Bleep, bleep

I've been doing something on my runs this week that I hate doing: I've been wearing a heart rate monitor. I hate doing it because it forces me to calm the fuck down. I normally run hells bells, all out, demanding that I hit a pace that's at least under nine minutes a mile, usually much closer to eight.

Eight minute miles are about what I used to average during high school cross country practices. Probably a little bit less, but not a whole lot. High school was a long time ago. Like, before endometriosis. Hip pain. Graduate School. Insomnia. Age 30. Plus.

Just saying. Eight minute miles are pretty fast for me now, but I push pretty hard for them. On training runs.

Until I strap on the heart rate monitor, that is, or I should say I'm starting to think. Heart rate monitors make me realize that running can bring out the bananas in me. At least that's what all the bleeping seems to imply. I strap the thing on and the next thing I know the damn thing is shouting out absurdities like 171 beats per minute, 172, 176, 178, 181, bleep, bleep, BLEEP. Is this thing even working right?

The first time I used it this week, I was on a treadmill. I warmed up at a 10 minute pace, no problem, 138 beats per minute. Went up to 6.2, 143 beats per minute. Up to 6.5, 150 beats per minute (that's about a 9:13 pace). I should have held there, but I was thinking -- I'm not kidding -- I bet my heart rate won't even increase if I press my pace up to 7.0 (within a minute I was at 163). Now, here's where all rationality went hasta la vista, baby. I actually had the following conversation with myself: "I know why my heart is beating this hard. Since I'm not getting tired, my heart is over-working itself trying to go this slow. I better up the pace."

I amped the treadmill up to 7.5 (an 8-minute mile). My legs were whisking along beneath me, proud and strong, and I knew that somewhere out there Paula Radcliff herself was aware of my graceful prowess. I made sure to relax, concentrated on my form, took several deep cleansing breaths just to make sure I was as calm as possible and looked down at my watch.

192.

WHAT? I'm not even breathing hard, I thought to myself. So I looked down again, legs still galloping beneath me, in their seemingly effortless stride. 194.

Fine. Whatever. I pushed the buttons down, first back to 7.0. This only got my heart rate down to 176, still in the watch's "emergency" red zone. Also, the treadmill at my gym automatically syncs with my heart rate monitor, so it had started warning me, too. Giant red letters were scrolling across the machine's screen, "Urgent! You are exercising too hard! Reduce effort immediately!" It was awful.

I turned the pace down to 6.5. Now even this was too hard and only brought my heart rate down to 168, 69, 68, 69. The watch continued to bleep, the treadmill continued to lecture. I was completely dismayed. I still didn't feel tired. I was still not even breathing hard.

Down to 6.4. This got my heart rate down to 160, which at least settled down the treadmill, but the watch was still unhappy. (I had programmed it to encourage me to hold a pace between 147 and 157 beats per minute.) I couldn't get down to 157 at 6.4, a lousy 9:22 per mile. I punched the level down one more time, to 6.3. I finally achieved a rate of 155 beats per minute, running a pace of 9:31.

9:31! I'm embarrassed just to write it down. That's barely even anything. Who runs 9:31?

Well, me, I guess. Because, the thing is, I ran that pace, for the most part (I did allow myself a pick up for the last one minute), and the run actually wasn't awful for once lately. I didn't need to collapse at the end. I still had something left for the pick up at the end, when I could run hells bells, and most runners know that pick ups are really important, because they teach you to finish strong, run hard, go all out when you're tired.

But most important, I held the pace. I just ran. I wasn't working so damn hard, I was just lost in the running, not doing more than I really can do. God, that's so how I live my life, constantly doing more than I really can do, demanding that I turn up the pace, no matter how damaged my insides are, there has got to be a faster pace that I can find a way to hold. Truth be told, I've been running more on treadmills lately, and I think it's because I haven't wanted to admit that I can't run as fast on the open roads anymore if the pace is left to me, and the treadmill can force me to do it. The belt can make me go, and before the heartrate monitor, I would not turn it down. I would run those nearly 8-minute miles, no matter how my liver hurt, no matter how my diaphragm begged, no matter how my pelvis ached. I would do it, because I used to be able to, and so if I can't do it now, it means that I am losing.

Losing what? I don't even know. I know that running used to be smooth and easy for me, something that I just did, not to prove something, but because it existed, and I existed in it. I wish sometimes that I would never have found out that I was relatively good at it, because sometimes in finding out that we're good at things, all the grace and beauty gets sucked out. But I did find out and, anyway, that was a long time ago.

