2014: Year Of The Runner

You won't find evidence of it on any officially recognized calendar, be it Chinese, Zodiac, Mayan or Lunar but 2014 was the Year Of The Runner.

It was the year You became a Runner

Of course you had run before that, many times, as exercise and for distances you once thought improbable if not impossible and for events in which you never believed you would compete.  You could even say you were in love with running long before the year of the runner began.  But somehow, this year was different.  This year you ran, all the time, everywhere...

You ran in the winter, in the frigid pre-dawn, a light strapped to your forehead illuminating your billowing, frozen breath, your nose and toes tingling, but your legs and arms warm and willing.

You ran in flurries of snow, the world blanketed in white as if dusted with icing sugar by a Master Baker and you, a Canadian in her element running to fully enjoy the gift:  "It's snow.  We have to run in it."

You ran at daybreak and the reward for battling the demon voice in your head that told you your bed was a better place to be that morning was the sunrise that painted your run a thousand colours

from a vermilion so deep you wondered if you were imagining it

 to a tangerine so brilliant you almost stopped moving so you could admire it.

Almost.

You ran on oval tracks.  You ran intervals.  

You did speed work and the only prize offered for the tedium of the task and pain of its performance was the sweat pouring off your face, the lactic acid burn in your calves and quads and the calamitously pure knowledge of threshold that leaves you feeling at once completely bereft and utterly refined.

You ran to be leaner, stronger, faster. You ran a personal best time for 5k, then for 10.




You ran a longest distance and then ran further still.




You ran up hills and down the back side and then you did it again (and again and again).









You ran in the sweltering, summer east coast humidity on tree lined country roads,  drinking in the heavy oxygen rich air, your lungs giddy at the prospect operating at sea level, your legs recognizing the bump in the grade of fuel from regular to premium.














You ran in foreign lands, world capitals and National Parks .










You ran on lonely mountain paths with only the craggy granite peaks and dusty scrub oak to witness your efforts.




You ran on the shores of lakes and rivers on dams, over bridges, beside canals and through hard wood forests.

You ran cuz: Peach Cobbler is irresistible

You ran cuz: Apple Pie is a religious rite 

You did a 1/2 Ironman cuz Indian cuisine is so delicious

You ran a marathon cuz bacon, cheese and fried potatoes 

(I have more words but are they really necessary?)

  

In the Year Of The Runner you indulged less, far less.  You made sugar a weekend friend, then a Holiday friend, then only Holidays with a religious component.  Soon you and sugar will no longer be on speaking terms at all.  But in the year of the runner when you were weak you made sure you paid for you peccadillos in advance and then performed your penance on footpaths until all evidence of your indiscretions was completely washed away.

You ran with friends, because of friends and for friends.  

You found that running friends are the truest friends.  

You made a thousand new running friends in one day.  You felt a lifelong bond with each new runner friend based on one fleeting interaction that came to you in the very moment you needed to hear it: From the marathoner you leap-frogged all day in Ogden at mile 23.1, five kilometers left and the Boston qualifier math tipping against you for the first time that morning:  "You've been running strong all day, you can't give up now."

From the tri-athlete you passed at mile seven of the half marathon in the Bear Lake Brawl, you still running with power and purpose, a good four minutes ahead of last year's split: "That's a strong pace you've got.  Keep it up!"

And finally from the anonymous runner on the MVC when he caught you at the Daybreak intersection, just as you slowed your pace after sprinting for an entire mile and thinking to yourself "that was fast, too bad nobody was around to see it": "You. Are. (expletive deleted) Fly-ing!"  

That last one made you smile and the took all the pain out of the seven mile return run home.




You ran to find God, to talk to him.  You ran because some of your most sincere prayers come amid the mental and physical concentration required to maintain a sub nine minute/mile pace.  You ran in the solitude of a deserted, sagebrush lined bike path and thought of it as your cathedral, your temple among the tumbleweeds and your communication was pure, uncluttered by extraneous stimuli.






You ran in races, marathons, 1/2 marathons,10Ks.  You ran after you swam and biked.  You volunteered at races so others could run and race too.





You ran to wring stress from your sinews to empty your head of thoughts that vex, to sweat out your frustrations rather than give them voice: "that mile was me not scolding Elaine for not caring, that mile was me not being bothered by Steven for not rinsing the hand mixer when he makes his protein shakes in the morning, that mile was me not telling Raechel what I think about her recent purchases of (... ! ), that mile was the dried apple cores nathan is collecting under the couch and the clean clothes he stuffed under a pile of dirty clothes in the closet instead of putting them away, that mile was for overdue book fines, late fees and kids' school projects I found out about the night before they were due."  You ran until all the jumbled ideas in your brain were placed in order and addressed. You ran until your mind could focus only on the run, the sublime satisfaction of performing the act and the peace it provides.

You ran simply because you could.  You ran because you have lungs that breathe air and transfer it to blood cells, a heart that beats in rhythm, pumping the oxygen in those cells to muscles that convert that fuel into kinetic energy, contracting and moving levers, forming fulcrums that bend and lift resulting in forward motion; the entire process of producing one stride an unspeakable miracle that you perform 10,000 times an hour. Because you can.




