1000 miles

New Year's Eve 2009. The wind outside makes inside exactly the right place to be. It is warm, snug, the people I love most are nearby. My oldest friend and his wife have invited us to their log home to celebrate the New Year, and really, to say goodbye to 2009 which has, for some, seriously kinda sucked. The home is wedged tight into a hill in a rolling, dipping valley, it has snowed for days and it is the kind of pretty that makes you grab your camera every time you look out the window. Sky fades from azure, through blueberry to the cold suffusion of steel. The fireplace is grinding a slow hot burn through sticks and sticks of cordwood. Our bellies are full and minds floaty, wine flows fast and free.

Anyone making a resolution?

I'd been asked recently, my answer resoundingly

Hell no.

The friend who had asked told me that she made a resolution every year, she looked forward to it. This year, she told me, she resolved to learn to surf. I asked if she was, in effect, resolving to take several vacations.

She blew my sarcasm off and told me about a surf camp in Oregon she'd heard about and that this year, she would learn to surf. I could naysay, but in the end, the girl would know how to surf next year and I...probably would not.

So a resolution? I thought of running, running a prescribed distance, a distance that was eventually doable but would need to be broken down if I were to succeed.

1000 miles.

The number was small enough that the daily and weekly goals could be met fairly easily as long as I made them a priority. I've been a pretty dedicated runner for three years. I run several half marathons a year, but my last race kicked my ass harder than I'd kicked it. I had essentially stopped training, had rested on my laurels and, it turns out, laurels don't count for shit on mile 11 in 88 degree weather.

I hadn't walked though. I don't walk in a race. Ever. I pushed and ran the distance, finished out the racing season on a down note.

I'd recently left a life I'd loved as an expat in Belgium. I was running so many miles every day (assuredly more than 1000 a year), compulsively forgoing sleep so that I could write, my mind and body were on fire with the liberating thrill of casting off the thick corded ropes that seemed to tether me down in my home country. I loved the pace and the people, loved the transcendent beauty around every cobbled corner, loved the wine and the clothes and head-thrown-back-arms-out-wide fucking majesty of this new world, this ancient world, this fortune!

When it was decided that we would come home, I cried for days, but in the end, I ran and danced and drank and said goodbye and landed back where I'd started three years before. Same town, same house. I ached. I tried to be who I was in Belgium, what I was there, but I'd so closely come to associate where I was with who I was. Running hurt more, words flowed less, I felt like I was shrinking, drying up. I knew I had the tools, I had the same heart and the same friends. My legs were strong and my will, though battered, was there, waiting for the spark.

So 1000 miles.

I liked the number because it was nice and round. It's a big number, easily divisible and within my grasp as long as I did not make excuses. I ran a quick 3.5 on Jan 1st. My standard daily run in Belgium had been 6.2 miles a day, but I could reach my goal with a measly 3 (less than 3 actually) a day. The more I thought of breaking this baby down into bite size chunks, the more excited I got - the finally keep a resolution! It was my spark. What couldn't I do if I broke it down and kept to it every day, little by little? I resisted making a long list of projects, leaving 1000 miles the one on paper, it has become more of a mantra, an approach. I am six days in and 20 miles down. The miles are coming with more ease and more joy. My religion of running is taking hold again and I feel my words coming back.

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