Legs Get Me Home
I wrote this 3 years ago but never published. I've left the ages and dates to that timeframe. I've held this writing close to my heart and I hope it finds its way close to yours.
Legs get me Home.
Sometimes, I wish my legs were smaller. That I was smaller. When I see pictures of myself. When I have to see myself through someone else’s lens and not my own (my heart). When I don’t fit into mass-produced clothing.
I wish that I was smaller.
Sometimes, I remember that I don’t have a mass-produced heart.
Sometimes, I remember all that these legs have carried me through.
When I was young these were the legs (the left one and the right one) that carried me to my mom’s bedroom after school. She had cancer and even though I was scared and unsure these legs would bring me to her door. These are the legs that would lie on the carpet next to her bed to talk.
Hi, Mom.
I am sorry, Mom.
When I was still young these were the legs that helped that same woman, my mom, walk across a parking lot in New Hampshire, my arms around her shoulders, bracing her after she said goodbye to her mother for the last time. Step left. Step right.
Sometimes, caught up in our own identity, we forget that our parents are sons and daughters. A day arrives and our last grandparent dies, our parents no longer a son or a daughter. One day we’re no longer grandchildren.
I am sorry, Mom. I am sorry, Grammy. Goodbye, Grammy.
Sometimes, I remember that these legs carried us from an elderly care center to a car to a home. Thank you, legs. Now, I am 36 years old and I have lived in the same small Montana community for 13 years. I have been an athlete for 25 years. Running. Climbing. Pushing. Sometimes it feels like I just need to push. Against anything. I think about that. Is it there? Or is it here? Push. Push. Push. I don’t think about the shape of my body often. My community doesn’t think of the shape of my body either. They celebrate how strong it is. They know. They have witnessed me run up mountains, climb frozen waterfalls, they have seen me stand and say what must be said on days the words must be said. They watched me stand when I had a right to fall. This community knows my strength.
Sometimes, I leave my community.
I had looked forward to training with the crew from Salt Lake City for years. Back when I wanted a great coach, I’d pretend one from SLC was watching me, pushing me, bringing my strength forward and out of me. Thank you. I had thought about the chance to train together for many seasons within my life.
My first workout in Utah was simple and fun and I cherished being around and getting to work beside folks I love and have loved for a long time. When the workout ended, cheeks still pink, sweat still coming through each pore, a man asked:
“You’re Blair Speed right?!”
“Yes.”
“Wow, I didn’t think you’d be so big!”
“I think you meant to say ‘tall.’”
“Oh no, I thought you’d be small and skinny! Travis must have been HUGE the way you look next to him in pictures!”
OOFTA.
Travis, the man this man is referencing is my husband. He is My Love.
My love. My Love. My love. My Love.
He is my husband that died one day on a mountain. He was here. And then he fell. He hit his head. And he was gone.
Here.
Gone.
Here.
Gone.
Sometimes, a day arrives and your husband dies. What do we do now, legs? Sometimes, I wish I was smaller because I don’t have Trav’s legs to stand alongside. Sometimes, I wish I was smaller because I learned my body (read: Soul Pod) next to a 6’4” 250lb Mountain Man. I learned my strength because I got to run alongside of him and he asked more of me than I had been brave enough to ask of myself. I learned my strength beside him and he taught me to ask it myself. He helped me be brave enough to ask this much. Of life. Of self. Of love.
Hi, Trav.
Goodbye, Trav.
What do we do now, legs?
I am tall. I am almost 6 feet tall. But, I don’t think of myself as particularly big. But, who am I to say? Travis never got around to hanging up mirrors in our bathroom. He built our home by hand. We were never that into mirrors but, of course, we’d take a good reflection. Maybe my presence is big. Ok, yeah, my thighs are pretty big. Whatever.
The day some man said those words to me in the gym happened to also be the day Travis had proposed to me years before. Hello, past life. Hello, present moment. I cried. I am strong. I am tender. I miss my husband. He taught me to ask more.
Of myself.
Of life.
Of love.
What do we do now, legs? I wanted to tell that man from the gym a list of physical accomplishments. A resume of legs:
400m, mile, and 5K race wins.
Podiums at VK, 50k and 50-mile races.
Squatted 300lbs.
Power Cleaned 90kg in Hoka’s before a run because someone said I couldn’t.
What did I say about needing to push against?
I wanted to tell him that these legs (this left one and this right one): Have run across entire mountain ranges. Crossed the Appalachian Trail. Climbed Granite Peak in a day time after time after time. Ran up Baldy so fast on a magical day, it felt like the mountain flattened for me. That these legs have climbed WI5+ and rock climbs with some numbers attached to them that I always seem to forget or never learn. That these legs have done The Teton Picnic - biking from Jackson Hole to Jenny Lake, to swim across the lake, to run and climb up the Grand Teton then back down, to swim back across the lake, to hop on my bike and peddle back to Jackson Hole. In a day.