You ran because it left you feeling lean and energetic, your toned muscles taught with the promise of potential like a loaded spring anticipating release or a crouching feline waiting to pounce.

You ran because you craved that sensation of being locked and loaded, primed and prepped, the knowledge you had of your untapped capacity and ability.

You ran and because you ran you felt alive, alert and maybe just a little bit dangerous, not a person to be taken lightly or trifled* with.

(mmm trifle)







You ran because you loved the way it made your clothes fit and how it changed the face that you saw in the mirror and for the way the face looking back at you made you feel more confident, more capable, more accomplished.










You ran for Namaste, because this Universe is a Divinely given gift and the best way to thank the Giver is to fill your lungs with its atmosphere and coat your skin with its dust, to immerse yourself in the clay of creation, to feel the Earth under your feet and recognize the light in it by sharing yours.


You ran to experience that strange euphoric calm, that state of Grace that's sure to follow a full-measure running effort.  It's a sensation atheists will tell you is merely a chemical response, a vestigial evolutionary reward from the central nervous system, a remnant gift from our hunter gatherer ancestors whose survival depended on the heightened physical condition required to accrue their daily calories. But believers recognize it as your soul speaking to you and what it's saying is "Good job, here's your pat on the bum.  Thank you for feeding me today."





You ran  because at the base of your identity, when you strip away all the things you do adequately or excel at but only with great effort and concentration, you are an Athlete.


It's your divinely given Talent of Silver and how can you bury that in the earth?














You are  a runner because it makes your heart happy, because running is one of the Spiritual Gifts with which God blessed you and you feel wise to have recognized this fact and embraced it.

You ran and you ran and you ran...

You ran so much that you made me, a cycling agnostic run.  I ran because you ran, because it was so clearly something you loved, so much that it's become not so much what you do, but who you are .  And because of that I wanted to experience it, not out of jealousy or because I felt left out.  And not because it's something that you're better, stronger and more proficient at than than I could hope to be. I love that you have interests that don't necessarily involve me, that you have a profound inner strength that comes from nobody and nothing else.  That core strength (not talking about your belly here, but that's kinda nice too) and independence is one of your most attractive qualities, I actually find it quite sexy, but this is not the time nor venue to discuss that.  I wanted to do it because I love you and anything you care about this deeply I want to experience, even if I'll never quite understand it.

So I ran and I was clearly an outsider in my Costco shoes, billowing gym shorts and hoodie.  I wore sweat bands and used words like 'jogging' to describe what I was doing and you somehow managed not only to not roll your eyes at me but to encourage me.  You deftly walked the tight rope of giving helpful hints without sounding critical, of sharing insights and pro tips without making me feel resentful and picked on.

So I ran, and it hurt me, multiple times.  There was the initial 'my muscles don't know how to do this' pain and I got past that, but then there were the injuries, torn calf muscles (yes plural), a pulled hamstring, shin splints.  Each time I tried to embrace this activity my body told me in less than subtle ways that running wasn't for me.  My scoliotic spine, mismatched leg length and general lack of anything resembling running form probably didn't help matters a bit.  But you kept loving it so I kept trying to love it too and finally, after many a failure to launch I began to... not enjoy it per se, but to respect it, to appreciate what is required to do it well, how running involves your entire body and how you feel every step, how unlike cycling there's no coasting, no tucking for a descent, no cashing in on a negative grade with a helpful tailwind.  When you run you earn every kilometer and you pay for every mile.

So I bought my first pair of real running shoes:

Strava told me they require a nickname so I call these: 'Saucony', which is Navajo for: 

'Runs with a limp'

I ditched the cotton hoodie that weighs ~5 lbs for some more appropriate outerwear and I began correcting people who used the J-word.  My runs got longer and more intense until I was waking up an hour earlier than normal so I could put in eight miles before work, then ten, then a half marathon... the farthest I'd run in almost twenty years.  And the more I ran, the more I understood and the more I looked forward to next chance I had to strap on my shoes and pound the pavement.

I grew to enjoy the way that running forced me to pay attention to my body to learn to distinguish between discomfort that is a natural result of physical effort and pain that means an injury is imminent, how it forced me to listen and to respond to what my muscles, joints and tendons were telling me.  I was reminded of when I first started cycling and how on descents I would ride my brakes, sit upright in the saddle, white knuckling my handle bars and generally surviving the experience rather than celebrating it.  Then a friend (Rodney) told me "Trust your equipment."  I read the same thing in bicycling magazines and heard it more than once on rides with other amateur cyclists.  When I finally took the advice it completely changed the way I rode and opened entirely new avenues.  I enjoyed myself more, felt more confident more proficient. The more I ran the more I learned to trust my equipment, to listen to the mechanics of my machine and respond accordingly.  The result felt like the purest kind of communication, a one person conversation of a thousand voices all speaking at once but being understood completely.  I felt deeply connected and, I realize this sounds hokey but just because it sounds hokey doesn't make any less true, in touch with something deep inside myself, something intangible but very real, my soul I guess would be the most accurate way to describe it.

Running felt Spiritual to me, like Religion in its elemental form.

