Racing – Rant and Roll

Dear Momma: Here’s what happened in 2018

Hi Momma.

I know we talk a lot, but I wanted to take some time to lay out everything that’s happened since the beginning of March. It’s been such a busy, heartbreaking, extraordinary time.

Most mornings I wake up and forget that you’re not here.

Sometimes you’ll have visited me in my dreams – your way of stopping by and saying hello. I get glimpses of your life in New York or you’ll tell me about the old classmates of yours that you’ve decided to haunt.

I see your smile and hear your laugh and I when I touch you, it’s real.

Momma, I feel like I could pull you back into life.

Your magic, it burns brightly, everywhere.

You died on Thursday, March 8^th. International Women’s Day.

I was holding your hand while Suzan Maclean held the other. I think that she, like me, doesn’t really believe in a world without you.

The day I flew back home, I took a lot of your clothes. I took your light blue jean jacket and your tight black pants. That striped heart sweater that you bought in Brooklyn and your gray crop-top turtleneck.

A few of your sweaters still smell like you. Sometimes I hold them and breathe deeply.

Because I wear your clothes every day, all of my friends are obsessed with your style.

Many of them also have your postcard pinned up in their offices. They tell me that you inspire them to take risks, to wear colour, to try something new.

Hearing this and writing this makes me cry.

In April I joined a gym to learn how to get strong. You would have laughed because when I went in for my assessment, I couldn’t even do one squat. But working slowly and intentionally with my trainer Jules I have developed a new-found respect and appreciation for my body.

And I am getting strong.

Last week I deadlifted ninety kilograms. That’s one hundred and ninety-eight pounds! I know you’re probably thinking, “I just got her to stop running marathons through the mountains, and now she’s doing this?”

But you know that it’s your spirit that drives me.

Thanks for that Momma.

I am sorry to say that I’m still not doing yoga but I do keep your beautiful bag in my office so that I see it every day. When I do start a regular practice, you will, of course, be the first to know.

I’ve started seeing a wonderful grief counsellor who has helped and continues to help me so much. I was seeing her every week and now go about once a month. I also have an amazing “grief community” here in New West, made up beautiful, strong and inspiring women.

You would love every one of them.

They are often who I call when I’m can’t drive because I’m crying too hard, or when I’m paralyzed by grief in some grocery breakfast aisle, or when just the thought of living in this world without you is too overwhelming for words.

Their love helps me.

So does that of my friends. And of Kate and Jessi. Marc.

They all hold me close when all of my pieces are breaking apart.

I cry almost every day.

I hope this doesn’t make you sad. Because I know that the only reason it hurts this much is because of the depth and the beauty of our love.

I think a lot about this when I run. There is a tree down at the river boardwalk here in New Westminster that I call “The Momma Tree”. It reminds me so much of you because of its vibrant colours and delicate leaves. Every time I run by it, I whisper a hello to you and high-five your branches.

Your magic, it burns brightly, everywhere.

This November I ran the Fall Classic 10k and placed ninth. It was one of the harder races I’ve run because I had just had gum surgery two weeks prior and couldn’t exercise at all in the lead up, because it might disturb my graft and slow my recovery.

Not to point fingers, but this gum recession is definitely genetic and it’s definitely from your side of the family.

At first I was so disappointed and I cried at the finish line. I’ve been chasing the elusive sub-40 time for so long and I felt so tired of trying and failing. But Marc held me and helped me.

I know you’ve always loved how delicate he is with me.

