the waffle for almost two miles, wondering if I should try it. Then it started to bug me and I almost threw it away, but that felt wasteful, and my stomach was still growling. I stuck it in my pocket (YAY for Skirt Sports pockets! At this point I had I think 8 blocks, two Gus, the chapstick, and the waffle all in the same pocket!) and thought about it until the next water table. Again—this was a risk, and breaks what is perhaps THE cardinal rule of racing: NEVER TRY SOMETHING NEW ON RACE DAY.

But my stomach kept growling. So, I decided to try it. I took two bites just before the water table, washed it down with plain water, and hoped for the best. And...it was perfect! I didn't feel hungry any more, but I also didn't get nauseated.

By this point, I was out of the Presidio, running through some up-and-down rollers. We took a left turn, and there was the fourth section, Golden Gate Park. One of the truths about running is that all of your runs will help your future runs, quite often in ways you don't plan or expect, and this proved true for this section. I didn't know what to expect, but in my head we would run through small, narrow, gravel paths through the middle of the park. In reality, we were on a road that goes sort-of around the park. This reminded me so much of the race I did in Brooklyn last fall, which went around Prospect Park. The terrain was different—much hillier in San Francisco—and the vegetation, but the feel was the same. So even though I was starting to get tired by this point, I also felt a sense of confidence: even though I hadn't run around this specific park, I knew I would be fine because I'd run around Prospect Park. I really enjoyed this section, except for the part where the first half marathoners split off to their finish line. For a little while I felt like I wasn't on the right part of the road, and I kept looking for the other runners who had worn their blue full-marathon race shirts to calm myself that I was, in fact, going the right way. I think it also just felt weird at that point, because it felt like all of a sudden there were almost no other runners running around me. (I hadn't realized how many half-marathoners were around me up to that point.) I panicked a little bit but then I got to another water stop and made sure I was on the right course. (And blew my nose again!)

One of the things that disappointed me about this race is that I was hoping I'd find someone to talk to. I think the irregularity of my pace made this pretty difficult, but I did have a little bit of conversation when I was almost out of the park. This was a part of the course that WAS on a little windy trail and I spoke with a girl who I'd been leap-frogging with through most of the park. We talked about the beautiful day and the course, AND she said she liked my skirt! After I passed her, I was completely alone for a little bit. I came around a curve in the path and there was a group of bystanders, standing and chatting and very idly dinging their cowbells. I shouted (in a kind, not angry voice) "Hey! I need more cowbell!" and they laughed and started banging their bells and cheering me on. They even said "Go Amy!" (yay for names on bibs!) and even though I asked for encouragement, their encouragement buoyed me up! I went under a bridge and around another loop and then whoop: I was out of the park.

This fifth part started out really fun. There were a lot of people on the streets in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood, and everyone was really friendly. Many of the policeman gave high fives and encouragement, and there was a section with a group cheering runners and playing loud music. When I got there it was just at the end of "YMCA" so I joined in with the arm movements. It was just so joyful! (After I passed, the song switched to "You Spin Me Round (like a record)" which is another song I love and now must add to my future running playlists so I can remember that moment.)

We passed the beautiful Painted Ladies...and then it got so dreary. Maybe this is technically part of the fifth part, but really, it was its own section. Boring, run-down buildings and almost no cheering spectators. To keep myself going I started cheering for the police officers who were directing traffic! But I really, really disliked this part. It was the only section that wasn't scenic and to have that energy drag with five-ish miles to go...gah. The only redeeming quality was that it was mostly downhill, even a few of those really-steep San Francisco hills (but not the ULTRA steep ones that I'd be afraid of running down). This ugly section flattened out into some industrial landscape, but by then I only had a few miles left and I knew I could do it.

The last mile got fun again. It met back up to the wharf area, and wove around the back of the AT&T field, and then, at last (but really sooner than I expected), I could see the finish line! I had been texting just a little bit with Kendell (I also posted some photos to my Instagram story during the race) so he would know when to come down, but I hadn't heard from him for a while so I wasn't sure if he would be there. One of the great and encouraging things he does is to try to get a photo of me crossing the finish line. I kept looking past the finish line as I ran, trying to see him, but then I realized that there were NO spectators there. They actually couldn't get down there, but then, just before I crossed, I spotted him on a bridge to my right, taking photos. It was probably good I didn't see him earlier because it gave me a lump in my throat to see him. Running+crying don't mix!

