Running Commentary

Q: What do I write about after 1) writing for 19 days + 1 more straight and then 2) going on vacation for eight days?  A: Not much. Q: Have I seen any exotic birds lately? A: See for yourself.  Q: Do you know the difference between flamingos seen on a trip to the Denver Zoo last Friday and flamingos seen in the neighborhood on my run this morning? A: I hope so!

What have I been doing since my 21-day blogathon? Run/walking and enjoying the spring. Here's my latest tree portrait. Saw this beauty in Providence, RI, a couple of days ago.

When I committed to writing for 21 consecutive days, I didn't realize that Day 21 would fall on Easter, but here it is. I also didn't stop to think that it could be on the day of my longest run so far this year--8 miles, even though the timing made sense. All in all, Day 21 was inadvertently set for a potentially auspicious day. And what a day it's been! It started with my run. It was a slow one, nine minutes of shuffling followed by one minute of walking, over and over. But it was a lovely morning. That big moon was still around when I started out, and the sky was full of sunshine by the time I got home. I had good timing all the way through this run. The most serendipitous timing occurred when I rounded a corner on the waterfront at Berkeley's Cesar Chavez Park and was greeted by bells and voices rising to the heavens. I realized I had come upon an Easter celebration starring a choir and a group of hand-bell musicians, not to mention a guitarist and possible other mus...

Being the faithful and astute reader of this blog that you are, you have undoubtedly noticed that yesterday constituted a break in my 21-day blogathon. Yesterday was Friday and, like just about everyone else I know, I was busy all day and then exhausted in the evening. It was a pleasant exhaustion, born of hard work and honest exercise and enhanced by a feeling of accomplishment over a completed project. I was lying in bed about 10:15 pm when it hit me. My blog! For a frozen moment I thought of jumping up and rescuing poor Day 19 from its nonexistence. The moment thawed, and I went to sleep, with one of the many useful 12-Step mantras I've learned echoing in my head: Progress, not perfection. So, this morning you're seeing the fruit of progress (me, writing), but yesterday you saw the full fruit of not perfection (me, not writing). What was the busyness of yesterday? Especially since I documented a bit of it, I'm happy you asked. I do believe carrying a camera phone helps m...

Sometimes being here now means acknowledging that I'm just not very together. That's the way it is. Pulling myself up by my psychological bootstraps is all very well, but how effective is it when it's 8:15 pm, I have at least an hour's proofreading ahead of me, and I'm committed to getting up at 5:30 tomorrow morning to run before work? It's a minor stunner to realize that at this moment I'm willing to put the work off in order to write in this blog. Before the 21 day-athon, I regarded posting as something that required great forethought and the complicated assembling of mental and physical resources. But now, now it's an item on the to-do list. Go to work, make dinner, brush your teeth, post in your blog. Now that the essentials are taken care of, what's next? I took this photo earlier this evening at the SF Transbay Terminal. I was waiting for the bus and refusing to give in to the inclination to check out of the day and into everything that called...

Out to run early in the morning today, as usual. Also as usual, right before I swung my legs over the side of the bed in the first indication that I was actually going to get upright, I experienced a short but intense wave of fear--fear that my reluctance to go run would prove to be more than chimerical. The morning light, the light that was only imagined at that point, got me out of bed and out on the road. As I heeled-and-toed it under the Acton Street lights, I thought about this blog and what kind of photo op I might have on my run to capture some place or thing that would goad me into writing. I thought about my original purpose in doing this 21-day blogathon. It was inspired by Colleen, the Communicatrix , who just yesterday finished what she called her 21-day salute. Her purpose was to make each day a small beginning. (Mission accomplished, I'd say, by the way.) I've been saying that my purpose is to practice being here now (with apologies to Ram Dass ). More precisely, ...

I've never been a big fan of retail therapy. I like to think of myself as savvy enough to understand that no shiny new thing is going to fill the hole in me that always, sometimes more and sometimes less, needs filling. And yet, I'm certainly capable--exceedingly!--of being delighted by cool stuff. So, take a look at what I swam in today. They're called Zoomers . And they did make me zoom, compared to my usual snail-slogging-through-pond-scum pace. Thinking about my swim, I realize that being as happy as I was wearing these bright yellow water shoes lifted me right out of my workaday doldrums. I felt how gently yet rapidly I slid through the water. I noticed that I became more energetic as my enthusiasm mounted. My goggles fogged up sooner than usual. I felt how my legs and feet responded to the unfamiliar speed by coiling and uncoiling. In short, I found myself immersed in more than the water; I was solidly in the moment. Maybe that's one reason people love buying som...

That's the question I asked myself after I tried out the camera in my new smartphone by pointing it out the window at the backyard. It took me some time and I'm still not sure how I did it, but I did manage to get the picture, retrieve it and upload it, and here it is. I like the soft focus created by the dirty window glass! Once again I've left updating the blog until the last moments of my day. Coming to it this way has set me wondering whether writing about the here and now is inherently an oxymoron. The here and now, the actual here and now, is not the daylight falling on my beloved birch. The here and now is me in my chair, in front or my computer just as I've been most of the day, and longing to be in bed. So the here and now is writing a post about what I saw earlier today while thinking about what's coming up after this pesky here and now is over. The dishwasher is whirring gently in the kitchen, the cat door just snapped shut behind Danny Mo as he headed o...

What do you do when you have an up and down day? One that jerks in stops and starts instead of rolling out smoothly? How do I deal with a day like that here in my 21-day blog-a-thon, in which I'm striving to appreciate the here and now, not to wish it was not so much here and was a lot less now? I try just to think "up." Getting up, for starters. I didn't want to today, but had resolved to do a 7-mile run, my longest since my last re-injury, in January. But I did get up. Was reminded of one of the lessons of this blogging experience, which is that it is possible to form a habit just by doing something for 21 days. And it's for sure been more than 21 days that I've had to cajole myself out of the sack when I didn't want to move. So it's a habit to override the dread and reluctance and just get up and go. Today I was so happy I did. I jog/walked 7.25 miles on this incredibly clear and fresh morning and was happy to have done it. That's the getting ...