So I guess what I'm saying is I hope your Tribe has room for one more member and that my place at the table doesn't make you feel crowded because I've been running.

And I kinda love it.

                                                                                2014
                                                     Year
                                                     Of
                                                     The
                                                     Runner

xo -S (me)

The Anniversary Blog

The Traditional gift to celebrate your twenty second year of marriage is kitchen appliances.

Not true actually, though that would be convenient considering our recent purchase.  I just checked and refrigerators aren't listed under Modern gifts for the twenty-second Anniversary either, nor are wedding day and yesteryear photo montages and "Happy Anniversary!" shout outs on Facebook, but that's what I got for Jennifer. That and this anniversary Blog Post.

I'll warn you now, it's not brief.  Nothing I write ever seems to be, though this is exceptionally long.  What can I say?  It's a subject about which I'm quite passionate.  If you're just here catching up on your Facebook news feed between other things you've got going on a busy day, don't bother with it.  Instead scroll through the posted Throwback-Thursday, pre-digital camera, Kodak moments (side note: selfies have come a long way, wouldn't you agree?) and marvel along with me at how young Jennifer looked.  As I dug through these photos I felt like a lecher.  Is it possible Jenn wasn't quite eighteen when I married her?  The paperwork was all in order, so that's what I'm going with (and that's all we'll say about that).

As for Jennifer (and any other interested parties) grab yourself a cold beverage and maybe a snack. Get comfortable, this might take a while.  I have a story to tell.  It's about the day I met Jennifer, how I fell for her and she for me and some other stuff that happened after that.

In short, it's a love story.  Our love story.  

Happy Anniversary Honey.  Hope you like it.

This September I will turn forty six.  It was twenty two Septembers ago that I met Jennifer, which means I've shared half* my life with her.  Our story isn't an epic tale of star crossed lovers, kept apart by culture but united by fate, though it technically is an international love story.  Our story doesn't include a Hollywood cinematic finale in which I whisk the reluctant bride away from an ill-fated wedding and we drive together into the setting sun in an Italian sports car, gazing all the while into each other's eyes and and giggling over our fortuitous escape, though we had both recently gone through bad break-ups.  And it wasn't a Jane Austen 'I hate him until one day I realize that I actually love him' classic romance, though the first word Jennifer ever said to me was "Shush!"  I don't suppose it's even a sufficiently interesting story that anybody not me, Jennifer or somebody who shares our last name and half our chromosomes would ever want to read about it.  But that has never stopped me from writing in the past and it shan't today.

*Almost,give or take a few days by the time you read this. Yeah, I did the math.

I met  Jennifer at Brigham Young University in the fall of 1991, in a chemistry class, specifically.  Organic chemistry (even more specifically). I had a job on the freight crew stocking shelves at Albertson's.  It was the graveyard shift and O-Chem 101 started at 10am, which means I had about two hours to sleep between the time I got off work and the beginning of class.  I remembered when I registered I figured it would be OK, just like taking a power nap before pulling a late night cram session.  Turns out I was wrong.  Getting out of bed (and absorbing even simple information) on very little sleep is hard. On that particular (fated?) day I overslept, took too long in the shower, was too slow climbing the endless stairs from the parking lot west of the Smith Fieldhouse and by the time I reached the Martin Building, the lecture had already begun.  The class was held in one of those arena style lecture halls that seem to seat a thousand students, the ones with four entries, two at the front of the hall and, up another flight of stairs, two at the rear.  I've contemplated that pivotal moment and portentous decision to climb the stairs (more stairs, I'm already so, so tired) to the doors at the back the class and eventually to the open seat next to the cute girl in the last row.  I actually mentioned it to Jennifer a few nights ago: "What would have happened had I not walked into that class late and taken the seat next to you?"  In my mind it was an existential Bogart-esque quandary: "...of all the [lecture halls] in all the [universities] in all the world, why did I walk into this one?"  Jenn's response?

"[meh] We had a class together and saw each other lots in the halls.  We would have met eventually. What?  Do you think you drank some love potion that day that just made you fall in love with me?"  

Actually I was drinking an oversized and liberally caffeinated beverage from the Hearts convenience store off campus in an attempt to stay awake (I was very, very tired, did I mention?) but that could hardly be less important.   What I thought, but didn't say was, "You're ruining* my Casablanca moment."  Perhaps our fates and the fates of our yet to be conceived (or even conceived of being conceived) children didn't turn on me hitting the snooze button one too many times and taking too long in the shower and then eventually slinking in late to the back of the room.  The truth is probably closer to Jenn's interpretation.  But I've never let the truth get in the way of a good story.  I don't think any storyteller worth their salt ever would.