There was a guy who was walking right in front of me, but I moved around him and then put as much speed as I had left into the last .2 of the marathon. It wasn't very much, of course, but I realized that I wasn't dying. I never hit the wall. I maintained my pace (except for that one stop at the bathroom) fairly consistently. I never got nauseated. I never had to eat fire.

I thought that lump would turn into tears when I crossed the finish line, but it didn't. I felt elated! There was a small part of me that was embarrassed about my time (5:47:18) but I told it to hush. I had achieved both of my goals: to finish, and to finish before the sweep trucks. I managed to train for and run a full marathon while struggling with whooping cough! One of my Facebook running friends, who ran a different race that weekend, had joked that she was striving for her "PW," personal worst. In a sense, if you only look at times, that's also what I achieved at this race. (My other marathon time was 4:20 and I didn't walk at all except through the water tables.) But in another sense, it was also my personal best. Or, at the very least, a huge achievement. I was able to realistically alter my goals for the race, I ran it feeling calm and happy, and I finished it, despite my illness.

Every race you run teaches you something new about running, if you pay attention. And it also teaches you something about yourself. I already know I can do difficult things (and I say that not as a boast but with a deep welling of gratitude that my body will still help me do hard things), but it never hurts to prove it to yourself again. This race humbled me. I am never, of course, in the front pack, but this time I was at the back the whole way. And while I didn’t manage any conversations, I felt a deep love for the people I was running with. I know that’s weird, but it’s true: Kilt Guy, 42-k T-shirt Guy, Running Brace Girl. The couple who ran together and, when they walked, held hands. Marathons are hard for everyone, but there is something beautiful and blessed about being at the back of the pack. We persevere. We continue on, slow, yes, but steady. Not giving up despite.

And I am grateful I got to experience that.

Last week when I was hiking with my friends, one of them asked me if I wished Kendell could run with me. He hasn’t been able to run since high school, because of his hip condition; when we met, he was already walking with a limp, so even when we were young and spry, we never even went on long hikes. He had both hips replaced ten years ago, when he was 39, and since then we’ve made up for those difficult years by hiking as much as possible. But one of the restrictions his orthopedist put on him is that he really shouldn’t run. Part of that is the nature of artificial hips, and part of it is that he has (in his doctor’s words) “large, sturdy, Scandinavian bones” and the impact of his bones would make his hip joints wear out more quickly.

I’ve thought about my friend’s question all week. On one hand, I wish we could run together. It would be great to have a built-in friend to go to races to, because then I wouldn’t have to sit by myself on the bus. If he could run, though, I’m certain he would be much faster than I am (those long, Scandinavian legs!), so we probably wouldn’t run together, just start together.

On the other hand (and I don’t know if this is selfish or not), I am glad to have running as my thing. I don’t really have to plan around anyone else’s schedule or needs, especially now that I don’t have little kids anymore. I can run whatever route I want because I’m not worrying about keeping anyone else happy. And, let’s face it, sometimes it is easy in marriage to lose part of your identity; to some people, I am not much more than “Kendell’s wife,” but running is mine, whether I’m married or divorced or a widow.

But I am so grateful that we can share hiking.

In fact, every time we got for a hike, there is always a moment when I think about the first 15 years of our marriage, when he was in pain all the time. I didn’t really even think much about hiking during those years, because I knew it would be too painful for him. So we’ll be hiking together somewhere, and something random will spark me, and I’ll get a lump in my throat and think this. This is a blessing.

Our hiking styles are different; I’m faster uphill and he’s faster downhill. I like to linger here and there, taking photos and admiring the view, but he’s more of a let’s-get-there-quick kind of hiker. Sometimes we’re hiking “together” just in the sense of “on the same trail at the same time.”

We eat totally different things while we hike—he likes beef jerky and salted nuts, I like something a little bit sweeter. (We both always enjoy some cold grapes at our destination, though.)

But together, we have seen so many amazing things. The top of Half Dome in Yosemite. The meandering view of southern Utah red rock from the Primitive Trail in Arches. Almost all of Bryce Canyon that hikers can get to. An ancient caldera in Hawaii, the island of Santa Cruz, the cool and silent groves of California’s redwood forests. The blossoming meadows of our very own Orem foothill trails, the tops of our local peaks, the crags of some of the Salt Lake County trails.

