Writing – Page 4

Morning Wood

January 5, 2011 By longrun 2 Comments

I lay back on the soiled sheets and rearranged the pillows. The pillowcases needed to be washed. The room was grey with careless use, our sweat still fresh and the sheets damp beneath me.

“Hey, man,” she said again, leaning back to stare at me with her dark brown eyes, eyes dark like her hair, wet and wild, eyes deep, masked, like the shaded trout pools on the North Bank.

“Yes,” I said into her silence, the silence of the not-still-young, a silence which ran like a river beneath the fast chat and the joke lines, the riffs of a private vernacular, a silence of frustration and anxious grief for nameless losses.

“Hey, man don’t be sad, okay? Older guys, afterwards, you know, they get down. I don’t like to see guys sad after we fuck. It makes me blue,” she said. She sounded lonesome, like November morning rain among the sycamores along the river.

“You don’t make me sad,” I said, not telling her that where she was is sometimes sadder than any middle age, that she made me feel old, older than the mountains, more ruined than the clear-cut sitting jagged on the sunburned slopes outside the windows; not saying that her life was full, and still in front of her, that the heartbreak and loss that was coming was like nothing she had ever seen, that her laughter and her stories of people I would never meet, never play cards with, released me from the dark tunnel of my own journey here but they also brought a boxcar of regret, a wind rent with lost voices and restless souls, all of it real for me in the hollow light of countless broken mornings.

“It’s been too nice a day to be blue,” I said.

“Great,” she said, sadly.

And if I could have done it I would have lifted her in my arms, she as light as a bundle of dried blackberries. I wanted to break the spell, to heave her into a creek somewhere, to shout and splash water happily, to find some quick irony with which to resist, to overcome.

She looked over at the clock, almost apologetically. It was almost always apologetically. When she turned back it took a second or two for her to be back in the room.

“You’re crying, you old goat,” she whispered sweetly, almost happy.

“Maybe I’m still high.”

“You’re not still high; you’re crying.”

“Maybe so, but I ain’t fuckin’ blue.”

Photo Credits

“Women and Sand” by Michael Lebowitz

Dancing After Midnight

November 20, 2010 By longrun 3 Comments

A man meets a woman and writes a poem. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

When I got to the bar it was nearly empty. The usual? Yeah, I said, a draft and a Jack back. An old bartender once told me that it was a man’s drink so that’s what I’ve ordered ever since. I suppose I like how it sounds. Sometimes it makes me feel like I’m starting out for the first time.

It’s past midnight now and I’m coming down the stairs, tapping out a hopscotch memory, just tapping to beat all.

Rebecca saw me tapping and she laughed. She told me, when I asked her, that she was here with her partner, she told me she wanted to be a photographer. Why not, I thought. If she specialized in self-portraits she could make a good living.

Something about her reminded me of a photograph I once saw of a dusty Guatemalan hill town. The photographer was looking at the church at the end of the dirt road. The setting sun, caught at the edge of the frame, lit the bell tower like fire against the night sky. What held my eye though, were the two figures embracing in the recessed doorway of a flowered garden wall. It appeared they were local kids hiding out, stealing a kiss. Maybe they were talking about times to come. It was the kind of photograph that Neruda wrote.

Steely Dan played something about reeling in the years and for whatever the reason I reached my hand out across the bar and Rebecca and me, we started dancing. We laughed and then we did it some more. On the way home, I noticed that the trees were turning green.

I wrote this poem later that night. I told my friend Peter about it. In fact, I read it at an open mike poetry reading at the bar a couple of nights later. When Rebecca found out about it she was furious. Peter’s girlfriend told him that Rebecca felt violated.

I guess romance is best left to the Guatemalans.

Photo Credit

“the Loving -renegade- @Flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.

Tarmac Meditations…Lessons I Learned at Marathon Camp Redux

November 18, 2010 By longrun 1 Comment

Marathon Camp Lesson No. 1…Run for an hour. Turn your hat backwards. Follow the moon home. Wash your face with cold water. Do crunches for four minutes like Coach told you to, 40 years ago. Do 20+ pushups. Eat toast, drink coffee. Go to a meeting. Do it again tomorrow. Life is where you find it. Life is what you make of it. “Welcome to the mountain. If you love mushrooms you are already a billionaire. ” Sakai said that.

