silence

The overactive brain rouses me between 1 and 2AM — or several hours before I want to be up for the day. The downside is feeling less than the best version of myself as the day wears on. But the upside is all those hours of solitude and quiet. First I battle, determined to fall back asleep. Then I relent, leave the warm bed, and follow my restless thoughts wherever they take me.

The quiet stillness of the wee pre-dawn and nothingness begin to quiet my thoughts. I am a silence seeker. I stop at the top of the ridge after a long ascent, gentle but steady noise of boots crunching in snow and heavy breathing. I still my pace and wait. Up here I am nothing more than something for cold breezes to bump up against on the way to wherever breezes are going.

Up here the wind wins, bending grasses toward earth, their paintbrush tufts drawing half circles on the snow. Seed pods are scattered everywhere, collecting in turkey tracks and deer divots — passive passengers at the mercy of the wind’s whim. Summer spent burdocks seem to have given up, their necks snapped, burrs waiting now for some passerby to latch onto.

Between the stark and naked trees the mountains glow pink in the weak sun, a yellow and blue horizon here, the suggestion of a moon there. A coyote descends from the ridge, his large tracks crossing my path, the back foot landing squarely in the track of the front — a practice reflecting more energy efficiency than grace or art, but it strikes me as a comment on nature’s perfection.

drought

These long stretches of creative drought — not writing, not painting, not making art — are painful. It hurts not to create. It eats away at the insides not to write. And there’s really no excuse for staying thirsty: there is plenty to slake the dry cracked earth of this drought-stricken art void. So much could be spilt all over ignored journal pages and canvasses. My stillness suggests scarcity where there is actually abundance. I could be doing much more. I could be taking pen to paper, brush to linen. I have time now. And yet, quiet days become weeks and then months of silence.

Dust covers the cool grainy surface of the art tables. Forgotten half started projects are littered about the workroom. And the more I don’t paint, the more I don’t draw, the more I don’t write, the more my guts twinge. There is a growing and weird fear around it now and I can’t remember how to start.

Anne Lamott tells writers to trust in non-perfection because everyone writes crappy first drafts. Elizabeth Gilbert says we must show up, mule-stubborn and undeterred even when the creative muse doesn’t follow us into the studio. She says that creativity and suffering are inherently linked. Matisse is credited with boiling it all down to three words of brilliance: “creativity takes courage.”

Taking pen and brush to hand is the wellspring of great joy and also the mother of deep angst. But ignoring the haunting call to create generates even greater anguish than answering it. Early this morning the feeble December sun is casting shadows on Breadloaf mountain’s south-facing slope. Frozen evergreens just stand around uncomplaining. And last night’s oil paints are on my hands because finally I have heaved myself back into it to plug away and flail awkwardly. I am writing junk, drawing poorly, painting even worse.

playing through it

Today was hard. So was most of last week. And I’m supposed to be the got-my-shit-together grown up in this equation. To be fair, I do a decent job of showing up on time and answering questions and being organized and doing the stuff that maybe goes unnoticed but also makes it so things go smoothly. But I am really struggling right now. The usually brief predictable mid season slump is hanging in there stubbornly. I feel like I suck at this thing that I love and it's making me so, so sad.

I am driven and competitive and all kinds of imperfect. I want us to work harder. I want us to do better. I am also fiercely in touch with what's going right . My team is amazing — strong, gritty, positive, fun-loving, supportive — but for fucks sake enough with the character building. Got it. I have so many losing seasons from my high school days and so much practice finding the positives as a coach and so many good TED talks under my belt. I met my soul mate and fell madly in love and then watched him die. Literally. Right in front of me while my not-yet-a-toddler slept in the other room. Did I mention, got it?

I’m not complaining right now. It probably sounds like I’m complaining, but my point is that I understand the whole figure out what’s working and find the silver lining and practice gratitude thing. I’m not saying I’m Buddha, but for the most part I think my priorities are pretty good and my values are reasonable. I have friends. I know to just stop and check out this morning’s ridiculous pink and orange sunrise cloud sky thing — I do. This is largely what fuels the whole keep showing up every day, ready, expecting the best. Even when the next thing that happens is getting thrown down. We’ve put in the time and shown up and worked hard and turned the other cheek. Is it too much to ask for a win? This team deserves a goddamn win.