Here are some other things that have happened this year, so much with our strength and love:

In May, I attended my first New Westminster Community and Social Issues Council Committee meeting. That same month I also started working on my first municipal political campaign, helping my incredible friend Nadine Nakagawa get elected to city council.
In June, I presented at Pecha Kucha and spoke about you and grief and love and compassion. Marc and I celebrated our ten year wedding anniversary.
In July, I filmed my favourite story of the year at the Sharing Farm in Richmond. In total this year, I wrote over 70 stories for United Way and shot 15 videos.
In August, we welcomed beautiful Loic Stewart to the world, and I have loved every moment of being his aunty. I pour love into him. Just like you did with us.
In September, I joined the New Westminster Hospice Society’s board of directors. I was the first woman up Grouse Mountain for United Way’s Tech Grind, even though I couldn’t officially compete. (Yes Momma, I am that competitive.) I hosted a fun night of improv with a local feminist collective, MCed a wedding with twelve hours notice and managed to take another selfie with my mayor and council after presenting about United Way Day.
In October, I moderated the New Westminster Chamber of Commerce’s All Candidates Debate which was exhilarating and if there is just one thing I wish I could have had you there for, this was it. I started my Compassionate City Crew training with New West Hospice and hosted a very fun Halloween dinner party. You would have loved Marc’s and my costume – I was a lawyer and he was the devil, so we were The Devil’s Advocate.
In November, I took a stand against racism in my city, attended the annual civic dinner, completed my hospice training, moderated a panel on brand building and philanthropy, shared a story at The Flame about my absurd decision to get eyelash extensions and hiked around Whistler with Marc for our anniversary.
This month there are story performances and holiday get-togethers and both Kate and Jessi are making your gingerbread and I can’t stop crying whenever I sing along to the Barra MacNeils’ Christmas albums.

Just know that I think about you every day. I miss you every day. I see you in a soft rose gold sunset. In the wind that blows the hair from my face. In my dark roots that always grow in no matter how often I dye my hair blond.

You’re the blood in my veins, the green in my eyes. My smile. My laugh. My long legs and cold hands.

Momma, I carry you close.

And I will never stop missing you.

I wrote you this letter even though I know you know all of this.

Because you’re in the sky.

Sea. Land.

Air.

Mommm. Momma. Momma.

You and your magic are everywhere.

A farewell to arms

Today, I say goodbye to my running shoes.

This is very hard.

Since August of 2014 they have been my consummate companions, joining me on every run, race, bike ride, and hike.

And I love them.

I bought them in response to the death my last pair, which, despite an absolutely valiant effort, died a gruesome death the second time around doing Tough Mudder (otherwise known as Tough Mudder II: Tough Mudderer).

However, I didn’t want to buy them. I had just read Born to Run and was a new student to the school of thought that one should never buy new running shoes unless absolutely necessary.

Gone were (and still are) my days of thinking that there is some arbitrary six-month expiration date on shoes. I wanted to wait as long as possible to take the plunge.

So, reluctant as I was to purchase anything new, I started using a pair of Marc’s old shoes instead. They were a little too large and ugly as hell, but I was steadfast in my commitment to make them work. I only threw in the towel on them after completely shredding my right leg on a hike in Hawaii. They had absolutely zero tread, and after a solid two hours of slipping and sliding all over an incredibly treacherous trail, I lost my footing and cut myself badly on an old, rusted water main.

Sitting there in the wilds of the Hawaiian jungle, as Marc and our friends poured water over my wounds, I tried to remember the last time I received a tetanus shot, and patiently waited for the lock jaw to set in.

When I got home I drove to SportChek and bought shoes.

My new Asics were immediately magic. They fit my feet perfectly and took no time to break in.

At first I lamented their muted colour palette, wishing that I could rock the hot pinks and flashy neon so in vogue amongst other runners. But I quickly came to appreciate their simplicity. I often thought this as one of the reasons they were so perfect a bridge between my legs and where my legs ached to go.

For the entire fall of 2014, I woke up at 5:30 am to run the New Westminster waterfront. Greeting the sleepy sun, I would watch as mountainscapes transformed from Mount Doom to Mount Baker and I would marvel at a sky that was both mottled blue and cherry rust.

IMG_20150121_013324 — Mornings, running to the water.

