Category Archives: Grace

Last Minute Jitters Turn Into Legitimate Concerns

Posted on 8 November 2011 | 2 comments

Menses alert (like a spoiler alert, but more important): As if it wasn’t enough to attempt to move my fat body 26.2 miles, I get to do it while Mother Nature does her thing to my uterus. Thanks, lady, you’re supposed to be on my side. You are a woman after all!

If nothing else, though, I have plenty to think about on this 6-hour journey. I can replay recent disappointments with friends to investigate what I have done to offend. I can revel in recent—and fantasize about future—growths in my professional life. I can contemplate my (partially) new-found spirituality, reviewing the texts I’ve been reading as I run. I will repeat a mantra: “Just keep swimming.” I can pray for personal and universal plights and rejoice over successes. I can consider social justice issues and the ways in which I can . And, if I finish, I will feel like I’ve accomplished something big.

*

Well, it’s the Tuesday after the marathon, and I didn’t finish. I didn’t accomplish something big. This time. I was going strong until mile 10 when I noticed my chest starting to tighten up, and I started to have a difficult time breathing. I’ve run 15-mile training runs, so there should have been no problem. But there was.

I don’t have a formal asthmatic diagnosis, unless you count the exercise-induced one from when I was still young enough to go to the pediatrician, so I hate it when I can tell my lungs are starting to spasm and constrict. I can’t do anything to fix it because I don’t have an inhaler. By the time I turned onto Pennsylvania Avenue, I could tell I wasn’t going to last much longer. Maybe it was the gingko trees, maybe it was my imagination, but my breathing was difficult. I started crying, and then I started walking. I made it to mile 11 where I promptly got scooped up by the slow wagon.

*

I learned a lot about myself through this huge disappointment. I know I need to start my allergy shots, and I am hoping I am part of the 50% of the population they work for. I know I need to train much more diligently and much more thoroughly for the next go around. I know could stand to lose some weight, which would only make running 26.2 miles a little less painful. I know I need to be more careful about what I eat between now and then, maybe adding in a bit more protein and fewer “treats.”

I learned I need to give myself more grace when shooting for lofty goals, like I need to give myself grace for not having time to work on my dissertation. I learned I need to count on my friends and family who are steadfast and true and revel in their love for me.

I don’t know what else to say about this whole journey, except that I lost it on Saturday when I stopped running. The bottom of my world fell out, and all those dark feelings came rushing in and I was drowning. I came back (or to put it evangelically, I was redeemed) when I decided that not making a goal I set for myself isn’t the end of the world, and that I always have next time. Sounds trite, sounds cliché, sounds sickeningly like something I wouldn’t want to hear, but it’s true. I don’t have a terminal illness. I am not incapacitated in some way. There is always tomorrow.

While I was running,  I thought a lot about the legacy I want to leave behind, and the one I was heading toward leaving behind wasn’t exactly it. Recently, I have spent way too much time wallowing in self-pity. I haven’t spent nearly enough time thinking about, dwelling on those things I have to rejoice about. For my legacy, I want to leave behind peace and compassion, not anxiety and anger. I may not be happy in every situation, but I can still be grace-filled and experience each moment for what it brings.

2 Comments

Posted in Dissertation, Fat, Goals, Grace, Running, Vegetarian or Vegan

Running a Trail-Half. Grading. Grant. Periods, period.

Posted on 24 September 2011 | 1 comment

I am totally stoked—though my other half just said her usual, “Okay”—to be running my first trail half-marathon next Sunday, October 2. As usual, I hope I haven’t bitten off more than I can chew, but since I’m not vain nor afraid of coming in last, I’ll do what I always do when I run by just putting one foot in front of the other until I cross the finish line. There really is no time-limit for this guy: it’s starts at 8:05 and ends at 4:30, so I should be in tip-top shape for finishing before they pull the plug. Since the marathoners and all the other races use the same trail, they keep it open for six and half hours, which means I might finish about the same time and in the same location as the fastest marathoners. Weird. But, I will finish. I mean, I am slow, but not that slow. If it’s anything like the Mounds, I may not even come in last. If the terrain is the same/similar as the Mounds, I should be able to finish in 3:30 to 3:45. The real reason I am so excited is that I hope this will boost my confidence for the marathon in a few short weeks. I still have about six long runs with the longest falling in two more weeks: twenty miles! I plan to run to my parents house to have them drive me back home. I suppose first I should focus on the ten-mile run tomorrow morning, eh?

I had to have silver lining this evening by signing up for the trail run, because I spent 6.5 hours at school today, grading, grading, grading. After I run in the morning, I’ll go back and grade some more. I finished all of the middle school objective tests, but I still need to grade their essays. Tomorrow I will finish my high school reflections, essays, objective tests, and anything else that needs to be caught up for them. I plan to get up at around 6 to run so I can get all my grading finished before spending the afternoon with my brother to work on our application for this grant.

