Running Through Downtown Los Angeles

A few months before my 25th birthday I found myself fat and dumped.  I had to move out of the cottage that we shared and move into a series of temporary living situations that I hated.  In an effort to get out of the house and shed some of the extra pounds I took up running. 

Anyone who knew me before age 25 might find this comical.  I was never sporty and had such a severe case of asthma that a good joke could send me into a dreadful attack.  Yet I needed an outlet, something to get me through the pain of the break up and the stress of moving forward alone.

I began at the start of summer, in the evenings after work.  At first I could not run past two driveways on the suburban sidewalks without having to stop to catch my breath.  By the end of the summer, I was running two miles without stopping.  My asthma has rarely bothered me since. 

In the 15 plus years since I have taken up running, I have moved to 3 different states. Travelled to many others on vacation. Nothing thrills me more than to explore my new surroundings by lacing up my shoes.  I have run Central Park in NYC, rural Easter Oregon and Downtown Los Angeles. 

When I lived in a loft in Downtown LA, I would run each evening before dinner.  My husband and I lived in a loft located adjacent to Skid Row where I worked with homeless women and children.  Each evening as I would run, the men who lived in cardboard boxes and tents along Spring Street would call out, “Here she is, right on time! You can set a clock to her”.  They’d clap and cheer as if I was in a marathon as I ran by.  One time I turned the corner and into the exhale of a man smoking PCP.  The route took me through the spectrum of social classes as I would run up Grand Ave, pass Disney Hall.  Men in tuxes and women in diamonds would stand at the crosswalk with me as they walked from dinner across the way to the symphony.  Dripping with sweat I’d turn up the Jay—Z in my headphones, embarrassed at the contrast in our scent.

There was one incident that always stayed with me.  Running near City Hall I noticed a young man, around 19, running parallel with me across the street.  Small and wiry, he was sobbing and appeared to have metallic paint over his eyes, nose and mouth.  He was running with determination toward the 101 freeway over pass.  I increased my stride and crossed the street to meet him before he reached the overpass.  “Hey!” I said with a small smile as I ran along side of him.  “I am just so sad!” he screamed sobbing.  We were on the bridge now. Without time to think I said “I know you are, sweetheart. I’m here.  I’m listening.”  I wanted to get him off that bridge.  He was clearly high.  “Let’s go sit down and talk”. Miraculously he back tracked back to City Hall with me and we sat for two seconds on a planter wall.  He sobbed something incoherent, got up and ran down the street. I had a good 40 pounds on him, there was no way I was catching up and I thought to myself, “how far am I actually going to take this?”  Shook up by the experience I went off to run an extra couple of miles.

I have slowed down in the past few years.  Unable to run as fast or as far as I once did, running continues to not only, help me work out things in my own mind, but to see past myself to people I wouldn’t normally interact with in the rest of my day to day life.  May I always be quick to see those around me.

Palm Sunday and Bagpipes

We gathered in the school gym across from the Cathedral as we do every year on this day.  The children are giddy as we pick out our palm fronds to wave.  Parishioners aren’t obstructed by pews, excited to see friends and family.  The gym is full of electricity as we look forward to join the processional across the street and into the church.  The Archbishop has come for this special occasion and blesses our palms.  We follow the cross, the Archbishop and our Priest out of the gym into the sunshine to proceed to the church, trumpets blasting on all sides of us. The children are in pure delight, waving the fronds as we sing joyfully “Hosanna!  Hosanna!  Hosanna in excelsis!”

As we approach the Cathedral, we stall as the pathway becomes narrow, there is a corridor ahead lined with the choir to join our singing.  The mood begins to shift as our gait slows, those nervous of crowds, tense as we are packed tighter to walk through the corridor ahead.  Then I hear it. On the other side of the Cathedral.  Bagpipes. I had forgotten.  Each year on Palm Sunday, a bagpiper in full regalia plays during this procession.  I don’t know if it is because I am part Scottish, as the sound of bagpipes stirs in me a sense of longing for a connection to a country and a family I never knew or if it is my association of bagpipes with funerals, but my heart drops.  I am reminded that at the end of this Holy Week, Christ will be on the cross. 

