Archives for April 2014

Marathon Monday: Race Recap #1

April 28, 2014

Describing my experience of running the OKC Memorial Marathon could easily take me days. Weeks. Months. Till next year’s marathon. There’s so much to tell! It was truly spectacular, and I am absolutely doing again.

The health Expo ahead of the race was lots of fun too! So happy my friend M came to town to join!

That sums it up, really. This was my first full, not a one-time shot like I’d been saying lately. Yesterday was hopefully the first of many, and though on the slow side, I met my goal of finishing it at forty years old. Oh, and this is part of my basic sum-up too: If any little tiny part of you is even vaguely curious about tackling a distance run, PLEASE DO IT.

Find a few things to inspire you, whether reading motivational books or collecting photos or making social connections or whatever.
Nibble at your training in fun ways, setting incrementally longer distance goals.
Think positively and imagine amazing things. Dragons, for instance. You could imagine dragons.
Then gradually luxuriate in the four million benefits of running (yes I counted them). Watch your life bloom in ways you have not yet considered.

Okay. So. How could this story go?

I could tell you the funny stuff that happened yesterday. There was a lot of funny stuff… I laughed so much. And according to sly photos taken by Handsome when I didn’t even know he was around, I smiled for most of the five and a half hours. I mean, when I wasn’t crying. I did cry a few times. I cried hot tears from deep, sudden pangs of sadness, oddly, not physical pain. But mostly I laughed. Fun wins over sadness by a landslide.

Running is the best!! Big thanks to my friend Steph for this fun photo. I may not have great form, but I do have great fun.

Or I could stress the 90 minute race delay and paint you a lush portrait of the tense weather predictions leading up to Sunday morning, helping those of you outside of our Great State understand the volatility and un-trustworthiness of our springtime patterns. If I took that route (see what I did there?) I’d also describe in detail the rapid weather changes on Sunday morning between 6 and 8:30 a.m. then tell you about the start time delays and all the precipitating (did it again) effects this had on the race. The morning’s communal feeling of suspense will not soon be forgotten. Remember my dream a few nights ago, about standing beneath the Devon tower during a black-sky thunderstorm, wondering why the race hadn’t started yet? I knooooowwwww. Creepy.

The Devon tower in downtown OKC, surrounded thickly by black, churning clouds. Friends, this is exactly how my dream looked, minus one broad band of lightning. — The Devon tower in downtown OKC, at 7:30 Sunday morning, surrounded by thick, black, churning clouds. Friends, this is exactly how my dream looked, minus one broad band of lightning.

Oooooorrrrr I could tell you about all the amazing runners in my life who have inspired me over and over again, for months. Years. And how Handsome and M and my family and a dozen of our dearest friends came to OKC to support me and fuel me with hugs, cheers, posters, applause, and LOVE right when I needed it most. They popped up all along the course, and it was amazing! I love each of you for it, thank you! Four times as many friends and loved ones stayed tuned to the race via social media and have drenched me with loving words ever since. So, basically, I run for the hugs. Not ashamed of that.

I could whine a bit about my slight but worrisome knee pain around mile 14 or the one blister I suffered (which is already healed as I write this Monday morning) or how quickly I inhaled chicken enchiladas after the race. Or how divine watermelon tasted around 6 pm yesterday.

Do you really want to know how difficult it is to walk downstairs right now,but how much I love that strange ache?

Would you rather know the details of how uncannily my music playlist synced with my emotions and experiences during the race? It was cool as beans how the shuffle setting worked for me. You guys, the perfect motivational or hilarious songs played at the most perfect moments, it was crazy!

My Grandpa called me around mile 9. He had no idea I was running the marathon, just needed a mailing address he thought I would remember. So I gave it to him then we chatted about our gardens and how much we loved each other and promised to see each other soon. I did not mention the race, because it would totally have spoiled the sweet phone call. Plus it was really refreshing to talk about something completely different for a few minutes. We have kind of been on “marathon saturation mode” for a while, you know?

