Word After Word

I ran too much or too fast.

Now I can’t, at all.

It was almost worth it though. Those dang Olympics. That’s how I got into the speed work.

I am not Jeremy. “He’s so cocky!” my Pilates teacher said.

I like cocky. It feels to me like pure intention.  I’m sure I’m wrong,

but it seems like a good thing. Making yourself into an arrow and

wearing a necklace. He seems like worry and no-worry, cancelling each other out.

I

 sonogram of my dog

I love this unscrutable photograph of my beloved Cubby in Lake Michigan, getting his stick off the side of the sun. This photo reminds me so much a baby sonogram–I can never ever ever see anything but light and shadow and a dog getting maybe a stick? in those weird black and white squares people bring out and show. I like this sonogram much better.

Tonight, we’ve been in the dunes. (”Dunes” is a word he knows.) We’ve hiked for an hour and tonight will be the meteor shower I will miss–I can’t find open horizon at 2 in the morning.

My heart is in it and not in it at once.

I just like the shapes of the light and dark and knowing it’s him out there. Sonograms make me cranky, dumb. All that looking, all that murk. This photograph makes me cry and it makes me hopeful–it could be a great night in so many possible ways.

I have been so sunk under the demon named Structure these days. Fretting not working, outlining, not really working. Succumbing, not outlining. Listing most what I hate about the book. It felt like my good self divorced us—and I was left with a terrible me, all alone.

Friday, for the first time in my life I considered not writing, not finishing my book. This felt like contemplating suicide. Friday was a dark day. A very dark day. Much darker than Luke’s darkest day day which, admit it, has a great sound track, laced with whimsy and also Lorelei, unlaced.

I didn’t mean to, but all the sudden I started an essay about dating and it was so fun to list all the dates and relish the horror, loving not mocking all I feared. Because I wasn’t supposed to be writing the essay, the work fell out of me. For three whole days, I wrote the essay, always saying after each sentence, one more, then I will work on the book, I will, really.

Playing is so much better than not playing. I played my way back into you know what. Structure problems?

I am very much looking forward to reading this new book!

I love a friendly letter.

Adding our writing life to our to do list—tasks, ideas, projects, the next small thing—was important and we wish we’d thought of it much earlier. Why did “dry cleaner” get written down and not Chapter Six?

His new book The Half-Known World is a must read for all fiction writing or any reading students.

(He had a .9 GPA, earning my immediate confidence.)

Boswell was a terrible fiction writer at first. In one of the chapters of this perfect book he explains how useful it was, being terrible, to his growth as a teacher.

Jackie B. is the best reader in the world. I would be lost without Jackie Bartley. She is a goddess and a genius. She’s a steering wheel, a poet, a scientist, a reed, and she knows what is good and why it is so.

PS: Thanks for the delicious chicken, too. The blueberry sauce was so much better than you said it could be. She does not know her own strength.

My bike date stood me up because he had to ride hard and fast. I am slow and easy. I love slow. But ride hard and fast—I understand the need in my bones. And yet I was thrilled to discover how unsad I was to not bike, how much I wanted to go running. I only started biking because I couldn’t run. Now, I’ve been able to run again, following strict safety rules. It’s like running in a challenging foreign language. I can’t just blab blab blab.

            1. Every other day at most.

            2. Feet on frozen bags of brussels sprouts and then rolly ball after.

            3. Only on track at new school, track made of tiny black super sponges.

            4. Slow in brand new shoes.

            5. Ask feet how they are, really each ¼ mile. And listen.

Happily enough, I’m in a slow phase. I’m writing slow. Eating slower. Driving slower. Getting dressed a little slower. Looking longer. (I am also in a cowboy things phase, but that’s another world and not part of the slow thing, it’s just fun—pearl snaps, tiny flowers, kicky skirts, and a cache of hand-crafted bolo ties I came upon in a secret and surprising location. (Bad idea: trying on new cowboy boots in running shorts, but UPS truck pulled up as I was trotting out. I had to try them on, right then. They stood up to the running shorts. That is how great they are. They just looked up and said howdy, no affectation, no judgment.)

I had a foot problem for three years. It might be fixed. (Thanks, Tee!) I’m going slowly because I earned the problem speeding while running, going over the limit. Little Miss hubris. My feet are small and beautiful feet and I was treating them as though they were monster truck tires. I was saying GIT R DUN to my feet. Using a heavy fake accent. Hollerin. And trying to run faster than people who were not even racing. 

Three years ago, I was slow but I thought I was Little Miss Fast.

Now I’m racing myself to see if I can hold a slow pace, really go slow. It’s harder than fast. There’s no kick, it’s not like drugs. It’s more like love, or listening. I have to ask the feet each ¼ mile: how are you really?

So my bike date had to ride hard and fast, and the feet leapt up and said: we can go two miles. No, I said. Really? I was thrilled, surprised, and, after the brief UPS delay, out of there.

There is nothing like running. It feels like the feet are what makes the world spin. The rhythm of it aligns the heart, the sky, the head, and town. There is no other way to do that. None.

The kids in the middle of the track were running around like little goats or animals, organizing themselves around the frisbees and soccer balls and coaches and the sun shone done, and the moon was perfectly halved. I ran around 8 times. Maybe more. I’m terrible at counting laps. They are terrible at counting me, too.  We round.

If I had planned to run, I don’t think it would have been so much fun. It was a secret run. Like the accidental essay I wrote instead of working on my book. It was an instead-of, a gift run, a perfect night in

I came home singing, Olympic-ish, and I kissed my feet on their foreheads as though they were two tiny twin babies. Which they are. My small slim beautiful kind feet. Little tiny bony wings.

Cycling is great. I live for it. But there’s nothing like running. Running is like having a superpower.

I was at my friend L’s house and L. was explaining all the photographs on the wall. I was intrigued. I love being in other people’s lives, knocking around, looking, learning more about every little thing. L said, “Oh in this one I’m so fat.” I have said this very thing many times. L didn’t look fat at all—the opposite. Shining, happy, confident—I would have never thought fat when I looked at the photo. L wouldn’t have said this about anyone else in any other photo. Why are we allowed to say ugly things about ourselves? How can we stop doing this?

I can hear it when other people do it—it’s so surprising, outlandish, and wrong. When I do it, it sounds like normal. But this is my practice for the week (see PRACTICE). Pema Chodron Plus Program. I’m going to try not to say anything to myself I wouldn’t say about another person’s photograph, or to their face. I’m going to look for the thing I like, and say those out loud. I know it will feel stupid. I also suspect this may be the only way to become kinder to others, more generous, less judgmental. If it resolves insomnia, too, I will let you know!

The next morning: I have already said these things. I can’t imagine saying any of them to another person:

1. Don’t answer the phone. Pretend you aren’t home.

2. You have been so lazy this summer—your book should be done by now.

3. Your problem is you sleep in every morning. How about getting up earlier? Real writers are up.

4. You are dying of a terrible disease. They will never find out what it is. You are so screwed.

And many more….too many to list here!