Zen on the Run

Back in 2004, when we were making weekly trips to Philadelphia, leaving our house in the cold and dark of early morning, I remember looking out the window of the car as we drove past the Delaware near Lambertville, and seeing the people running along the canal towpath.  Running and running. I so wanted to run, just run away from the nightmare we were living in—something about the act of physically running seemed so cathartic.

But I hate running, and back then I had a 6 year old fighting brain tumors and a 2 year old who wanted Mommy extra since things were so disrupted in our home and a 9 year old who was imploding.

Running wasn’t going to happen.

(I marvel at moms of young kids who get out there and run. If I got out for a walk when my kids were young I counted the day a major win and started imagining Olympic Glory as a walker).

Still, some part of my brain understood that there was freedom in movement, in running along near a river.

In 2006, one of the lowest points of my daughter’s illness, my husband realized that he seriously had to lose weight and get in shape, so as soon as we got home from my daughter’s Make a Wish trip he started running. 

Twelve years and countless half marathons, 5ks, and one full marathon later, Dave has not stopped running. He runs in rain and snow and gloom of night, he really should work for the postal service, nobody would ever miss their mail delivery if he took over.

While I use words galore to try and dig through the challenges of our life, Dave runs. And runs. And runs. For Dave, running equals zen. Always.

After cheering him on at a few races, and walking a few charity 5ks with the kids, I decided it was time. My G was off treatment. My 2 year old was in kindergarten.  My 9 year old was now an adolescent (so I NEEDED TO RUN).  My excuses were weak, but my desperate need to physically process the new moment of Life Off Treatment  remained strong.

 (Yes, off treatment should be awesome, but like Maria Von Trapp says in Sound of Music, “It could be so exciting, To be out in the world, To be free! My heart should be wildly rejoicing. Oh, what's the matter with me?”).  Not seeing medical professionals all the time was super unsettling, especially since the tumors were no smaller than when we started treatment.

Anyway, I dug out a pair of sweatpants and some old sneakers, and snuck up to the high school ball fields behind my house—and I tentatively galumphed around the soggy field. I didn’t even tell Dave for weeks that I was trying to start running, I was SO SELF CONSCIOUS. After all, I was always in the slow group for gym class, and once wore a paper bag over my head in protest…after college I would eat chips while one of my roommates vigorously did Jane Fonda videos. Ms. Fitness I am not.

But—it felt good. Not the running, that felt horrible, but moving, breathing fresh air, hearing the birds…it was good.

And thus it began.

Eventually I got actual exercise clothes, and real running shoes, and I ventured onto a road. I got a Road ID (hello, so many landscape trucks on such skinny roads!) and a headband that would stay in and a little handheld water bottle thingie.  After a few years I stopped always putting running in air quotes when I told people about my upcoming races.

Most of my running has been to fundraise for research for a cure, or to support friends who are sponsoring races to fundraise for research for a cure for NF or brain tumors or other smites.  I still don’t love it. I need MAJOR motivation to get up and go.  I only run slightly faster than global warming occurs. Officially, I run/walk--aka the Galloway Method (I love me a method). 

I only signed up for my first half marathon, having never run more than 4 miles, because my G had an MRI that looked like we’d be starting chemo again.  I was so angry I signed up for a race in defiance, like @#*&@^# you, NF! That actually was my training mantra (not kidding).  A week before the race a follow up MRI showed the tumors had stabilized and we had a reprieve.  That was awesome, but I still had to go run 13.1 miles!!

That 13.1 hurt. A lot. But crossing that finish line and NOT throwing up or collapsing was the most empowering thing I ever did. I beat my own doubts, insecurities, and memories of high school gym class. I DID THE THING. Not fast—but I did it. I got a medal and a t-shirt and EVERYTHING. I . Did. It.

And that kind of personal win IS a shimmering ZenFest.

So I did it four more times.  And honestly, by the last time it didn’t hurt more than it should have.

As of the last time—2016, when our family ran with my dad for his 70^th birthday-- I officially retired from half marathons.  The training exacerbates my anxiety—thus undoing the zen of movement. But this past weekend I ran a 5k with my now almost 16 year old—the 2 year old who needed mom all those years ago. Neither of us had trained, she relied on youth and I relied on all the other exercise I do, and both of us relied on the promise of chocolate at the end of the 3.1 miles…and it was good.  The threatened snow/rain held off, and I gave her my marshmallows while we waited for Dave to finish the 15k.

