Close Encounters of the Black and White Kind

You’ve seen those Nationwide Insurance commercials — life comes at you fast? Indeed, it does.

Wednesday morning, I found myself in my usual location at 7:15 AM: outside, in my neighborhood, running before heading into the office for a day of writing briefs and putting out various fires. Almost 12 miles of road lay behind me as I prepared to enter the homestretch and put the last half mile or so underneath my heels.

I was having a good run. I was pleasantly surprised to wake up to the fact that the forecasted rain and snow hadn’t fallen yet. I had expected to be logging miles on the treadmill, and instead I was outside — that alone was enough to put me in a great mood. And to add a cherry on top, the run itself was going great. Although it smelled like rain, none had fallen and I found myself in a good rhythm, clicking off miles effortlessly at about 8:15 pace — that is a pretty good clip for me.

My run finishes along a 35 MPH one-lane road. The leaden gray sky had lightened up considerably in anticipation of the non-sunrise and I could see very well. Because I was running along comfortably, my eyes weren’t fixed straight ahead (like they often are when I’m struggling to maintain pace), but rather sort of wandered.

That’s when life — or at least Mother Nature — came at me fast.

Scampering across the road — fortunately empty of traffic for the moment — was a black and white furry creature. It was coming towards where I was running. We were on paths set to intersect.

Now I imagine ten thousand or more years ago, one of my distant ancestors was out running one morning with his or her spear and came upon this particular creature and thought: “BREAKFAST!” Imagine the surprise and horror when “breakfast” unleashed an appalling stench. I am certain at that moment it became ingrained in our instincts that the black and white striped pattern of this particular creature is the North American equivalent of what those bright colors patterns on poison dart frogs are — danger, I am not good to eat, if you come after me you’re going to get hurt.

Of course, its not easy to just stop when you’re running. I don’t pretend to understand all the physics of it, being a history and philosophy major and all, but I imagine it has something to do with inertia and other forces I don’t quite understand except practically. I did my best and managed to come to a halt as the creature made it safely across the road and onto the sidewalk.

We were now feet apart, and I found myself desperately rifling through the stored files in my brain. What do you do when faced with Mephitis mephitis? I desperately sought some piece of knowledge from the hundreds of episodes of Nature and similar shows I’ve watched. Am I supposed to run away? Make myself look big? Play dead? Oh wait, I think that’s what you do when faced with a grizzly. What are you supposed to do when you’re eye to eye with a skunk? If I ever knew, it was lost, probably replaced with some pointless piece of trivia.

Fortunately, as I stood there anxiously trying to decide what to do, the creature made life easy. It gave me a sort of puzzled look, a sort of quizzical what are you doing here glance. It sized me up, and must have decided that this thin girl with a ponytail and running shoes posed no real threat. Having decided I was no danger, it continued to mosey along, crossing the sidewalk, and scrambling down into a wooded ravine where it disappeared.

Potential very stinky crisis averted. I continued my run, finishing the last half mile very fast, fueled by adrenaline. As much as I love nature, I’m hoping for no more close encounters of the black and white kind.

Two Years.

I share my anniversary of a cancer diagnosis with Valentine’s Day. You become a cancer survivor on the day of your diagnosis, or so says the American Cancer Society, and so it is at this point two years I have been a cancer survivor. I have now been through this whole anniversary process twice now and I am still uncertain how I am supposed to respond. I know I’m not alone in that because many survivors have trouble with anniversaries.

Last year, it was the fear of recurrence that haunted me most. My first anniversary of diagnosis was filled with worry and dread. It took me several days to be able to sleep well at night. As I find myself at my second anniversary, the thought of recurrence is now starting to weaken, and though I am far from confident, I feel like my odds of having beaten advanced stage Hodgkin’s Disease are improving bit by bit as each day passes. The prospect of relapse, while still there, isn’t quite as enormous as it was last year.

This year, it is something else. For many years, cancer was a death sentence. Society really hasn’t caught up to the fact that cancer is not necessarily a final sentence. I say that because there really aren’t many tools in place to help survivors cope with the large mental, social, financial, and physical encumbrances cancer places on them as they try to pick up the pieces and move on with the rest of their lives.

