Poof*

Some time in the last few months I stopped trying to convince myself of everything, and that has made all the difference. 2013 was supposed to be my year. Looking at the here and now, it certainly is. I feel blessed beyond anything I could have earned and excited about life in a most real way. I can't say exactly when it changed. On April 15th I walked away from Boston with weights around my ankles. I pulled a black cap over my head, tied my running shoes on for a trail marathon 6 weeks later, and then let myself forget that I love to run. The months between April and now were not a blur. I was very aware of my state of being.. of my lack of interest in people and ideas. Nothing made me calm except walking with E. I toyed with the idea of seeing a therapist, even made a phone call once, but work got busy and I got tired, and really, I didn't much feel like talking anyway. I walked 50 miles on Cape Cod in September. How amazing it felt to walk all day... to participate in an event rather than plan it, to be far from home among people with a purpose. I saw the ocean, got buzzed on limitless beer, called my dear Dandylion, and felt the fresh air saturating my lungs, washing my skin. I didn't notice that anything in particular happened, or that at a certain time something changed, but when I think back, the time between Boston and Cape Cod was one segment and the time after Cape Cod has been another. After Cape Cod we bought a house. We moved in. I planted garlic in my own garden, mowed my own lawn, felt myself sinking deeply into this thing called love, and loving it. I spent $70 on a pair of boots I have yet to wear and got my hair cut so I could sit and do nothing while someone else worked for me. I planned an executed a brand new event brilliantly. I looked at myself in the mirror and liked what I saw. Every now and again a piece of the past pops up, reminding me of who I was and where I was going. My heart stirs a bit and I'm confused and sad for the briefest moment. Not because I wish my life had taken another form, but because I still can't piece together exactly what happened, and because I know how confusing my life looks to the people who knew me then but don't know me anymore. I am happy now. I couldn't say that then. I am living instead of believing that one day my dreams would come true, the fairy tale would come to fruition. This is my fairy tale, and I'm not one bit disappointed. I need to read more, to work harder, to step back and look at my surroundings, see through people but also see them as they are. That's how I want people to see me - as a potent poof of the inexplicable, but also as a fact... as something solid and sure, because for the first time in my life, that's how I feel.

Cohiba

Days morph together and the never ending Spring threatens to spur forth Autumn whilst I rest in the whispers of Summer. There are thanks to be given, apologies to deliver, excuses to settle. I have yet to express my gratitude to the many people who supported my trip down Boylston St. I regret not doing so sooner, but I couldn't. I still don't think I can. I sat with my feet in front of me analyzing the paint wearing off the porch floor, the red ring forming in the bottom of my wine glass, the tiny leaves growing in the pots descending the stairs. My mind slowed as rain drops tickled the ground, clearing the air. Alone with my Cohiba, I settled, closed my eyes, realized the state of my soul now. I was overwhelmed with love, hurt, anger, excitement, thinking thoughts I just might vocalize if provoked, wishing very much for the external push to bring them forth, as though letting them out would satisfy me in some sickening way. I need to grow. Loving my job is not enough. I need to meet more people, teach myself and learn on my own time, push my physical, emotional, and mental limits and see what happens. Running is not enough anymore. Slowly I become more in control, more aware of my choices, of the passing minutes, the calendar pages turning. I feel capable and able - to succeed at another job, to take on a second job, to learn something I've always wanted to, like bar tending or real estate. But feeling able doesn't make anything happen. And oh, how I've enjoyed settling in to this life, getting to a place where I am calm, quiet, confident. Dissatisfaction produces change, and I'm so satisfied, so happy. This time the change needs to come from a need to not change my life or make something better out of what is already really great, but to continue to add to this life that is already beautiful beyond belief...