We’re applying for grants to go on a two-week long tour of the midwest and the east coast to watch minor league baseball games. Apparently, the grant is aimed toward enabling teachers to plan their dream trip, a trip they’d never be able to do without the grant. We knocked around several different trips (Caribbean, New Orleans, Pacific Northwest, cross-country road trip) and decided on driving to 6 different minor league ball parks. We’ll watch the games, and my brother will take photographs while I interview people about their memories of baseball and their preference for minor league games. For some reason, my head thinks we’ve already won the grant, because I feel like we’re headed out for the trip already. I’m so excited. Okay?

What I am not excited about is living with another woman who has a regular period. I had gotten used to Bec’s non-schedule and was enjoying skipping a month now and again, but E has strong hormones, apparently, because now I am in sync with her. Sad day. I wondered why I’d been so grumpy, craving weird foods, and feeling fat all week long. Now I know.

I’m not a very good feminist, because if I was I’d revel in my period as some sign of mutual femaleness shared around the world. I’d celebrate my ability to procreate and honor my uterus with monthly praise. But, I don’t. Ever since the damn thing started when I was in eighth grade, I’ve wanted it to end. When I was younger, I wanted it to end because of sports and the occasional pregnancy scare. Now I just want it to end because it mocks me with my childlessness every month. Mother Nature is an unrelenting tease: you’re not pregnant, and you never will be. I say to her, “You can stop now, MN. I’m over it.”  She just laughs back every 28 to 30 days with her own little curse.

 

1 Comment

Posted in Feminism, Goals, Grace, Relationships, Running, School, Teaching, Vegetarian or Vegan

Trying to Decide about Defenses and Forgiveness

Posted on 27 April 2011 | Leave a comment

I am trying to decide if my coping mechanism is beneficial or detrimental. I cope with adversity by trying to circumvent it with positivity, which I know can be a positive attribute sometimes, but at other times it makes my head feel like it might explode. I try very hard to be the voice of reason and grace around other people, but I find that I get home at night and realize that I spent the whole day, and too much energy, trying to help other people see the positive sides of people, situations, and events. This frequently leaves me exhausted. Today was one of those days. I am tired.

I don’t think I bury my head in the sand about difficult issues, but my parents always told me two things that shape how I try to react. (Here I say try to remind you, dear reader, that I by no means succeed at this lifestyle every day. I am far too self-reflective to think I am a perfectly amiable Pollyanna. In fact, this is far from the truth.) First they told me: “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” And they told me: “You have to choose your battles carefully.” I suppose there are really three things that apply to this situation, because my parents also told me that “you can be part of the problem or part of the solution, so make up your mind to be part of the solution.” This takes energy and finesse, but I don’t remember my parents ever telling me about that part of the equation. I think they knew I’d figure it out for myself.

On a similar note, I can’t imagine being one of those people who is always angry at everyone and everything, but I imagine it’s somewhat freeing on one regard. If you don’t care about people, then you don’t care how situations are resolved. In another regard, I think it must be incredibly oppressive to always be beholden to anger. And, anger can eat somebody up. I’ve watch it consume several of my friends, belch, wipe it’s mouth, and then say, “Good eats.”

I thought about this as my students were watching Forgiving Dr. Mengele. In the movie, Eva Kor offers amnesty to all Nazis, forgiving them for their role in Hitler’s regime. She does it so that she can sleep at night. She does it because she says that forgiveness gives her a clear conscience. She does it in order to live freely. I told my students that part of the importance of offering forgiveness is that it releases a person from another person’s further control. If someone can forgive another’s wrongs against her, she ends up being the one who is more free because she doesn’t have to continue to suffer through the oppression of the other person’s anger. She, in essence, subverts the power dynamic and regain control of her own emotions. She’s no longer hi-jacked by someone else’s behavior. I think it’s a fair exchange for giving someone grace.

I had the opportunity to practice this today, and I failed. Someone stole an idea of mine, and then passed it off as her own. Instead of just letting it go, I vented about it to someone else, not even to the person who did it. It was a pretty cowardly move. Hopefully, the people involved will give me grace. And, hopefully, I learn from this mistake.

Leave a comment

Posted in Grace

Gauges. Buddhism. Holy Friday. Running.

Posted on 22 April 2011 | Leave a comment

As I put on my headphones and feel the little puckered holes in my earlobes, I realize I still haven’t put my plugs back into my ears. In a mirror, the holes look like the mouths of hungry children, opening for food. They are rounded, soft, and raw, but almost quiver at the thought of being refilled, as if they’ll burst at too much food. I touch the little mouths again and send up a quick prayer for those same children who have no food, and I think about the large discrepancy between their hunger for food and my comparing my piercings to their pain. It’s a bad metaphor, but I keep it. Then I contemplate how I will manage to get my 1/2″ gauges back through the tight lobes that have returned, over the past three days, to smaller openings. This struggle is waged every other month or so when I take the plugs out of my ears to give them some breathing room. Inevitably, I forget to put them back in, in a timely fashion. Then, when I put them back in, my lobes are sore for a couple of days. As the pain subsides, I forget about the mouths and their hunger. I turn away from thinking about suffering. I move forward, leaving concern behind.