Now maybe I'm not so good anymore. This makes me sad. I identify strongly in being able to run farther and faster than can lots of other folks. But you know what? My arrogance in that ignores the fact that there have always been lots of folks who could run farther and faster than me, that I've always been getting older, and that I've always been trying to outrun so many things that were bound to catch up with me at some point anyway. Now I have to face the truth. My liver grows this stuff it shouldn't grow and it grows it right next to my diaphragm and it hurts when I run too hard. I had a really big surgery not so long ago. Maybe my heart is saying, we're sad, me and you, and we need to go slow. We're not like we were before this happened. We have to live in the after. We have to hear the bleep.

There were bleeps in the hospital, too. Bleeps when I pressed the button for more pain medicine. Bleeps when my blood pressure dropped too low. Bleeps when we called the nurse because the pain was so intense I was hyperventilating. Bleeps for things I can't even remember anymore.

But even though I know all this, I'm not so good at slowing down. Not in my running, and not in my life. I want this to be over. I want to run like I did when I was fifteen. But I have to admit that the running feels better when I'm not pressing so damn hard. Everything feels better that way. I feel so stuck.

I want this to be over, but that's not a realistic want. Like I've said before, this is something I'm under, and I'm gonna be under it for quite awhile yet. There's not a pithy wrap-up or an easy lesson. I can't promise I'll never go hells bells again. I know that I will, maybe even tomorrow. But at least I know when I do, there'll be a bleep-bleep going off somewhere deep in my head.

Or maybe even on my wrist.

On Kindness

I've been thinking a lot lately about kindness -- the kindness of strangers, the kindness of friends, the kindnesses we trust and the ones that we don't. I believe that being kind is the most honorable of traits and yet its presence is so quiet and unassuming that it often gets taken for granted. We forget that the counterpart to kindness is sacrifice because kindness requires submission: Submission to the other, to the moment, to the loss of the material goods you really intended to keep for yourself.

To be kind is not the same thing as to be nice. Many people are nice but very few are truly kind. Niceness wears thin and comes with limits. Kindness sits with you in the dark, cold night when you shiver and hate and demand to be left alone. Kindness finds a way to let you be, but neither does it walk away, because your troubles are not too much for kindness. Kindness also tells the truth when your wallowing wears thin, but does so in a way that continues to be about you, your needs, your life, your hurt, your potential and your possibility. Kindness says, get up, let's go inside, let's try a new space for awhile. Kindness offers chocolate chip cookies underneath an old afghan on a worn-in sofa. Kindness fits. Kindness waits. Kindness hopes on your behalf.

Kindness. Sometimes it hurts. At least sometimes it hurts me. It drudges up the times that I tried to trust in its presence and pull that afghan up underneath my chin, only to discover the blanket was fraying in my fingers and the cookies were all burned. To recieve kindness, one must flirt with the possibility of disappointment, because nobody, no matter how kind, can come through on every occassion. This sucks. And to be human in this wild world is to desire distance from the chance of getting let down... again.

I just don't want to be disappointed again.

It hurts so much. To know and to receive authentic kindness is to risk a great deal because it means walking into the kitchen, taking the cookies, sitting down on the sofa and knowing -- damn it, knowing! -- that hurt is going to follow. The only question is, how big is the hurt going to be? I think this is why so many of us enjoy so much accounts of the so-called kindnesses of strangers, anonymous gestures of incredible munificence that come without explanation and leave us speechless in their plentitude. We aren't just mystified and grateful for the magnitude of the gift. No. I postulate that we are also relieved. We are relieved because the gift is really free, unfettered of the requirement of reciprocation or, often worse, the humility that can come in knowing who helped you and not being sure of whether you're worthy or why why they did it in the first place. Instead, the question of, "Why me?" goes unanswered, as do the needs for direct payback or syruppy, sycophantic thank yous.

Known kindness improperly executed excoriates its recipient. An act meant to help can cause immeasurable harm. This is the unseen but utterly felt dialectic. This is the rub with kindness, and this, I think, is why kindness is so difficult to trust. Kindness can be very demanding. How do I know, if I take your cookie, that you won't make me feel forever indebted? How do I know that you're giving me your best and not just your crummy leftovers? How do I know that you will receive my pain in dignity and hold it with grace? How do I decide not to just do it myself? My way might be imperfect, but at least I'll be free to cast blame. If you offer me your kindness, and I end up getting hurt, will I have to hold the hurt, because you meant it in your kindness? No thanks.

And yet we are stuck.

We are stuck because of the loneliness. Because it hurts so much to never depend on anybody. Because it makes us so sad. Because even though we fail each other so readily, most of us don't mean to, at least not most of the time.

And maybe because in my life nothing has felt quite so good as a second chance.

Because I've been learning lately that I suck at making it on my own. Every time I get close to hauling my own ass up to the top of the mountain, the endo does its thing and I'm back on the Vicodin. Again. On the Vicodin (I swear it isn't just an hallucination) I realize I got boosted up the mountain anyway. And I need a cookie. And a couch. And a blanket. And somebody to say, trust me, I'll sit with you, you're ok, let's wallow for a bit.