That these legs have run across the Grand Canyon twice in half a day. That these legs carried my 74lb hound dog across my shoulders up a mountain, on skis, doing kick turns because it was the only way back home. And, Trav was dead and these legs got us Home. That’s what they do. These legs do what must be done because it must be done. These legs get us back home.
The second time I went to the SLC gym I was chatting with two women when one exclaimed, “You run Ultras?! I thought you had to be small to do that!”
I asked Mark if I looked like What’s Eating Gilbert Grape’s mom. I wanted to ask the woman if she wanted to race. Any distance. That she could pick it. Uuuuuuuuugh. I don’t even like myself in that moment. Hello, Pride. Hello, Hurt. Hello, Insecurity.
This is why I have a problem with Sport or Athletics or Fitness but I guess it’s more about human behavior. Is it even Ego? Or is it the need to create clean columns, clean boxes, to try to walk through the world and not be overwhelmed by the Paradox of Choice? To not be overwhelmed by asking more. “Runners look like this.” So I am or I am not a runner. “Climbers look like this.” So I am or I am not a climber “Weightlifters look like this.” So I am or I am not a weightlifter. When did definitions get written by someone else? When did definitions become boxes to organize the world? To organize (read: limit) (read: excuse) Self? When did definitions create boundaries of expected performance? When did definitions become a means to judge?When did we stop asking more?
Of self.
Of life.
Of love.
I blame Ego often but more and more I think it’s just a need to organize: to excuse while simultaneously declaring, “I’m free”. If I listened to definitions I wouldn’t be a wife any longer. ‘Till death do us part.’ But, whoever wrote that didn’t know. I am a wife. I will always be. I am a lover too. Legs, what do we do?
Maybe Sport had nothing to do with so many of my frustrations. Maybe Sport actually helped me pull my own strengths forward. Maybe Sport helped teach me to endure. I have been running since I was 11 years old. I have been pushing for a lifetime. Sometimes it’s difficult to give Sport credit when the athletes shouting the loudest often sound only like Ego. Sometimes it’s difficult to give Sport credit when the athletes shouting the loudest sound like they’re confined by definition. But maybe Sport did give me these legs. This left one and this right one.
Maybe Sport helped me train these legs to endure for 22 years so they’d be ready to leave my body and carry my soul, so I could be with my husband in Paradise Valley on the day he died. That’s how it felt. I split open. And, they carried me to him. I ran across the valley. How can I ever thank them enough? Thank you, legs. These legs get me Home.
People tell themselves that things need to look a certain way to be a certain way. And, if you look a certain way then you must behave a certain way. But, some of the folks that look the strongest collapse the quickest when things don’t go as planned. Some of the folks that look just like ordinary folks walking down the street have endured what cannot be but must be endured. We pass them on the street everyday. The extraordinary tucked within the ordinary. The strongest person I know looks like a 57 year old art teacher at a local private school. Her hair is the same fair color her son was born with, she has the deepest and also the lightest eyes, they are the color of the tears she has cried since he died. Hi, Kelly.
Can you feel her pain?
Can you feel her strength?
Can you feel her love?
It emanates. She raised him, nurtured him, loved him. Taught him to ask more
Of self
Of life
Of love.
If things were supposed to look and then happen in any sort of way, Travis wouldn’t be dead because, people who save others as their hobby — he volunteered for Search and Rescue for 17 years — don’t deserve to die one day when they’re 33 years old.
If things were supposed to look any sort of way my legs would be just legs. And, how fast I ran wouldn’t fucking matter. And people that don’t know me wouldn’t feel the need to call me big. And, I wouldn’t have the knee jerk reaction to care about being called big.
And, I’d be a wife. And, I’d be a lover.
Hello, Love.
Goodbye, Love.
Hello, again.
After these interactions in the gym, I’d go for runs and do the very thing I condemn. Which is often how it works, we accidentally perpetuate that which we condemn ALL OF THE TIME. We bitch from high horses because they are the ones that we can see so they’re the ones that we honor. We climb the rungs, ignoring all the other high horses that we can’t see, but if we removed them all we’d finally see one another eye to eye. Hi.
If we finally removed definition we’d see one another heart to heart. Hello, pain. Hello, love.
I was reciting my physical accomplishments in my mind AS IF THEY MATTERED. On repeat. I did this. I did that. Ugh, but I am learning to say less ‘I’s. The effort mattered. The journey mattered. The commitment to pulling the strength outward mattered. The movement through the mountains that taught me my strength, my endurance, and also my love (read: Travis) (read: my heart) mattered. Not the clock. Not the distance. Not the numbers. Not any outside perception. I repeated my list.
I ran this. I squatted this. I carried my dog up my stairs the day my husband died because she was dying too. I. I. I. I. I. Hi. How are you? Is that your Hurt? Is that why you comment on my size? Or is it just habit? Hi. How are you? Is that your Hurt? Is that your self judgement? Is that why I feel the need to defend these legs. Or is that just habit?
