First Conversation

I have not had many experiences in life where my first conversation with someone was a one-on-one conversation that lasted almost and hour and seemed almost effortless.  

The only reason it didn't go on longer was that I had other things on my to do list.

The only real effort was keeping warm as we sat in the Whole Foods with my drinking drip coffee during the conversation.

But even though we were only e-introduced before the conversation it just goes to show how much having shared interests can lead to interesting conversations from the start.

Knowing people who overlap.  Having been places that overlap.  And both being running, Baltimore, public health, volunteering, and Back on My Feet enthusiasts.

It simply shows the importance of connections.  The connecting of dots that I do every day.  The connecting of dots between people.  All part of a larger pattern of how life fits together.  

And it was fun.

If you'd asked me two-thirds of a lifetime ago how important it is to get to know new people this way I would have simply said, "I don't know.  I don't think it is important." 

But today, the importance of others is more clear to me than ever.  I hope it is a lesson that the young man who spoke out in an after mass meeting of families last week at Church can learn some day.  He is not alone.  There are people like him.  There are people who like him.  There are people, in fact, who love him and care about him deeply.  And someday he will appreciate that he is not an island.  I surely appreciate that in ways now that in my teenage, pre-Confirmation angst I never would have recognized. 

This morning I chose NOT to run

This morning I chose not to run.  I was ready to.  I had gotten up very early.  I had done more than an hour of work.  I had calculated that today would put me over 1500 miles for the year.  I had made buttermilk biscuits.  I had told the dog she could wait until I got back.

But I chose not to run.  

And even non-running days are part of the spiritual pilgrimage that I am on.

Why?

Because two and one-half weeks ago when I chose to run despite having a million things on my mind I ended up falling and having to wear a wrist brace for four weeks.

So, today, when I was taking the buttermilk biscuits out of the oven, I set them on the stove.  Problem was, they were too close to the edge.  Potholder hanging on a hook near the stove.  Hook was upside down.  Tipped the potholder.  Down it fell onto the pan.  Using a lightyweight metal pan rather than stone, it tipped and flipped all 20 biscuits onto the floor.  The dog got a treat.  I was almost ready to cry.

Why?

20 biscuits.  Not the greatest thing but not the end of the world.

But it was after a very long day.

The day was great for most of it.

I started with a 12 mile run with three friends.  Met one on the way.  Picked up her and she was surprised that I had a country music station on.  Got out of the car at my office building and ran through down town, up to Charles Village, across to Lake Montebello, and into vairous sections of east Baltimore.

Great run.

No mass this Sunday morning as I had gone on Saturday.  That day, one of the readings was Rom 13:8-10.  In reading this, where Paul summarized basically all the commandments that focus on how to treat others (as opposed to those that focus on our relationship with God), I realized that there is at least one thing I share in common with him.  Connecting the dots.  Seeing the relationship among the others-oriented commandments and saying "Love your neighbor as yourself."  It's that simple.  That is my kind of thinking for how to connect dots and nourish my soul.

We also had our annual block party yesterday.  And while I was just as happy for much of it to peopel watch and listen to good music, I did enjoy talking with several neighbors and eat good food.  

We also had the ice hockey kickoff celebration.  That was a lot of fun.

But two things were on my mind from yesterday.  First, my long time training partner thinks that she might be hanging up the running shoes.  I say thinks because it is hard to tell when a person is truly done.  But she has had so many injuries that just never seem to end that she is ready to be done.  We will see.  I know how much it is a part of her identity.  When that is true, it is hard to part with an activity.  

Second, a runner I'd just met this summer lost her life in a motorcyle accident yesterday.  She had run 50 races between her 49th and 50th birthdays.  Amazing and positive person.  Known to many in the local running community.

Two running losses.  One closer to me given how long I've known the two individuals.  One more immediate in terms of the total loss.

Those were on my mind.  Maybe they contributed to losing the biscuits as well.

But one way or another, it was clear that my mind was not 100% on running.  

So I chose not to run.

So, the dog got two treats this morning--my homemade biscuits to eat and an extra long walk where I didn't even take my cell phone with me so I could just focus on being safe.

Tomorrow I will run again.

There will be many days for me to run again.

And I will respect my training partner and friend most by running--and celebrating what we all love.  Even though at least one and possibly both will never celebrate that for herself again.   

A Week of Running Brings Me to "Potato" Lake

Since my last blog, I have run an additional 47 miles making 60 for the week—my second longest running week ever.  At this point, I will rest tomorrow, run 35 in the coming week, and be ready for Philly training to officially begin on July 7.  With those 47 miles, I have now gone 1047 miles total.  On my virtual pilgrimage from Baltimore to New Mexico (2000 miles of running for the year) I find myself on Missouri Route 254 near Pomme de Terre Lake.  For those who might now know, Pomme de Terre translates from French to potato in English.  So, there is a "Potato" lake in Western Missouri.    