Chair Day - Post Boston Musings

This morning I stood for 10 minutes, turned to consider my stability ball in the corner, and have been sitting in this office chair ever since. I wrote the following two months ago: "I love that I have a job that I care about, a job that I lose sleep over, a job that, come May 6th, will have made me a new girl". The months between January and May changed me. I knew that's what they were doing while living them. I knew that when they were over I would sit down in a quiet, dark office to write this post and say that these months proved how hard I was capable of working, that I had never cared so much about a job, that I was tired and invigorated and grateful and overwhelmed and calm all at the same time, and that that combination is intoxicating. I also knew that when it was over, I would crash. Monday, April 15th changed me- The 117th Annual Boston Marathon. I was tired going in to the race, preoccupied with thoughts (and nightmares) of Walk MS, which would take place 3 weeks later. I failed at carbo loading, many thanks to my sometimes dysfunctional digestive system. And I was ready to go home before I even left for Boston. That being said, every marathoner who has a chance to run Boston, should. I am so glad I did. I am so glad I trained (and complained) my way through the cold, dark, miserable (get the point?) Upstate New York winter in order to run decently on race-day. If I run Boston again I will absolutely run for Boston Children's Hospital. I am amazed at the quality of the Miles for Miracles fundraising program and was so proud to be wearing their jersey on Marathon Monday. I re-qualified, should I desire to run in 2014, but honestly, I'm not so sure. It's not because of the explosions an hour after I finished and the chaos that followed, nor does it have anything to do with the challenges the course itself presents. Or... maybe it is. Maybe I'm tired of pounding my body into the pavement day after day, logging 65+ mile weeks, being famished all the time. Maybe I'd rather go for a walk and drink coffee in the morning with my most wonderful man than head out solo for an hour and a half run before work. Maybe watching the smoke and masses of people running in each direction from the 7th floor of the Westin and being left to find my way out of a city I did not know and was not safe in marred me in a way I have yet to come to terms with. What I do know is that I wanted to collapse into E's arms and be carried home to my bed the minute I crossed the finish line. I was done. The 20 minute walk to the family meeting area was more agonizing than the race itself. And when the event went from physically exhausting to emotionally and psychologically debilitating, the pain of realization and even understanding were at times too much for this one mind to hold. I crumbled in the most unexpected ways. I will not forget the feeling in the week that followed of being unable to wrap my brain around simple concepts, being brought to tears by too many people speaking at once, being distraught by fear and flashbacks.. and I was three blocks away. My heart goes to those who were en route to the finish line.. to those waiting there for their loved ones to run by. I cannot, nor do I want to, imagine. This wasn't going to be a post about Boston. It was going to be mostly about Walk MS and striving to meet goals and taking pride in what I do. It was going to be about things larger than myself that have shaped mere me. I still smell Boston. I feel the quiet and simplicity of the starting line, see the endless, encouraging people lining the streets, sense my brother suddenly by my side at mile 20. I was blinded by the sun as I turned the corner onto Boylston Street, knowing my parents were there somewhere in the crowd but unable to pick them out of the thousands of shouting, cheering voices. I crossed the finish line and wobbled to my right, bumping into a blonde haired girl and muttering something about it hurting more to stop. She agreed. I took a sip of water and my stomach tightened into a painful mess of "that's enough, get me out of here, please, no more". It felt like there were hundreds of people closing in on me, pushing me slowly through the chute: foil blanket, medal, photo, follow the signs to your parents and lover, just follow the signs, keep moving, if you curl up and cry now you'll never get there." And that was before it got intense. Dear Boston, I respect you. I appreciate what you do for people like me. But I've seen enough of you for awhile, and I can't say with certainty when I'll be back. This one is going to take some time to recover from. You are brilliantly vibrant, and you will bounce back and be better than ever, I am certain of it.. in fact, we will all bounce back, eventually. Some things just take longer than 3 hours and 26 minutes.

Year of the Snake

A bed familiar but not mine; Nostalgic. (Shh, don't tell!) His snoring keeps me on the outskirts of sleep as the sun reveals the promised new year. He cracks the window, letting the cold scrub us- between my toes, behind my ears, around my eyes, massaging my neck and back, Ah! All is sepia- the tree, the sky, the small flakes floating to the ground. It's 2013. It's my year. It's my year to rid myself of anger, jealousy, and bitterness, to enjoy the sun and the couch, to read books and absorb films, to nurture relationships and acknowledge my own needs. It's my year to run the Boston Marathon, to raise money for someone else, to see this new job through, to turn 26 (oh my!), to run an Ultra Marathon. I'll go to Europe. Perhaps reconnect with my Bulgarian love, Maria. Maria! I'll fight this anxiety caused by extreme changes over a few short years by realizing what I love and what I lack. I'll push myself to the core of my insecurity by asking who I am and who I wish I was, and "why"? And when I am forced to act in inexplicable ways, I will in turn force myself to be a part of real conversations with real words and concrete explanations for why I feel the way I do. I will speak. And perhaps I will stop being ashamed. I am proud to be a part of things that even some of the closest people to me don't understand, because these things are a part of me, and though I admit to my sometimes insane insecurity, I love being me. I run far because I love to. I believe in God because I've felt Him, and because I want to. I am with this marvelous man because I love him and he makes life better. I don't paint enough, or make enough music, or climb to a high place and watch the world below enough. But 2013 is my year: A rabbit in the year of the snake. Mine.