These legs. This right one and that left one. They are the legs that got out of the car and walked across another parking lot. These are the legs that carried me to the door with the steel handle at the end, or maybe it’s the beginning, of the parking lot. This is the body that somehow turned the handle and crossed the threshold. How do you greet death? Hello, pain. Hello, love.
These are the legs that walked straight across the f u c k i n g blue carpet at my ever-present velocity to get to another door: out of my way air. This is the body that opened and walked through and stood and saw all 6’4” of big mountain man across a gurney — head to the tippy top of the metal, foot (not feet because they had removed a leg) reaching the end of the gurney. Hey, Big Guy. Hello, pain. Hello, Love.
God, you’re huge. You take up the full stretcher. I want to lie next to you. I fit beside you perfectly. I am not too big. You have always been my Home.
How do we live in a world that would take your leg without letting me say goodbye? I didn’t get to say goodbye, Right Leg. Let me hold that big powerful leg. Let me lie next to it. Wrap my arms around it. Press my cheeks against it. Let me be the one to lay it on the pyre and let me be the one to light the match. We shouldn’t tuck away the sacred acts. We should let the ones who love us the most perform them. Let me love that leg.
This is the body that wrapped her arms around her dead husband's body just to get to touch him again. To lay my cheek against his cheek. To drag my pointer finger across his eyebrows and his nose and his lips and his cheekbones just so I could touch them one more time. Soft finger pad against my Love. This is the body that laid her head over his silent heart just to breathe him in. Hey, Poppi it’s me. I love you. I love you. I love you.
I always have.
I always will.
Hello, pain.
Hello, Love.
These are the legs that somehow walked away from that body. How am I not still in that room next to you, Trav? How did these legs have the strength to turn and walk away from you? Where do we go now, legs?
My body is shaped the way it is as a reflection of all that I have cared for and loved in my life. I loved a woman and I learned to become strong enough for her. I loved a man and I learned to become strong enough for him. I loved running in the mountains beside him so I learned to become strong enough to keep up. I loved a dog and I learned to become strong enough for her when the man we both love died.
And in learning to love and to let myself be loved and cared for by each of them, I began to learn to love and care for myself. And in learning the intimacies of Love (read: infinite love means infinite loss means infinite love) I began the practice of developing strength and endurance. Love taught me strength. Love taught me Endurance. Loss taught me to endure.
That’s more than any physical list of sport I have done. What I am beginning to learn is that my frustration with sport is really just frustration with not seeing the heart of strength and endurance. In each other. In ourselves. In ourselves. In ourselves.
One of my husband’s greatest wishes in life was for me to see my worth. I learned so much alongside him. Intrinsic worth was one of the greatest gifts he gave me every day we were beside one another and when he died, I finally understood in totality, the worth of each of us. Spoiler: it’s infinite too.
But, as time does its time-thing, the force of the memory changes. Someone calls me big and I am harsh to myself. Their hurt becomes my hurt. We pass pain around over and over until we transmute it. Accept it, hold it, and then let it go.
So, I guess what I am saying is I am human. And, I learn and unlearn and forget and relearn. Only to learn again. I learn strength. I learn endurance. I learn love. Through experience and not definition. Certainly not someone else’s definition.
I am a wife.
I am a lover.
I run. And climb. And push. And endure.
I love.
Thanks for carrying me through it all, legs.
Where do we go now?
All images by Mark Twight.
yes to infinite love and our finite selves constantly in a state of remembering that love. our trauma is different (mine is around childhood abuse, horrific divorce, addiction and mental health collapse) but ways we coped are the same. i understand that the pressures on the female boys are unique and, in our society terrible (in so far as a man can understand the female experience, which is not at all) but I share a lot of what you describe in a male version. I was 6 feet in 6th grade. My shame of my outsized body was so extreme that I suffered from acute anorexia in high school even as I ran 20 miles at a time. Those disorders eating patterns and body shame have endured to this day on the cusp of my 60th birthday. My athletic accomplishments are not as dramatic as yours, but from a very young age I was pushing, always pushing. My teammates thought I was literally insane. Maybe I was. The good news about being as old as dirt is that the pushing has limits. These days I am really trying to find the flow more, the zen of movement, rather than any goal. The chip on my shoulder is still there, but just maybe it’s lightened up a bit. Old age and the twists and turns of life have allowed me to internalize a bit more of that eternal light, even amidst the suffering which somehow smooths out my rough edges like a stone on the beach moved up and down by the waves and the tides.
Yes to all of this, 100x over. I felt every word. The comments we get when we show up somewhere in a tank top "do you lift or something". The comments we get from behind "those are some calves you have". We take it in stride, quite literally, knowing just how much those legs or arms have brought us. How many miles, how many carries of toddlers or ailing loved ones, how many buckets of compost or dirt or mulch or rocks. And onward we go, the tall strong girls that we are, wherever our legs will take us.