Modern medicine gave this to us. And every time we hike together, I am grateful in a joyous, sweet way that we can hike together. There are so many trails we still have to explore together, and one of my greatest hopes is that we will continue on, hiking together even when we’re old and grey and really, really slow. It strengthens our marriage, which strengthens our family; it helps me to forget the petty, everyday squabbles that every marriage holds. I might actually even love him the most this way, on a trail behind or in front of me as we both move our bodies upon this beautiful earth.

Sometimes weird things draw me to different writers. I've read a few books by Maile Meloy, and the first one I read (her debut short story collection, Half in Love) I seriously picked up because I think her first name is pretty.

Luckily her writing is also pretty good, because that is a small thing to base my writerly affection on!

I finally, this summer, read her newest book, Do Not Become Alarmed. It tells the story of two families who are intertwined through long friendship, take a cruise along the coast of South America after Nora's mother dies. On an outing they take, their children (each family has two) are lost. Kidnapped? Murdered? Drowned? The parents don't know, but the reader does, as we experience the children's fate and the parents' experiences in switching narratives.

In a sense, this might be billed as a perfect beach read (except you'd clearly keep glancing up from your book to make sure your kids are still safe): a cruise, lost children, a subtle mystery, some marital strife. But really, it wasn't a fluffy read. Aside from a spot at the beginning, when the story lags a bit while they're all on the ship (it reads like watching someone else's travel videos), the plotline manages the tension of "what will happen?" perfectly, and that marital strife. Actually, it's not only marital, but also how friendships can splinter. More than anything it is a book about how fragile it is, that this child exists when, if any choices had been different, he or she would be replaced by someone different. And how terrifying it is to be a parent ("the woozy fear of losing them") and the way we numb ourselves to that terror, and how absolutely unbelievable it is when the terror proves true and something awful really does happen.

I'm being vague on the story details because really: you just have to read it. I still think Meloy's short stories are my favorite things she writes, and perhaps my only negative complaint about this one is that Nora was a character whose choices really pissed me off, but it was a good summer read for me. 

Every once in a while, when I’m deciding what to read next, I realize that I have gotten stuck in a habit of always reaching for what is newest, what is being talked about, what is influencing thinkers right now. But there are so many great books in the world, written five or eight or twenty years ago, still to be read. (This is why I used to joke with my kids, when they were all still young teenagers, that I needed about, oh…a year in jail. Just to sit on a cot and read until I was finally caught up with everything I want to read. They could bring me books every day! Perfect, yes?) (“Never go to jail” is one of my life mottos, by the way!)

The Gate to Women’s Country by Sheri S. Tepper is a book I read about during my work at the library, when I was putting together a new science fiction list. It was published in 1988. Science fiction has always been interesting to me, and I have made many such lists at work—but somehow, I never knew about this novel until now. I think the summary from the Foreword by Adam Roberts sums the story up well:

What separates women’s country from the rest of the world? A wall with a gate in it, of course: the title of the novel alone tells us that. But it’s more than than that. In this richly imagined post-nuclear, women live in walled communities with names such as “Marthatown,” “Tabithatown” and the like. Most men live outside the walls in military camps, and spend their lives training for, and fighting, wars. The flavor of this world is neo-Hellenic: the warriors train and fight like Spartans with spear and shield; technology in the “post-convulsion” cities is, by modern standards, rudimentary. Marthatown has been deliberately modelled upon the prototype of a fifth-century BC Greek polis, right down to the collective performance of tragic drama—Tepper interleaves her chapters with scenes from this latter, a play called “Iphigenia at Ilium,” modelled in part on Euripides’ Trojan Woman.

OK, if you know me at all, you know how much of this summary would grab my attention: post-apocalyptic communities controlled by women? And a thread of classic Greek narrative running through it? I’m not sure there could be a more perfect book for me. It explores so many of my defining issues: motherhood, the work of women, the difference in relationships between mothers and daughters, mothers and sons; how we might solve society’s ills. Feminist thought made into story: these are my favorite novels.

It takes the fear of all feminist-hating men and turns it into a story: what if women ran the world?

Well, what if? Would it be a better or worse world?