Out the bus windows Camel’s Hump is bathed in dark blue and purple and the evening autumn sun shines yellow green on the tree lines below. We unload the gear, touch hands and shoulders, put away ball bags and coolers. Parents roll in, headlights on shiny pavement. Backpacks and kids flop into backseats. I get in my car and drive home.

I go looking for a thing to feel better, comfort, some solace. Enter Theodore Roosevelt. To paraphrase… It is not the critic who counts; not the one who points out how the strong person stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the person who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly…

It’s not about winning. It’s not about losing. It’s about showing up, doing the work, getting thrown down, getting up again, and playing through.

(don't) look

(don’t) look closely at my feet
my never had a pedicure feet
my jammed into running shoes for hours on end feet
my barefoot in the garden feet
my carry me up and down mountains feet

(don’t) look closely at my hands
my never had a manicure hands
my bit my fingernails all my life hands
my veins pushing upward through sun and time worn wrinkles hands
my wheelbarrow pushing hands

(don’t) look closely at my hair
my pulled into a ponytail at dawn and forgotten about hair
my cut it myself twice a year hair
my sweaty woods run and stacking firewood in the humidity hair
my more than half-century grays taking center stage now hair

(don’t) look closely at my face
my never had a facial face
my don’t use fancy skin products face
my often forget the sunscreen face

these crow’s feet, these once subtle now deepening laugh lines
shoot out from the corners of my eyes
like a cartoon sun

ascutney

On a hot August morning I follow Mia into her greenhouse after our morning run. We move past knee-high kale, spent poppies, and cucumber trellises. She plops an enormous heirloom tomato in the palm of my hand, then finds me a cucumber and a fistful of basil. Outside we throw a frisbee for the dogs to chase up and down the hill. Or, more accurately, Meg chases the frisbee and Lewie chases Meg. They soon forget the frisbee and go into wrestling mode, tumbling over each other and love-snapping in each other’s faces before coming to rest, panting hard in the shade of a lilac.

Mia and I are catching up, our soggy feet in the grass. Chickens and sheep meander around looking for food. I’m filling her in on the half marathon trail run from the day before — it was a thing I signed up for back in early July when I could feel the completion of the Catamount Trail looming close and I desperately needed a “next thing” to look forward to on my calendar.

I tell her about the pine needle covered trails that switchback endlessly up and down Ascutney Mountain and how much she would have loved it. She laughs as I fill her in on the people: a mile or so into the run I find myself on the single track woods trail behind Yellow Shirt Trips A Lot — handy for me as he serves as a continual warning of roots, rocks, and other trail hazards, saving me (mostly) from discovering them for myself. Mia raises an eyebrow as I describe Gray Tank Top Hill Beast who looks like a good person to pace with — someone who eats up the hills that usually slow me down. I tell her about the confusing signage and small clusters of runners debating at intersections about which way to go and how when I see Confident Headband Guy blowing by them I leave the debate and fall in behind him. A good choice, it turns out, as he paces me up, down, around, and back up to the peak. We cruise over rock faces and through open hard wood forest on seemingly endless serpentines all over the mountain. Eventually after we crest the peak for the last time and begin the long descent, he slips out of sight for good. For the next hour or so, it’s just me and Earbuds Loud Foot. His footfall is heavy and fast and he pounds away right behind me all the way down (and across and up a little and then down again) the mountain. I navigate the curvy switchbacks, hopping over roots and rocks through the hard wood forest, up and over stone walls while he lets me pace him all the way to the finish.

Sounds fun, she says as I wrap up the story with a description of the after party: live music, local brews, food trucks. We agree that we’ll run it together next year, maybe get the kids to join us too. When I get home I cut up that heirloom tomato from Mia’s greenhouse and think about how it’s time to make sure there’s another “next thing” on my calendar.

lost and found

Running up trails at the SnowBowl, Lewie and I suddenly find ourselves in the company of a dog. Large, dark, and quietly padding toward us, she’s three times Lewie’s size. Her intentions are not clear, but her head is lowered in a stalking pose. It’s cool, everything’s cool, let’s all be friends, I am saying in what I hope is a friendly, good energy tone. She and Lewie work things out as dogs usually do, deciding neither is a threat to the other and after some slow circling and a bit of sniffing, Lewie is off and running again, heading up the steep trail under the chairlift with me chugging along some distance behind. New Dog appears to be without people, but her confidence and now jolly energy would suggest she is not lost. I keep thinking she will peel off and rejoin her people, wherever they are. But through tall weeds and around corners I keep catching glimpses of her leaving the trail and rejoining it. She and Lewie continue to mostly ignore each other, engaged in something like parallel play.

