eminem, black eyed peas, and andrew lloyd webber

I've said it before, but it remains powerfully true: music makes my workouts.
makes them tolerable.
makes them, at times, even enjoyable.
make them, in moments, absolutely awesome.

I've known this, but I'm also able to rediscover it every so often. (I think that's one of the great joys of aging, right? you forget everything, and so you can be excited to find out these kinds of things over and over again.)
what happened for me is that the past few times I've run, I've so enjoyed the music on my ipod that I haven't wanted to take the earphones out of my ears and press the stop button when I've finished and returned home. which resulted in my actual enthusiasm to go for a run yesterday. woo-hoo, I thought, I get to listen to my music!

I have tricked myself into a difficult task by pairing it with a reward.

call me, once again, nothing but a pavlovian dog. geez.

I actually use this trick all the time, but it usually involves chocolate.

• if I just finish this next chunk of work, I can have a piece of chocolate.
• when I get the vacuuming done, I can have a chocolate.
• after this next paragraph is written, I get chocolate.
• when I get home from my bike ride . . .

you get it.

I know I'm not the only one who operates this way. life is full of "have to's" that go much better when paired with "like to's." and for the time being, my ipod full of a mix of my music/my kids' music/music that came from who knows where is exactly the incentive I need to get my nike frees on, get out the door, and go pound the pavement.

carl sandburg

the fog comes
on little cat feet.

it sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

in ninth grade I memorized this poem, never dreaming that all these years later I'd be spending so much time in a fog.
I am possibly optimistic in calling this soup around us fog ~ some might call it smog, inversion, yucch, haze, film, gunk. the weather forecast is calling it widespread haze, patchy fog, and otherwise cloudy. covering all bases, aren't they?
I, nonetheless, am going to get on my bike and see if I can climb up above it all, find a clean and pristine world, remember what it's like to receive the reward of swooping down a curving road to the reservoir nestled in dell canyon's little cradle.
it's calling, and I can't seem to resist.
perhaps, by the time I reach the top of the hill, the cat will have lifted itself from its haunches and quietly moved on.

round and round and round

tuesday's snow was perfect snowman-building snow. thick, wet, clumpy, the kind that lumps up all by itself and practically rolls itself into balls.
I almost built a snowman.

I received snowshoes for Christmas a couple years ago, and the first time I went out I had to stop on a virgin hillside, tip-toe (um-hm, sure) my way out a bit, and toss myself onto my back. I stretched my arms wide, and jumping-jacked my legs, and made myself a snow angel. I giggled and smiled up at the sky, and felt pure, fabulous, uninhibited joy. I was playing, I was connecting with that part of me that is so easily stifled by my mature and functional life.

shoveling snow on tuesday caused that little joyful part of me to tap on my heart and ask, please, can I come out and play?
serious me considered it, considered the shoveling I still had to finish, considered my tights and skirt and list of errands to accomplish before three o'clock, and told little joyful me, sorry, truly, but not today.

I was crushed. but I had things to do.

yesterday most of the snow in my yard gave in to the sun and dripping trees, slipping away into the grass. there's a bit left, not much, but possibly enough to fashion a small, say, snow bunny or something. playful me looks out the window and doesn't think twice, but is instantly up for it. why not?
boring old responsible me doesn't think I have enough time because I have to finish this post, clean the kitchen, get to an appointment, then fit in everything else like work and laundry and shuttling a child or two around.

I've never built a snow bunny.
I wonder if I know how.
hell's bells, joyful me knows.

it's good to have a goal

so we know this coming saturday is the first event of the winter running series.
we know tomorrow is the sign-up cut off.
we also know that the prediction is for an inversion saturday.
and . . . we also know that the predicted high for saturday is about 44 degrees.

and what I know is that susan is feeling the need for a carrot.

I can't think too far out, because my life is a little wiggly right now and I need to stabilize a bit before I can make plans further than a week or two out. but I can think about this coming saturday, and 44 degrees is in my "tolerable" range for an outdoor bike ride . . .

I think I have a carrot.

of course right now it's snowing, has been for the past several hours, and I keep watching people turn on to my street and slide for a dozen feet or so before their vehicles correct themselves, and I'm just about to go shovel all of that snow from my sidewalks and driveway. an enjoyable outdoor bike ride seems pretty impossible at the moment; good thing we live in such a changeable place and that I have an imagination.

so . . . no long range goals for me, no commitments to any events, not even a single firm goal for the coming cycling season. no registrations completed, no reservations made, not a plan even penciled in on my calender.
but I have a little carrot.
and for now, a little carrot is at least something.
and perhaps another carrot will appear, soon, then another, and then the next right thing will appear, and then the next. then life will fill again, the snow will melt, the sun will shine, and everything will, once again, be right with the world.

equivocation

"Say not 'This is the truth' but 'So it seems to me to be as I now see the things I think I see.' "

ponder that for a moment.