In the story, it is as if men are given everything they seem to want. So, fear not, feminist-haters and misunderstanders of the world! If women did control everything, look how great it would be for you. In essence, the story works with men in stereotypes: unfettered access to sex, not much responsibility to babies, the freedom to prepare for and fight in battle. They don’t have to worry about jobs, finding or raising food, making clothing, or anything else that the women do. They only have to protect the women. In this way, women are also presented as stereotypes.

If that was all the story did, however, it would be highly unsatisfying. Instead, it sets up this society, but then shows us how real characters (not stereotypes) move within it. Some characters—both men and women—resist, some fulfill the fullness of the role their society gives them, in all its negatives and positives.

And that underlying thread of narrative about Iphigenia (remember, she was sacrificed by her father Agamemnon after he tricked her with the promise of marriage to Achilles; he needed the winds to change so he could sail his fleet to Troy and start the war to get Helen back) is the perfect one to weave. It serves the same purpose that a black outline does in a tapestry with figures: sets them apart from the background and underlines what is implied but never said.

In case I haven’t made it clear: I loved this novel.

My only problem with it is that since it’s not new and shiny, there’s no one else to talk to about it. So I’ve read reviews and recommended it to my friends (and now I am recommending it whole-heartedly to you, my friendly blog reader!) and I continue to want to discuss it. Its weaknesses (the way it deals with homosexuality would cause quite a stir in today’s society, for example, and I can see many points upon which I might have some delicious arguments over). Its characters. The absolutely unexpected turn the plot took, and how right this turn is to the underlying wisdom of the story.

It is not a feminist utopia, as some reviewers have suggested. It is also not a dystopia. It is a science fiction story in the truest sense: it asks “what if?” and then it answers. It is blunt in its realizations about war, and about how men are deeply entwined with all the wars in history. It explores how technology leaves ripples in time, and how having power changes individuals, and how individual choices change society at large. It asks: what is the true nature of men, and of women? Or is there one at all? What are our weaknesses and our strengths? Can we work together?

However I learned about The Gate to Women’s Country (and I’m not sure I can even pinpoint it), I am glad I discovered it. Like The Handmaid’s Tale and The Mists of Avalon and A Wrinkle in Time (and many, many others) it changed how I think about and perceive the world, as well as my ability to influence some part of it. And I hope someone out there has also read it, and that you’ll tell me what you thought. (Even if you hated it!)

When I went to Colorado in June, the book I brought with me (because no one travels without a book, yes?) was The Home for Unwanted Girls by Joanna Goodman. It was an impulse purchase when I saw it at Costco the day before I left (I usually put more thought into my travel reading, but at that time all I could think about was if I could finish my half marathon as I'd only had about two weeks of running after the active phase of my whooping cough ended); I remembered I'd wanted to read it so I grabbed it and then started reading it in the airport the next day (hoping my traveling companion, Lynne, who I'd met in person just that morning, ​would know enough about me from my Instagram and Facebook posts to not be offended that I sometimes read instead of talking).

It tells the story of a family living on a farm in Canada, beginning in the 1950s. The family owns a seed store; the father is Canadian and his wife is French-Canadian. I didn't know about the tension between these two groups during that time (and I discovered as I read the book that I didn't know quite a bit about Canada during that time); their marriage is perhaps a little bit like what Romeo and Juliet's might've been if, you know, death hadn't intervened.

The main character's name is Maggie. She and her mother are always butting heads, fighting about almost everything, but Maggie and her father get along well. She works in his seed store with him, counting seeds into packets on Saturdays, but as she grows they also start to develop some tension. But it's nothing to compare to Maggie falling in love with Gabriel Phenix, a French-Canadian whose family's farm is near Maggie's home. And when she turns up pregnant? Well, neither parent is happy with their daughter.

When she has her baby, Maggie's father decides that she will, of course, place her for adoption. But adoption in Canada in the 1950s didn't look much like it does now. Babies who weren’t perfectly healthy were often overlooked for those who were, and Maggie’s daughter Elodie, born just a little bit too early, has newborn jaundice. So instead of being adopted, she is put into an orphanage.

I loved the beginning of this novel, watching Maggie grow up and fall in love. I loved the parts about Elodie, even though they grow more and more difficult. In Canada in those years, the Prime Minster defunded most of the orphanages. These institutions could not get much money raising orphans or relinquished babies, but they could receive funding if they were classified as mental institutions. So many of the children were “tested” and, surprise! diagnosed as mentally deficient. Rather than being educated, they were treated as inmates of mental hospitals. Elodie is trapped in this system, and she suffers.

