I have a strange relationship with numbers. They puzzle me, and often grip me with a stickiness that is of more strength than they ought to be worth.

I was never good at math as a child. That’s what I was told inexplicably at a very elementary age and I accepted it and believed it an didn’t ever pursue rising above the unfair and unfounded proclamation. It was my mom, probably trying to make me feel better about doing poorly on a test in third or fourth grade. I remember her words clearly: “You are just not good at math.” I’m sure there was more to it, maybe she complimented some other aspect of my academia, or was trying to take a burden off my self-imposed perfectionist personality. I’m sure it wasn’t meant to be mean. But the words shaped me all the way through college. I took the minimum required mathematics classes, never tried any harder than absolutely necessary and conceded to a preconceived expectation of generalized failure in that subject.

Why is this important now? I am perplexed by my obsession with numbers in their relation to me. I find myself counting things obsessively, working out percentages, analyzing numerical data, calculating averages and consistently defining myself through a sum of figures.

Pounds on the scale. Body fat percentage. Calories in a delicacy, Pace needed to maintain in a race to beat last year’s age group winner. Weeks until taper. Laps in the pool, seconds in rest intervals, strokes in each length, time before refueling, speed on the Garmin, minutes in the morning to shower.  Score in the game, Kenny’s pitching stats, Cooper’s AR points, Charlie’s violin tempo, Casey’s ETA and when to start dinner. I find myself counting pumps as I fill my bike tires, counting steps up each flight, counting pushups while the microwave heats my coffee, counting glasses of water and glasses of wine, the number of almonds in a handful, the number of chocolate chips on top of my ice cream. Endless and insane.

I don’t necessarily see these sums and figures as demon. They seem to simply fall into a matter-of-fact category that has become as normal to me as what time to set the coffee pot. Sometimes I purpose to ignore the numbers. I often times will go months without weighing myself because I know that I’ve been essentially the same weight (pregnancies not included) since I was 30, and seeing a number that doesn’t coincide with a current mood or level of fitness can throw me into a funk for days. I still fit into the dress I wore on my first fancy date with Casey on Christmas of 2002, so I think I’m pretty steady.

Sometimes I run without a watch, but I’ll only do a loop whose milage I know down to tenth. Sometimes I’ll make myself eat something right out of the big bag without counting how many, swim a session in the pool without a watch or remembering laps. It does leave me feeling a little dizzy, as if I’ve had a glass of wine on an empty stomach. But I do it to make sure I’m not completely clinical OCD, like it’s going to change anything anyway.

Today I am 43. It’s kind of milestone-less. Everyone makes such a big deal about 40 and then they leave you floating on a rudderless raft until you’re close enough to 50 to start planning a party. I’ve tried to make a big moment each year – setting a goal that I can work for and see through. It started when I turned 39 and ran my first marathon. At 40 I found myself standing on my first Masters podium at a well-respected triathlon. At 41 I swam 4.4 miles across the Chesapeake Bay. At 42 I qualified for Boston. And at 43, I plan to complete my first Ironman 70.3.

Numbers. How many numbers make up the sum of my person? Are they the ones that really count?

What if I counted my life in dog walks and encouraging words, in laughs and sleeps, in hugs and little boy smiles and pieces of chocolate cake?  What if my stats were measured less by calculation and more by accident? Something to consider…

 

I figured out what I am lacking.

It is what always comes to me too late. When the hours are stretched before me and it seems like there are so many of them, then suddenly, it’s 2:15 again and my time is up. The hard stop. The litany of things undone comes crashing on my head like an impatient slap. All the things i accomplished today were mere tasks, ticks off a list. What happened to the REAL in this day? The things that matter. The things that matter to me, at least: the time to think, to write all the things i wanted to write, the thoughts that bang around inside my head like a stuck pinball. Suddenly it’s time to go. and the TIME the time the time is gone. The tasks are done, but the golden time to write is gone.

One day I will put the Brainspace first. I will ignore the unimportant mentalities of my paid occupation that siphon off time that deserves better. I will ignore the tasks. I will let my kids come home to a dirty house with dishes in the sink and beds unmade, groceries un-bought, dogs unfed, papers unsigned, errands un-run. We will order food that comes delivered and eat off paper plates and…

wait… we sometimes do that anyway because of the insanity of their baseball schedule x3. Gee. my poetic rant is suddenly reduced to a mockery. where was I?

