These Kids are Alright

Stretched out on a soft, chocolate brown leather couch, Emma's tucked in next to me, our legs tangled and draped over Matthew.   Soft lamp light spills onto us each in shades of amber and gold, walls around us swathed in cool greens.  This house relaxes me.  It's set on a big noisy Chicago street, but once I'm in through the heavy old wooden door, it's peace. I take in the fireplace, the high ceilings, the carved banisters, the polished wide plank wood floors.  I think of families that lived here 150 years ago, 100 years ago.  I want to live in a house this old.  One that has stood a test of time.

Dede's sitting cross-legged across from us, on her livingroom floor; yoga serene and thin as a willow, black glossy curls loose on her shoulders.  I'm stunned with every glance by how pretty she is, her dark skin, eyebrows perfectly arched over liquid eyes.  She is the kind of friend everyone deserves, she has a wicked sense of humor and her loyalty is breathtaking. 

I make a joke and my kids roll their eyes.  At eleven and fourteen, they have the eye roll perfected, still they stay draped around me.  Dede asks if we've seen that reality show with the guy from KISS, Gene Simmons.  There's a scene, she says, where Simmons is baffled by his teenage daughter's inability to see how cool he is.  He says “Everyone thinks I'm cool, the whole WORLD knows how cool I am.” His daughter replies, “I'm your kid, I KNOW you.”

*****

Next day, I wake early to run.  I have ten miles to do if I am going to stay on track for this year's 1050 mile goal.  I'd purposefully left ten miles to run this day because I figured I could use the mental boost of accomplishment, to have a solid ten miler tucked away to reference when the six milers were wearing on me.  Also, I didn't feel so much like running the day before.  The logic was solid on Saturday, not so much on Sunday.

I haven't run more than six at a time for months now.  Ten miles?  What was I thinking?  I sit with my kids around the island in the kitchen.  We've been talking for 45 minutes now.  My oldest son points out that all I'm doing is procrastinating.  He sees through me.

It's going to hurt, I know it.  It'll be a hot one, I'll be thirsty and my legs will ache by mile seven or eight.  Can I even DO ten miles now?  Dammit. 

My boy tells me “We know you can do this.  We know it.  We've watched you do more.”

I glimpse the clangy jangle of race medals hung from a doorknob in the dining room.  I'd had them stuffed in a decorative bowl on the china cabinet.  My daughter once needed a green hair ribbon, I snipped the ribbon from a medal and tossed the heavy disc back into the bowl.  My six year old found the tangle a few months ago and made me hang them up.  Last year, at a brutal mile 12 during a race, I ran past them in the crowd, so out of my mind tired and hot I didn't recognize or hear them until they cheered in unison “MOM!  MOM!”  Find me a mother who can run past that.

They know what I can do, and if they say so…

I walk out the door, stop on the front lawn to adjust my headphones.  The kids will serve themselves lunch while I'm gone, keep on eye on each other.  They are plenty old enough, still I hate to leave them alone. 

I want to write them love letters every day.   Tell them how funny and smart and good and fine they are.  How they are extensions of my own body, how they make me ache with love and longing everytime they walk away from me.  They make me both weak and indomitable at the same time. 

I look up, they've tumbled out the front door, laughing.  They start a scraggly, loose limbed cheer they've composed on the fly, “You can do it, you can do it, run run run!”

I blow kisses, they pretend to grab the kisses out of the air and slap them onto each other.  I start off, ten miles in front of me. 

The kids know me.  They are mine and I am theirs. 
They said I can do it.
Well shit.

I must be able to do it. 

Miles tick down, 9.5, 8.5, 7.5, 5.0, suddenly I'm at my turnaround.

I know what I'm doing (just like they said).  My legs don't ache.  I stop to fill my water bottle at an old hand pump.  I pour a bottles worth over my head, the cold water pulled up from deep down below the earth shocks me as it hits my hot skin, I hear my quick intake of breath, lift the hem of my shirt to wipe my eyes.

I keep running, a point of pride keeps me from walking even one step. 

I run until I reach them, safe at home, unsurprised to see me walk back through the door.