I look at the joyous faces of the choir, eager to join the celebration, now appear jeering as I am reminded that this same jubilant crowd who welcomed Him into Jerusalem would be shouting “Crucify Him!” later in the week.  I begin to cry.  As if we are thinking the same thing, my 6-year-old looks up at me and asks “Mommy, did Jesus know He was going to die?” I answer, “Yes, son, He did.” I imagine myself as Christ on that donkey looking out on these faces with more compassion than I can muster.

I am reminded of my own faith, so enthusiastic and then waning. Even at the beginning of this Lenten season, I was so eager to give, to return to basics, to listen.  But…my excitement dwindled.  I know come Friday I would have been standing with the crowd calling for His death, even after celebrating His glory just days before.  

We enter into the Cathedral to begin Mass.  In years past I have dreaded standing during the entire Luke reading accounting the entire Passion: Today it is the very least I can do to honor Him.  I enter Holy Week with a heavy heart but looking forward to saying "Alleluia" next Sunday for the 1st time in 40 days and truly meaning it.

Puzzles: An Awkward Goodbye

Today I opened a puzzle from my dear friend, Martha.  She passed it on to me last year before she died, before cancer ate away her brain.  That brain that earned a doctorate, ran museums, and met presidents.  That brain that believed in me.  

I open the box and it’s full of cat hair.  My eyes fill with tears.  Is it because I am allergic?

I met Martha nearly 10 years ago at an event for Seattle Art Museum.  It was a beautiful summer night; a new exhibit was opening celebrating the museum’s 75th anniversary.  There were cocktails, hors d'oeuvres and a jazz band set up outside on the lawn of the museum.   My husband recognized her from an event they both attended the night before and we saddled up introducing ourselves.  We talked, laughed and drank the night away until we realized the exhibit was closing, the band was packing up, we had never made it inside.  Not one of us cared. We gave her a ride home that night and became fast friends.

Older than my own mother, Martha and I spoke the same language.  We filled our homes with interesting people we loved and then shared stories about why we loved them when they were not present.  

I was one of the people she loved. 

She cheered for my husband and I as we became a family of three and then four, attending every baptism, birthday, and brunch with the love and attention of a devoted grandmother.  She noticed when my happy hour stories were more than bar stool chatter but a desire to write.  She encouraged me in it, as if I had something to say, something people wanted to hear.  It is a powerful thing to have someone believe in you.  Especially someone like her who should have been impressed with so much more, not so little. 

She told us she was sick one brunch as we celebrated the New Year.  She wanted us to know but not to concern ourselves as she assured us it was manageable.   We came when she asked us to, bringing flowers and cartons of buttermilk, a comforting childhood treat of hers. She continued to work, managing the move of an entire museum, then making that museum a home.  She only let the illness have the weekends.  Until it came back, again and again.  Then she knew it was time.

She arranged to return to the place of her birth, where her son still lived and could take care of her during her last days.  She arranged last meetings with all those she loved to say goodbye.  It was the most gracious, beautiful, goodbye anyone could hope to give …but I couldn’t.  Mine was rushed, uncomfortable, and hollow.  I couldn’t say all the things I wanted to, in front of other people, in front of my children, in front of her cats.  I couldn’t say that she was more family to me than mine ever was.  That I didn’t understand her faith in me.  That I wanted to make her proud.

I couldn’t say that I loved her.

Looking down at the puzzle box in my hands, I know she understood.  She didn’t expect me to be as lovely and gracious as herself.  She understood when my anxiety over downtown parking had me arrive at her apartment disheveled at best.  She understood when I worried whether my sons were developing on track, saying “Don’t worry too much.  They aren’t going to receive their college diploma in diapers”. She understood that there were years in my life where I wasn’t allowed to be myself.  She let me be myself. Even liked that self.  She had carefully folded the puzzle back in the box, with large sections still attached, making it easier for me to put together.  Is she giving me direction from beyond the grave? I hope I have all the pieces.

Coloring Robots

My sons and I were so hungry at dinner, we finished in 10 minutes.  We stuffed rigatoni with meat sauce into our mouths with little talking, an absolute rarity as all three of us are big talkers.  Daddy had to work late so it was just us.  As I cleared the dinner dishes, the boys quickly got into their pajamas.  We still had an hour until bedtime so I asked them if we should all color together.

I took out some coloring sheets I save for the occasions that I color with them.  I don’t want to color Batman or Dinosaurs.  I want to color something interesting. I take out a robot coloring sheet I have been saving for an evening like this.  I also take my special pencils out.  The boys love my pencils, which I hoard for special occasions. 