Monday night I pulled garlic from the garden. Moist dirt clung to my bare feet. I stopped thinking about the time, the other things I could or "should" be doing, stopped listening to the tension in my head that is always disputing and questioning the choices I've made that have brought me to this point. I washed hand-fulls of garlic in blue buckets of rainwater and then sat on a brick cutting the roots from the cloves, trimming the greens while E pointed out flowers from the brick beside me. We waited for something quietly. Calm. It is this peace that I've always been waiting for, always been looking for, always been drawn to. How strange that it should be the very thing which I disturb daily.

And I bake cookies for the warm, aromatic kitchen, and to lick the spatula

The leaves turned orange while I was sleeping. I haven't quite woken up yet, but when I do they'll surely be on the ground in thick, cold, sheets, wet with thick air, wreaking of snow. I pull myself into a ripped porch rocking chair too small for my body, open the bean trees and read for the first time in months. I am driving through Kentucky with a Cherokee child clutching my spare hand. I am driving illegal aliens to safety.. Life has slowed down. But what is more interesting is that I have slowed down. My insides are calm other than to burst with an emotion I cannot put words to. It happens when I crunch through the leaves, feel sun mix with October air, spot a dog smiling as he sniffs his way through the streets. It happens when I think about my Jenya, smiling goofily, happy just to see me. I've been "good" for a longer spell than I remember in the last years, maybe ever. I am aware of problems and darkness, both personal and worldy. But finally I am in a position where I am able to observe, realize, take steps toward change, and carry on. I say "omm" with the masses and Namaste.

Ahoy

We ate truly excellent sushi in a quiet restaurant with a cheap-sounding name. I was hot but happy and maybe cranky because my eyes were sinking into my face and my brain felt the tingle of a thing well beyond fatigue settling in. We held hands strolling into the glen. I took off my shoes and walked quietly into the water. There was nothing shocking, nothing dangerous. Quiet. Down one step of a waterfall. A doe in the greens beside the path, peering at us- fearless with dark dancing eyes. We were here a year ago, remember? When you met me in front of 7-11 in your car I was disappointed. I had pictured you walking through this part of the city you deemed sketchy in your sharp shoes and button-up, that goofy smile on your face as you saw me. But then there you were, cutting me off in your car just as I had begun to flow. Of course you wanted me to get in, which I did. But did you know I was upset? I felt wild for a moment, and I liked it. I folded fresh spinach into a slice of homemade pizza- sauce made in my food processor, basil plant now growing on my table- poured soy milk into my new tiny tall thin impractical free-at-a-garage-sale "mug", changed into as little clothing as I could rationalize, and floated onto the side walk, down the street, up that street, over this street. Through my city I walked, 94degrees and sunny. Happy as a hippo.. yes, a hippo! She sent me a letter talking about the big trees, finding her hiking legs, reading born to run and wanting to move. to move. to move. she's a mover too, you see. Some of us just are. It's in there and it does this thing- this swirling dancing jiving raging prancing laughing fantastic thing. My body became its own self and did something without my permission- it stopped. Stopped running, stopped moving, stopped minding. I know it will not last, but right now I rest with my babies beside me when typically my legs and mind would dash out the door in hopes of a few more strides, a few more gulps of outdoors before the day ended. I see my vibrant painting on the wall above the sink and I am reminded of something that passed through my mind a week ago while running in the grass beside the river- there is still nothing that can replace the presence of God in my life. None can argue that spiritually I am much different than I was just a couple years ago, but I'm realizing that there remains a place in me reserved for the presence of God. I find I thank him deeply and profusely, usually in my car at one particular traffic light on my way to work. Not by duty or by any conscious means, but by instinct. When I run into the ocean or the river I am enveloped in liquid and I morph into a being separate from the man-made world. I am a part of something so complex that my mind stops wondering and becomes. One. I love your eyes. I love when they dance- because the food is so good or the atmosphere is just right or the sun and the air are too perfect a pair to comment on. I love how you love me, how you've shown me what it is to give yourself so completely and honestly to just a few people whom you know are worth your time. I added a splash of tonic, an ice cube, and a hint of Cabernet to the rose we were sipping when you left, and now I'm sleepy and well beyond tired. And life is so, so great.