Do you want to hear about my friends who might now be training for their own firsts? This is like butter cream icing on a perfect vanilla cake, you guys. To have received inspiration from so many people and now to be sharing that inspiration with people near me is a pretty phenomenal feeling. It’s all energy that moves and trembles and generates life. It is contagious and powerful, and I love it.

Handsome showered me with gifts at the finish line! A dozen red roses, potted hot pink petunias, chocolate, strawberry Twizzlers, protein bars, a brand new hardback journal containing an epic love letter, a stability ball, and more. I am spoiled rotten and I know it. xoxo

I have no clue what you guys want to read about! So for the next few days, just to get the memories recorded, I will be rambling a lot about this spectacular experience. If it’s not interesting to you, I totally get it. Please feel free to tune in again sometime next weekend. If you do want to know something, send me a note!

Love, Me
Officially in Training for 2015
XOXOXOXO

Friday 5 at the Farm: dreams last night

April 25, 2014

My hands smell like oregano and my hair smells like sunshine, in the little kid-who’s-played-outside-all-day way. And it’s not quite 10 am. Today and tomorrow, no running. Just fun with friends and loved ones, fellow runners and amazing supporters who have no clue how deeply their love is felt and appreciated. I really can’t sit still. Here are some dreams I had last night…

I dreamed that oregano was growing everywhere, prolifically. In every crevice of the farm, in every parking lot in Oklahoma City, every field around the world. Every where I went in my dream, I inhaled its peppery savory scent, and those tiny green leaves fringed every sight.

I dreamed that it was race day. Handsome and I were standing in the rain, watching thick, violent bands of lightning split apart the black sky above the Devon tower, wondering where everyone was. Wondering why it was 10:30 a.m. and no one had started the race yet. Then I realized in that awful dreamy awareness that I had gone to the wrong spot downtown and missed the entire thing. I woke up at 3:24 panting.

I dreamed that my oldest daughter was nine again and cuddled next to me in my bed. She was shining those pretty brown eyes at me, asking me for breakfast. My best friend’s beautiful daughter is turning ten this weekend, I am sure this has to do with it.

I dreamed I was wearing a cobalt blue embroidered Mexican dress. It was quite fetching but stiff, starched. The backside of the embroidered flowers cut my skin.

I dreamed I was swimming in salty, shallow water, sunshine pressing down on me hard like a weight. Handsome was watching me from the beach. I swam too far into the deep, came back, swam too far again. The water slowly lost its color was eventually as clear as glass, no blue. No salt. Just light and wet.

I have no idea what these dreams mean, if anything. I do know that I woke up having to pee so bad I barely made it the fifteen feet across our carpeted floor to the master bathroom. And after I finished my coffee this morning I filled my slow cooker with boneless chicken breasts and a big heap of fresh oregano from my herb garden, threw in some sea salt and minced garlic, and wished it well. Is oregano the new basil? Possibly.

Bright, warm sun, a ticklish breeze, and simple white clouds. Perfect.

It’s just after ten now, and M is on her way to the farm. We have yoga planned. Then a day at the Memorial Marathon Expo and waking around the Festival of the Arts in downtown Oklahoma City. We have the best friends in the world. Fingers crossed that the weather stays as drop-dead-gorgeous as it is right now! Hugs to everyone running this Sunday!

XOXOXOXO

Whispers in the Tropics (book review)

April 24, 2014

Misti, a sweet book club friend of mine, was kind enough recently to connect me with a brand new author, offering me this woman’s debut novel to read and review. This is always exciting, glimpsing not just an author new to me but a brand new author! Haven’t you ever read great stuff by someone and wondered what his or her first book was like? How those first writing teeth were cut? Well, thanks to Misti, I have enjoyed an early look at the work by Glenda Potts, Oklahoma native, poet, and now novelist. Congratulations on your first book, Glenda, and thank you Misti for including me!