For me, the best historical fiction includes a part of history that I didn’t know about, and The Home for Unwanted Girls includes that. I had no idea any of this happened. Reading it when trump’s “children in cages” policy was in full effect in America made it even more horrific, because now it’s not just other countries that do horrible things to families, but my own. (Of course…this isn’t the first time. It’s just the first time I’ve experienced in my lifetime.) In that sense, I am glad I read this novel. I think Elodie’s experiences will stay with me.

But I didn’t love the writing style. Or maybe it is the genre…historical fiction, but not literary historical fiction. I felt like once Maggie had Elodie, the depth of character just…stopped, somehow. The story continues, and there are resolutions (maybe the happy endings also didn’t work for me?), but I didn’t feel connected to Maggie anymore. Instead, her story just unwinds.

So I finished this novel with mixed feelings. I’m glad I read it, but I felt a little bit shortchanged by the second half. Not, I think, because of the author’s efforts, but because of what I demand from a book to fully love it.

Novels about art are one of my favorite sub-genres of historical fiction. Back in early May, I spotted Alice Hoffman's The Marriage of Opposites at the library and decided on a whim to check it out, as I vaguely remembered that A—it was about Pissaro and B—I'd been wanting to read it.

I came to Alice Hoffman's novels via her magical realism work; my favorite has long been The River King as it has her signature touch and it's set in a boarding school. (I think many readers have A Thing for books set in boarding schools.) Her historical fiction is not magical realism, but there is still something magic-esque about The Marriage of Opposites. Perhaps it is just the description of the setting, the island of St. Thomas, which feels magical to me (and I have now added it to the list of places I'd like to visit. Except, can I visit as it is described here, in the early 1800s? And not now when I imagine it's overcome with tourism?)

Despite my memory, this is a book that's only partly about Pissarro, who became one of the fathers of Impressionism (and was an early supporter of Van Gogh). Mostly it is about his mother, Rachel, and her life in St. Thomas and, at the end, in Paris, but we also see the story through Pisarro's eyes and his father's.

One thing that really hit me while I was reading this novel with this realization: I really love well-written historical fiction. Which is sort of a strange realization to make, I guess, as I've been reading it my whole life. But I've never acknowledged it clearly. I especially love historical fiction that bring women's lives into focus for me. I love being immersed in the past, learning about how people lived and vicariously experiencing a time period. I like long, expansive novels that explore a person's entire life. Not every author can do this well?some are too long (I'm thinking of Sharon Kay Penman, for example, whose book When Christ and His Saints Slept sounds like something I would love but I made it 100 or so pages in and we still hadn't gotten anywhere and I just couldn't... keep... going...) and some work too much with stereotypes, glazing over the personal details that bring the story to life. And I definitely don't really love romantic historical fiction (think bodice rippers), although of course love is a great part of any story. What I want in historical fiction is a sense of realness, and to learn something, and to be lost in the story.

So even though The Marriage of Opposites isn't magical realism, it really does still have a hint of magic to it. It was perfectly balanced between the lives of Rachel and Camille; I learned more about a time, a movement, and two places (I also learned that Cezanne, Degas, and Renior were antisemitic, which, gah, shouldn't change my opinion of their art but kind of does). But even better is the life that Hoffman creates for Rachel out of the barest facts of her life: a life-long friendship, a struggle with her mother, a resistance to expected women's roles; also her place in the small Jewish community where she was born, her relationship with the ghosts of women who came before her, her marriage to her second husband. Plus Camille's experiences in Paris, the mystery he pieces together, the way he sees the world as a source for his art.

Plus I loved these three ideas:

"Whoever knows you when you are young can look inside you and see the person you once were, and maybe still are at certain times."

"Then I understood that when someone begins to tell you her story, you are entwined together."

"Witches are made, not born."

All of which is to say: I loved The Marriage of Opposites and I'm grateful it was my companion during my bout with whooping cough.