* "That's because daddy's a romantic and you're enlightened." -Raechel, speaking to her mother (she was actually referring to our disparate attitudes about Valentine's Day but I find the quote is an apt description of many of our interactions)

I suppose all of that amounts to retrospective navel gazing, the point is I arrived when I arrived and sat where I sat, the first open seat I stumbled to in the back row.  The fact that it was next to what on my first bleary-eyed impression was an attractive young lady was just a bonus.  I hadn't been seated for more than a couple of minutes before I began, not actually flirting, but definitely making wise cracks to gauge the disposition of the girl I'd sat next to.  Yes, I was there to learn about the covalent bonds formed between long chains of carbon and hydrogen but this was (and as far as I know is, in that I don't believe it's changed much) also BYU, I was far from the only person in the room with more than one motive in attending that august institution.  I should say here that I'm not* the type to just start chatting up attractive people that I don't know.  I blame the fact that I had only slept for two of the last 28 hours.  Some people get really grumpy with lack of sleep, some become withdrawn, I get giddy and less inhibited, the way people do when they've had a bit too much to drink.  This was a BYU undergraduate, general ed. class, not a singles bar though a venn diagram depicting the raison d'etre of the two entities would probably include more crossover area than most individuals who have earned a degree from Brigham Young University would care to admit, so I continued to quip, comfortable in the knowledge that no matter what came of it I would get to go home and sleep when it was over (I win!).  I don't recall how long it took, or even if the attractive girl I sat down next to ever acknowledged me.  The first response I got was a "shush!" from the person on my left...

*Or wasn't at the time, I think my career choice has forced me to become an extrovert, if I wasn't already one, to the point that I can't help myself (as anybody with a gmail or facebook chat option can attest).  If we do social things like brunches or BBQs, pie parties or soup nights, it's generally my doing.  It's not that Jenn doesn't enjoy or look forward to them, she just doesn't make as concerted an effort as me to engage. That was not always the case, certainly wasn't the case when we first met.



My initial thoughts upon meeting the woman I would one day marry?  First, I remember hair.  Lots of hair.  This was the early 90's, think Julia Roberts in My Best Friend's Wedding, or Elaine from Seinfeld.  Hair with volume (turned up to 11 volume), a riot of honey-coloured waves and curls and one of those elastic scrunchy things to hold the whole business together.  Yes, I look back on it and chuckle, just like we all do with hairstyles that have come and gone but at the time I found it enticing, strikingly so.  Jenn had and still has a great head of hair, hair that was made for exactly that style and it was prominently on display. Couple that with the fact that the girl I had recently stopped dating, upon hearing me tell her that I liked long hair, that I, like most men I knew, found it attractive, promptly cut it into a bob to prove a point.  I probably should have seen the writing on the wall in that relationship long before I did.  Now where were we?  Ahh yes, my first impressions of Jennifer.  There was the hair and then there was her complexion which was neither peaches and cream nor cafe au lait but somewhere in between: dulce de leche perhaps.  By all accounts Jenn comes from Anglo-Saxon stock.  Fourth generation Canadian with the standard Canadian mélange (ie British Isles, mainly Scotts and Irish with some Welsh thrown in to keep things lively and musical) but there must have been an enterprising Greek or perhaps a love struck Romeo from France's Mediterranean coast somewhere in her family pedigree,  because Jennifer has decidedly olive-toned skin which tans* readily, no matter how assiduously she applies sunscreen. The only noticeable blemish to what was already in my mind an incredibly alluring face, one that I sensed that I would be a long time in tiring of looking at, was a small, raised mole on the bridge of her nose (which has since been then sacrificed to a dermatologist's scalpel). That mole and a slightly crooked and protruding incisor that gave her smile an endearing off kilter and canting to the left tilt were the only imperfections I could see.  Before you judge me harshly for using the first minutes I would spend with the one-day mother of our children making an inventory of her visible flaws, take into consideration that I was gauging my chances with her the way I (and thankfully this is a distant memory) remember you do when you are dating and wondering if a person you have just met is out of your reach or somebody you might like to get to know better, who in turn would like to know you better.  It's possible that the slightly crooked grin and lone blemish made Jenn seem less intimidating, but it's a certainty that I hadn't yet looked her in the eyes.  Had I started there I might have shut my mouth, buried my nose in my text book and focused on the lecture at hand.

*Which is a constant source of consternation for her, One: because she knows the idea of a 'healthy tan' is a fallacy and a potentially lethal one at that and Two: because the tan-lines on her arms are so noticeable and distracting (her belief) when she conducts the choir.  It's lead to her taking measures as drastic as covering all exposed skin except for her upper arms and shoulders with SPF 50 sunscreen when she runs and purchasing sleeveless cycling jerseys (which are not to her liking aesthetically but are sure great for beating the heat and evening out her unwanted tan) for when she rides.  If she keeps doing marathons and triathlons she's bound to get the raccoon eyes that all endurance athletes share.  I'm looking forward to the day she runs 15 miles while wearing a balaclava or burqa.  When that day comes, remember, she's not a terrorist,  just one of our benign neighbours from the north trying to achieve a consistent skin tone.

The previous facts: the hair and the skin are indelible memories that left a lasting mark, the way first impressions always do.  I remember what and how I thought at the time, but when I looked into Jennifer's eyes I remember the way I felt, because the reaction was visceral and is one I still experience on a regular basis.  On Sunday afternoons amid the kitchen clatter of dinner preparation and hungry children when the world is reduced to just the two of us and the distance between our shared gaze, or summer evenings sitting on the porch, discussing her day, what to do about the kids and should there be a date this Thursday and if so, what and where? and in the last contented pillow-talk glance before the bedside lamp is turned out, marking the end of another day we've spent together.  Jenn claims her eyes were blue when she was young and became green only after she went away to school.  That may be so, but when I first saw them they were a soft, silvery green that reminded my of hand-carved jade jewels. When she finally looked at me square what I felt was a stop, as if somebody had pushed a pause button on my heart, let it skip a beat or two and allowed me to catch my breath.  I felt a not unpleasant tightness in my chest and I was, in a word, smitten.