Marathon Camp lesson No. 2…Run more. Facebook, Twitter, ESPN? Less. Rest, eat some good stuff, sleep and then get up and run again. Keep an open mind, open clear eyes, trust your pure heart. In other words, run daily, run slowly, don’t eat like a pig. Equally, relax and keep paying attention. Ernst Van Aaken said that, with a little help from Roger McGuinn.

Marathon Camp lesson No. 3…Pain is nature’s way of telling you to stay the hell in bed, get some rest, use ice, elevation, vitamin I (Ibuprofen), watch movies, read a book. Or maybe, get the hell up, do the run, the situps, the pushups, eat something, go to work. I suppose one could do both, in reverse order. Or not. Maybe the best approach is to walk slowly in a circle, and think about everything. Or not

Marathon Camp Lesson No. 4…Go out before daybreak. Start at bottom of trail. Turn hat backwards, turn on headlamp. Walk slowly. Pick up pace as muscles loosen. Pump elbows, breath in, breath out. Follow the trail. Avoid the glittering eyes in the trees. At the top, turn off your headlamp, lower your voice. Gaze at the stars. Pause. Turn on your headlamp. On the downhill, stretch it out, let it rip. Breathe deeply. In. Out. Smile. Everything is possible.

Napa 2009 Memory…A steady rain falls over the hills east of the Silverado Trail, an augury of the internal storms to come for those here to run the 31st Napa Valley Marathon. Cold, wet, tired, migrained, 62, I am at a start line after an absence of three long years. The rain seems a messenger from on high, cleansing the earth, the road ahead, readying the bodies and minds of the faithful for the task at hand.

Marathon Camp Lesson No. 4.5…Whip 2 eggs, 3 cups of skim milk, 3 cups of oatmeal, cinnamon to taste, 2 tbs sugar…preheat oven to 350, bake until done. Taste and refrigerate until morning or the midnight creepies, which ever comes first. Homemade carb loading after midnight. How cool is that?

Marathon Camp Lesson No. 5…1/2 bagel with PB. 1/2 banana. Water. Gatorade. Walk to a start line. Clear mind. Start slow, find your pace, look around. Lean on the final turn, keep your head up, eyes clear. Get a medal and some food. Look for a smile and a hug. A 1/2 marathon is not half of anything really. It is a full 13.1 miles. Later, when the road shows no sign of the race, embrace the idea, the reality, that the memory will last your lifetime.

Marathon Camp Lesson No. 6…Thomas Wolfe of “Look Homeward Angel” wrote that he would “…go up and down the country/and back and forth across the country/…go out West where the States are square/…go to Boise and Helena and Albuquerque/ I will go to Montana and the two Dakotas/…the unknown places.” Unknown places in the heart, a cadence of breath and footfall; the miles unwind, mind clears; all there is left is the doing.

Marathon Camp Lesson No. 7…How will I be humbled today? It is difficult when it is difficult because it is supposed to be. The lesson is that water wears away the hardest stone by flowing around it and over it; so, too, I get where I am going by yielding and continuing on at the same time. There is exhilaration, relief that the hard part has arrived. Now it is my time to find out what there is to find out on this day.

Marathon Camp Lesson No. 8…We do not often speak of the Wall, of leg cramps, hunger, rain, or hills in reverent tones. In each of us lives a desire to be challenged, to keep on, to stay in when the road gets hard. Without the difficulty, the victory over distance, of self over self, is harder to calculate, harder to embrace. It is harder to cherish, harder to keep shiny for the moments when things get lost and life gets away.

Marathon Camp Lesson No. 9… My magic mystical tour of the marathon has given way to a recognition that a run is just that, a run; train for it, run it. To carry the weight of recovery, of failed dreams and self image is way too much. 26.2 miles brings one to one’s knees no matter who they are; it is a humbling exercise in reality, in acceptance. It is less about will power and guts and more about being present with who we are in that moment.