The week of running has included an easy 4, 7 on the track including 8x800 with the pace starting at 3:26 and coming down to 3:03.  Then all purpose mileage runs of 7.7, 7.5, and 5.8.  This morning, I rand 3 by myself (starting at about 5:35) and then 12 with my running partner.  15 is the second longest distance I have run this year.  While I had my stopwatch going for the three alone to make sure I got back to the meeting place in time, I turned my stopwatch off when I met my friend.  We ran from the approximately half mile point where the parking lot is to the zero mile marker, up to the six mile marker, and back without looking all that much at my watch even to see what time it is.  We spent a lot more time talking than normal as well as meeting many old friends from a training group we were once both part of.  It was a "timeless" run but certainly not purposeless.  The conversation was a good one this morning and made the 12 miles together go by quickly. 

The term Pomme de Terre is an interesting one.  As mentioned above, it translates to potato.  The literal translation is “apple of the earth.”  Even that indicates that it is a bit more complex than meets the eye.  Apple and potato.  More than one type of food mentioned even in the name and translation.  It shows how complex a food can be.  It shows that there are aspects beyond what meets the eye. 

Running is sort of like that.  It is an activity that just involves putting one foot in front of the other—again and again.  Simple, right?  Well, no.  There are hills.  There is the weather.  There is how many miles I ran earlier this week.  Or last week.  There is pacing.  There are track workouts.  There are intervals.  There is tempo running.  There are progressions.  So many choices.  Running is a pretty complex activity. 

Runners are complex people.  What motivates them?  I wrote about this in social media earlier this week, but it made a big enough impression I think it deserves another mention here.  I saw a woman who was clearly overweight running up Charles Street on my way home from my optometrist appointment on Wednesday afternoon.  It was hot. She looked like she was struggling.  I have to be honest.  I half wondered, “Why?”  (Although I often wonder why anyone wants to run in the afternoon.)  But then I thought, “No, I should compliment her.”  I could have honked and given her a thumbs up but that is difficult when coming up from behind a runner.  It may have distracted her or me.  And each could have led to an accident.  So, I didn’t do anything.  But the fact that she was there made a STRONG impression.  It was great that she was making an effort.  It was great that she was trying to make herself better.  It was amazing.  And I thought—that is something to live up to.  Not something to wonder about.  She is doing exactly what we tell people to do.  Make themselves better.  Have a plan for wellness.  Be strong.  That was all coming out in what she did.  Yes, she was "complex" in the sense of not clearly always being one who seemed (from outward appearances) to take care of herself.  So what got her exercising?  I will never know.  It may be the most complex story in the world.  It is her story.  And I have to respec that. 

Finally, I remind myself that everyone has their complexities.  Many of us try to maintain an image.  Married life is good.  Career is going well.  Especially for those of us on social media—yes, we will post about deaths or negative elements of our lives that can’t be denied. But most posts show amazingly positive lives that probably can’t possibly exist.  Yet, when you get underneath—wash the dirt off the potato and peel it—you quickly find that there is a lot more there.  Blemishes.  Eyes in the potatoes.  Things that can’t be seen from the outside.  Things that would remain otherwise hidden.  But things that define the potato.  Over the past year, I have found that many of my friends and acquaintances have a lot more going on below the surface than I ever imagined.  Or than they typically talk about.  For all those friends who have questions of the heart, questions of the soul, or questions about their core values that they hide from the world and keep inside, I offer a thought, a prayer, a hope that they will find their issues settled so that their lives may come closer to the image of a good life that we all maintain.  And though the journey may be difficult, may they find their way and come out better on the other side even if their lives continue not quite to measure up to our ideal images.  

It is amazing sometimes how my mind wanders from one topic to another and while I start talking about potatoes, I end up talking about questions to our core values.  Connecting the dots.  Noursing the soul.  

Family is People You Share Food with on a Regular Basis

Last night, I wrote a post about my social media family. I described family as: 

It includes blood and marriage of course. And immediate family are the people I cherish most in the world. But family here is the people I share with and who choose to share with me each day.

My friend, Alex, then posted:

I was in a community once that defined family as people that you share food with on a regular basis.

This was an interesting premise to learn about.  It got me thinking. In the traditional sense of a community, this would make a lot of sense. What would it mean to an electronic or virtual community? I wrote that perhaps if we adapted it to say "food for thought" or "pictures of food" it would work.

While this is an interesting adaptation of what Alex said, I wanted to spend some time thinking about why sharing food on a regular basis would make family by choice.  This is particularly interesting in light of some recent posts about blended families being families by choice and what the implications of families by choice would be.  