I'm certain there was a conversation beyond "shush".  I know because before the class was over I had asked her the standard questions: her name, where she was from, what she was studying?  I also know this because as I walked her to her job cutting fruit at the Cannon center (which happened to be in the same direction as my illegally parked car) she chided me for not asking questions that were more original or interesting.  I vowed to come up with something better when I saw her at our next chemistry class, to which I showed up early trying to figure out how to nonchalantly find her without looking like I was trying to (nonchalantly) find her.  To her credit, she was in the exact same back row spot, same seat empty next to her.  If there was another person male or female sitting to the right of me I don't recall now and I'm sure I didn't notice that day either.  We talked some more that second class, no "shush"-ing this time and I fell deeper under Jenn's spell.  Whether she was intentionally casting it or not I still couldn't exactly say, nor did I care.

By our third class together she was sitting in the same seat only this time my usual spot was occupied by her book bag.  For the briefest instant I thought I had overplayed my hand and she was actively trying to keep me from distracting her in class.  Nothing could be further from the truth as it turned out.  As soon as she saw me she moved her bag and let me take what I now considered 'my' seat.    I probably should have asked her out right then, on more than one occasion over the next several days she said as much to her roommates:   "Why doesn't this guy take a hint and ask me out?"  (or words to that effect)  When I finally did invite her on a date it came out more as an apology which she didn't let me deliver.  She said yes before my torpid ramblings had a chance to come to a point.  The reason I was making pre-emptive excuses for what it sounded like I was promising would be a pretty bad date was mostly the date itself: a screening of Monty Python's Holy Grail which my Humanities teacher was showing as part of his History of Civilization 1400 BC to the Present course.  Every week he showed an era-appropriate movie two of which we were required to attend and about which we had to write a one page essay.  He provided popcorn and encouraged us to treat the movies as a free date night, thus assisting in the University's unstated alternate mission of creating eternal couples while at the same time educating them (His words not mine, though experiences like that as well as 'the good news minute' that took the place of Ward business in my student ward Sacrament meetings in which the RS and EQ presidents would announce who got engaged the previous week, lead me to conclude that educating the masses is only one of the missions of BYU as an institution, and not always the main mission.  My daughter Raechel will not be attending BYU.  That's probably a good thing).  But what can I say?  It worked, at least once and we are almost certainly not my Humanities professor's only success story.  I wish I could remember his name, I'd send him a Christmas card or maybe have Jenn bake him a pie. We owe him at least that much.  That said, I wasn't sure a Monty Python comedy would be Jenn's cup of tea.  Indeed I had no idea what her cup of tea might be but I was determined to find out.


That first date went splendidly.   Beyond the obvious (both LDS and attending BYU) our lives were eerily similar.  Both from large families, both with gregarious and outgoing mothers that married introverted men who had what sounded like almost identical civil servant jobs, working for the Department of Defense (until we later found out that Jenn's father Terry was not actually 
a quiet civil servant at all but rather an international spy, but that's another blog entry for another time), both families took on side jobs to make ends meet.  Jenn's family delivered Canadian Tire catalogs every spring and we had an outrageously large paper route that we did as a family each week.  We had similar senses of  humour, were in similar fields of study and, perhaps most importantly, we had nearly identical tastes in music, to wit she didn't like Country music.  Though by the time we got around to the subject of music I told myself there are enough other perfect things about her that I could listen to Waylon-Yoakam- Tritt-Black-Garth-Haggard whatever it was, and be happy.  I told myself this but probably didn't completely believe it. Thankfully, I was never forced to prove that point.

The more I got to know Jenn the more comfortable and right it felt to be with her.  Soon we were seeing each other most days, if not all of them.  Initially with the pretense of studying (we had several of the same classes, not just organic chemistry but also Food Science and Nutriton and Anatomy, yes we studied Anatomy together, which is both more and less innocent than it sounds) or to go on actual 'date' dates but soon we stopped looking for reasons to be together and just were together.  Every relationship has a point beyond which balance is lost, resistance is token at best and we admit to ourselves, often without realizing it at the time, that we have fallen.  I think the concept of 'pielibrium'*  provides an appropriate analogy. The point of pielibrium is found when eating from the tip towards the crust, the weight of the crust creates instability and your pie falls over, that is the point of pielibrium.  Relationships that come to fruition have a similar fulcrum point where we lose our stable footing of individuality, teeter precariously on the idea that our independence outweighs the need for connection and intimacy.  The weight of that connection and the strength of that new bond continues to pull on us until we tumble and give in to a new and inevitable angle of repose, one both more and less secure than where we started.  My journey to that tipping point probably began the moment I looked into Jennifer's eyes for the first time and for the following weeks I struggled to maintain balance (Picture me attempting tree pose in yoga class.  Yeah, I didn't last very long or hold out very successfully). There were probably several moments in those heady days of September, 1991 where I came close to falling but didn't or did fall but convinced myself it was a stumble and I could get back on the balance beam, but the one that stands out most in my mind was the afternoon on what I've come to think of as 'the Grassy Knoll.'