Wish you were here

It's not so hard to believe.

That I would sleep in Walmart parking lots wear the gray "A" every day for a year live successfully
out of my suburu was difficult to believe. This, this semi-normal life, is much easier on the mind
the numbers
that F word- (shh)
Future.
Pit cherries with my tongue while creating event codes in my cubical. Cover coffee stains with file folders and toss the dented scratched painted Sigg
in the trash. Pull a man whom I love very much into my neck, close my eyes,
breathe. Don't leave.
My first pair of minimalist running shoes lost their tread. I've turned the television on three times since October.
The coffee is very black. Parsley is in my lap.

There's a silence on this blog I am wanting to break. I've been afraid to share for fear of criticism.

But did you know-
My insides leap and still when I am with him. Not much else matters.
(so this is what it's like...)

[but then]

I sit in my window, drink raspberry vodka, watch the few late night wanderers on the sidewalk, and write wreckless e-mails to my traveling companion-

i cannot sleep. you're the only person in the world i would want to be with right now.

I rarely eat peanut butter and haven't made a batch of granola in months. It's still in me, and I'm still moving, but I've moved on.

In an attempt to play "catch up", allow me to say something as I said it in an email to a friend recently-

The thing you are seeking in 2012 is to find out who you are and really become that person.. fully alive. I've been on that journey for years now. I've been true to myself- not a set of rules, not a book, not an image of what the people around me would want me to be. I know what makes me come alive. I know when I'm doing something because it is something that is rising up from a place of raw truth within me and when I'm stepping into a motion simply because it's what I think I should do or what I think is expected of me and acceptable to those around me. I know that right now you don't approve of certain aspects of my life. But I can honestly tell you that right now I am being true.

We're all given different lives, different upbringings, different families, different gifts, different desires, wants.. how can we compare lives that are destined to be so different from the very beginning? And how can one life look at another and say "you're doing it wrong". My soul is different than yours. We've been exposed to different things. Maybe I've allowed my mind to wander too far, to question too much, to explore too fully.. or maybe I'm taking what I've been given, totaling every single conversation, voyage, experience of my short 24 years into something absolutely genuine and true to who I've become, not who I was. I can't be the girl I wanted to be when I was 13. Thirteen year old Kendra never expected to watch people shoot drugs openly on the streets of Camden day after day and to put those same needles in the trash when they were finished, to pioneer a movement of college kids to seek only the very heartbeat of Christ, to realize what fullness of LIFE really looked like in a third world nation of red dirt, bloated bellies, and rice. Thirteen year old Kendra didn't know she could live out of a backpack or in a trailer with 8 people, didn't know she loved mountains, didn't know she could sing. Thirteen year old Kendra didn't know what it was like to be in love.

Finding out who you are isn't a one time thing. I think that's the mistake some people make. They decide who they're going to be and then they become that person, only to realize once they're there that it's not at all what they want. If we're engaged with life, we're going to change. Life is going to change us. People are going to change us. At least they have me.

These days my life outwardly looks very different than it did just a few months ago. My thoughts are different, my mindsets are different, my conversations take different routes but my soul, oh my soul is the same. I feel it. It wiggles and turns and moans and stirs and dances and laughs within me, always, and it is the same. hah! How does this work.. that one can change so much but feel so much the same. It is this that tells me that I'm doing something right. When I no longer recognize myself, that's when I'll be afraid.