"books | writing | running | nature | scrapbooks | flowers | quilts"

These are the words I use to describe myself in my Instagram profile, hoping to let people know that my feed is an eclectic one that reflects the long list of things I love. (I probably should add "travel" to that list. And every once in awhile I put up a photo of my family, but not very often as it sometimes feels kind of intrusive, as my kids get older, to put their image on a social media that isn't theirs.)

But if you look at my feed for July, you'll notice it's all running, all the time:

Well, running and hiking, but still: no books, no scrapbooks, no quilts.

And that is pretty reflective of how my life has been, honestly, since I decided for sure to start training for a marathon.

I have many running friends who run many marathons every year. Sometimes, when I think about my miles in comparsion, I'm not even sure if I qualify to call myself a runner, since my usual distance is the half marathon. Or if it's slightly un-cool to only run halfs, if it means I am not dedicated enough to my sport of choice, or that I am lazy.

The truth is, though, that training for half marathons fits easily into a full life. Training for a full marathon, however, easily becomes your life​. It's not just the weekly long run getting longer and longer; there are also runs during the week that also get longer. And cross training. And trying to fit in some strength training too. And thinking (obsessing?) about your race plans. And reading other people's experiences with the race. And books about running. Avoiding sick people, avoiding sugar; trying to always stay hydrated (and then going to the bathroom more than usual!) Trimming blisters and rolling sore muscles and realizing you already need a new pair of shoes.

The marathon is consuming.

And while I admire my running friends and their dedication, courage, stamina, and skill, another truth for me is this: I like running, but I also like doing other things. And if all I am doing is running (like when I'm training for a marathon) I have a sense of emptiness, no matter how much happiness, stress relief, and satisfaction I get from running.

I thought a lot about this while running my marathon last weekend. Why was it so important to me, to run 26.2 miles in a city I'd only seen once as a child, to fit so hard through through illness and other stresses to get there? Why had I used my time in this particular way?

Partly it is a thing that has to do with being a runner in this society right now, when running is perhaps sort of a status symbol, and how that combines with my competitive nature. I'm not ruthlessly competitive, not toeing the line to beat everyone to the finish, but I do want to feel like I can hold my own. Like I have done things that I (meaning: I, personally, within myself) can feel proud of. But, more honesty: Yes, it's so I can be proud of myself. But it's also so I'm part of the club. So when someone asks me about running, I can say that yes, I've run a couple of marathons. So that other runners, the real ones, will think I am also a real runner.

(Even though I know and believe that the only thing that makes you a runner is putting on your running shoes and going running; the act, not the distance, creates the runner. There is still that tug to prove yourself.)

Every race you train for and run changes your relationship with running. Or, perhaps it doesn't really change it so much as helps you understand it better. What I already know about running is that I need it in my life. It helps balance my mood, it fulfills my need to move my body outside, it is part of my identity. But what finishing my race and then reflecting has helped me understand is that I will never be one of those runners, whether they are the "real" ones or not. The ones who run five or seven or nine marathons a year, or who regularly run even longer distances—and that that truth does not influence whether or not I am a real runner.

I am a runner.

But I am not fulfilled if running is all that I do. I am also a writer (and yes: I also question if I am a "real" writer; in this context what I mean is that I need writing to process my experiences fully, and that part of my experiences is always the thought "how will I write about this experience?"). Whether it's silly or not, I love making things, namely scrapbook pages and quilts. I love getting down on my knees and digging in the dirt, pulling weeds and planting flowers and snipping stems. I like taking pictures. I am not myself without books. And hiking—pushing hard up a steep incline in my hiking boots, among trees and flowers and cliffs and sometimes wildlife—hiking is necessary for me, too.

I still want to write a race report with all of the details about my San Francisco marathon experience. But I wanted to write this first, so I didn't forget. Is this my last marathon? I don't know. Probably not, but it will be a few years before I do it again I think. Maybe I won't run another full until I forget, somehow, that I need more than running in my life. Or I have something different to prove to myself.

The fact that I need other things in my life in addition to running doesn't make me less​ of a runner. It doesn't make me more or less of anything, in fact. It is just me: there is so little time for so many things I want to do. I don't regret the time I spent training for this marathon. But I am also filling up with energy and enthusiasm for all the other activities I'll have time for now that the marathon is over. Time with my family. Time cooking in my kitchen. Time with my fingers flying over a keyboard. Maybe being a jack of many trades makes me a master of nothing, but that is OK. I don't need to be a master. I just want to experience everything.