That November, my shoes carried me to my very first race victory when I won the Boundary Bay Half-Marathon. They helped me push through when, after eighteen kilometers of headwinds and incredibly tight hips, everything in my being was telling me that I should just quit and never run ever again. Instead, they allowed my feet to keep propelling me forward, and quieted the negative refrain inside of my head.

That following January, they were there again when I placed fourth in the Chilly Chase Half-Marathon. My Little Sister Melissa came out to cheer me on, and she spent the morning with Marc and his parents, as they chilly-chased me around False Creek and Stanley Park.

download_20150125_113301 — Melissa and I

In April 2015, I completed a long-standing life goal and ran the Hapalua Half-Marathon in Waikiki. My shoes were up with me at 4:30am as I trekked to the start line and nervously prepped for a 6:30am start. They were there as I poured cup after cup of water over my head in an attempt to cool myself against the ever-worsening heat of the day. They were there as the never ending hill between kilometers fourteen and nineteen ate my legs and left me for dead. They were there as I sprinted across the finish line and cried under the comforting shade of a nearby banyan tree.

10439390_10155639535800179_5571865280071216631_n — Hang loose shoes!

They were there when I ran my very first trail race last June and placed third.

11111128_10155870240270179_7364216653780990822_n — Irish Tom and non-Irish me

My shoes have been left at Sunshine Coast cabins and they have stunk up gym lockers. They have run in Halifax’s Point Pleasant Park and along the Toronto waterfront. They’ve bounded up steep forested trails and pounded long stretches of unforgiving pavement.

They have dried out over heating grates and in the searing sunshine. They have ground up Grouse Mountain and adventured all around Brooklyn.

This year they ran with me almost every day from January to May, as I trained for what would come to be the hardest thing I have ever done. They carried me 42.2 kilometers in 3:35: from Queen Elizabeth Park, to UBC, to Stanley Park, to downtown Vancouver. They watched as I flew, and as I broke, and as I broke through.

I really did think that I would throw out my shoes after the marathon.

My friend John urged me to get rid of them. A committed distance athlete himself, he was flabbergasted to know that I was refusing to part with them.

I calculated the rough number of kilometers I had completed with my shoes strapped to my feet.

Probably around 4,000 I wrote.

Get new shoes, was his reply.

But I didn’t. I kept running and training and pretending I couldn’t smell them on days when it rained.

Only this weekend, I finally acquiesced.

I ran a fifteen kilometer trail race in an absolute torrential downpour. My shoes, already hanging on by a thread, weren’t coming back from that morning’s trifecta of water, dirt, and no discernible and immediate drying method.

As a last gift to me, my shoes helped me place third in the race. Perhaps cognizant of their imminent demise, they gave me all that they had, one last time.

And I’d like to thank them for this. Thank them for all that they have given me over their almost two-year tenure in my life. For all of the love, grit, determination, happiness, incredulity, strength, and awe.

My next pair have a lot to live up to.

So they better use those 4,000 kilometers wisely.

Live Out There Exclusive: We’re off to the (trail) races!

While lately I haven’t had much time to sit down and write about my life here at Rant and Roll, I have been enjoying blogging at Live Out There. There, I about my life as an outdoorswoman and all of the ways I like to move my body in the wide world yonder.

What with my first trail race of the season coming up, I thought it fun to write about all of the reasons that I love running in the forest – and why you too should hit the trails! I’ve also included points on what to expect and how to prepare:

Last spring, after years of running on pavement, sidewalks, and urban parks, I tied up my laces, drove over to North Vancouver, and for the first time, ran Lynn Canyon. I had been to the park many, many times before, but only ever to hike Lynn Peak and its surrounding trails.

The impetus for this change? I had finally gotten Instagram (completely late to the party, yes) and the majority of the people I began following were trail runners (and very weirdly, stills from the show, Frasier.) Their beautiful captures (the runners, not Frasier) reminded me that we human beings should be running in the wilderness every chance that we can get.