*Google search: Sniglets/pielibrium


The knoll, was not actually a knoll at all as I understand the definition of a knoll, but rather a graded section of  grass between the Harold B Lee Library and the Clark building where I had a late afternoon English class.  On subsequent tours of campus and football game days we've pointed it out to our kids.  It's not hallowed ground per se but it has taken it's rightful place in Larsen family lore. Memories of the afternoon in question, like so many from my days working graveyard shifts, have a dream-like quality, everything in soft focus and with a slightly surreal 'I could wake up and all of this could be gone' feel to it.  I was waiting for my class to start, we were waiting, together, though Jennifer had no reason aside from spending time with me, to be there.  As per usual, I hadn't slept much and was struggling to stay awake.  I had a reading assignment for English that I had neglected to complete and to which Jenn was giving voice while I lay next to her in the still lush fall grass.  In my mind there is sunlight passing through a willow tree and dancing in the golden highlights of Jennifer's hair (though I've returned since and there is no willow tree, so I'm assuming the song 'Try To Remember' from the musical The Fantasticks has somehow insinuated itself into this memory). If I'm taking complete artistic license, the English homework would be a Shakespearean sonnet "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"  Or a poem from Pablo Neruda*:  "I love you without knowing how or when or from where..."  it wasn't either of those, but rather the satirical essay A Modest Proposal By Jonathan Swift in which he opines that the Irish could solve the dual problems of poverty and hunger by eating their young.  Yeah.  If anything could kill a mood it should have been that, but it didn't, mainly because in my almost dozing dream state I wasn't processing the words Jennifer was reading, I was only hearing her voice, smelling the light scent of the Perry Ellis perfume she often wore and seeing her, not her face because that was in shadow, but rather her silhouette and the silhouette cast by twenty year old Jennifer was rather something to behold.


How to say this and not be impolitic?  There were curves , 
all the right kind in all the places there should be curves. Somewhere between a Rubens portrait and those kitschy pin up girls WWII pilots painted on the sides of their airplanes. Jenn blamed her freshman curves on the time she spent working at Buns Master Bakery (that was the really the name.  If you're suppressing the urge to snigger as you read that, just let it out.  It's perfectly appropriate in this context, or any context.  Buns Master [yep]) before she left for University.

Don't get me wrong, forty three year old Jennifer still has curves, albeit more toned and athletic, more angular and taut than her younger self.  She can still push the pause button on my heart easily and with little to no effort. She still leaves me at times without words to adequately express what I feel for her.  But that now twenty two years-familiar feeling first started on a patch of grass in the dying light of a September afternoon.  It wasn't the spark that ignited the flame but rather the flame consuming the kindling and seeking more fuel and a reason to continue to burn.  It's what distinguishes romantic love from all other forms of love with which it shares tenderness and selflessness but adds... not lust, that's gotten a bad rap in too many conference talks, but desire and passion. The cleaving of one person to another, the twain becoming one.  I didn't think in the moment:  "this is a feeling upon which I could build a forever" but rather "I want to keep feeling this forever" feeling it with this person who is at this moment reading me the least romantic words that man has ever put down on paper.  It was that instant when for me the entire adult female population didn't disappear but rather faded into the scenery or was crowded into the wings and Jennifer was the only woman I saw, or wanted to see.  It's what I feel, what Jenn wants me to feel, when she finishes primping in the mirror, gives her lips a final smack and asks: "What do you think?" And I am dumbfounded in the moment and when I finally do speak it's with more questions:  "Where to start? and How much time do you have?  It's what she can't believe I feel when she arrives home from a run, sweaty, disheveled and utterly lovely.  It's what she wishes I didn't feel when she awakens first thing in the morning, bedraggled and dour but with the warmth of an entire night's sleep radiating from her blanketed body and those same alluring curves... Jennifer is not a morning person, so when her runner friends began inviting her on pre-dawn outings I asked her if she really thought that it was such a good idea?  You know?  To be around friends that early in the morning? To which she responded:  "Well, since they're not going to be trying to spoon with me I think it will be fine."  Like I said, Jenn's not a morning person.  I sort of am.  We've found our compromise on that point.  

*It's too good, I have to post it all:

I love you without knowing how, 

or when, 

or from where. 

I love you simply, 

without problems or pride: 

I love you in this way 

because I do not know any other way of loving but this, 

in which there is no I or you, 

so intimate that your hand upon my chest 

is my hand, 

so intimate that when I fall asleep 

your eyes close.  

