Running Ruminations

I’m writing while seated shoulder-to-shoulder with my kindergartner here at home, as her teacher finishes the “synchronized” instruction portion of the school day online, and behind me is a weird-as-hell yellow sky that makes me think that either an enormous tornado/storm is brewing or that the world is ending. 

Mind you, the AQI is actually pretty favorable at the moment — 40s, green, good — but our skies have been a strange shade of mustard/gray/“apocalypse orange” the past couple days, thanks to fires all over the west (including one downstate that began thanks to a gender reveal party stunt, no doubt for the ‘gram). Fortunately, the fires nearest to us, the SCU Lightning Complex, are nearly completely contained; now, there are just other ones farther afield to worry about. sigh

This year is weird and just keeps going, doesn’t it. 

I’ll take good news wherever I can get it these days. SCC moved into the “red” tier status in the state’s new color-coded gauge, which is a good thing. While there are still a significant number of COVID cases in our county, the move in tiers signifies that we are moving in the right direction. Among other things that could happen as a result of the color/status change, in theory, schools could open for in-person instruction if we stay in the red (on the red?) for 14 days, subject to local school boards’ approvals and everything else. That would obviously have enormous and significant consequences for tons of people here.  

Also in the “good news, please, literally anything” department is that I noticed that as of this morning, ARP is open again. It was closed for much of the earliest parts of the pandemic, reopened for a while, and then was closed again for 3+weeks when the SCU Complex was raging (relatively) nearby. Since then, more often than not, the park has been closed (thanks to Labor Day, the oppressive heat wave last weekend, and the like), and with us in the early days of fire season, it’s reasonable to expect future closures, which totally sucks but, like I said, is totally reasonable. 

In other words, enjoy this sweet gem of a spot on the east side while it’s still open, but do so responsibly, for the love! ARP really is such a treasure. 

It is so unlike me to focus on the here and now and not look two steps ahead of reality at any given point, and by virtue of you likely being a runner if you are reading this, I know you can relate. I’m a planner by nature, someone who loves schedules and routines and checking boxes and all that jazz, and of course, the past ~7 months have upended that which was the norm previously… which is hard. More often than not, I can give you a decent estimation of what I’ll do today, but I can’t say much for tomorrow. It’s weird, and disorienting, and sometimes (oftentimes) maddening.  

Every day (nay, sometimes every hour, it can feel like), when all the feelings begin to bubble up inside, feelings that range from anger, to fear, to boredom, to anxiety, whatever the case may be, I try desperately to reorient myself. Feel your feelings, by all means, but also try to have some perspective, acknowledging that which you have and being grateful for it. It’s a common refrain I share with my girls when they (and I) are having one of those we’re feeling our feelings in full day, and I find it helpful. 

The simplicity of gratitude belies its power. 

Today, I am grateful that I could run this morning under favorable-AQ-skies, weird as they may have looked, and I’m grateful that I was able to help facilitate my kids’ online school, as hard as it can be to be playing both mom and teacher at times. 

Tonight, I am grateful that my eldest’s GS troop is continuing to meet online because we’re still doing awesome things together, apart, and navigating this weird time together. 

And somewhat miraculously, I was able to score a membership to one of the local gyms that’s doing outdoor lap swimming and got a reservation for tonight for 45 minutes for the girls and me, and for what, I am also enormously grateful. 

As I find myself reminding my kids that life won’t be like this forever, I’m finding that I’m telling myself the same, that the best thing we can all do is stay focused on today, right now, and just do the best we can, without much planning for the future. 

It can be hard to stay positive and to continue to look on the bright side all the time, but it’s something that I want to model for my family and something that I come back to every day — that there is always something for which to be grateful, even on the days when I mentally want to burn it all to the ground, no stupid, catastrophe-causing pyrotechnic stunt for the ‘gram required. 

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On occupying time and settling mental unrest

Reading. I’m creeping through Eloquent Rage and finally began Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, a library book that I checked out weeks ago but hadn’t yet been feeling until recently. Both are good, and I’m kicking myself for not beginning them sooner. (I think I need to read the news less often). Last week, the girls and I finished Walk Two Moons, which I hadn’t read in eons, and started PS Be Eleven.  

Listening. Still no, aside from a thirty-minute SWAP podcast this morning. Early in the pandemic, I found that I craved the absolute silence my morning runs afforded me, though eventually I began to drown the silence with podcasts or music most of the time. For whatever reason — maybe related to all this distance learning stuff — I’ve since reverted back to the quiet, early days of the pandemic. 

Running. September began BSIM’s Big Surreal challenge, and I’m on the fence about whether I want to run a solo marathon just … because. We’ll see. I ran a little over 13 last Saturday, a proper LR for me for the first time in weeks because of the poor air, and it wasn’t terrible, just hot. I think I’ve answered it already for myself, now that I think about it; see my above commentary about not really wanting to commit to any long-term planning right now. I like the idea of it, if nothing else. I’m not sure how I feel about the execution…  

Since the AQ has begun to improve, the kids and I have been spending more time outdoors than we have in the past few weeks, and I know they’re loving it (and that they desperately need it). During our mid-morning breaks, we make it a point to go outside and get the mail, talk to the mail carrier (he’s our buddy by now), and run or scooter or bike around before they have to head back inside and sign back on to their classes. A has decided that she wants to begin training for a duathlon — run, bike run, I think — since swimming hasn’t yet been able to resume yet, and for G, as the AQ continues to improve, we’ll finish out her 5k training. Everything, of course, is dependent on the AQ and the weather, so I hope for the girls’ sake that it’ll all continue to improve. Just like everything else right now though, it’s a day at a time and an enormous exercise in patience.  