xo

Dear Jesus,

If I ask you to take me in, will you? If I ask you what it means to be taken in, will you tell me? If I ask you why I even care so much, what will be your response? With the help of a couple close friends I've decided it's time to communicate with you again. It will look like a discipline at first, I'm sure, but that's how many things begin. Just as it's time to stay in one place and allow myself the opportunity to realize that freedom might come just as fully in the form of solidity and assurance as it does in movement. That being said, last night as I ran into the darkness, past abundant fields and houses warm with light, the dampness of evening turning to night coating my skin, I was aware of how still my soul was. It was similar to the night I finished the sodus house. I walked into E's place and he held me and all was calm, which reminds me of the days I sprawl in the grass as far from people as I can get and stare at the sky or close my eyes and hear only the air as it brushes over my mind, cleanses my heart. There's a sense of calm that my insides notice as something unnecessarily rare, something powerful, something needed. I've found that stillness in different ways since I first met you. I've found it in the almost imperceptible pat of my feet along the ground as the miles tick behind me, I've found it in merging my days, nights, thoughts, ideas and desires with those of another individual, and I've found it in putting all thoughts of life aside and asking you to take me in.
People want proof. And you know God, I want to be able to give it to them. I want to be able to explain who you are, how I know you're the real deal, how it is that I'm certain that the power you hold can't be explained by something as obvious as the power that appears when any group of people join together to do anything at all. There is power in a group of people believing in something whether it's weight loss, environmental conservation, inner-city development, or God. People create movements. But I'm not looking for a movement. Not anymore. I'm looking for something real that I can carry with me into my real life filled with real people who do real things and laugh at real moments and struggle with real issues. I've tried yoga. I love it. But that point it brings me to is the same point I get to on a long solo-run, the same point I hit when I sense myself meshing seamlessly with another individual. I find myself muttering in another language, aware of every natural sound around me, unaware of traffic, unidentifiable people, tomorrows events or the structure I'm inside. The other things that set me free, they bring me back to you.
Yesterday Amy took my hand and dragged me to the top of a set of stairs leading to a church somewhere in South Wedge. She told me to pray. I couldn't do it. Not because I don't know how, but because I know how far too well. I could pray all day without stumbling or stuttering or pausing once. I don't want to know how to do this anymore, I want to be this. I don't want to read the right books, listen to the right music, say amen at the right times. I want to see you in my life in all your TRUTH with all the reality of who you are and what that can look like in THIS world. Maybe I've made so many mistakes I can't be forgiven and won't ever find myself on the same road I once sought. Or maybe I'm about to arrive at something even less understood than what I knew before. Maybe I'm about to be more me, more you, more alive than I ever have been before. That's what I want. But Jesus, I also want to be clean. So whatever that means, you have my permission: wash me, and please, please take me in.

When the Mountains Close

I've been sculpting an idea which has slowly turned into a plan since November 2010.
Step 1: go to Rochester, live with Laura
Step 2: get a job
Step 3: live simply and with frugality in order to pay off your student loans asap
Step 4: make a little extra money
Step 5: September 1, 2011: embark on a one month odyssey in the Adirondack Mountains. Alone.

Today is Thursday, September 1, 2011. The air is thick and cool following a morning thunder shower. My foot aches from stepping on a nail yesterday afternoon while running from the noise in my head. I swear I can smell the grass, sweet and bitter, dirt mixed with dew, clorophyl covered in raindrops. If not for the lightness of the sky and the coffee by my side I would believe the crickets that dusk is falling and night is almost come.

I'm more than 250 miles from the Adirondack Park with no plans for departure.

People change, sometimes, without realizing it. One morning you wake up no longer wanting to be a teacher, a student, a mother. Maybe one day you crave spinach at every meal when the day before just the thought of anything green drove you to the candy isle.

A month ago I took a shower, forgetting to bring clean clothes in from my trunk before I got in. Dripping and dazed, I walked across the gravel to my car, feet bare, wrapped in a towel that wasn't mine. I popped the trunk and stared- a mass of colored fabrics lay in a heap, nothing to distinguih the worn from the unworn except memories in the form of snapshots of where I'd been, what I'd done. I took clean underwear from the cardboard box to the right and a new rubber hairband from the box to the left. I grabbed deoderant from the center console, flipflops from the passenger side floor, browning bananas from the back seat. Before getting dressed I lit incense, turned on Paul Cardall, and washed the dishes in the sink. I put away the jars I brought in from my car in a Gevalia box the night before- soynuts, muesli, honey, peanut butter, organic animal crackers, and started a loaf of bread in the bread machine.

I want a home. I want to retrieve my underwear from a drawer. I want to make you cake and hot cocoa, tea and cookies, potroast and venison stew. I want to be missed when I'm not at church on Sunday morning. I want to find six people to help me move a free piano into my own place.

Place. I want a sense of place, my own place, a sense of purpose, a meaning other than watching numbers grow and checking off adventures. The thoughts of signing a lease, taking a job, moving a bed into a building scare me. The fear is real, but it's smothered in excitement, anticipation of what might happen if I dare to create a place for roots to sink...
it's been years; it's been too long.