-Pablo Neruda

(Yeah, what he said)

We moved on from the grassy knoll to a world that had changed for us the way it does for anybody who has fallen deeply and obliviously in love.  The world could have crumbled around us and we may not have noticed.  Of course it didn't crumble but some things of note that did occur in the year that I met, courted and married Jennifer that 'right frame of mind' me would have noticed (I had to look these up):  Anita Hill testifies before congress and Clarence Thomas becomes a Supreme Court Justice, Ty Detmer passes for fifteen thousand yards, William Jefferson Clinton announces his candidacy for president and the Soviet Union officially comes to an end.  I vaguely remember the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas debacle and in retrospect feel like maybe we should have listened more to her and less to Senators Orin Hatch and Alan Simpson, but this isn't a political blog, so let's just move on. I was actually at the game (vs Utah no less) when Ty Detmer went over 15k and remember feeling shockingly ambivalent about the whole thing.   I do remember Bill Clinton but probably not for any of the reasons for which he wishes people remembered him.  And that's when the Soviet Union officially collapsed?  Huh.  Where was I?  Oh yeah, in love with Jennifer. 


In November I asked Jenn to come home with me for Thanksgiving.  It was a big move, taking a girl you are dating home to meet your family especially since my family was at that time in a state of disarray and my car was hardly reliable.  I had no real confidence we would make it home and wasn't sure how things would go once we got there but Jenn was Canadian, I was from Southern California, the Utah winter was just beginning and it seemed worth the risk.  My youngest brother Greg got us tickets to see Phantom of the Opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.  The tickets were cheap because he was a student and because the performance was actually on Thanksgiving Day.  So we got dressed in our Broadway Show, Sunday best and went.  On Friday we took Jenn to the beach and tried surfing.  I was never good at it, turns out neither is Jenn, but it didn't matter.  We let Greg do the surfing while we walked on the pier, snapped photos on the beach and watched the sun go down. Saturday night we went to Hollywood with my best friend Jody.  We strolled on the walk of fame, ate at the Beverly Hills Cafe and drove down Santa Monica Blvd to take a tour of the Los Angeles Temple grounds.  Eight months later we would visit that temple again on the last day we would ever wake and not be husband and wife.  I didn't realize it at the time but perhaps suspected that would happen one day, if not there then a temple in Canada of which there were only two at that time:  Cardston and Toronto.

On the drive home we began to talk seriously about marriage.  About what we expected and wanted.  At first it was theoretical but as we drove deeper into the Nevada desert night it became more pointed, more personal.  How many kids would we have?  Where would we live after getting out of school.  And the rest as the say is...

Only it's not history inasmuch as history books are static narratives of past events that don't and won't ever change. Our story, almost twenty three years old now, continues to be written. Through the years we have had our share of problems, personal tragedies, struggles and difficulties. There have been lean years and times of plenty.  There have been seasons of joy, and those of sorrow, days when we've been madly in love and couldn't stop thinking about each other and times when we didn't stop loving one another despite not liking each other very much. We've gotten through all of it together and learned to look to one another for support and lean on each other for strength.  We understand that we each have unique talents and abilities, our specialty dishes that we bring to the proverbial dinner banquet that is a marriage. Jenn has a head for organization is good with numbers, has an eye for detail and a mind that grasps abstract concepts intuitively.  I have a Calvinist work ethic, an open mind with regard to most social issues and a sentimental view of life generally and relationships specifically.  Jenn is in charge of finances, programming electronic equipment and DIY home improvement projects.  I clean bathrooms, make meals on my days off, take the kids on outings to the rec center to swim or to football games and am in charge of making sure Jennifer is happy  (that last one merits its own paragraph, see below).  Together we make a pretty good team.  If marriages were like an NCAA basketball playoff bracket I would definitely put us through to the sweet sixteen.  With some strong small forward and shooting guard play by the kids in the form of spouses who get along with their mother-in-law and a maybe a cute grand kid or two coming off the bench, who knows how deep into this tournament we could go?    But in reality, the real honour is to have been invited to the Big Dance in the first place and as long as the music is playing I will gleefully keep dancing.*

*Metaphorically of course.  I don't dance, or sing for that matter.  These were both sore spots with Jennifer. especially the singing.  A well trained and pleasing to listen to singing voice straddled the line of very important vs absolutely necessary on the list teen-aged Jennifer made of traits she would look for in her future eternal companion.  It's the reason I jot down memories, post blogs and dash off the occasional free verse poem.  Not great or even good poetry by anybody's metric except perhaps Jennifer's and her evaluation is tainted by the fact that most of the poems are for (and about) her.  But it's how I compensate for my inadequacy in the arena of performance art.