Marathon Camp lesson No. 10…Take a step. Take another step. Repeat.

Napa 2009 Memory No. 2…By late afternoon there was no evidence of the 2,500 runners and volunteers. No paper cups, no Gu packages. The sun came out and by nightfall the Silverado Trail was dry. The next morning all that remained was local traffic and the faint sense of something that had happened here. It, too, would be washed away by the morning rains, falling light upon the vineyards whose bounty was still months away.

The Golden Hills Trail Marathon 2005

November 16, 2010 By longrun Leave a Comment

November 16, 2010

I was reading a piece at La Sportiva Mountain Running and it brought to mind my own experience at Golden Hills. As hard as it was then, it seems like it would be impossible now. When I was finished reading “pantilac’s” article i went into the archives and found the piece below. Better than I remembered it being, it also told me to stop thinking about “can’t”, to start thinking again about “can and will” and to lace up and get out the door. Inspiration is where you find it I guess.

October 16, 2005

I wrote what follows as a kind of report on the race for my running buddies. Going out now to look at Ipod Nano’s which I swore I would buy for myself if I ever crossed the finish line. I like the black ones…

The Golden Hills Trail Marathon 2005

or, it’s soooo beautiful … will this race EVER frickin end?

Yesterday’s Golden Hills Trail Marathon was the toughest ever for me. Toughest race, toughest run. All hills, no flats, including the five mile uphill from the start, the numerous valley descents followed by the numerous, Oh god not another one ascents and the extraordinary beauty of the redwoods and the burnt brown summer hills in the distance. All redwood and pine, endless valley hillside vistas, and up and down. Unbelievably beautiful and not so easy to run, at least for me. The winner of the fifty mile did it in seven hours so maybe he found it more to his liking or maybe he is a creature from another universe…I quit half a dozen times including going to one of the race people at 15 miles and telling them I was out of the run. There were no cars to get me to the finish so I had to walk to the next aid station where there would be cars. I walked, ran with a 75 year old veteran of 200 ultras and marathons, Dick Laine. He had dropped out of the fifty miler at 42 miles and had to walk to the lake to get home. Dick has that “spirit”, youthful and alive, aware of the possibilities that things would change as they always have and that he would be there with them so long as kept putting one foot in front of the other. He agreed with me that dropping out was ok, calling it a good training run and getting on to the next. At the next aid station there was a tall thin guy named Ken who asked me what was wrong, so I told him about the cramps and the spasms and the throwing up and then I started to tell him about the bad stuff. He looked at me and said, have one these potatoes with some of that salt and drink some and see how you feel. He walked with me a moment and said, that will take care of the cramps, here are some salt pills with stuff, some advil and don’t stop moving around until you decide to drop out! I asked how far to the end he told me it was nine miles. As I turned to go I heard him say run a little, walk a little, or more if you have to and have some more potato and salt at the next station. And drink. And then he smiled broadly, nodded his head, gave the runner finger waggle salute.

I heard him tell another volunteer to call in and say that 528 was back in the race. It wasn’t easy from there but it worked out.
I met Dick again on the trail, (could not figure out why he was there and not at the lake… and wound up helping him get down a particularly steep descent. His leg had stiffened up so badly that he nearly fell with nearly every step. He put his hand on my shoulder and we got down the hill. I asked him if he needed me to stay with him and said, no Michael, I’ll make it from here. Good to see you back in the run. Go get it kid! I hit it as hard as I could then and laughed out loud. Kid!

