Rereading the Past, Perhaps With Love

Tonight, I picked up a book to re-read. Sticking out of it was a page of notepad paper I used as a bookmark the first time. Inside the book's front cover, I'd written "December 25, 2007, from Mom and Dad." That brought back a couple memories.

First, Dad was still alive then but, the book was, as most presents were, picked out by Mom, according to a list I'd given her. By then, I'd been making Christmas lists since 1974. Most of the time Mom got most of what I'd listed. It occurred to me, holding the book, how seldom I mention that about her.

A second memory came from the notepad page. On it were notes for teaching. This was when I taught at-risk kids at Cortland Alternative School. I recall almost exactly what I'd planned on that page: making a piece of student prose look like a poem so kids would see how periods work. I wanted them to understand that only one thought should lie between capital letter and ending period. Switching to the next thought, it's time for that period and another capital letter.

All this brought me to a couple conclusions.

First, that was a hard job that I did well. I didn't think so then because I measured success poorly. I thought I had to do impossible things and so I kept failing.

Which is why conclusion two was a realization that my supreme unhappiness and depression then wasn't all because of the school, the administration, or any outside force. It sprang from within me because I hadn't learned how to measure myself, how to know that imperfection could still be wondrous and was almost always better than good enough .

I really wish I could have felt that then. Might have saved what came next.

About half a year after reading that book for the first time and writing that notepad bookmark, I came to where the road diverged not in a yellow wood, but within my mind. I chose a path that led to so much destruction and hurt.

I often wish I could go back, choose again. I can reread a book, remember teaching notes from a career I've since left, but there's no changing what was done. Instead there's me learning to apply better measures. There are all the choices I make now.

And Frost wasn't wrong. There's no real difference between the paths. Way leads onto way. Had I not chosen poorly then, I'd have chosen poorly some other time. Having chosen poorly then, I've made good (and bad) choices since. Life really does go on. We keep reading, turning pages one after another.

Turns out that living can be a hard job, but with the accurate measures and continued choices, I come back to myself and smile at the man I meet.

I recall the man I was sixteen years ago and find room to be loving toward him. I remember the child I was, receiving what Mom bought me for Christmas. I see her trying her best, probably measuring success and failure as inaccurately as I have. We learn these things from one another.

Maybe eventually, choice after choice, rereading after reading, we come to some understanding, perhaps even to grace. Despite all we've learned, we look at ourselves past and present with tenderness and maybe even something like love for who we are becoming.

Love From Out of Nowhere

A woman who may or may not have issues with mental stability sat near me at the coffee shop. I had spread my stuff over two tables and apologized. Sorry, do you need this table? No, she said. I'm just waiting for my coffee. I said, I'd just carelessly pushed stuff over there. She said, don't you worry about it.

Then she said, that blazer and shirt, those glasses, you look sharp. You look really sharp.

I smiled and said, thank you. I was surprised how happy and grateful I felt.

No, no, she said, like she could tell I was surprised. Really, you look really, really sharp. She made an okay sign andnodded.

I thanked her again.

She said, I can't remember the last time someone said they loved me. Even when I was married. I mean, that was a long time ago, but still. You know?

She looked about forty, so I wondered what a long time meant to her.

I wanted to tell her I loved her. Mostly because, in that moment, I kind of did. But no, it wasn't possible.

Instead, I said, it's important say that a lot more often.

Yeah, she said. Yeah. You get it.

The barista called her name. A beautiful name I hope really was hers. She got up, got her coffee, talked to the barista, then went out into the street.

I'd say it was the best thing that happened to me today, but I've been showered with love all day long. My cup, it overflows. And really, in this blazer, shirt, and glasses, I look sharp, ready to tell you all that I love you.

All of the Above

Work let out early today for the eclipse, so I decided to squeeze in a run before the moon blotted out the sunlight. I grabbed a bite to eat and climbed the stairs to get changed. Ow, my thighs complained. I cchanged into shorts and a t-shirt anyway and wend back down the stairs. Ouch, ouch, ouch. Outside, I did some stretches because I've been told they'll loosen things up. They don't, but I did them anyway. The first steps of the run were tough, but I ran down the block and along the brook.

It didn't go well. I was too tired. I couldn't keep myself going. I ran only two miles at a slog. Returning home, I felt defeated.

I had the urge to write about it as I do most things in my life. I couldn't figure out why until I typed the first line of paragraph two: it didn't go well. Right away I wanted to begin the next paragraph like this:

It went pretty well. I was tired. I had some trouble keeping myself going. But I ran two miles and I don't often care the pace at which I'm moving. I feel good just having run.

Then I could write this: The run was bad, good, neither, both, and more than I can imagine.

The sooner I accept that, the better I'll move through this world whether at a run, walk, crawl, or even standing still letting the universe pass me by.

A New Path

I went for a run. Walked down the driveway, heard the GPS watch beep, trotted into the street, and turned left up the hill. My plan was to do reverse my cemetery run. Five miles. My happy distance. In reverse, I begin uphill for a mile, pass behind the public school, cross the street, and head into the new section of the cemetery.

Cemeteries are great places to run. Quiet. Gently curving, narrow roads without traffic. In summer, fellows work string trimmers or ride mowers, but on April's first Saturday I met only a couple walking their dogs then an old man wearing two hats who told me it was a good day.

The cemetery is divided in two by a stretch of forest on a hill. An eroded dirt road connects the new section to the main cemetery. I was a mile and a half in at the top of that road. Fifty yards on is a turnout where workers dump brush and, if they're anything like me when I worked at a cemetery, hide from the boss for a moment's peace. I usually pass the turnout, wondering about a trail there that flows up over a hillock and into the forest, but pass on. I'm a creature of habit.

Last week, on a different run, I followed a muddy trail through another forest and felt I could have run it for hours. Today, I went into the turnout, up over that hillock, onto a new path.

It led up through the forested hill, wound between trees with occasional detours out of muddly low points. A quarter mile in the path forked. Left, the main path. Right, a narrow trail I chose immediately, leading up higher through more mud, behind the private school, and around to the suburban road.

I didn't want to leave those woods but knew that just down the road was a back entry to the main cemetery. I trotted down the unshouldered road, grateful for drivers that moved over, trying not to curse those who didn't. I turned left onto gravel, passed an old shed with no doors, into the upper section of the main cemetery, set to run up to the highest point, breathe in the view, come down the other side and rejoin my usual path.

Then I noticed a trail through the grass toward the trees. I turned onto it. The mud there was too wide to avoid. My sandals squelched and the mud and puddles coated my feet, sprayed my ankles and calves. I kept going up and found a narrow trail, firmer and drier that I soon knew would lead back to the turnout where I had begun.

I kept going through the turnout. I have no boss and I was at peace. I went down the eroded dirt road into the lower section of the main cemetery, around my usual turns, up and out onto the busy street. I turned left into the small neighborhood bordering the cemetery, back to the busy street, across into another small neighborhood, to the school, and down the road following the brook, onto our street, into our driveway. I stopped the GPS watch, stood beneath the grey sky, and felt overfilled with joy. A few moments later, I walked my muddy feet inside and up to the shower.

After showering, I read the following koan:

Yunmen taught, "I do not ask you about before the fifteenth of the month. Come, say something about after the fifteenth." And then he responded for himself, "Every day is a good day."

The fifteenth of the month on the ancient Chinese calendar is the full moon, a symbol for awakening, so the question is really I don't ask about before your awakening, but rather for you to speak out of your awakening.

I won't pretend to understand that any more than how running a new path filled me with joy. But I wanted to say something about after the run. Maybe tell you how every run is a good run but especially those on new paths.