It is that burden that weighs heavily on my mind lately. I thought I was doing well approaching my second anniversary, but I was very mistaken. I woke up in a dreadful, bitter mood today. I am a pretty easy going person and it is unusual to find me in such a mood. But yes, cancer survivors have bad days too. I think people automatically assume that having had cancer you’re always living life to its top, living like there is no tomorrow, not wasting a drop of life on negative emotions. It is not that way. It cannot be that way if you are going to go on and live life. For example, although I’m more serene now then prior to cancer, I still get impatient with small inconveniences just like everyone else. Cancer doesn’t suddenly ennoble you for the rest of your life.

Instinctively knowing I needed time alone and not wishing to inflict my gloom upon others, I laced up my shoes and hit the road alone, even though it was snowing lightly, to try and discover the origin of what was bothering me so much that it would put me in such a gloomy and petulant humor.

I puzzle through my problems on the run. Personal, professional … the solution to all complexities in life may be found on the run.

I started to sift through the last few days, and realized quickly that all the Valentine’s Day stuff lately has been bothering me. It is this constant in my face reminder that people are celebrating a day of tremendous misery for me. February 14th is not a joyful day to celebrate romance, at least not anymore for me. Happy Valentine’s Day? What’s there to be happy about?

I had turned into an unadulterated, bona fide, dyed in the wool Valentine’s Day grinch. And just to be clear, it isn’t because my shoes are too tight or that my head isn’t screwed on just right. (Some might question the latter, though.)

I think there is some justification for my feelings. In many ways, cancer destroyed my life. It isn’t just that I can’t run as fast. I mention burdens that survivors have to carry. They are heavy. I’m fearful for the future. I can’t plan anything. The reason I haven’t run a marathon post-cancer is because I can’t commit to anything that requires thinking more than about a month or so ahead of time.

Every day life is also just much harder as a cancer survivor. Take something like finding a job — already not a simple task in this economy. How do you deal in your late 20s with the fact that since you graduated from law school you haven’t really had any long term positions because you‘ve been sick? How do you explain why you have a large gap in your employment? Do you lie? Do you tell the truth? What do you say? And would you even really want to work for someone who wouldn’t hire you because you had cancer?

And personal life is harder too. Friends have gone; many I no longer can identify with or I just find that we drift apart because they do not understand me now. Part of the problem is I don’t think people quite understand how I cannot just pick up and move on as though this never happened. Cancer changed me and I jump between the extremes of wanting to pretend like it never happened and needing people to at least acknowledge the horror of my experience and appreciate that I cannot be the same.

Then there are the bills. They just keep coming, just like the snow continues coming. I swear — there are four certainties in life: death, taxes, snow, and medical bills. I’ve pretty much decided that I’m going to call up and offer to settle up with the Cleveland Clinic by offering my first-born son. (I’m only half joking.)

I could go on and on, but suffice it to say that really the genuine cause for my unpleasant mood boiled down to I was feeling sorry for myself.

Fortunately, I find it difficult to stay in a bad mood when running. Something about the rhythm or the endorphins just seems to shake the gloom away.

As I ran along, my irritable mood gradually softened and diminished until it was altogether spent, lost under the therapeutic hammering of a thousand cadenced foot strikes. For all the distressing and stressful elements cancer has brought into my life, on the other hand, I am still alive. And if that is not something worth celebrating, then what is?

For all the challenging aspects that have come with being a cancer survivor, there are so many favorable things that have happened in the two years that have passed since I was diagnosed. And the good outnumbers the bad. Some of the good things are so simple — like being alive and able to appreciate the beauty of a butterfly, the cheery cry of a cardinal, that feeling of gliding along at the end of a good run. Others are personal accomplishments — writing a winning motion for a grateful client, triumphing in my age group at a local race (albeit an extremely tiny race for that rare and amazing feat to come to pass), getting a photograph published.

Out running, having identified my trouble and arrived at a resolution, my mood changed from anger to actually feeling good. Running brings clarity, at least to me. Life may be harder, certainly, but life is there.

I am alive. To live and to love. And even to sometimes complain.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

Water Logged.

The alarm goes off, and I sit up in the dark. My hands feel around the desk for my buzzing cell phone. I find it by feel, turn off the insistent alarm, and rise. Within about ten minutes, I am brushing away the cobwebs of sleep, running down the road through the dark.