At some point it becomes clear New Dog is choosing to join our adventure. And at some point I decide not to stop and retrace my steps or pause to listen in case someone is calling her back. I decide not to really adjust my plan in any way. At some point, I decide New Dog is not, eventually, as I originally thought, going to decide she has strayed too far from her people and turn around. She continues to choose us. I continue on and we run through puddles and over roots and rocks down the Long Trail, heading south to some as yet to be determined point. And finally I realize I have now, passively, by doing nothing and making no decision other than to go forward with my planned run, decided to take responsibility for New Dog. We’ve gone too far now. What was “not my circus, not my monkey” an hour ago is surely mine now. I hope her people are not fretting and wondering where she’s gone. I know I would be. She army crawls through mud and sprints ahead down the trail, my little short-legged Lewie straining to match her pace. Having broken through the are we friends yet? barrier, both dogs are now tail-wagging and smile-panting and having a grand time, chasing each other in an exuberant game of canine tag.

The breeze cools my skin and dries my sweat into a salty crust as we pause for a view of the Champlain Valley through a rare break in the trees. Then on we run, feeling the joyous freedom of legs and arms pumping and feet landing and pushing off again. The trail does not care that we are here, but we are so glad of the trail.

recovery

I am standing at the kitchen window, breaking open seed pods with my thumbnail. Red Russian kale pellets pop out, a dozen or so in each pod. They tumble across the counter, bumping into a wooden bowl filled with cherry tomatoes from the garden. Even through the closed window I can hear blue jays making a ruckus, yelling at each other about this new food discovery here, that predator over there, migratory plans, and greeting new and old neighbors as they join the flock. Rain drips off the edge of the roof in a steady stream. Undaunted by the damp, a male cricket gets busy with his forewings in the hopes of attracting a female for an early fall roll in the hay.

In the next room coffee is sipped, newspaper pages rustle, and the dog sighs deeply. A load of laundry churns away in the basement. The hot water heater kicks on. A breeze picks up and the sea glass wind chime tinkles from its hook by the front door. Then quiet. So quiet I can hear the click of the coffeemaker turning itself off. Then… nothing. It is a deliciously wide open blank calendar kind of day and I am holding hard and fast to the repose. Greedy for and possessive of it. It is an exquisite thing, this kind of sustained non-interruption from the outside world. A feast of nothingness in my ears and a placid waveless lake of calm in my brain.

I use an index card to gather the seeds into a pile on the counter, herding them like lemmings off the edge of the counter into an envelope for next year’s garden. Bok choy. Two kinds of kale. Onion. Black Seeded Simpson lettuce. Bouquet dill. Lavender. Without lifting my head I know it has started to rain again. Hard this time. Steady sheets batter the roof and the blueberry bushes and the wide leaves of the sunflower plants along the south side of the house. Cozy in my slippers, I silently delight in the prospect of a long day of nothing ahead.

the end (nearly)

A bumblebee and a butterfly are competing for space at the top of a purple coneflower. Crickets and cicadas conspire to announce the sad departure of my long unstructured — or at least entirely self-directed — August days. Blueberry twigs sag under the burden of their bulbous shining fruit. Japanese beetles form double and triple deckers on the spent rugosa rose blooms. Ants are farming the aphids on the underside of a sunflower leaf. Hummingbirds visit the bee balm and geranium heads, then swoop in tandem shuttle-flights chirping over territory or danger or perhaps a love song I can’t understand. Zucchini grows twofold in a day’s time — the right size for picking before the dew dries, then nearly too big as the sun sets.

Meanwhile, inside the house the carpenter ants are taking over, one room at a time. They gather in corners, dragging out the now poisoned corpses and leaving the crunchy carcasses for my bare feet to find on the cold tiles of the mudroom. Countertops have gathered dust and every surface is cluttered. The couch is disheveled — blankets and pillows thrown askew. Newspapers, magazines, books, and a play script lie haphazardly on the coffee table and dust balls occupy the spaces under furniture, on the stairs, and in forgotten corners. We spend few waking hours indoors during the summer months. All efforts are turned toward the outdoor living spaces during our non-working hours. Weeding gardens, mowing lawns, splitting and stacking wood. Repairing garden fences, picking berries, harvesting vegetables.