We colored for nearly an hour.  We sang songs.  My oldest asked if I would write his name in cursive for him.  I forgot the delight of cursive writing to a small child, a kin to a secret language that only a few can read or write.  He felt fancy and important to see his name written out with all those loops and curves. 

We drew rainbows and shooting stars when my youngest began to silently pout.  I asked why and he said he didn’t know how to draw a star.  My oldest was eager to show him as that’s what big brothers are for.  He slowly did a step by step drawing and we watched as the youngest began to draw with the focus of an eagle.  As the last point of the star connected, he threw down his pencil and threw up his arms and yelled “My first star!”. 

I want motherhood to stay in these moments, not the moments where I am yelling like George Costanza and his parents about the stupidest thing.  Or when I am asking my sons for the 4th time to complete some simple task.  I want to stay in the moments where I feel like I am succeeding.  As we continue to color and draw both boys let out spontaneous I-love-you-Mommy’s and get up to give me a hug or kiss without prompting. I can see that they feel loved, in a way that feeding them and cleaning their underwear never seems to accomplish.

We pack up and brush our teeth for bed.  I tuck in the youngest whose bedtime ritual includes me saying 5 of his nicknames.  5 because he’s 5. 

“Are you my baby?” 

“Yes”, he replies.  He whispers “Ask me if I’m your robot”  I can only assume because we colored robots.

“Are you my little robot?”

“Yes”, he replies sleepily.

The last name is always the same per his request. It’s been the same for 2 of his 5 years. “Are you my little ninja?”

“Yes.  Are you my little mommy?”

Always.

I go into my oldest’s room.  He is reading in bed, waiting.  He’s a little bookworm just like I was at his age and still am.  His bedtime ritual is for us each to share a happy thought.  These happy thoughts ward off bad dreams.  I share one of his favorite happy thoughts, when a little girl in his class wears her hair in pigtails. When it’s his turn he says, “My happy thought is coloring robots with you.”

I want this last hour to restart and replay…over and over.  

Present Presence

My 5- and 6-year-old sons were in a week-long day camp during a break from school. The camp focused on “music and movement,” which is another way of saying it was a theater camp.  Each week had a theme. The week my boys attended was Elvis week. They learned how to pretend to play the guitar and shake their hips. They had a blast.

The camp concluded with a performance on Friday. I arrived early and got a seat on aisle so I’d be sure to see both children wherever they happened to be on the stage. When performance time came I was taken aback when every single adult in the audience stood up, took out their phones and began filming the performance. There was no way I could see through the barrage of phones and iPads. I found it strange that I was the only person who was actually watching the performance, not the screen, but couldn’t see it.

The poet Wendell Berry speaks to this in his poem “The Vacation,” in which a man spends his vacation filming it, “preserving” it.

It would be there. With a flick

of a switch, there it would be. But he

would not be in it. He would never be in it.

I completely understand this phenomenon of being there but not being present. I absolutely suffer from it too. My mind is always running through a list of the next three things to do. I am always trying to see if the other person I needed to talk to about x is here in the room. Even when I look into the eyes of my little boys, telling me a sweet story they made up about their Lego creation, I am thinking about what I need to do next.

It is hard for me to connect with people in my life. I’m not sure if this is because of my chaotic childhood, my inability to trust people, my own anxiety, or all of the above. I am gregarious, fairly likable, open, but I never seem to actually get close to others. I think to myself, “I should take medication. Maybe this would help me to connect with others …” Or is this disconnection, this loneliness, what connects me to Christ and His sufferings?

When we are at last united with Christ, what will that feel like? Will He have time for me? Or will He look over my head for the next person in the room? I give Christ my symptoms of anxiety.

I honestly do not know what it is like to look into someone’s eyes and have them be completely present for me for more than a minute. The artist Marina Abramovic exhibited a performance art piece called “The Artist is Present” at MOMA a few years ago. In the piece, she offered herself to a “sitter,” a museum patron simply sitting across from her for a few minutes, as completely present, silent but meeting their gaze, never breaking it. The sitters’ responses ranged from nervous giggles, to iced stoicism, to tears.

The response to Abramovic was so powerful, it makes me wonder what it will be like to sit across from Christ. Will I giggle? Will I crumble? Will I meet His gaze? St Paul says that “now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I will be fully known” (1 Cor. 13:12). I feel that this is a promise, that I will be a new creation, that I will not reach for my phone to record my meeting, that I will not be thinking about how I can tell others later. I will allow myself to be loved.

