Amster-dammit

12 run/1038 to go

(Thanks dear friend who pointed out to me that I mistakenly posted that I would attempt 2002 miles in 2011. Typo. It’s doable for sure, but the goal was to beat this year’s mileage, not beat the hell out of myself. The goal is 1050 miles. I have to admit that my first run of the year reminded me of a friend who got pregnant again three weeks after she delivered her second child. I’d JUST finished! Still though, I’m back at it, it feels good.)

I mentioned last time that I woke up in a bit of a panic at the thought of doing the 1000 miles over again. It wasn’t just running that had me all churned up. I will be alone in this house with the kids soon, and just that word - alone, grips and shakes me. I know logically that it isn’t really the case, that I have people I can call at any hour, I know without any doubt that I am the luckiest girl in the world in the friend department. Still, the stuff that feels manageable at 2 in the afternoon can wake you up at 2 in the morning in a cold sweat.

*****

Amsterdam. Late December, a wet raw day, turned to a snow blanketed evening. We’d gotten a couple of impossibly pretty, cozy rooms at a little boutique hotel right on a canal. There were several of us on the trip and I ended up in a room with the two younger kids. We’d gone to dinner and walked home, arms all linked, bellies full, minds a little floaty with wine. The dark wet air was alive with fat, slow floating flakes. Yellow canal lights caught angled swaths of the stuff as it fell heavy onto the water, the bikes, the narrow road and quaint, quiet storefronts now closed for the day.

The hotel itself sat tucked behind a pretty little doorway. Walk into understated elegance, friendly but decidedly Dutch in the tendency to expect well mannered adherence to all unspoken rules. I liked it a lot. The small lobby was dark woods, a curved staircase neatly to the side, rich deep reds and smooth clean creams, and arrangement of couches you want to spend time curled in. No bustle, but a steady, soothing motion of guests and staff. There was the clink of glasses set down from the tiny bar nestled into a corner of the lobby, the gurgled pour of complimentary cocoa near a small set of polished cherry wood table and chairs.

I settled that night, into my pretty room with the two kids. I remember it now, the unfailing loveliness of each moment. Pulling back the thick duvet, snugging their warm, bathed bodies in and then tucking the comforter around them. Kisses. Their soapy smell. It was late, I was exhausted. My small bed, made up with thick linens and plump pillows, was arranged in a corner, under an eave and next to a window that looked out onto the canal. I got ready for bed and climbed in, tried to read mostly because I didn’t want to fall asleep and not be conscious of the gorgeousness of the moment, but finally gave in.

There’d been an edge of something all day, like the itch you feel in the back of your throat when a cold is maybe a day or two away, but the mental version. I knew something wasn’t going right, that the edge would gain a sharpness if I didn’t work it away somehow. And I thought the exquisite comforts of the hotel and my babies and Amsterdam, which I love without reservation - was getting to the right place.

I woke at about 315 in the morning, to bright white moonlight streaming into the otherwise darkened room. I stood to look out the window with my arms wrapped around myself and watched a man pick through garbage bins with his dog stepping beside him, and I was slammed.

Full on panic. Throat tightening, knee buckling terror. The thing about panic attacks is that you cannot tell someone what it is that is scaring you, there is no way to chase that boogeyman away. So you settle into it or rather it settles into you. You rock back and forth, pace, try to breath normally. Everything looks the same as it did a few hours ago, but there is a sort of electric buzz to it all now, there is you and then there is everything else. And everything else does not understand that you are not ok anymore. If the kids were awake, they would ask for water, or a kiss, or a more covers and not recognize that you aren’t sure you can do anything other than breathe anymore. And you aren’t too sure of that either.

So I took out my journal, and started scribbling in one thick silvery band of moonlight, about the dog and the light and the numb electric buzz, about the canal and the snow and thick covers. I wrote, for hours, page after page of nearly illegible scrambling, the well practiced method of working through my panic, when writing is done, there is only rocking back and forth, hoping for deliverance.

I wrote until I slept, and like 99% of all mornings, things were better. There was sun to turn the nighttime white blue sheets of snow into blinding sparkly puddles to keep the kids out of. The world smelled like coffee and toast and cold air and shampoo.

Residual dregs of panic left me spent and acutely aware of the possibility that it might choose to creep up on me at any time. I remember the fear well, but I also remember, with startling clarity, the light, the soft bed, two kids snuggled safe just feet from where I stood shaking. I remember the steady downward drift of snow, the man and his dog plodding down the street, the jumpy blue light of a tv in a flat across from my building, that it felt good to think someone else was awake at the moment with me, just watching tv. That we were all sharing some version of the same night. That I wasn’t alone.

Panic has a place. Once the hellish part has passed, my instinct is to figure out what has wormed its way into my psyche and rattled me so. This stuff is generally pretty obvious, though it takes courage to confront nonetheless. In this case, the enormity of what is in front of me, school, work, split parenting and all the myriad sub worries that go along with those.

I’m grateful for the heightened focus and hyperbright clarity, but it’s a fine damn line - the access to that sharp edge comes at a trembling cost. You stand with one foot in blazing technicolor detail so sharp it cuts; the other foot searching for purchase, a toehold on a mountain that feels like it’s crumbling.

