Running Trumps Art

My birthday is this week, and as a gift to myself I am running/swimming six of those days. (So excited!)

And, to support that, heading to bed at 9:00 every night.

I guess running and the things I do to support my running (swimming, yoga, sleep, eating well) trump art for me. Last year, when I planned time for myself this week I thought I'd use it to paint. And I have been working on my projects and expect to do more on them this week as well... but, really, it's all about the running. And I've been seeing that over the past two months anyway. Just... interesting.

But also that making things is essential too, in a different way. To borrow from Ntozake Shange, "art as necessary as collards, running even in our dreams."*

*Borrowed liberally from Ntozake Shange's Ellington Was Not A Street ("politics as necessary as collards / music even in our dreams"). Read this!

Good Stuff for a Sad Tuesday

Today I like this.

And this.

...if you follow your tears, you will find your heart. If you find your heart, you will find what is dear to God. And you find what is dear to God, you will find the answer to how you should live your life.

from H. Norman Wright, "Experiencing Grief"

And this.

Yesterday at the Field Museum.

Apparently, "Rawr" means "I love you" in dinosaur.

Rawr!

Sad Today

Have been learning about child sexual exploitation and doing more work with your garden variety, run-of-the-mill child abuse, so I keep having moments where I look at Buddy and get overwhelmed with sadness about the children who are not safe in the world.

And then remembering him say, "I sorry, Mommy," when prompted, after actually doing something wrong, and thinking of children saying the same thing who haven't, but feel they must say it, say something.

One of The Dude's friends had a stillbirth yesterday.

And I have my period, so aside from the swing in hormones which is probably at least in part responsible for my tears, that also means I'm not pregnant. And we didn't even really want to be, not yet, but...

I was going to go swimming this morning but I think a run is the only thing that will help me negotiate the day with some calm.

Prayers to all who suffer this day. Thanks for all we've been blessed with.

Notes on a Wet Week

I ran 5 times in the past eight days, and every single time I had to set my shoes out afterwards to dry.

First, all the snow from our blizzard melted --- rapidly --- and sidewalks turned into lakes. The first few days of this the walks were still lined with treacherous ice banks. Through the puddles I went.

Next, the ice on the sides melted, only to leave behind shoe-grabbing mud and I didn't want to think about what else. Through the puddles I went.

Finally, many (not all) of the puddles cleared. So I went out yesterday for a nice 7+ mile run... in the rain. Freezing rain. No music even, just me, getting wet (again), grinning like a fool, thinking big thoughts.

God, I love to run.

Workshop in Progress - Feb. 16

I'm taking a couple of weeks off from working on my quilt (though not from thinking about it) to finally make the amp cover I promised The Dude, way back last summer. Way back before I was sewing on any regular basis and so was completely unrealistic in my estimates of how long it might take me or how complicated it might be.

So, the amp measures 11x18x24", with a handle on top that I'll need to accomodate. My initial plan was to make columns of horizontal stripes, using the jeans/pants materials that you see cut into strips above, and then line it with the t-shirt material at the top and quilt the whole thing.

After all the previous discussion about using knits I've decided to forego the lining/quilting for this project and instead embellish the completed cover with embroidery. And in the process of sewing the strips together I decided I actually like the look of rows of vertical stripes better instead. I also realized that I didn't have enough material so ended up slicing up another pair of misfitting pants (the darker brown below) and will incorporate that into the rows as well. Below you see smaller blocks of stripes --- I'll combine them into different-sized rows, depending on the width needed.

I was planning to edge the bottom and the handle opening with the brown ribbon, but now that I've added in another brown fabric I'm thinking I might switch to a navy blue ribbon for edging instead.

Feeling very happy about the progress I made yesterday. I can see that I didn't cut all the strips on the same grain, something I want to pay more attention to in the future (I did start paying more attention to that towards the end). But this is not something that is ever likely to get washed so I'm not going to worry much about that right now. Looking forward to assembling everything over the next week and then doing some embroidery.

What a Gift

I've been looking at the online blogs for Hand/Eye and Spirit Cloth for a while now, and today I was directed to an article about using fabric for healing with children that just took my breath away. What a gift --- from the therapist to the children, from the artists to the therapist, and then to us to see what could be.

Stirs up all kinds of things in me...

Other Races

Not that I'm trying to be coy about what races I'm training for this year, but... I don't quite know myself. I'm trying to not be so intense about racing this year, and just train for the heck of it. My focus right now seems to be more on recovery and weight loss and building up my base. Plus, I want to leave myself room to be in a more, ahem, delicate condition, and not worry about how any such changes may affect racing plans... So no signing up for races months in advance this year.

But I've been upping my mileage (slowly) and my overall number of workouts, and am swimming steadily again, plus fitting in more yoga and strength training, so overall I feel pretty good about where I'm at and where I'm going, even if I don't have any amazing progress to report. Trying to practice balance in all things...

Races I Am Not Running

The Dude signed up for the Chicago Marathon today.

I am so happy and excited for him.

I wish I were too.

I am very grateful that my pleasure in his training for it is not diminished by my sadness that I am not. Especially since the one is a direct cause of the other. Evidently I have grown (some) in maturity along with years.

I am also not signed up for the Wrigley Start Early 10K, and I am sad about that too, though for an unexpected reason. I was looking forward to having that be my fundraising event for the year, and now that I am not doing it I feel oddly bereft (it's on Easter weekend this year and we expect to be traveling).

Well.

There are all kinds of good reasons beyond scheduling to not run the marathon this year --- I do very much want to spend the year building up my base and getting more experience in racing mid-distance events. And now that I know how important it is to me to have a fundraising event I will keep my eyes open for another one. So all will be well...

But for today, big sigh.