Facts: The Gift of Self

Fact:  My Grandma and Grandpa got married on New Year’s Eve.

Fact:  I cannot swim.  Never learned

Fact:  I secretly enjoy ironing.

Fact:  I lost my glasses

Each morning when I wake up, I send an email to my friend, Gabrielle.  The subject line says “FACT”.  We simply type out a fact about us. 

Gabrielle and I went to school with each other for 8 years as children. She was a year ahead of me.  We knew of one another in our tiny private school but we did not often spend time with each other.  It wasn’t until junior high, that we were both thrown in together in a free period as teacher’s aides.  I quietly admired her poise and humor.  I thought she was too lovely, too good to be real friends with someone like me. I had the magic of the elective period alone with her to enjoy her.

Twenty-five years later we reconnected on Facebook. She revealed that she too had enjoyed that free period together and had admired me.  She suggested that we catch up on the last 25 years and in some ways, get to know one another, by sending each other a FACT each morning.  We surmised that both of our OCD laden, Type A personalities could keep up with the commitment.  We didn’t discuss how long we would do it, only that we would begin.  It has now been over 2 years.

We are both early birds, most mornings we send out our email in the 5 o’clock hour before I leave for my morning run.   Whoever sends their fact second, comments on the others and then shares her own.  It takes us each 2-3 minutes total.

At first our emails were basic details about us.  Most of our facts have a positive tone to them.  We share happy things.  We share highlights.  They began to change into what we looked forward to in the day ahead of us or the best of the day before.  They continued to evolve.  Sometimes deeper evaluations of our thoughts, fears, concerns.  This is where we have been able to get to know one another, understand each other.  She is an amazing person whom I hope to be more and more like.  Funny how even as adults, it’s terrific to have a role model of how to do things well.

I live with chronic depression.  A fact that was shared with Gabrielle a few months into this experiment.  I have been able to manage it for the most part with a combination punch of regular exercise, schedule and forcing myself to stay connected to community. Still there are usually several days a year that depression peaks it’s head out of the hole in the ground.  My sister recently pointed out that there has been fewer of these days.  I startled at that comment.  I looked over my calendar and journal, where I tend to document those down days to keep track of it.  She was right.  There have been far less of these days...in the last 2 years.  

Yes, I credit this experiment.

Each morning I pop out of bed and my first thoughts are of Gabrielle and what cheerful tid bit of my past day or the day to come I will share with her.  I know that if I delay in sending it, she will be concerned.  Not because of my depression but because of the regularity in which I usually send these out.  My immediate thoughts each morning are of something to be thankful for, look forward to and that someone cares about me.  It is a powerful notion, especially for someone for whom this does not come easily.  What a gift to give someone!  I don’t think she knows the power in this one act of curiosity, kindness and Type A at it's finest.  

I think this will be my fact tomorrow morning.  

Dreams of My Grandfather: Learning to Love

Last night I dreamt I met my grandpa for a drink.  Over 80, he walked in, straight and tall, in a dapper trench coat and shoeshine boy cap. He sat next to me instead of across from me.  I nestled in for a little side hug closing my eyes to smell the cigar he had snuck in the car. 

It was the best 30 seconds I’ve had in a long time. 

My grandpa has been dead for thirty-five years.  I was six when he died.

In those 30 seconds I could feel the different person I imagined I would have been had he lived.

I was thinner (of course). I was more loving than I am today, or at least more open about my love, I could tell by the way I beamed when he walked in the bar. The way I expected a cuddle when he slid in the bench next to me. The way I patted his hand when he said he forgot his wallet in the car. “Good, your money’s no good here.” I said.  “But you might get carded” He slapped my hand back chuckling.

I was more confident.  Not thinking about what I was going to say, I held my body more erect, not concerned about taking up too much space.  There was no pain or tension in my back and shoulders.  I must have lived a more stress-free life. 

I was more feminine in my appearance and dress.  Why was this?  Did I have more money and time?  Did the femininity come with confidence?  Is this who I truly want to be?

All this in 30 seconds and I knew why.  This was my life, had I had grown up with an adult who loved and supported me.

