Running Up For Air
Gulp. Gulp. Gulp.
I couldn’t look in the mirror after Trav died. I hated mirrors because they reflected all the pain I felt. I hated mirrors because I wasn’t even earthbound, I was part cosmos then, and the mirror never showed that. It just showed the weight of gravity and loss and a very broken heart upon my physical self. I guess my Soul Pod was earthbound while my soul was somewhere else. With Trav. With Kavata, the Spirit Bear. Running through the forest looking for the gold light within everyone. I was flying with the ravens then. The mirror didn’t show any of the interstellar travel, it just showed all of the new, hard lines etched along my face. Those lines represented pain I had felt all alone but they were on display - a book across my face. Did you read the part where he died? It’s written around my eyes. My mouth. My heart. My shrunken belly and my swollen face.
I wasn’t ready for that story to be read.
Remember my fire red hair? Now, there was so much white in it. Each strand a night I cried instead of slept. I was 34 years old but overnight and for years to come - I would look older. I would look hurt. It was hard for me to face. I could face the pain, that was part of the love, but I couldn’t face my face to witness the toll of that loss.
A year and a half after Trav, my husband, died, Mark and I started to share time. Mark is a photographer. He shares space and interests with other photographers, occasionally they share values. All of a sudden I was around a lot of photographers. I mean, I am one as well. My preferred space. Behind the lens. I love to witness. To watch. I am less into being watched. Unless it’s Mark. These photographers would take my picture, it’s what they do. But, please don’t. Please. Please don’t take my picture. I am tender and raw and not me and part cosmos but it’s never seen. And, there is so much pain written across my face and I felt it alone and on my own. Please don’t hand it out for others to see. I felt it alone, it is mine, not theirs.
Please.
This went on for seasons. For years. Grief is its own slow blossom of becoming. Of unbecoming. To become again. Time reaching forwards and backwards.
Time is so wild.
In certain schools you call evolution “small changes over time.” You don’t use the E word. You use a different set of words to describe the same thing. We are all evolving. Changing slowly over time.
I often understand the theory of an idea but don’t know how to live it. I conceptualize. But I don’t live it in my tendons and molecules and heart. I know it in theory.
Like, self-acceptance.
I wrote a piece several years ago, Legs Get Me Home. It’s about searching for self-acceptance. Being human. Almost getting there. Getting lost and coming back around again.
My legs brought me to another race last weekend. Running Up for Air. Gulp. Gulp. Gulping for air.
That’s how I used to run after Trav died. Well, first I lay flat on my back porch for a few months but when I did get up and start running again, I’d have “Rage Runs.” I’d run as hard as I could up a mountain. My lungs shrieked for air but I was silent. Brow furrowed. I’d run all out, as hard as I could, for as long as I could. The blood in my body a drumbeat in my ear as it thudded through me. Boom. Boom. Boom! Metallic pennies in my mouth as lactic acid filled my container and spilled out onto my tongue. But the words didn’t come. I was silent. I was acid. I was burning. I wanted to feel anything other than sadness for a moment. There was no way I could survive losing Travis.
If we all tried just a little bit harder, maybe it could be a little bit better here. Earthbound. Gulp. Gulp. Gulp. Run up the mountain.
Small changes over time. When did I stop having rage runs? It’s been years. Tick tock. Evolution.
What day was my last one? Where did the rage go? How did I survive?
It’s been six years since Travis died. Seven this summer. Is he forwards or backwards? I have raced the Running Up For Air event for the past four years. Tick tock.
Years. Time. Changes.
I didn’t feel like I was running up for air this time. I felt like it was all around me. Like I could breathe. Me and air. We weren’t fighting. I wasn’t asking it to take away my sadness. I wasn’t asking it to perform. I just ran. I know how to do that. Step left. Step right. I didn’t cower when I saw my friend, the race photographer. I didn’t need to hide. I wasn’t tender or raw. I didn’t need to show either. I just was. And, air just was too. Is a tree conscious of an exhale? Am I? Small changes over time.