It was good.

For me, running isn’t a quick fix for zen like it is for my husband, but getting outside and moving, even to walk, to notice nature—that’s really the benefit of running for me. Running forces me into present moment awareness in a way few other things do.  Races ARE zen for me because of the Camaraderie of the Slow – My People! Everyone chugs along. Everyone supports everyone else. THAT is zen.

Movement helped me.  I know not everyone can run. When it’s cold out, I don’t run—but I have found that even being outside to meander with my snoofly dog helps with zen.  And honestly, in the cold months I use different kinds of movement to help with zen (another post).

I hear that spring may FINALLY be coming to Jersey—and maybe I can head out to my favorite nature preserve on a Saturday morning and run/walk slowly through the flowering trees and around the many ponds.  And after a run, I found the perfect zen chaser…

But that one I am saving for next post. ;)

Zen and the Search for Purpose

This morning, even before I put on my coke-bottle glasses, I could tell by the whiteness of my window that snow was falling.

April is the cruelest month, indeed.

I refused to get out of bed in protest – since it’s officially my first day of spring break, that seemed reasonable—and until the hospital unexpectedly called with a scheduling question, I tried almost successfully to stay in the realm of not awake. 

If I did not get out of bed, the snow would not matter. 

That made sense before coffee.

Eventually, my plans for the day thrown off by 7” of snow, I had to make peace with chaos and get a grip.

This is pretty much the story of my life all the time, really.

Throughout Lent, the reflections I did each morning centered on becoming more authentically ourselves, living the purpose filled life we are supposed to each live. In the last week or so the focus shifted to leaning into the dissonance of life, living with the questions even when we can’t immediately find answers.

I like answers.

Answers are my favorite.

My entire job consists of planning and answers, on some level.

But life rarely presents a clear picture of which way to go, or what the best path is. History rarely does, either, so why I’m surprised by my own inner “which way do I go?” isms I am not sure. 

Finding purpose and authenticity scares me a bit, even as I try to reach out to new things—advocacy, getting on a plane AGAIN, discerning exactly where I am supposed to leap TO, in response to the compelling feeling that a leap is not only right but necessary.  In a lot of ways, the practice of being in the present moment sets up the ability to find purpose and authenticity.

I need a lot more practice.

But again last week we got a medical reprieve, one I did not expect (I never really do expect it. Expectations are my nemesis in medical land, I am conditioned to only expect the worst and be surprised and relieved when the worst does not pan out in a particular moment—I never think that one respite provides some kind of disaster immunity for the future).   And in this reprieve, in NOT having to get back in the life or death game of medical interventions, I have time and space and a strong feeling that I need to DO SOMETHING.

The chaos of schedule, medical anxiety, snow upon snow when it is supposed to be spring—I am trying to learn how to lean into these moments, to see what I can learn from them, to breathe through them and keep going. I have to practice the things I know while I have the space to remember what I know, when those knowings are not crowded out by terror or stress or helplessness.

Like I said, I need about 9,998 hours more of practice before I can reach the elusive 10,000 hours to excellence level. Last week I spent an awful lot of hours literally wandering in circles as anxiety clawed at my insides, despite exercise and prayer and decent eating and all my tools for settling the inner demons down.

Already the snow is melting (New Jersey has the weirdest weather EVER), and soon my spring bulbs will be revealed again. The days are longer and brighter. Despite my deep need for maps and plans and answers, sometimes those come only after the hike begins.

That is a terrible metaphor, DON’T EVER HIKE WHEN YOU DON’T KNOW WHERE YOU ARE GOING. Find a well-marked trail and stay on it so you don’t get mauled by a bear or fall down a gorge or something.

Yikes.

How about… despite my deep need for maps and answers, sometimes the most wonderful things only happen, the most authentic moments of joy and purpose occur in the unplanned moments, the leap of faith, the step into the darkness? I know this is true, I just have to be brave enough to practice it without wincing every time.

I need to practice how to be present to challenges without being devoured by them.  My dad always used to say  “some days you eat the bear, some days the bear eats you” – figuring out how to live with the uncertainties is like hanging out with the bear without getting eaten.

THAT is going to take some practice.