I finished in some ungodly slow time(I shut my watch off at 6:30) but I ran it in at the end, wasn’t the last runner on the course, either the marathon or the fifty, and got the congratulations of the folks who had been out there on the day. Got the coffee mug. Got the tee shirt. I realized on the drive home that Dick, who had won his age division(60+) at the 1990 Western States, had not quit either, that life was what you made of it, and that he would finish and go home and start again today, despite saying earlier on that he had got to the end of the running thing, that this was likely his last go round. I am just now feeling the accomplishment and of course the pain. Ken (maybe Ken Gregorio) turns out to be maybe a big time ultra runner, a hero to a lot of people I was told when I asked. Could be, he seemed to know, to be part of it in a fundamental way. He doesn’t know my story but he added something of value to it … the right guy at the right time with the right stuff, he gave me what was needed and acknowledged without words, by demeanor and action, that I wasn’t too old, too tired, too wore out with the all and everything of life in addiction; that recovery, one foot in front of the other and the help of some good people would make the difference. I don’t think the race was a parable per se but…

It’s tomorrow now, my legs are sore, my insides a jumble and I could use another two days of sleep. On the other hand the sun is coming up over the western ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains and the waves are breaking big down on the beach and I am lacing up my shoes for a walk in the brand new morning. Can’t beat it, no how, no way.

Mandy’s Tune

November 9, 2010 By longrun 2 Comments

“Now you know what it’s like to get f–ked for money.”

This, left on the answering machine. I guess she means the eighteen hundred bucks for rent and cable to start clean and stay clean. No such luck — she’s off the wagon now, tricking again, heading back to the outskirts of hell.

No one is spared, rich or poor, abused or shallow, broken hearted or holy. The party keeps going, there is always more.

You can hear the city whimper. Another day breaks to a rollin’ steel rhythm, a last minor chord. One more morning with the “can’t get no more, answer the f–kin’ phone” blues.

My city is dying from the inside. The suburbs keep sending the brightest and the best to fill in the ranks. Nobody knows nobody or so they say. The smoke rises, the bodies break, the hometown football warriors, the homecoming queens become ghosts. The war on drugs is just about over. All that remains is the body count and next week’s order.

“You ain’t no addict til you got no dough…”

Aloof, with their blond hair and empty eyes, they were hard muscled, lithe, gymnasts or dancers, before it all changed. Crack, strawberry licorice, cheap whiskey and salesmen from out of town become the daily protocol. The once hard bodies are now host to cold eyes and colder hearts.

_______________

God appears to the broken and the worn and offers his only answer. Faith is what is needed. Faith? they say, You want faith? Just go down the stairs and give the dude on the corner a twenty. Come back up here and we’ll cook that shit. Do you know the dude? No, but I hear he’s got good stuff. These soldiers of god have been on the road to paradise since the day they quit tenth grade and took up residence on the sidewalks, in the doorways, in the cheap hotels, seeking out the holy rock, crack cocaine.

Innocence dies but the body carries on, crumbling to the unsteady beat of a broken heart. Dreams die hard out here. The dead are the lucky ones.

On the stroll the nightly litany begins, “Hey mister…”

One day they start showing the client the ropes and before the sun rises on the next day these beautiful and not yet broken dream queens find their fates. Suck it in slow, steady. Puff, twist the pipe, Pull, long, slow. Get it, hold it. Eyes closed. Lean back. Count to five, let it go. Blow it out, the rush begins.

It’s all high speed, everything moves in slow motion. The streams of blue smoke fill the room. Watch for the small smile, the uncurling, lengthening bodies ready to catch the light, feline, predatory, at the top of the stretch. Her eyes find yours. Relax, she says.

I don’t why I do it. I hate it…Pass me the pipe

The armies of the night take in a new angel of death. Before their twenty second birthdays they have the certain knowledge that the only heaven they will ever know is the kingdom of the fallen children of a merciless god.

You never know when the phone will ring.

Hey, you busy?

No, but I don’t have any dough.

Got any product?

No.

I’ll see you in twenty minutes.

_______________

What do you give the man who has everything, they say. Give him a crack pipe for Christmas. Next year he will have nothing and he will want everything.

Look into their eyes, feel a graveyard wind. Behind ice cold gaze you see them kneeling down in desperate prayer, lost daughters, children, dreaming of proms and homecoming; wanting to go home despite the long worn out hope that one day they will be released.

Will you stop all this lying?

No.

You will be dead in three months if you keep hitting it this way.

I know that, she said.

Photo Credit

“Strung-out” AbigailGeiger @ Flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.