I believe in coyotes and time as an abstract...

 Dear Dad,

     It's late. I'm tired. I am icing my knees. An increase in mileage on my "brain-clearing runs" means that now, at 3:29 a.m., I am also hungry. None of this upsets me. These tangible, corporeal sensations in my body, even the potentially unpleasant ones, serve to remind me that I am alive (God, what a cliché, begging for cinematic musical score. Ugh). I equate these feelings with the gratitude I feel when my muscles are sore from the uses of stretch, pull, contraction of a good run. As each year passes, some extend the meniscus of "then" to "now" to "later" into an impossible distance, and some contract those moments down into the imperceptible gap between squint, wish, and candle-breath. Explain THAT one, physics! Regardless of the "length" of each year, I emerge on the other side of it with new aches, less stamina, and greater recovery time.

     Of course, these things all make me think of you. Another year without you, and the pain of losing you has shifted yet again. It never goes away, of course. It simply changes its shape. I wonder what it would have been like if I had rediscovered running earlier, with enough time for us to venture out together.  Would my teeny steps, accompanied by the light piano-tickle-sound-effects of a Fred Flintstone cartoon, be enough to keep up with you, or would your strides eclipse my own mini-stomp-stomp-stomps? I know that you would, of course, not leave me behind, and I know that the love I have developed for running would become yet another thing that we could share, once you became a real person instead of the mental caricature most kids have of their parents. Would we listen to music or try to talk while running? I'm sure it would be some of both. I can imagine visible puffs of breath in November as we chugged through the Metroparks, you asking me about my students, and me asking you about growing up in Cleveland (what stories would you choose to tell each time, and how would you decide?) I can also imagine headphones vibrating against ears and jawbones, mosquito snippets of music escaping out with tinny reverberations. When I think about those moments, I know that both of us would be straining nonchalantly to make out the songs. I feel cheated that we never got to share this synesthesia, this sensory symphony of sight, sound, and tactile joy. I would like to think that our tastes would still be somewhat concurrent, and I am carbonated by the mental image of sitting on the floor with you, running shoes eagerly waiting nearby, as we traded recommendations and playlists, looking for the perfect tone and pitch and cadence to catapult us along the running path, our feet not even touching the ground. I know exactly the first songs I would give you, and, even better, I feel certain that I know the ones you would give me. 

(Side note: I wonder if, while you were alive, you noticed how music can be the vessel allowing us to bi-locate not only in place, but in time as well? Or if you felt the grief of an unpleasant circumstance absolutely defiling the memory of a song you once loved? More on that next time...)

     Today, you have been gone for 31 years. It is now 4:23, my ice pack has thawed, my belly is full of water, and I am done stretching my legs. I need to get to bed before the mourning doves who have set up house in the tree outside my bedroom window decide to "greet the new day". Playing in my head is the first track on the wistfully imaginary playlist I have for you ("I Believe" by R.E.M.), and I feel...cheated. miss you. 

Goodnight, Dad.

Strobe lights and blowing speakers, fireworks and hurricanes...

      I was never any good at physics. In fact, the only science or math-related subject I ever excelled in was biology, so when laws of physics and time disregard what I've always been taught, it always trembles the ground under my shoes (sometimes in fear, sometimes in wonderment, and sometimes in rage). I just celebrated my 52nd birthday, and it has given me much to consider, both philosophically and in terms of physics. As I grow older, a luxury not afforded to all (if you know, you know), I have noticed that it has become increasingly difficult to navigate both matters of the body and matters of the heart lately. However, I persist! My relationship with my body has become like that of a landlord and recalcitrant tenant--it refuses to pay, I threaten to evict, etc. Both of us know we are bluffing. I have bullied my body into a grudgingly-consistent regimen, adding several "lifting days" to my running schedule (yes, I still run as often as I can. My runs are slower and shorter, but, damn it all if they aren't a satisfying way to clear my head). While at the gym on the 29th of JUNE (!!!!!) with the row of televisions torturing the patrons with Fox News and CNN in direct, audible competition and tantalizing them with the occasional Applebee's or Mr. Hero commercial (we are a sick, sick species, indeed), I had my psyche positively assaulted by the first of many commercials for...dun dun DUNNNNNN..."Back to School".

Seriously? June? 

     Don't get me wrong. I am absolutely loving my current job and school and students and colleagues and even BOSSES. It has been ages since I taught without counting down the days between breaks or dreading February. I look forward to going to work, and thinking about the number of years before I can even afford to think about retiring no longer causes paper bag-inhaling panic attacks...
     ...HOWEVER, advertising for school supplies in June is, as my students last year would say, "a hard pass", and I can understand why. It got me thinking about how time, or at least humanity's relationship with time, has changed, and continues to change ever more every year, it seems. 

• We see school supply commercials in June.
• There is already Halloween candy in the stores now, in July.
• I will start seeing pumpkin spice EVERYTHING (and don't get me started on that totally separate issue) in August, if not before.
• I know that it's only a matter of weeks before people start gearing up for Christmas, practically skipping over Thanksgiving.
• Now, it's perfectly fine to be excited and look forward to things. However, I have always believed, and I believe even more now, that looking TOO forward to things contracts time into smaller chunks and pushes you through the things you enjoy, even as it prevents your ability to enjoy them fully. 

     This is the first birthday in a long time that I spent alone--my mother is back in Canada, I am recovering from strep throat, so it is dangerous to be around my immunocompromised brother, and my ex-husband and I have peacefully and diplomatically decided not to try to force a faux-friendship--so things were quite different this year. My birthday gift to myself this year was a Radiohead LP (Kid A--my "Autumn album" that I hypocritically played in the middle of summer). It provided the soundtrack as I folded laundry, cleaned my bathroom, and cooked myself a filet mignon for my birthday dinner. 

     "In a little while/I'll be gone/The moment's already passed/Yeah, it's gone." Such beautiful words that perfectly encapsulate my frustration with others' urges to speed through their lives. Life is already fast and short enough. The image of my kitties, sleeping at my feet as I blew out the single candle on my single piece of birthday cake, stole my lungs tonight as I contemplated just how little time I have left in my own life, let alone in theirs. I felt so grateful for every stupid little thing, that I thought to myself, "This is not such a bad life, after all." 

...oh...the cat mug is also a present I bought for myself this year.  Happy birthday to me.