The day demands constant movement among the many tasks of country living. Occasionally my book or sketch pad or laptop beckons, even during the daytime hours, reminding me to slow down, slow down, s l o w d o w n and find the pause button on this most fleeting and most delicious of our Vermont seasons. Only a few precious days of summer remain.

leaving eden, part two

If I were to simply concede defeat and follow the dirt road to Craftsbury where my car is waiting, I’d have just a little over a mile left of today’s run. Bailing out is an option. The trail has been elusive as a phantom today. Impassable swamp, fenced-in cow-speckled pastures, No Trespassing signs, descriptions and maps that don’t match what’s in front of me, endless detours on hot shadeless pavement. I’ve been at it for several hours in 90+ degree humidity. Even so, the notion of throwing in the towel is at least as repugnant as it is tempting. I am covered in layer upon layer of salty dried sweat, razor grass slices across my knees and shins, and dozens of deer fly welts across my shoulders and neck. I am also stubborn and competitive and quitting now makes me feel sour. I haven’t come through all this just to pack it in and chalk up Section 27 as hopeless. I will not relent. It’s not the point.

To be honest, I’m too weary and dehydrated to actually remember the point, but I know I’m supposed to be looking for diamond-shaped blue markers. So instead of an uncomplicated trot north down the hot dusty road to the car, I head east on Town Highway 19 (a dead-end dirt road) toward what I think will be the next chance for finding the Catamount Trail as it crosses the road. It feels good to make the harder choice. Nothing else feels good right now — literally nothing — but somehow the pig-headed recalcitrance of pressing on into the sweltering oppressive unknown does. It doesn’t exactly feel like a win, but it’s not losing either.

Almost immediately upon leaving the road I find some well-maintained snowshoe trails with somebody’s sweet little wooden painted signs. It’s not the CT, but it’s headed in exactly the right direction and surely, of course, without a doubt, these lovely little trails and the Catamount Trail will come together here somewhere. I hold like hell onto this wisp of possibility, congratulating myself on hanging in there and relaxing for a moment into sweet optimism just long enough to very nearly step into a huge pile of relatively recent bear poop. The fragile strands of hope strain under the weight of frustration and exhaustion now garnished with a splash of wee panic. Perfect.

On I plod. It can barely be described as a run, this pathetic but persistent pace, now into the fifth hour of this run. Alone, exhausted, I see moose that aren’t there morph into blackened tree stumps. Standing tree corpses seem to stir in slow motion like the fictional tree Ents from Lord of the Rings, their stick fingers and arms reaching and pointing skyward. A boulder pushes its voluptuous belly from the undergrowth impersonating one of those Paleolithic Venus figurines from my college art history class. My brain is delirious from running in the heat and wrestling between this bad option or that worse one. My feet have a mind of their own, obeying inertia, carrying my body along through the woods. I’m barely even thinking anymore now. Just having a few hallucinations here and there, no longer caring much at all about much of anything. The trail signs lure me, zombie-like, to today’s end point: the ski trails at Craftsbury Outdoor Center and the security of the car at the end of Catamount Trail Section 27. Lewie pants alarmingly in the shade while I pour quarts of water down my dusty throat.

But the day is not over…

In an effort to minimize my carbon footprint as I pursue this three-year quest of running the Catamount Trail from Massachusetts to Canada, I have decided to run the remaining five sections in two back-to-back chunks. My budget is tight and I want to live it up for the final three sections which means tonight I am sleeping in the back of my Subaru Impreza. Section 27? Check. Find dispersed campsite in the Steam Mill Brook Wildlife Management area? Check. Everything I need to spend the night in my car? Check. Youthful enthusiasm and confidence? Hello? [Insert cricket noises here.] Nope, not today.

I am parked next to a meadow at the end of a long dead end road. The Steam Mill Brook sign is barely visible through bushes and saplings growing around it. The sky is blue and there are a few puffy white clouds. It’s approaching 5:30 pm and there is no foreseeable relief from the relentless heat. Birdlife is abundant. And so are the deer flies, mosquitoes, and black flies. My unsureness about this sleeping in the car plan begins to mount. My belly knots and I can feel the anxiety build. The day has left me wrung out and wanting something safe now. Something that doesn’t require continued grit, another dive into the well of courage followed by a long night of sweaty non-sleep. I suddenly feel excruciatingly vulnerable and hesitant about whether I should honor those feelings or push through them.