We can start with the obvious.  Family is about sharing.  Not only food, of course.  Although perhaps the earliest versions of family were mostly about sharing food-at the bottom of Maslow's triangle.  The most basic need.  With whom do we share when we are worried about taking care of our most basic needs?  The people we care about most.  Family.  At that point it was about survival.  And if we want to get biological-it was not only about our own survival or the survival of the species but also about the survival of our DNA once children were involved.

In this day and age, what does sharing food bring out?  Well, food brings our conversation.  When humans moved from just sharing whatever they already had to planning ahead, people could have been discussing strategy for the next hunt. Today, conversation could be about what was good in the day.  About what was bad in the day.  About the bigger picture.  About how each of us and the family unit as a whole fit in with the bigger picture and something bigger.  Spirituality.  Much higher on Maslow's triangle.

Why does it bring this out?  Well, I believe that truly sharing food doesn't mean just leaving a pot of something on the stove that everyone can grab a plate of when they get a chance.  Truly sharing means stopping and sitting at table together.  It makes us slow down.  It means we spend time in one place.  Around one table.  Focused.  Together.  Being a part of something bigger.  If we give a completely secular interpretation to "whenever two or more are gathered in my name" and just write "whenever two or more are gathered" I begin to recognize that there is something to that.  

In a world of friends separated not by the next cave, next house, or even next community over but by hundreds or thousands of miles, we can always gather at table.  But there are other ways to gather.  

I find that sharing pictures of food speaks volumes.  It speaks to how I (or anyone else sharing such a picture) likes to put time into our cooking.  Cares about our cooking.  Cares enough about our cooking to do something more than just a TV dinner for our family.  Cares enough to share it.  Some might say, show off rather  than share but I think it is about having other people be interested and thinking about whether they would ever make the same thing.  What they are going to make for dinner tonight. Sharing our inner workings as it really matters.  And sharing what is important.

Finally, sharing food for thought.  For me, it means I take the time to write.  For those who are part of my "Connecting the Dots" family it means taking the time to read what I have written.  The time to think and write, and time to read and think, is a reflective process that fits well with the sharing that could occur around a table with family (in whatever sense of the word) and food and drink.  It is an synchronous sharing relationship, but it is still a sharing relationship.  An online family.

It doesn't mean that a virtual family (even one centered around thinking) could ever replace a real family.  A family of people you can walk next to, sit next to, hug, and look at.  But it does offer a way of extending family.

And for that, I am grateful to have learned about my friend's community's interpretation of family. 

40 Days to Better: Day 10

On Monday, when I wrote about distractions, I wrote the following:

"Avoid being distracted from my focus on my marriage.  Nothing--not my running, not my best friends, nothing should distract me from that."

As part of my "road to better," sometimes what I need to do is think harder about past statements and work to clarify when necessary.

The statement that I made after my run on Monday could be taken as a statement against the importance of friendship.  But that would be about as correct as reading last Sunday's Catholic church gospel reading (Luke 14:25-33) where it talks about hating your father and mother (and many other family relations) to be a disciple.  That Gospel reading is never interpreted literally in my experience.  It is about putting discipleship first--and then making sure that the rest of life fits in.

That, putting marriage first and avoiding distractions, was what that part of my blog entry Monday was about after my rant about distracted driving.

What is also interesting to me is showing how this fits with a friend's recent comment (I always like connecting dots in my life--thus the name of the blog site).  My friend commented that in the most recent part of her life she has made sure to surround herself with friends who value her opinion.

I think that avoiding distraction (particularly to things like marriage, fitness, and work) is about surrounding myself with individuals who support my pursuits.  So, my comment on Monday should not be taken to say "ignore friends" but instead should be taken to say "surround myself with friends who support the importance of my marriage."  That, I have done.  In fact, I can honestly say that it would be a challenge at this point to describe just how important being surrounded by friends who support my marriage is--as I was able to turn to many when my life was chaotic after I first moved into my new job in April and my life and marriage were stressed.  With the support of many friends, the patience of my wonderful wife, and effort from me and Sherry, we are moving forward in a very positive way.

While this would be an acceptable place to finish the thought on this blog entry, this brings me to the first of several pieces of wisdom from Fr. Sam Lupico from a catechist workshop that happened on Sunday.  His piece of wisdom was from an old Latin phrase that he used to teach but I don't recall the Latin.  The gist was "you can't give what you don't have."  My friend's comment was about one way that someone showed that her opinion was valued.  For me, the question is how do people show their commitment to my pursuits.  It doesn't mean that I only surround myself with individuals who are married and whose marriages are perfect to lend me support in keeping my marriage strong.  Rather, it means that the people with whom I surround myself are people who are valued in their relationships and people who want to share that value (and their insights on that value) with others.  

I will write more about Fr. Sam's wisdom (both this point and others) over the coming days on my continuing "road to better."