Whispers in the Tropics is a relatively short novel, a quick and easily read adventure-love story teeming with spiritual messages. Set primarily in the tropical rain forests of South America, as the title suggests, the story follows the earliest weeks of a young couple’s budding romance as well as some relatable life challenges each of them faces.

This is a book you could feel confident handing to the youngest adult readers, as it is clean, not controversial, and basically uplifting. The love scenes are only vaguely suggestive and mild, modest. The relationships are pretty smooth and easy, too; this is not an emotionally traumatic read like so many modern novels turn out to be. Every spiritual or emotional crossroads the characters face points gently but firmly to trusting God and surrendering your fears, no matter how deeply rooted they are.

Potts writes in steady, thorough parables throughout the book, guiding her characters with tropical applications of age-old wisdom and Biblical principles.

Holding a glass of orange juice with the chill long gone from it, Tiffany stared into space recalling an article she had read several times that compared a soil garden to a soul garden. Of course, she couldn’t remember the details, but the basic premise was that the crusty earth of a soil garden must be loosened, and rocks, sticks, and weeds removed before vegetable or flower seeds can adhere to the soil and take root. And that in a soil garden, rain, sunshine, and proper pruning help produce vegetables and flowers worthy of harvesting for man’s purposes. Similarly, the hardened human heat of a soul garden must be softened, and indifference removed before seeds of faith in God and His love can adhere and germinate.

Anyone who hangs around the Lazy W for very long knows instantly that I was suckered in by this nature-based metaphor. The book is laced with them. My only hang up is that the metaphors are so directly served up to the reader. To be a work of fiction, I had trouble digesting so much at once, so constantly. It was lovely but ended up feeling more like a long sermonette than a novel.

If you are looking for a sweet, mild, palate-cleansing read to kind of reset your senses and remember that there are good, healthy spiritual messages all around you, then this book is for you. I can definitely see a women’s Bible study or church book club enjoying this as a group. Whispers in the Tropics offers plenty to discuss and is set in an exotic locale that most readers have probably never visited.

I do wish the writing had explored some of the characters with more depth. At times the heavy message delivery trumped the natural flow of conversation so much that I lost track of who was speaking. And Potts has sparked some great characters here! So I was disappointed to not get better acquainted with them, you know, really deep in their thoughts and motivations so as to include the disturbing stuff. Of course, I’m a sucker for dark psychological writing. This book just happened to be a lot cleaner than those I’ve been reading ~~this winter~~ my whole life.

Sincerest congratulations to Glenda Potts for striking out and sharing such a worthwhile set of messages in a new setting. Her first book! I hope you enjoy lots of success with this one, and I hope there are many more to come. And big warm thanks to my friend Misti for introducing me to a brand new novelist!

Read new things, friends. Expose yourself to a variety of styles and don’t let yourself grow stagnant. Cross-pollination is the way to go!

XOXOXOXO

fractals, Love, & wild geraniums

April 23, 2014

In my vegetable garden there are four raised beds built from wood that was once the kids’ old playhouse, one chaotic heap of compost, a corner full of empty bee hive supplies, and space allotted for a Three Sisters patch (corn, beans, and squash based on fish heads). There is also a cool reclaimed-wood arbor dressed in faded flag bunting, some gently sagging barbed wire where asparagus might still be growing, a thornless blackberry bush, and this old metal chair spray painted black.

wildcraft garden chair — The tallest greens you see here are wild geraniums. The llamas love them! I’m trying to learn about foraging in Oklahoma, so for a while at least these “weeds” are treasures.

I have allowed the weeds here to grow pretty wild lately, just enjoying the lushness and sexiness of a new season taking over the landscape. The abandon of life, crawling and undulating all over the place… Filling every void… Scenting the air with chlorophyll… Irresistible.