RUFA (Running Up For Air) is a fundraiser for clean air initiatives. A person can run up and down a mountain as many times as they like in blocks of time: 3, 6, 12, or 24 hours. I like the 12 hours. Long enough to be a journey but I still get to sleep in a bed at night. For the Missoula race each lap is around 4.3 miles long and just shy of 2,000 feet of vertical gain. It’s a pretty steep climb up and a flowy run back down. Which means, it’s my dream course.
I love that it’s a fundraiser to help make the unconscious conscious- breath. That’s what I am trying to do when I work with Laura (therapist). Bring the unconscious to the surface. Or when I read books. Or when I run. When I let my mind wander. When I ask a million questions. Why are there always so many questions in my writing?
RUFA asks questions too. How do our actions impact the air? How do our inactions impact? And what’s the cycle of return when air comes back to us? Is it to thank? To admonish? How we treat the air impacts how the air treats us. I am trying to learn that for myself too.
About how I treat myself.
Mark, Easton, and I traveled to Missoula. Mark brought me to the start line at 5:30am, ready to send me on my way. What are we born with and what do we acquire? Did Mark come into the world aching to express the depth of potentiality through action (in himself and in others) or was it a reaction to a feeling? A reaction to what he saw? When does a belief get created? When did he know we could all try a little bit harder? Sometimes, a lot bit harder. In a world that sells convenience, how does work change us?
Mark has spent his life excavating the potential of Self. First within. Then, with others. A Coach. A Mentor. A Guide. Human.
When my parents divorced, I’d run around our Florida neighborhood as hard as I could. A belief born: Rage Run. Tears would stream from my squinted crinkly childhood eyes and I’d charge forward full bore. My hair was still bright red then. My face had less lines but it was bright red too. I didn’t know you could lose a family even though everyone was still alive. I didn’t know what I was feeling was grief. Loss. I couldn’t look at it tenderly then. I couldn’t look at me tenderly. I just raged. Maybe if I run faster I’ll get to where we’ve all tried harder. If we all tried a little bit harder maybe it could be a little bit better here. Maybe we could actually be the people we want to be. Not just the people we say we want to be. I want to be that person.
The one who tries. Again and again and again.
Mark’s divorced too. Three times. It’s part of the reason I was drawn to him after Trav died. It’s part of the reason I felt safe with him. Not the divorce but the love and the loss. I couldn’t be someone’s one and only. No one would be my one and only ever again. We’d have to share. I have history. I was a history major. I love history. What is yours? And how can we share it? And what type of history do you want to write together, Love? I needed to be with someone who had loved before me. Who had loved and lost and was still brave enough to be right here, willing to write our histories together. Willing to try again.
Mark’s eyes. His eyes his eyes his eyes. Electric blue. They’re what folks comment on. They are endless blue. Sharp. Penetrating. They will challenge you because they see your potential. The depth of your well. Maybe that’s why they’re blue.
But have you ever watched his mouth and not just listened to his words? Have you seen the endless emotion expressed by the different ways he purses his lips? I have counted 1,000. He shows me how much he loves me with his mouth. His eyes too.
What kind of race report is this?
My life. A weekend. A run.
Loved and supported. Shared.
I understand ideas but I can’t always live them.
Like, how it’s not the destination (goal) that will change you or give you anything (why are you asking?) it is the journey (duh, ugh). But I want to live it, not know it. I have known this idea for so long but I think this might be the first year I am actually able to practice it in my heart. In my tendons. In my actions and my thoughts. I thought I’ve lived it before, I almost got there but the leap from brain to heart hadn’t happened. When does a theory enter our bloodstream? When does it pump through our veins and not stay stuck in our neurons? Synapse please talk to my blood cells. Please give them this gift of an idea.
I want to live it. I want to try. Again.
RUFA was a training run for a longer run I’d like to do this year. But, I’m not focusing on the destination.