Cooking. Finally, it’s super simple, and fairly inexpensive to make, so I gotta spread the good word about lentil tacos. I made these sometime last week and have been chowing down on them for lunch ever since. They’re delicious and fairly idiot-proof, and I appreciate that I don’t have to ponder all of life’s existence each day as I figure out how to feed both girls and myself in the very short time we have before afternoon sign-ons. Pop it in the microwave (if you want) to warm up the lentil mix, and that’s about it. Easy.  

55 days until Election Day (7 weeks, 6 days).  

Stay healthy and safe, take care of yourself and others if you can, and keep reading and listening. We must and can do better. xo 

Here we are, friends: a new month, yes, but the same story. 

Still in a pandemic (and within the past week, California surpassed the 700,000 case mark and rolled out a new four-tiered color-coded system that’s supposed to help everyone better understand the data and where their county stands). 

The state’s still on fire, though the nearest-to-us fire, the SCU Complex, was at 72% containment, last I checked. Our AQ is improving with each day, for the most part, though of course it all depends on the weather and literally which way the wind is blowing. 

DT is still being his dumb self, which in the past week has meant that he (somewhat incredibly, somewhat not-so-incredibly) managed to say nothing about Kenosha police shooting an unarmed Black man named Jacob Blake in front of his children, in the back 7 times, and instead opted to defend, if not also revere, the 17 year-old white kid who crossed state lines with an assault rifle and shot three people at the Kenosha protest, killing two of them. I mean, where do you even begin with this. 

And of course, let us not forget the upcoming presidential election in just 62 days. I’d rather not speak anything into existence that hasn’t yet manifested, but maaaaaaaan. We’re likely just getting started. 

Here in California, in the “potentially good news” department,  we’ve entered the “bill-signing period” that’ll end on 9/30, so it’ll be interesting to see what Gov. Newsom ends up signing into law, and a lot is at stake that could have some pretty big ramifications, both in the immediate and near future. (I find this stuff fascinating, though I know some would rather watch paint dry instead. Not sorry!).

Naturally, even with all the Big Stuff in the News going on everyday, 24/7, all of our personal lives charge on, and for us, it’s been more of the same. The kids will close out their third week of distance learning in the next few days before the Labor Day long weekend, and by my observations (and from the kids’ testimonials), yes of course they miss physically going to school, but they actually kinda like the DL set-up. I think the same is true for my husband, pertaining to WFH. 

We are lucky that the groove that we’ve managed to foster seems to be working, at least for the time being. Some days flow more easily or better than others, without question, but just like everyone else is doing in this weird time we’re all living in, we try to figure it out as we go.  

I hope the new month brings you some sort of reprieve, ideally, but barring that, some sense of transition, as we all inch toward the final quarter of this weird-ass year. 

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On occupying time and settling mental unrest

Reading. I’ve found Eloquent Rage interesting so far, though it’s a completely different read and feel than most of the other books I’ve read in the past couple months. I’m a huge fan of Rukmini Callimachi from the NYT, and her Breonna Taylor story put an even deeper, greater, grander mirror to the travesty that is that woman’s death. Callimachi doesn’t typically cover domestic news, but how she conveyed Taylor’s heartbreaking and infuriating story was powerful and memorable as hell. 

Listening. I’ll call this listening/watching because if you haven’t seen Lady Gaga’s VMA performance broadcast a couple days ago, a compilation of a few songs from her Chromatica album, you’ve gotta watch it. The kids and I love that album and were diggin her performance. (And everyone on the stage wore masks, which was cool as hell!). I still haven’t been very interested in listening to a lot of podcasts (probably going on a month here), though for some odd reason, I keep downloading them for my (ever-growing) queue. 

Running. We were lucky to experience AQI scores in the green (40s!) for the first time in weeks on Monday, in the early morning hours, which has been making me feel way more at ease with running outside. The kids still haven’t resumed running or even playing outdoors much because by the time they’re done with school and homework in the afternoon, most of the time the weather is the warmest it’ll be all day by then and/or because the AQI score had jumped considerably from the early morning hours. 

So as to help them get their wiggles out and not go completely feral in the absence of running and playing outside, we’ve been doing a lot of at-home routines together, like child-developmentally-friendly kickboxing, plyometric-type stuff, Barre-type stuff, and the like nearly every night. They really seem to enjoy doing it (even when we do it literally right before bedtime), so if nothing else, it’s good to know that it’s something that we three can do together without a bunch of whining or complaining. It’s actually a lot of fun, and I am eternally grateful that we don’t have downstairs neighbors.  

Girl Scouts! Tonight my eldest’s Brownie troop bridged to Juniors. Never in a million years would I have ever imagined hosting a bridging ceremony virtually, but alas. 2020. You weird.

62 days until Election Day.  

Stay healthy and safe, take care of yourself and others if you can, and keep reading and listening. We can do better. xo