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I finished up doing intervals (2) on the trail, walked through the parking lot, stretched my achin’ calf and achilles, turned to go and got blasted by the warmth of the sun. I stopped and took a breath and then another one. Felt the warmth spread through my body and bring me pause and silence. The years slipped away. And I found myself smiling foolishly at nothing in particular. “I know you, Rider” ( “…I have missed you while you were gone”- Grateful Dead) ran through my head. Not inexplicably, I felt great in that moment, for the first time in a long while – and I still do. 

Image Credit

Photos by Michael Lebowitz. All rights reserved.

I fell asleep last night while listening to West Coast jazz from the 50’s on Pandora, and then Van Morrison. I woke up hours later to Ben E King singing Stand by Me. I was a kid, a teenager, the last time that happened. Fall nights can be that way: sometimes magic, sometimes just a little bit sad, but not in a bad way.

I had a friend who had a great voice, and his particular sound had a Ben E King-like quality. He used to try it out in stairwells across campus and, later, in the New York subway system. Another friend once asked him to sing backup and harmony for him at a recording session for a demo single that eventually got picked up by a music publisher. My Ben E King singer friend never went to the session. For all kinds of reasons, none of which could ever hide his disappointment with himself. It became one of those “I was almost” a something or other. Maybe a “contender.” But in fact he had real talent, real in equal measure to his terror of failure or maybe, equally, of success, and so he never tried.

Over the years I have found that this story, or reference to it, just tires me out. We all have those stories, don’t we? There is a multi-billion-dollar industry built on self-help to “unlock what you might have had” or might “still discover.” I know I still have the sense that possibility in my life is not dead even though, lately, Death/Time, in its “winged chariot,” seems to be hovering near.

In retrospect I see that the things left undone, for whatever reasons, became fuel for my running. Showing up is a victory in itself; finishing is a bonus but not the only result. Finishing, for me, implies that there is yet again another hill to climb and “miles to go before I sleep.”

I wish that I had woken up, laced up, disregarded my back, and hit the street for a little run. But instead I wrote this and worked on the photograph that accompanies it. It was always clear that the song Stand By Me was a prayer of a kind, possibly to God and/or a woman or friend. But early this morning I heard it differently; I heard the singer asking that he might stand tall once more and do what needed doing. For a drifting moment in the darkened house, my home for many years, the singer’s voice felt like my own. 

Image Credit

Photo by Michael Lebowitz. All rights reserved.

Shot the Waldo 100k at Willamette Pass here in Oregon yesterday. I missed it last year due to bad health and atrial fibrillation procedures, but Matt Hagen, a good friend and a good photographer, stepped in and covered my butt. I am grateful to Craig Thornley and Meghan Canfield Arbogast, the fabulous RD’s who invited me back, and to Gary Breedlove, who helped me shoot the finish.

The shoot emptied my tank, if you will, but the day was beautiful, the runners inspirational as they embraced their personal pursuit of their hard earned dreams. I am grateful to all of them as they make these days what they are; their efforts encourage me every day to dream my own dreams and to “lace up and light out” in search of them.

With all of this “positivity” going on, though, why am a bit depressed, as if feeling the passing time in my newly awakened muscles and dreams brings on the inevitable wondering about the implied shelf-life in aging?

Oh well, tomorrow is another day and I will have things to do and promises to keep.

Image Credits

Photos by Michael Lebowitz. All rights reserved.

I have been going out on the local trails for my walking “training” – good for the heart, mind and spirit. Left Fox Hollow and headed over to Dillard trail head. Got distracted by a sharp left going downhill. Went downhill, but it was steeper than I am used to. Found a sharp right at the bottom of the trail and continued to go downhill. Eventually ran out of downhill and turned around; lesson #1: if it’s downhill all the way there, it is likely to be uphill all the way back.

Met Bruce and Janice, who between them are 170 years old and happy to be here. We walked uphill for a while and then Bruce, being 88, thought that he had had enough uphill for awhile. His week-old pacemaker told him that caution was the better part of valor. As they turned and came past me they asked after my parking situation and suggested that I follow them down to the Martin Street trail head and catch a ride up to my car.

Bruce turned to me and said as we drove off, “Young man, 68 is young, believe you me. It just keeps on getting better and better from here on out.”

Image Credit

Photo by Michael Lebowitz. All rights reserved. 

Was working working on my photo images and my galleries and thinking about my friends who are rolling through the heat of The Western States Endurance Run, a hundred miles of up and down with a couple of river crossings and summer heat.

I’m seeing lots of images of people i have come to know and respect.

Yeah, I’m glad it’s not me this year. I wish them the best ofeverything on this day: let them run long all the way to the end, run easy and, for goodness sake, let them get home safe.

Yeah, and I’m also kind of envious, a bit jealous, impatient/nervous to push my own recovery harder, and mostly wistful on a hot summer day.

Image Credit

Photos by Michael Lebowitz. All rights reserved.