Oh, I do try! So many times I sit to write, a brilliant thought about to overflow onto the tapping keys and just as I begin: time. It’s already time to drive to get the kids from school. Why don’t I sit and write first thing in the morning? Because all my creative thoughts sleep until the afternoon light is just right. And then inevitably there is no time left. What I wouldn’t give for a better internal factory. Or at least a more time-space-convenient internal factory. I have so much to say. Again. And Again it never lands on the page. It stays in my head. The pinball is stuck. Again.

Time disappeared.  It’s time to go.  And the space dissolves.

Hijacked.

(from May 28; Wilder Day 3; Post Mckenzie Trail Run)

The ground.

The earth.

All at once kind and terribly wild.

Beautiful and tangled.

Just like we all are sitting around this table.

Strong and different, full of secrets.

Full of life not yet revealed

and also covering over decay

of death of dreams of people.

Buried in the earth

rotting but still spurring new life,

full of promise.

Unexpected colors and shapes,

some so immense in size and

some so tiny you step on them without knowing.

This earth: f

all of surprise,

full of wonder and uncertainty,

with the power to grow and heal and

nourish

but also the power

to trip and mock and disappoint and

destroy.

What barometer can we use to determine what’s under the ground we rely on?

What measure can we use to determine the vast possibilities within a woman?

Our thoughts,

unspoken fears and dreams,

loves and hates,

prejudice and assumptions,

admiration and distain.

Talents and fault;

failures and triumphs.

The earth can create or destroy.

We can create life or destroy it.

What power we have without deserving!

What potential we have without worthiness!

Distractions

relieve us from the obligation of living as fully as we ought.

We train ourselves to numb emotions j

just as we train the land to bear the crops we want to harvest,

or the tree we want to grow.

We mar our beauty like we mar the ground around us.

We take away the wild and pave it and use make up.

(from May 28, Wilder Day 3; post Mckenzie Trail Run)

The trail. The beauty. The river rushing. I had lost footing and tripped and rolled my ankle already. I was mesmerized with the insane wild place around me, yet forcing my eyes constantly down so there would be no falling.  Keeping up, listening to the chatter of the others. Body strong, confident, capable. I started to feel almost weightless in the effort that was translating as pure joy.

As I fell I didn’t even have a micro-second to react. The realization came simultaneously with the impact. A quick sting on my head as it bounced from the protruding rock. My shoulder and ribs were suddenly punched by the earth that moments ago had seemed generous and kind.

My first thoughts were anger and relief and they came at the same moment: anger that my head was on fire and that the beauty of the moment was marred by my clumsiness. Relief that I was fairly sure nothing was broken. And I was pissed that this most amazing run of my life had been interrupted by something as derelict as tripping over the trail.

The engagement of the others was kind and genuine. I felt an embarrassed guilt at disrupting their pace. And an acute embarrassment that I had peed my running shorts somehow during the fall. I felt like an inconvenience as they hovered over me (thought no one acted anything but concerned for my possible concussion analyzing the rapidly growing goose egg on my right temple). Sitting up I was washed in dizziness and curious panic over whether or not I would be able to walk out of here. I started imagining a stretcher made from fallen sticks and a paramedic having to hike who knows how far to get to me.  The 2 fast girls I’d been joyously (barely) keeping up with ran on ahead to let the team at the checkpoint know that I was injured and that they weren’t sure how bad. One of the girls behind me ran back to another group to let them know we needed help. And one stayed: a woman I hadn’t yet even talked to. I was baffled by her kindness and the sacrifice she was making to wait with me, giving up her moment of freedom for an injured girl she’d just met.

It was then that the shock started to dissipate and the pain throbbed and I got up and started walking. After a few minutes the fog cleared just enough that I was jogging or trotting or something similar, but definitely determined to get going again. I started remembering the dream I’d had the night before that was throwing me into a nauseating deja vu sensation and I wondered if I was dreaming or awake.  I was pissy and petulant when we got to the support van and I was told to plan to hitch a ride to the end point. I wanted to keep running. I sat quiet in the van with ice on my head, staring out the window at the beauty which I had been completely clothed in moments ago speed by at an obscene pace. I pieced together fragments of last night’s dream interspersed with the moments before I fell and moments after. I wondered if I was still dreaming.