I came into RUFA with the intent to practice the discernment between kindness and people-pleasing (read: self-acceptance). This is another lifelong practice for me. Because sometimes being kind doesn’t mean making people happy and that makes me uncomfortable. In my life, I’ve learned making people happy can make you safe. Sometimes, it can even make you invisible. I like to go unseen. Invisibility can help make you be a better photographer. I see how I got here.
I went into RUFA with the plan to take care of myself and practice belonging (read: self-acceptance). There is a theme here.
The first three laps were smooth. I nailed my layering, my nutrition, my care, and my joy. I made sure to spend a minute or two handling care in the aid station at the bottom of each lap, instead of just running through and then needing to take a 10 minute break sometime later to handle multiple cares at once. I ate 90 grams of carbs an hour. Ahhh, here’s the race report. I can’t believe how fueling has changed in the ultra-world over the last 15 years.
I felt amazing. I was having fun. I was in my own world. No music. No chatting. Just flowing. Me and the trees and the air.
I didn’t expect to see Mark after my third lap (he had gone back to the hotel to care and be with Easton after the start and he didn’t need to be out there for the full 12 hours) but there he was. Smiling big. Leica in hand. Emanating pride and love and belonging. Dr. Doom is one of the most tender and loving humans I have ever known. Have you looked into his eyes? Seen through his lens? Click. Click. Click. He photographs what he loves. He captured moments of me. I was smiling. I was running. I felt safe in front of his lens. In front of him. I felt safe just being me. It’s a practice. Small changes over time.
My lifelong friend, Ashley, was out on course with her two young boys to cheer me on after lap four. We’ve known one another since we were five years old. Sister. Ashley’s second attempt at the 100 mile race distance was in 2013. She won Leadville and almost beat Scott Jurek and I was never the same after crewing her there. My mind and soul exploded. She shattered my understanding of what humans could do. She ran and she ran fast for 100 miles and I was so proud of her and so moved by her. I knew I could ask more of Self because of what I watched her excavate within. That there was a much deeper well in each of us. Maybe if we all tried a little harder it could be a little better. I can’t believe her eyes aren’t blue.
I kept fueling really well. I kept smiling. I kept running. Mark kept loving me. Laps 5-8 flowed. I hardly slowed down and kept consistent movement. My ascent times all within 10 minutes of one another for the day. My descents started to slow some as the impact of cumulative vert found its way into my quads. Ow! Ow! Ow! I thought about Justine, Kelly, and Marisa, three incredible women and athletes, all running the Salt Lake City RUFA on the same day. Energy is contagious. Ours communicating through the air. I knew they would all be trying hard, they are so strong and so capable. They move me. Inspire me. Accept me. This helps me keep moving forward.
On the drive from Bozeman to Missoula I finally read the race email and realized that Mark could join me for a lap. The race allowed it and after years of pain, surgeries, and recovery, Mark’s body allowed it too. He hadn’t brought any running gear (and with a fused ankle he wouldn’t run regularly but for something special…). A cotton t-shirt and his regular sneakers would do. At the aid station at the bottom of the course, Mark asked around about borrowing some hiking poles. He met Jordan. Jordan had been a student in attendance at Mark’s presentation at Northern Michigan University the year prior. Jordan moved out here after. “You can borrow my poles,” he said. We never know where a chance encounter may lead. Someone might attend one of your talks and then hand over a set of hiking poles so you can go and run beside your Love for the very first time. Strangers become friends. They can help us change our history. Thank you.
Mark and I took off on our final lap together. Mark was excited and eager. I was tired and loved. I told him he could talk but I probably wouldn’t answer but that wasn’t true. We talked throughout the lap. It’s a special thing to move through the mountains with the one you love. I didn’t know what love was until I met Travis. He gave me love without limit. It feels like the most special gift in the world to give the same gift to Mark, who has searched for it his entire life. Here is my heart and my well, Mark, I promise you’re safe here.