Sure, there are many great reasons to race about our cities, but the unfettered beauty, quiet and calm afforded to us in the great outdoors – well, you really can’t do any better than that.

My first run was transformative. As I galloped up root-spackled switchbacks and bombed down steep wooden stairs I remember thinking, “I WANT TO DO THIS FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!”

Read on here.

I shall desire more love and knowledge of you

In Act Two Scene Seven of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, the melancholy Jacques begins his monologue with the line: “All the World’s a Stage.”

To this day, this is one of old Willy’s most famous and oft quoted lines and, of course, like so many of Shakespeare’s brilliant quotes, has become interwoven into our everyday parlance and vernacular.

Aside from humanity’s daily play-acting and always-dramatic machinations (think of how your “work” self might differ from say, your ‘home” self, as well as the ever-degenerating circus we like to call International Politics) there are many people for whom the world IS a stage, both personally and professionally.

I am of course speaking of thespians, or actors, or dramatists, or however else we (or they) would like to be classified.

Actors make us believe in make believe.

Through this proclamation – that all the world is a stage – they actually make us forget this (easily parodied but always present) reality.

This is one hell of a paradox, but is ultimately the magic of great theater (or cinema, or whatever other artistic medium a performance might take.)

Brilliant actors have the power to transform – not only as individuals on stage in character, but transform all of us who sit watching, entranced.

When I was in grade twelve I went to a production of the Daniel McIvor’s Marion Bridge.

For three hours I sat barely breathing, enraptured by three women who commanded the stage with such understated and yet overwhelming brilliance.

The play is about three Nova Scotian sisters – a nun, an actress, and a truck driver – who are all coming to grips with the sickness, and eventual death of their mother.

It is an uproariously hilarious and deeply devastating work of art.

Driving home with my then-boyfriend after the final curtain call I cried harder than I can ever remember crying up until that point in my life.

It was as I had stumbled upon and then cracked open a long-forgotten and deeply hidden store of unrelenting sadness.

When I think about that drive, all I can remember is the taste of my fat, hot tears, and the sensation of my deflated body wracked by a heart-shattered palsy.

My poor boyfriend just kept looking over at me and asking, “Are you alright?”

And while all of my answers were just different iterations of blubbered wails, all I really want to tell him was that I couldn’t be more right.

I was all right.

Second.

Of late, I’ve been moving. Gifted with an abundance of extra energy, I feel like an ever re-generating battery, charging about in search of my lost bunny ears.

This dynamism has manifested itself in early morning pre-work runs, and late-evening workouts (as I watch old episodes of QI on Netflix.)

Yesterday morning I ran the farthest I’ve ever ran in one outing – twenty-three kilometers. I recently signed-up for my first full marathon (Boundary Bay on November 2^nd) so I figured it’s time to stop faffing around and get serious.

I even fell at 12.5km, but picked myself up and carried on my way.

I want some serious mileage under my belt by the time that starting gun is fired.

(Because I secretly, though not-so-secretly, really, really want to quality for Boston at this race.)

However all of this activity can make it hard to find the quiet moments.

So I’ve been using these long training sessions to work on my ability to just “be” with myself.

I’ve been really trying to focus on this whole mindfulness thing.

I’m trying to be fully engaged – both mentally and physically. (Much like the aforementioned Jacques, only my wealth of optimism stands much less depleted.)

I’m trying to really feel everything.

Which is hard.

Third.

Dance parties ALL OF THE TIME.

Which is easy.

The sky’s the limit

Hey chickadees.

I cannot believe that it is already Friday. The mind boggles.

I took this snap of the sunrise yesterday morning:

I seem to have developed a rather large obsession with the sky, in all of its variations, which has manifested itself in an insatiable need to take dozens and dozens of photos of everything from mid-day cloud cover, to startlingly brilliant sunsets.

But in all honesty, my favourite will always be the sorbet coloured striations that divide up the early morning, and patch together the early evening skies.

Always.

Fry-Up Time!

Tom Hanks.