I've been reading a book by John McPhee titled "Rising from the Plains." reducing it to its base components, it's a book about focus, understanding, commitment, and love. widening up a bit, it's a book about a geologist and the formation of our planet. widening the lens once more, it's a book about david love and wyoming, both of which I've fallen in love with.
this is how one can assess the power of a book: I am aching to move to wyoming and immerse myself in that wild and stimulating terrain, and I'm devastated that I will never be able to meet david love.

from the US Geological Survey:
J. David Love was born in 1913 in Wyoming where he grew up on the family ranch. The only time Dave left the state of Wyoming was to get a PhD from Yale University and then to spend four years working for Shell Oil Company in the mid-continent region. He returned to Wyoming in 1942, when he was hired by the USGS Mineral Deposits Branch. After 45 years with the USGS, primarily spent mapping Wyoming, he retired in 1987, but remained with the organization as a scientist emeritus.
One of his continuing interests through his career was the connection between geology and human health, for example, poisonous trace elements like selenium and molybdenum found in some soils. After he discovered uranium in Wyoming, he passed up an opportunity to capitalize financially and chose instead to remain with the USGS as a field geologist.
He received many rewards and honors, including the USGS Meritorious Service Award and the American Geological Institute's very first Legendary Geoscientist Award. John McPhee's book, "Rising From the Plains" (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, New York, 1986), is about Dave and the geology of Wyoming.
Both of Dr. Love's sons became geologists. David Love died in 2002 at the age of 89.


I actually feel that it was a mistake that I never met this man. that it should have happened at some point along the way: he speaks to me from mcphee's book in a powerful way. such as the quote with which I began this post, which love discovered in a book about the German Naval Officer's school in Kiel, which is his interpretation of what is etched above the school's doorway. this quote became dr. love's professional axiom, underlying his commitment to walk wyoming until he knew it.

truth. it's a flighty thing, it's a variable thing, it has six sides and at least that many interpretations. my truth is not necessarily that of anyone else, yet it makes it no less my truth.

what I know today, from my reactions while reading and marinating in mcphee's tale of david love and the wide expanse of land we call wyoming, is that one aspect of my truth involves time spent in wyoming, in the great swath that surrounds the tetons, what love calls the youngest of the rockies.
perhaps this is part of the reason lotoja has called to me all these years, ending as it does in that very spot.
hard to know.
but it's a good thing there are roads around there, and bike paths, because you know I wouldn't want to go there without my erstwhile two-wheeled companion.
and someday, using that incredibly handy tool we call hindsight, I might figure out just what it is about the jackson hole area that beckons me with it's long and persistent finger.

all I know today is that my truth, as I see it given what it is I think I see, includes a pining for a valley and a land not so very far from here. perhaps, one day, I'll go.

eight days

actually, it's seven.
I have seven days to make a decision about what will happen on the eighth.
well, really, it's only five, because if I'm going to do it correctly, I need to register ahead of time.

"it" is the winter running series that begins a week from tomorrow with a flat 5k out by the great salt lake. I know I can do that. but two weeks later is the 10k, and two weeks after that is the 15k which is so far from where I am as to be in a different hemisphere. so do I really need to fork over forty bucks to get a t-shirt and permission to try to kill myself?

I ran today and during the first quarter mile I thought I was a fool to even be attempting a run. my heartrate had jumped to my zone 5 number (on a slight descent, no less) and it hurt to breathe and my legs were complaining and blah blah blah . . .
and then it got better.
I actually hit a place today where everything felt pretty darn good, though I can't say I felt that elusive "runner's high" I've heard rumors about. I'm happy with pretty darn good, and I'm overwhelmingly grateful when that feeling sticks around for more than a few blocks.

but am I ready to go join a bunch of people who really run?
I don't know.
I'm sure there will be others like me there, beginners, wannabes, slow-pokes. people doing it to keep themselves on track, people pushing to achieve goals.
I'm such a loner, though, doing my own thing: I really don't need a piece of paper, a bib number, or anything commemorating my first official 5k. I can take my own word for having done that.
the bottom line, I think, is that I'm not yet certain that I care about making it much further than that. I don't see me ever doing a marathon; I don't even feel a pull to do a half-marathon. or a 15k. I might be giddy at the ability to call myself a runner, but I'm not really a runner runner.

then again, it's terribly difficult to predict the future.

I can't even predict what I'll be doing next wednesday as the deadline to sign up for this running series sticks its heels in . . .

goats

capricorn is the sign of the goat, a determined climber.

many people in my life were born under this sign, and I send birthday wishes to both C and J today.... two pretty great goats. you are both loved.

I, being a cancer, have few things in common with capricorns, but the image of the goat resonates intensely within me . . . as you can probably imagine.

in one interpretation of the capricorn personality, it's said that the question for them is not "can I climb the mountain?" but instead, "which mountain shall I climb?"

I would take this one step further for myself and ask, "which mountain shall I climb first, and then which next, and then which one after that . . . ?"

I am a goat at heart, though I may scuttle sideways at times just like the crab I am. the goat's persistence, determination, and ability to get there are traits that just scream "susan."

today the thought of pedaling my bike up a mountain is pretty foreign. it's rained, sleeted, and snowed today, the clouds parting momentarily and occasionally to reveal sun and blue, then pulling back together and chilling my entire world. the gloves have been on today, then off, then on again, and for the brief moments that I thought january might tease me into crocus form I lit with hope. the sign alerting me that chains or snowtires were required to head up the canyon reminded me that it will be a while before I will choose which hill to climb first.

but choose I will, because the day will come when they spread again before me in an array of beauty, temptation, and challenge. and I will return to form choosing first one, then another, and once again become the goat who knows she will always, eventually, some day, reach the top.