Walk Tall and Carry the Proper Stick

370 run/630 to go

Last year, as the first 1000 mile project ran down, I was struck by a fit of I-Can-Do-This! and signed up for the Chicago Triathlon.  I’ve done the swim leg of that race, I’ve certainly run the triathlon distance and well, I know how to ride a bike. 

Last week, I finally got into a pool to get a handle on how much swimming I’d need to do to get ready for the race in August.  I’d forgotten how much I love to swim.  I swam in college on our small but mighty team, (there were only 500 students total at the school and by some weird stroke of luck or scoring or default, we won our conference in ’90).  I’m still a little baffled by that one.

Anyway, the water.  I’m probably a better a swimmer than I am a runner.  The problem with swimming is that you need some fairly non-portable equipment to swim, namely a large body of water, so running has won out as the daily personal Jesus.  I’ve struggled with my running these past few months.  It has been a solid four years of near daily runs, and while I have never regretted a run, it has become harder to access the joy. 

So last week, I hit the pool.  The rhythm of breath, stroke, kick all fell into place.  The only sound was water and thought, it felt more than right.  I swam a decent paced 2000 yards and as I got out of the water, thought about how essential it is to have more than one tool available in the self-care toolbox.

*****

A few months after I graduated college, I decided to go spend a couple of months with my dad.  Over the years, I’d gone from spending the bulk of each summer with him in Connecticut and Rhode Island, to a mere week or two.  Jobs and friends and teenage priority had shaved our time together to such regrettably paltry amounts, some deep part of me knew it was time to fix that. 

My father had been handed a childhood worthy of Dickens, complete with orphanhood.  Still he grew to be the wisest, funniest, coolest person I have ever known.  I looked into his eyes and saw untold depth.  He was unabashedly sentimental, laughed with abandon and volume, was fiercely loyal, had a mind of blinding critical awareness and always, always had an eye to fun. 

My father used to take me out riding on his sweet blue Honda 360.  I’d hold tight, lean into curves and feel the speed.  Once, at a stop, he shouted back to me over the loud purr of  the engine, “You’re a good rider, Jen.”  I hold it still as one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. 

One morning during that Fall visit, dad told me to get my shoes on, that he wanted to teach me how to shoot.  I didn’t question.  I made a pot of coffee to try and crack through the damp chill of the morning while he went and unlocked the gun cabinet.

He took the gun out of its locked wooden case, a Smith and Wesson 6 shot stainless steel revolver.  I was relieved he didn’t bring the heavier, more powerful 357.   He headed for the door and I followed.  We stepped out into the lush green slice of Northeastern woods where he and my stepmom lived.  Late September greens and golds sweepy and swooshing in the cool wind, bright blue sky draped over and around, the thick smell of damp earth filled me as we made our way to the woodpile.

He spoke very little as he showed me how to check the chambers, load, aim and shoot.  I lifted my arm, steadied the bottom edge of my hand, felt the cold heavy metal weight, squinted, aimed, felt the hard sharp throb of my heart in my throat and squeezed the trigger. 

The kickback sent a shiver up my arm and I took an involuntary step back.   I hated that he thought I should know how to do this.  He finally took the gun from me, raised his arm, focused, shifted his weight and fired.  Then again, and again.    Perfect shots.  It was natural as anything I’d ever seen him do.  He was somewhere else as he fired, he was not near me, not my father.   He was a man who absorbed the jolt of a gun like it was nothing.

I get that, now more than ever, that my father wanted me to have more tools at my disposal than maybe I would ever need to take care of myself.  He was a lesson in diverse interest and ability.  He loved Joan Baez and baking bread, loved riding white capped ocean waves and crabbing at low tide in Rhode Island salt ponds; he loved Walt Whitman and James Michener; he once asked Jesse Jackson to explain to him exactly what he did to earn a living and spent an evening with Isaac Asimov and his wife in their New York City apartment talking about literature while they waited for a locksmith to help dad into the car he’d locked himself out of.  He knew how to count cards, race cars, downhill ski, woo a woman, nurse a sick child and make me laugh till it hurt.  He weathered pain and loss, he taught me to face those same things with courage.  He was a man of honor and diligence, vulnerability, insight and humor. 

My father told me one late night that he’d screwed a lot of stuff up in his life, but that he firmly believed I was his ticket to heaven, that my sister and I were his contributions to the universe, and that the good grace of our mere existence trumped any bad he had ever generated.  He told me I was his hero.  I cannot even write those words without my breath being taken away.   

Dad died quietly, at home, on his own terms.  He was only 55 years old.  He left me wanting more, but he left me with an abundance of the tools he thought I might need to walk tall, with balance, without him.