*

Today is Earth Day. Starbucks is giving away free drip coffee if you bring in your own mug. It’s nice.

*

During Lent, I have nearly read four books about spirituality. Along with almost daily readings in the Bible, I have completed The Joy of Living (Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche) and An Altar in the World (Barbara Brown Taylor), and I am halfway through Rebel Buddha (Dzogchen Ponlop) and Love Wins (Rob Bell). Reading these four books together, has made me more of a heretic than I already was before Lent. I’m not a dense person, but I just don’t see how Buddhism and Christianity are incompatible teachings, as so many of my more conservative friends seem to need to persuade me to think. I suppose if you adhere in a fundamentalist fashion to either spirituality, you’d not be able to reconcile them. However, if you look past the literal, the overarching message of the two spiritualities is one of love and compassion, in which the believers, celebrants seek to leave a lasting impact of positivity and non-suffering on our world. I have a hard time seeing how these two do not work together. Prayer bleeds into meditation, daily professions faith bleeds into daily practice of compassion, enlightenment bleeds into sanctification, and the eightfold path bleeds into the Sermon on the Mount and the two most important commandments. I think both religions would agree that you should increase love and compassion, while decreasing worldly attachments. I feel no conviction that they are not compatible, as hard as some of my friends try.

*

Today is also Holy Friday. I am not going to church. Instead, I am going to watch the youngest pseudo-stepchild perform in the play, King Lear. I am immersed in Shakespeare. First, my students have been reading Romeo and Juliet and Midsummer Night’s Dream. And now King Leer. This is an excellent way for me to celebrate Holy Friday. I need something to take my mind off of the fact that Jesus is dying today. Sometimes I get so bogged down in the holy mysteries, I can’t see outside them into the beauty of the world. And, I suppose that is how it should go. At this point in the Christian calendar, I should be consumed by grief, and I should be contemplative about the fact that in whatever way, I did this to Jesus. It’s good, though, that we will be taking in a show instead of participating in a Good Friday service. I need the distraction. I need make believe.

*

May 7 is the Indy-Mini. Am I ready? No. Absolutely not. I think I may just run the first six miles and then leisurely walk the last seven. We’ll see.

Leave a comment

Posted in Buddhism, Children, Christianity, CNF, Coffee, Grace, Poverty, Relationships, Religion, Running, School, Teaching, Writing

Where Does the Time Go?

Posted on 8 April 2011 | Leave a comment

At the risk of sounding like a little old lady, I find myself wondering, sometimes aloud, where the time has gone. And here she crops up again when I say, it seems like just yesterday when I started teaching here at Burris, and now the school year has about two months left. A little less than two months. The time has simply flown past.

In a fashion true to myself, I have already begun planning in my head for next year. I know that grammar is going to be a once a week activity, probably Mondays, and then everything we write that week will incorporate that grammatical lesson. I know that I am going to choose two novels for each grade level, one memoir, which the students will choose from a list I will provide, and one straight up nonfiction book. There will also be a poetry unit and a comic unit. That’s six long units in which we will address different questions, different levels of thinking, and different styles of writing. This should make for a more cohesive school year and more beneficial writing/reading connections.

On a personal level, I feel as if my life right now is the most settled it’s been since maybe early high school. I feel calm and at a strange peace. I have many things I want, but I know this life is fleeting, and there are so many more important things than my personal desires or creature comforts. I think this Lent I’ve had a chance to reflect on not only food, but also my spiritual journey. I need to make it right between God and myself and other creatures. It’s not a personal relationship.

It’s not a waterfall of honey as we sang like a bunch of lemmings in church a couple of Sundays ago. Well, I say we loosely. I couldn’t sing it all because I kept thinking, “Dip me in honey and throw me to the lesbians,” and I probably shouldn’t sing that to Jesus. So, everyone else sang about how Jesus love is like a waterfall of honey, which aside from sounding very sexual also doesn’t sound very appealing. It’d be a bit too sticky for my liking.

But, it’s not about that. It’s about how this whole big world connects. It’s about you and me and how we have that same eternal God part. It’s about us looking into each other and seeing each other and recognizing that divine presence in all creatures. God made all of us, and we need to recognize that intrinsic worth in each other. No matter what that other person has done. No matter who that other person is. No matter. We are all part of that same incredible creation.

I recognize the way I am interconnected with all creatures when I run. The route I run the most travels along the White River, bending and weaving as the river does. Along the path, there are inevitably some ducks and geese milling about quacking and honking. Sometimes the geese hiss and spread their wings, but I talk sweetly to them and explain to them that I love animals so much I don’t eat them or exploit them. Because the geese are relatively tame, though I like to think it has something to do with my reasoning with them, they back away and bob on down to the river. My day is always made better by my interactions with these animals in much the same way that it is also made better by sharing my life with my dogs and my cats. I can get so mad at Celie for being rambunctious,  but she just smiles and licks my hand or leg, as if to say, I know you aren’t really mad, are you?

Leave a comment

Posted in Grace, Religion, Running, School, Teaching