My good friend, John, commented on the last blog entry:

Jenny congrats on accomplishing a noble goal and one that demonstrates tremendous discipline. But a more heartfelt congrats for the dedication to peer beyond the false summit.

And in those last few, gorgeous words, reminded me that any feeling of safety, of having finally arrived is actually a mirage. That the search for purchase on a crumbling mountain is still climbing toward more accomplishment. Slow going and terrifying at times, but still, it is forward movement.



retty, cozy rooms at a little boutique hotel right on a canal. There were several of us on the trip and I ended up in a room with the two younger kids. We’d gone to dinner and walked home, arms all linked, bellies full, minds a little floaty with wine. The dark wet air was alive with fat, slow floating flakes. Yellow canal lights caught angled swaths of the stuff as it all fell heavy onto the water, the bikes, the narrow road and quaint, quiet storefronts all now closed for the day.

The hotel itself sat tucked behind a pretty little doorway. Walk into understated elegance, friendly but decidedly Dutch in the tendency to expect well mannered adherence to all unspoken rules. I liked it a lot. The small lobby was dark woods, a curved staircase neatly to the side, rich deep reds and smooth clean creams, and arrangement of couches you want to spend time curled in. No bustle, but a steady, soothing motion of guests and staff. There was the clink of glasses set down from the tiny bar nestled into a corner of the lobby, the gurgled pour of complimentary cocoa near a small set of polished cherry wood table and chairs.

I settled that night, into my pretty room with the two kids. I remember it now, the unfailing loveliness of each moment. Pulling back the thick duvet, snugging their warm, bathed bodies in and then tucking the comforter around them. Kisses. Their soapy smell. It was late, I was exhausted. My small bed, made up with thick linens and plump pillows, was arranged in a corner, under an eave and next to a window that looked out onto the canal. I got ready for bed and climbed in, tried to read mostly because I didn’t want to fall asleep and not be conscious of the gorgeousness of the moment, but finally gave in.

There’d been an edge of something all day, like the itch you feel in the back of your throat when a cold is maybe a day or two away, but the mental version. I knew something wasn’t going right, that the edge would gain a sharpness if I didn’t work it away somehow. And I thought the exquisite comforts of the hotel and my babies and Amsterdam, which I love without reservation - was getting to the right place.

I woke at about 315 in the morning, to bright white moonlight streaming into the otherwise darkened room. I stood to look out the window with my arms wrapped around myself and watched a man pick through garbage bins with his dog stepping beside him, and I was slammed.

Full on panic. Throat tightening, knee buckling terror. The thing about panic attacks is that you cannot tell someone what it is that is scaring you, there is no way to chase that boogeyman away. So you settle into it or rather it settles into you. You rock back and forth, pace, try to breath normally. Everything looks the same as it did a few hours ago, but there is a sort of electric buzz to it all now, there is you and then there is everything else. And everything else does not understand that you are not ok anymore. If the kids were awake, they would ask for water, or a kiss, or a more covers and not recognize that you aren’t sure you can do anything other than breathe anymore. And you aren’t too sure of that either.

So I took out my journal, and started scribbling in one thick silvery band of moonlight, about the dog and the light and the numb electric buzz, about the canal and the snow and thick covers. I wrote, for hours, page after page of nearly illegible scrambling, the well practiced method of working through my panic, when writing is done, there is only rocking back and forth, hoping for deliverance.

I wrote until I slept, and like 99% of all mornings, things were better. There was sun to turn the nightime white blue sheets of snow into blinding sparkly puddles to keep the kids out of. The world smelled like coffee and toast and cold air and shampoo.

Residual dregs of panic left me spent and acutely aware of the possibility that it might choose to creep up on me at any time. I remember the fear well, but I also remember, with startling clarity, the light, the soft bed, two kids snuggled safe just feet from where I stood shaking. I remember the steady downward drift of snow, the man and his dog plodding down the street, the jumpy blue light of a tv in a flat across from my building, that it felt good to think someone else was awake at the moment with me, just watching tv. That we were all sharing some version of the same night. That I wasn’t alone.

Panic has a place. Once the hellish part has passed, my instinct is to figure out what has wormed its way into my psyche and rattled me so. This stuff is generally pretty obvious, though it takes courage to confront nonetheless. In this case, the enormity of what is in front of me, school, work, split parenting and all the myriad sub worries that go along with those.

I’m grateful for the heightened focus and hyperbright clarity, but it’s a fine damn line - the access to that sharp edge comes at a trembling cost. You stand with one foot in blazing technicolor detail so sharp it cuts; the other foot searching for purchase, a toehold on a mountain that feels like it’s crumbling.

My good friend, John, commented on the last blog entry:

Jenny congrats on accomplishing a noble goal and one that demonstrates tremendous discipline. But a more heartfelt congrats for the dedication to peer beyond the false summit.

And in those last few, gorgeous words, reminded me that any feeling of safety, of having finally arrived is actually a mirage. That the search for purchase on a crumbling mountain is still climbing toward more accomplishment. Slow going and terrifying at times, but still, it is forward movement.