To the visitor’s eye, surely my vegetable garden looks crazy. Unkempt, perhaps even neglected. But food is definitely growing there: In the raised beds I have spinach, cabbages, carrots, radishes, potatoes, kale, snow peas, and mesculun. And you know what else is growing? Creativity and freedom. This messy rectangle is an ideal spot for reflection and analysis. Plain old day dreaming. It’s a self-contained fractal and one of my most favorite places on earth.

An unbelievable three and a half years ago, our book club read and discussed William P. Young’s The Shack. Since then I have healed from certain things so much and have gained such a healthier perspective on life. I might even read the book again to see how it hits me now.

My purposes are not for my comfort, or yours.
My purposes are always and only an expression of love.
I purpose to work life out of death,
to bring freedom out of brokenness
and turn darkness into light.
What you see as chaos, I see as a fractal.

Today I am at the farm all day. No subbing, nowhere to go, lots of wonderful, worthwhile stuff to do. And I couldn’t be happier. My days are so different from each other lately, and woven together they present a gorgeous pattern of life well lived. So much Love every where I turn, it’s pretty incredible. I am deeply grateful.

Sitting here at our dining room table, the winds are picking up, blowing the curtains hard through open windows and blasting me with the brief, exotic perfume of irises and lilies. My coffee is getting stale now, telling me it’s time to go outside. I feel certain yearnings but have trouble wishing anything at all were different, even the heartaches we still have. Life is too beautiful and wonderfully unpredictable just as it is. I so firmly trust, now, finally, that Love has purposed everything.

XOXOXOXO

This Time Last Year…

April 17, 2014

This week Mama Kat wonders what we were blogging about this time last year. Hhhmmm… You’ll never guess…

In April 2013 I was writing pretty much the same things I would be writing now, if I were talking time to write lately.

The Lazy W had just adopted Seraphine and we were waiting for a llama to be born. And I was still in my thirties. I’m no longer in my thirties, but once again we are waiting for a baby!

Note: This was before Dulcinea came along, so Romulus still allowed the horses a reasonable proximity to his woman. This peaceful coexistence was short lived, though. — Note: This was before Dulcinea came along, so Romulus still allowed the horses a reasonable proximity to his woman. This peaceful coexistence was short-lived, though.

I was super enthusiastic about helping some legislation pass in Oklahoma that made it easier for local beekeepers to share and sell their product. It did pass, by the way! And I realized that once in a while I could write something useful, something practical. I was happy to see that writing could become something even more than catharsis.

That month, just like now, I was planting early veggies and bemoaning the transient Oklahoma weather. We had a whopper of a storm season, to put it mildly.

In that month I reviewed books like Khalil Gibran, Typee, and Don Quixote. I did lots of outdoor reading, before our buffalo had destroyed those two awesome loungers. D-E-S-T-R-O-Y-E-D, you guys.

I was random as usual and loved me some cowbell. Back then I was still subbing younger kids once in a while, not yet aware of how greatly I would prefer the junior high kids and their much earlier schedule. In defense of little kids, though, they do write more love notes.

The Boston Marathon was bombed, and of course we all were reeling from the horrific losses. I had little to say except an encouragement to increase our joy. Only light drives out darkness. Still believe that.

And, finally, just like I did this year (until recently), I had a big ol’ juicy case of nerves over the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon. 2013 was my first half and I was pretty much a basket case. But you know what? It was amazing! I had such a blast; the run itself was easier than I expected; and I was hooked on big, fun, meaningful races, particularly this one. Forever. A few days after that event I wrote about how it all had improved my outlook on life. Because I am cheesy like that.

Still cheesy.

So there ya go! That’s about what was going on at the digital Lazy W one year ago. Not too terribly different from what’s happening here now. What’s new (or not new) in your corner of paradise?

XOXOXOXO

Mama Kat's weekly link up is full of fun blogs, check it out! — http://www.mamakatslosinit.com/2014/04/things-that-make-me-happy/

Archives for April 2014

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