We have a tradition in our family that on a person's birthday we go around the room and each family member gets a chance to  say what they like best about the birthday celeb du jour.  On Jenn's birthday last April I commented that what I liked about her was that she is not easily pleased. Her father Terry (who happened to be visiting at the time) chuckled, I want to say ruefully.  It's a trait with which he is familiar, one that spans at least three generations of women in our family.  I realize "It's hard to make Jenn happy" doesn't sound like much of a compliment, especially when there are so many other easily identifiable character traits to choose from: she's a dedicated and attentive mother, a strong athlete, a talented (and when it comes to the violin, largely self-taught) musician.  Those are all obvious and apparent to anybody who spends even a small amount of time getting to know Jennifer, but knowing her well enough to know what pleases her, working to discover that thing and then doing it?  Well that's personal to me.  It is my self-appointed vocation of twenty plus years and, all feigned humility aside, I've gotten pretty good at it.  Jenn has always asserted that she has a mild form of Sensory Integration Disorder.  I'm not going to bother explaining that unfortunate malady, you can look it up if you like and I'm not sure that Jenn has it in mild or severe form but I do know that things that don't bother the average person vex her.  There are the normal things that would push anybody's buttons: an itchy tag in a shirt, a poorly tuned musical instrument, an offensive smell or disagreeable taste but there are also the things that most people would blow off: less than ideal lighting, one mismatched plate at the dinner table or the wrong table cloth for the dining occasion in question.  We're currently on our third set of speakers in the van, each new pair more disappointing than the previous ones (and no economically feasible solution to that particular problem in sight).  I long ago learned to not throw away receipts for any gift I buy Jenn. In fact it no longer seems gauche to just tape them to the gift prior to wrapping, which is what I often do.  I'm past getting my feelings hurt when she returns anything I give her, even when it's something she specifically asked for.  I've grown accustomed to the caprice and vagaries of her moods and tastes.  

The difference between pleasing Jennifer and pleasing the wives of any of the people I know is the difference between picking up a dozen roses at the Flower Patch on State street for $9.95 on your way home from work vs a bouquet of edelweiss retrieved by an enamored Austrian with strenuous effort and at great personal risk from a secluded Alpine meadow.   In the end both suitors deliver flowers, but the latter knows he has accomplished something noteworthy, that he wouldn't have attempted such a feat for just any woman.  

When Jenn notices her character traits (a certain amount of which she inherited from her own mother) in our daughter, Raechel she sighs and mutters "I feel so sorry for whomever marries her..." then catches herself and looks at me with that same apology in her eyes.  What she doesn't realize is the sublime pleasure I feel when I find that perfect gift, say the right words or perform an act of service that makes her genuinely smile in appreciation.  How the opportunity to try, even when I miss or it falls flat still feels like a privilege.  The simple, unvarnished fact of the matter is this: making Jennifer Happy makes me Happy.  So if it is edelweiss that is required then edelweiss I shall bring.

Today we celebrate twenty two years of marriage and mark nearly twenty three years since we first met. Again, more than half our lives.  Every day that goes by, each week we spend together and every anniversary we celebrate, the fraction of our lives spent apart shrinks in size.  There will always be that portion of time, relatively small though it may become, when there wasn't a 'we', when our lives weren't two halves of a new, and better in every way, whole.  But there will also come a time when I am too old and feeble minded to remember that far back, when all I can manage to think about is how much I adore the wrinkled, gray haired, green eyed woman curled up under the blanket at the other end of the couch and how frustrating it is having hands too arthritic to give her a decent foot rub. Her crooked toothed smile will have long since been replaced by an artificial plate.  Or, knowing how much Jennifer hates the look of an obvious denture, it might be a toothless grin with which she favours me.  Perhaps I will try to spoon feed her some applesauce and she will wrinkle her nose at me and say "Applesauce?  Blech!  I've never liked applesauce, don't you know? (textures, of course, she's still my same Jennifer after seven decades together, you would think I would learn but my nonagenarian mind lets so many facts slip away...) the only reason I ever buy it is to make gluten free pumpkin, chocolate chip muffins."  And then her breath will catch, her clouded eyes will momentarily brighten and she'll say "Oh, that's what I want, a pumpkin muffin.  Do you have that?"  I'll want to tell her sure, but if you're going to eat it you will have to put your teeth back in... but I won't because I will have already pulled my tired bones off the couch and begun the tricky negotiation of the stairs that take me from our step down family room to the kitchen, the still glowing embers in my heart stoked at the prospect of making Jennifer happy, one more time.  I will wonder to myself, as I often do these days, if this will be the last trip I make for her to that distant mountain meadow, seeking those elusive but oh so gratifying wildflowers.  The thought that there will be a last trip, a last smile, a last sparkling, green-eyed glance of appreciation will make me at once wistful that it is ending and grateful that it ever was.  I look forward to that last day and that last opportunity, sad though it is bound to be, and I will savour every day and every opportunity between then and now.

Happy anniversary Jennifer, I love you.  It feels as though I always have and I knew long before I ever sat down to write this that I always would.

-S

I love you.  

Do you know? 

Of course you do.  

But I thought of you today 

and wondered how was your run?

and what's going on in your day?  

Was it successful?

Did you feel fulfilled,

accomplished,

appreciated?

Did you feel loved?  

If so, when?

Not joking, but really wondering.

  

Because I loved you today, 

just as I was walking into my office to sit down 

I felt one of those twinges 

that are equal parts 

thoughts of you

and emotions you inspire, 

with just enough physical sensation thrown in 

that you can't pretend it's not there. 

So you have to write it down 

and then ask the question

Did I tell you I love you today?  

That I love you right now? 

and will likely love you again tomorrow? 

And If you are grumpy on Sunday 

I might forget to tell you 

'I love you' 

on that day

but it won't be because I have stopped loving you

  

So I will tell you now,  

I love you on Sunday too.  

Thought you should know

xome