I didn’t think I’d ever get the chance to run with Mark. I’d watched him with tears in his eyes, lean his weight onto a shopping cart, to alleviate the incredible pain he was in while grocery shopping for us before his surgeries. I never let myself hope we’d get to move together because that seemed too far to reach for, to try for. Just take away my Love’s pain. To ask for adventure as well felt like asking too much. But what happens when someone with an incredible internal well reaches in and asks for a little more? Small changes over time. Over time over time over time. Evolution.
A completely new life. Shared. A new history written.
Mark joked that he just had to get me to run 36 miles with 15,000 feet of vertical gain to tire me out and then we could run together. And, there we were hiking straight up Mt Sentinel together. A raven flew over, watching us. Trav. Our sign for Trav the raven. Cacaw! When Trav was alive we used to pretend that Mark was our coach, helping us excavate the internal well. Believing in us. We have all been moving together for such a long time. We’ve been helping one another excavate for so long. We take one more step, over and over again, for each other. Step left. Step right.
As we neared the peak for the final time (in Missoula no partial laps count, you have to have completed all full laps before 6pm so we knew this would be my last one even though it would be well before 6pm) Mark brought out his phone and we made a Kids News Report for our niece and nephew, Eloise and Hayes. Love is folded into endurance.
On the backside of the mountain, we ran together. I got to run with Mark Twight.
It’s one of the happiest moments of my life. How simple. How profound. How enduring. Running up for air together. Where did the rage go? We were just running. Smiling in this season. Smiling because there have been and will be more hard seasons but on this day - the sun was out and we could just be. Together. An exhale I was conscious of. Grateful for. A little more history we get to write together.
It was around 4:55pm when we made it back to the base and I didn’t need to go out for lap 10. It would have been hard for me to finish another lap within the time. I’d had a magic day. I was fulfilled and proud of having tried hard. I was the 2nd place female and in 3rd place overall and my legs and heart were content. Forty miles covered with 17,500 feet of vertical gain in under 11 hours. Love and acceptance didn’t have me out there fighting, others or myself. I flowed and I smiled. I ate and I ran. I practiced kindness. And I know not every effort will unfold so joyously but the magic of this day isn’t lost on me. The lessons of self-acceptance not lost either. How I see and speak to myself impacts how I am able to perform/arrive/move. A parable. A known. But the belief finally seems to be seeping from synapse to heart in me.
I have been running since I was 11 years old. Thirty years into the craft and I feel like I am at a completely new point in the relationship. Maybe I have been running here all along. For me, I have to live it to learn it. I never just know and I can never just listen to what someone says about an experience. It has to move into my bloodstream through experience. Through failures and successes and regular ordinary days. Through conscious and unconscious breath. I am excited to see where this goes but I’m not looking at the destination. I am practicing the journey.
Mark took my picture at the end of the day as I accepted a beautiful RUFA mug for placement, he was watching me, photographing me. In front of his lens. Still a safe place. Dr Doom with two heart eyes looking out at me and showing me a new mirror. What if we deserve all of the love? What if we accept we deserve all of the love? Starting with the love we offer ourselves.
Do we really get to fly then?
Cacaw!
The beat of this writing reminded me of an earlier article I wrote: Zen and the Art of Stealing Buddhist Books.
I selfishly wonder what it would feel like in my own life to be loved so fully and clearly like you love.
The self-loving is a start – the willingness to look into the mirror, through it, to the back of it, and out again. But I also yearn to be seen by another – the complementary counterpart is missing. Gregory Bateson took the aphorism, “It takes one to know one,” and flipped it: “It takes two to know one.” Without you, I cannot fully know me. Without me, you cannot fully know yourself.
Then I'm reminded of Andrea Gibson’s koan, “Is my attention on loving, or is my attention on who *isn’t* loving me?”
I don’t know how to reconcile these things.
I’m glad I was alone when I read “where did the rage go?”. I scared the dogs with my sudden outburst tears. I love you so so much. Best race report I’ve read in a long time.