A Letter to My Students

I've been teaching a class to highschoolers on newswriting the past few weeks. The final assignment is a column -- a chance for the kids to shine and leave us all with some thoughts to remember them by.

I promised them that I would go, too.

Here's what I'll have to say. We'll see if they like it.

A Letter To My Students

When I was a senior in high school my English teacher gave me an incredible gift. Actually, she gave it to our entire class, in the days leading up to our graduation, and now I am passing this gift onto you.

Her endowment came in just a few simple words and they went like this.

Dear students, she said, you are being told that these are the best days of your life, and this is such a great lie. These are not the best days of your life. Most decidedly not. Not even close.

I remember receiving her declaration like a lifeline, my lungs expanding like balloons beneath the walls of my chest. I had gone through my high school years fearing that I had missed out somehow, that the good things had passed me by because I was not terribly popular, pithy, pretty or rich. I didn’t wear the right clothes. I rode the bus to school. I liked to read too much. My elbows were too bony. My shirts never fit quite right. I tried too hard. I knew that I was missing out.

Our school presented a musical my senior year – if I remember right it was Grease – and the excitement of the performances stuffed up the hallways of my high school in the days leading up to opening night. I wanted to go and see. No one invited me to go along with them. I asked my mom to the Saturday night show, and we went. When we arrived at the auditorium, some of the other kids talked and laughed and made jokes with me. It was fun. My mom said I could go and sit with them if I wanted to, that she’d be fine sitting alone. But I knew I had to sit with her. No one had asked me over to the chairs next to them.

And so I feared with all my heart that the best days of my life were such a terrible bust. Then came Mrs. Coehlo’s wonderful words. These are not the best days of your life, she said. She promised. She promised and I believed. Whether or not you’re the lead in Grease or the skinny girl sitting next to your mom, it doesn’t matter, because it gets so much better than this.

You must go forward into the great unknown and come to understand that there are love affairs to be had, children to bear, countries to visit, mountains to climb. There are things to study, colleges to go to, people to meet, dreams to behold, songs to learn, friends to cherish, jokes to laugh at, and dances to groove.

You must still go out there and live in your first, very own apartment, with the leaky faucet and without the dishwasher so that you can grow mold on your cheese and fur on your tomatoes and slime on your turkey. You must feel so proud of this accomplishment. You must promise yourself to eat healthy and immediately fall off the wagon and survive on Dominoes Pizza for a week. You must hurt sometimes, because hurt – if you let it – can become an incredibly instructive and you will watch as your ennui blossoms into possibility and you flourish. You must simply trust me on this point. Someday you will know exactly what I mean.

You must get your first job, your first true love, your first broken heart, your first taste of justice, and your first whiff of the amazing expanse of whatever you know to be grace. You must become your own friend, and when you do this, you will have accomplished an incredible feat. You must learn to recognize what this feels like, because you will probably have to do it again, and again, and again. We humans like to turn on ourselves, and the knives we throw in our own backs cut hard and deep.

You must learn to do this less. You need your own companionship so much.

You will go forward and you will remember these days, some of you more fondly than others. Remember this, too, though. You can tell a lot about a person in their later years by how much their adolescence still means to them. Life is a journey toward what is ahead. And so –

Take risks, but make them smart ones. Don’t get yourself killed doing dumb things, like drinking and driving, taking too many drugs, having reckless sex, or just being stupid with guns. Know that whatever happens to you and however hard you fall, you can get up, somehow. Bear in mind that getting up is easier if somebody extends a hand in help. Be a hand for somebody else. Hope. Always hope. Don’t worry so much about looking foolish. Remember it’s always better to learn than to know. Laugh. Dance. Be.

After all, the music, the moment? You know that you own it.

The Truth

I've been blocked and busy and so haven't written much. Then last week I went into a local used bookstore and picked up a collection of poems by Philip Schultz under the moniker, "failure." (Of course I picked this book up. How could I not?)

I opened, by accident or maybe fate, to a poem called, The Truth. I knew the instant that I read the poem that soon, very soon, the book would belong to me.

You can hide it like a signature
or birthmark but it's always there
in the greasy light of your dreams,
the knots your body makes at night,
the sad innuendos of your eyes,
whispering insidious asides in every
room you cannot remain inside. It's
there in the unquiet ideas that drag and
plead one lonely argument at a time,
and those who own a little are contrite
and fearful of those who own too much,
but owning none takes up your life.
It cannot be replaced with a house or a car,
a husband or wife, but can be ignored,
denied, and betrayed, until the last day,
when you pass yourself on the street
and recognize the agreeable life you
were afraid to lead, and turn away.

To add anymore would be to tell you what to feel, what to think.