In the years since his death, our family fell apart.  His wife fell into a deep depression where she rarely left the house until her death 30 years later. His daughter, my mother and my father divorced.  His other children, my aunt and uncle, splintered off, not giving much thought to my mother or her children. In the wake of divorce, my sisters and I were left to fend for ourselves, for basics like food, shelter and love.  There were no rides to school, no parents in the audience at our school plays and when we married, only one of us invited our parents.  The rest of us didn’t think to ask. 

Certainly, in my alternate time line, something else could have happened.  My parents would have still divorced.  My extended family could still have been selfish and distant. Yet, when I follow my current time line, my real life, I always go back to him.  The first time I felt love.  A time I felt supported.  He was the one who picked me up from school.  He was the one who signed me up for ballet classes (a luxury I did not have after he died) and watched my practice.  He would have come to my plays.  He would have given me away when I married.

Sitting there with him in my dream, I felt all this.  I felt what it must be like to be a person who always knew someone had their back. The assurance of one who felt safe, to take risks, to succeed.  Then I felt something else.

An acquaintance joined us at our table.  I cackled some silly remark at him.  I don’t know what I said, for that’s how dreams are, but I understood the tone.  The tone was idiotic.  In this alternate time line, I was dumb. 

I had never had to fight.  I hadn’t been the only one to graduate from college, then grad school, while working, sometimes two jobs.  I hadn’t had to weigh choices carefully, cautiously, because there wasn’t a safety net if I failed. Because of this, I was simple.

Then, I woke up. I had one more second of the scent of his cigar and then, it was all gone. I was grateful for those 30 seconds.  I’ve missed him.

I was grateful for those 6 years of love.  They let me know what it felt like.  Twenty years later, I would choose wisely, marrying a man who supports me fiercely.  A man who I know will always be there for me. An unselfish man. A loving man who tenderly holds my hand after 13 years of marriage. A man who would have never been interested in me if I wasn’t the smart, sensitive, sassy, fighting-for-bit-of-ground-even-when-there-is-no conflict-in-sight woman I am today.  An uncomplicated woman wouldn’t have caught his eye.

And me? I wouldn’t have been interested in a man who didn’t smell of the cigar that he snuck while walking home from work.  

Ash Wednesday: A Holy Day, I Yearn For.

My husband and I received our ashes from Cardinal Mahoney, my first year as a Catholic. I sat down in the pew, I could hear the Cardinal repeating the words,

Turn away from sin, be true to the Gospel

I love the repetition of words. Protestants don't tend to favor that type of prayer, worship but I do. I remember times of feeling far from God, frightened. All I had to cling on to were a few words from a song I might have learned in Sunday School or VBS as a child. I would just repeat them in prayer over and over until they sunk in.

Turn away from sin, be true to the Gospel

My mentor in seminary, would always say, if we really believed what we said we believed, our lives would be proof of that. Isn't that what being true to the Gospel means. Now that you have repented and believed, live like you mean it.

On the bus ride home, one of the ladies who was in Mass with us had her hair arranged just so, so that her cross of ashes was not visible to others. I thought, what a shame. I understand that it is awkward, you get a lot of stares, but I love receiving my cross. It is the one day of the year that I walk down the street, people look at me and know that I belong to Christ. I am proud of that.

Sure, you get a lot of people who don't know what it means. You also get a lot of people who look and are reminded, "Yes, today is a day of holy obligation. I should go to church today".

When I came back to faith several years ago, I started romanticizing the communion of saints. I believe there is something mystical that happens, when we are transformed by God's grace. We are connected to one another in a mystical way.

I remember daydreaming how marvelous it would be, if you knew that someone was a Christian and they would have to love you, take you in, encourage you and vice versa. Once at a Starbucks the barista said "Here you go, Sister" as he passed me my drink. I thought "Is he a Christian? How did he know? " I said outside contemplating this when he came out to empty the trash, a guy held open the door for him. "Thank you Brother" he said. My daydream was crumbling. He returned and asked one of the patrons outside with me "How is your latte, Brother?" I began to suspect that he just called everyone Brother and Sister, like an old hippie. Ash Wednesday is one of those days that we know that we are connected when we see that cross of ashes on our forehead.

I walked back into my building and was greeted by one of the maintenance men. He lit up when he saw me walk in. With very limited and broken English, he pointed to my cross with love and reverence..."That is good!" he said to me. Yes, we are mystically connected to one another.

Peace be with you.