So I watched Sleepless in Seattle for the first time the other night and I have to say it wasn’t half bad.

Despite never really warming to Meg Ryan, I’ve always loved Tom Hanks – in particular 1980s/1990s Tom Hanks.

Sure, I haven’t been that a big fan of his work post-Y2K scare, but nothing will ever take away from the majesty of his early stuff.

(Except of course, for Joe vs. the Volcano. What broke acip trip was responsible for that hot mess?)

Erm, right. So what I’m trying to say here is that while I don’t go to see any of his newer stuff, I certainly do love to dip my toes in his more seasoned pool of material.

For instance, I always, always laugh my face off while watching The Burbs. Yes, I understand that this movie is completely daft and terrible, but nothing will ever stop me from falling over during the scene when the weirdo neighbours drive their garbage to the bottom of the driveway and anytime Mr. Hanks goes absolutely bonkers.

(Which is pretty much the entire film. See the below video for details.)

I will never stop laughing at pretty much every scene in Splash, I LOVE That Thing you Do (and still know every single word to that song), and A League of Their Own is, well, in a league of its own.

Remember kids: Avoid the clap.

It’s sound advice!

Anyways, I was thinking about ole’ Tom as the end credits to Sleepless were rolling, and I was trying to figure out what it is about this actor that I like so much.

M put forward the hypothesis that so many women (and dudes too) love Tom Hanks because he’s a normal human being. He’s not stereotypically “hot”; he’s not ripped, or suave, or an Adonis in human form.

He’s attainable.

Women (and men) can actually see themselves with him.

Men (and women) can see themselves being friends with him.

While I’ve never thought about Mr. Hanks this way, I can see his point.

However in my case, what really does it for me, is the fact that Tom is the absolute master of the hilarious angry yell.

Even when he’s pissed off, he’s bloody entertaining as heck. Seriously, check it out:

Ohhhhh, I die.

Next!

Elevated discourse.

So it’s no big surprise around here that I am massively in love with my cat and will pretty much do anything for her because of how nuts I am about her.

However, of late I’ve really started to notice just how barmy I sound when I talk to her.

(And just how barmy I sound even typing out those words.)

But it’s true. I’ll be walking around my house, jabbering on like a monkey in a tree, regaling Nymeria with details of my day, when I’ll just start telling her over and over again how beautiful she is.

Eventually I’ll transition to complimenting her on how good of a job she is doing of cleaning her paws, how awesome that last yawn of hers was, or how impressed I am that she jumped up on the windowsill with such grace and agility.

Sometimes I’ll just pick her up and do nothing save mutter “beauty cat” over and over and over again. (Sometimes for variation, I’ll make those words into some sort of three syllable nursery song.)

I’m seriously waiting for the day when she’ll turn, look at me and say, “Look lady, is it possible for you to stop talking to me like I’m some kind of simpleton?”

But until that day…

Ten kilometers go!

So I made the executive decision to sign up for the Fall Classic 10k race.

It’s on November 19^th, so it’s bound to be raining, and freezing – but I think I have managed to coerce a number of my amazing pals to also run, so I am really looking forward to a massive post-race hang-out fest.

(Hopefully somewhere warm, and dry, where people won’t be turned off by our non-stop laughter.)

When I signed up to race, I had to enter my estimated finish time, as the two individuals with the closest guesses will win a New Balance prize pack.

I submitted a conservative forty-two minutes, but I’m hoping to run it faster than that. However, I don’t know how the rain or cold will affect my race, so I figured I would rather be safe than sorry.

My comedic genius of a friend Alannah just entered: I’m done when I’m done.

Brilliant.

Also, I think she may have made herself an automatic shoe-in for the prize!

Humour and brains, folks.

Humour and brains.

(If I was a zombie, this is what I would put as my “ideal match” in the zombie classified ads.

…

So that’s all she wrote folks.

A very merry weekend to all of you fab chaps!

I hope it’s absolutely smashing.