I have cell service so I call Tom. As soon as I hear his voice I begin to break down, hot tears and a tight throat. I don’t want to bail on this plan but I don’t want to be out here alone tonight either. I am awash in indecision. He listens, as he always does, with the patience of a saint. When finally I get quiet and tell him I don’t know what to do, he encourages me to sit with my feelings awhile, talk to them, listen to them, see what happens. Call me back, he says. I hang up, take some deep breaths, walk out into the meadow. Lewie comes out from the shade and follows. I finish crying and mutter some swears, feeding him a few pieces of cheese. I writhe and overthink and cry and struggle while Lewie … well, Lewie thinks about more cheese. He looks at me, panting, doing that thing with his eyebrows. I envy that uncomplicated space between his ears.

esprit de corps

Lewie does not take up his usual you-will-not-leave-without-me post at the front door this morning. Instead he watches me with steady eyes from the couch as I move about the house making preparations. Today we are running Catamount Trail Section 28, a 12.9 mile stretch from Craftsbury Outdoor Center to the town of Lowell. Lewie appears to be having doubts about joining me. Yesterday’s adventure — CT Section 27, which took us from Eden Mtn. Road to Craftsbury — was pretty taxing. Several impassable portions meant we had to constantly re-navigate on the fly and do some creative problem-solving in the punishing 89 degree humidity. A relatively easy 7 miler became a hot mess of something more like 12.

In the end, he can’t help himself, and Lewie leaps into the passenger’s seat as I load my stuff into the car. Dog is my co-pilot. Behind me, Mia has her own co-pilot: Meg’s striking stripe of white running from between her ears to the tip of her nose is visible in my rear view mirror as Mia and I drive tandem to the Northeast Kingdom. It promises to be another challenging day, but the world looks different with good company along.

The dirt road on the west side of Little Hosmer Pond takes us downhill and uphill and out to Rt. 14, which we cross into a field not currently occupied by the nearby horses, swishing their tails in the shade of a lean-to. An easy coast around the perimeter of the field and we duck into the woods. A few more up-downs and a cornfield later we find ourselves on the historic Bailey Hazen Road which passes through a sawmill and becomes a heavenly shaded path along a river.

Up and over a ridge and onto an old farm road, we surprise a quiet gardener, tending her foxglove and rock gardens on the farm she and her husband have run for more than 40 years. She tells us the story of how the house used to be over there and the barn was once full of dairy cows. She removes her gloves and occasionally wrings them in her hands and asks us what we’re doing out here. Not used to company, perhaps, yet she doesn’t seem to want us to go. She gives us a little smile and tells us we have quite a few miles to go yet.

Before a long hot stretch of dirt road at the foot of Lowell Mountain, we take a quick break in the shade while the dogs pant and we shove handfuls of nuts in our mouths and gulp water. The giant wind turbines along the ridge move lazily above us and to the west. Lowell Mtn. forces my run to a walk more than once and I resist the urge to scold myself. This is, after all, the second 90-degree day in a row. Give yourself a break, I remind myself silently. There are still hours to go.

At the bottom of Lowell Mountain, we rejoice in a well-deserved downhill cruise and meet a retired dairy farmer turned hemp farmer out for a walk. He says he’s surprised our dogs didn’t bark at that bear. What bear? we ask. The one that just crossed the road here and went up into the field next to you, he says. You didn’t see it? We didn’t see it, which I’m sure is exactly what the bear had in mind.

Jay Peak is a marked jag on the horizon and we aim more or less right for it, through the hemp rows and through a tree line and straight into a swath of wildflowers and strawberries which we pause to pick. From here it’s an easy trek for the last few miles through more fields and some pine needly woods paths and only a little bit of swamp out onto Clark Road and across Rt. 14 to the waiting car.

In a stroke of sheer brilliance Mia suggests we take off our mud sodden shoes and socks and walk barefoot for the last little bit across the roughly cut grass — a welcome tiny scouring pad massage for our achey hooves.

Mia climbs in her car, we wave goodbye, and she makes her way north to Canada. I turn south, toward home. Lewie is asleep on his feet, poised between the two front seats, his head dipping like a dashboard bobblehead. Hours later as I crest Middlebury Gap, a pomegranate-dipped giant peach of a sun on fire is disappearing behind the cool Green Mountains.