The sidewalks are wet this morning and there is a musty smell of rain that hangs thick in the air. It is still warm, though, unseasonably so for Cleveland. I know from checking the hour by hour on the Weather Channel last night that there was an 80% chance of rain in the 6 o’clock hour; I’m glad just not to be getting wet.

That quickly changes, though. The strong, stiff wind I have been fighting for over two miles has carried with it rain. And this is no gentle shower, but a driving rain that makes it difficult to see and pelts the skin like tiny knives. The only saving grace is it is at least somewhat warm. But for that my misery would be intensified at least ten fold.

Normally, given the forecast, I would have probably simply opted for the sterile warmth and dryness of the gym. But the tendons in my left leg have been bothering me quite a bit when I run on the treadmill, and my right ankle has been emitting small protestations for the past week or so when I run the tight turns of the track. Plus, after almost a straight month of indoor runs, I yearn to run outside, to run in fresh air, even if it means running laps around the neighborhood in the dark with the good possibility of getting wet. And so, here I find myself, running through the dark, trying to avoid the largest puddles in a forlorn attempt to keep my feet somewhat dry.

By the end of the run, I am soaked to the skin and somewhat slightly chilled. I’ve run for an hour and I can literally wring out my shirt. My shorts cling to my legs. I’m fairly certain any one who saw me running underneath the hazy reddish glow of the street lights must think I am crazy.

The list of people who have called me “crazy” for my running is long and distinguished. It ranges from my dad to my brothers to my oncologist to a lady at the grocery store who calls me “that girl I see out running all the time.” I don’t think I’m crazy though. Dedicated, probably. Eccentric, likely. But not crazy.

Well, maybe a little. Actually there was a time when I would have gone running on a day like this just to prove I could whether any storm, both proverbially and literally. And that probably does qualify as crazy. There have been times in my life where running has been a crucible, and running through the worst weather Cleveland can muster has been a point of pride, a sort of testing ground of body and character.

Having survived cancer, though, that sort of desire to suffer out in the elements has mostly faded away. I found during chemotherapy that my mind and body could suffered far more than I ever did even on the very worst day out on the road. And so I really have no yearning or need to try and test and find those kind of limits anymore.

So while I would like to say I was outside running today because I am hardcore or even just a touch crazy, the only reason I was outside running today was that I miss fresh air, miss my favorite running route through my neighborhood, miss the sound of real wind whistling past my ears. That and beat up legs persuaded me to lace them up and go outside today, not any need to test myself, to be crazy, or hardcore.

All in all, the run ended up being pretty miserable. And to top it off, my ungrateful left shin continued to grumble a little bit on the train ride home from the office.

Still, though, there is something good about running in the rain, so I’m glad I did it today, even though I have no real desire to do a repeat performance any time soon.

run through history

(The links on this page will take you to additional pictures stored on my Flickr account.)

It is about half an hour before dawn when I step through the sliding door of the hotel and slip outside into the thick air. It is February, and it is very windy, but the temperatures are unseasonably warm. After spending so much time fighting bitter weather and cold winds, the southerly breeze and the thick air feel much warmer than 55 degrees. The first light of dawn has begun behind me as I set out running west down the shoulder of a busy highway.

The first mile or so of my run isn’t particularly enjoyable; it is down a commercial stretch of road lined with hotels and other businesses. There is still a lot of road salt and gravel on the shoulders of the road, and I hear the crunch of the tiny stones underneath my feet as I begin to gradually loosen up from a stiff early morning gait and into a faster, more fluid pace. This is a fairly dangerous place to run, and I force myself stay extra alert, even though it is a sleepy Sunday morning. I soon turn off the highway and stride through an open gate, literally leaving behind the modern world to enter a world you shall now read of only in books. I am soon running along a road that marked the starting point for Johnson’s and Early’s divisions on the second and third days of the battle of Gettysburg. One-hundred and forty-five years ago, the now quiet, golden fields surrounding me were filled with a hailstorm of metal and lead and death.

This would be an excellent place to run even if you knew nothing about history, but being a Civil War enthusiast, I especially enjoy running the roads of the Gettysburg National Military Park. I continue onwards. As I pass by the junior high track, I think of Colonel Isaac Avery, commanding one of the Confederate brigades. Not far from where I am running, he was mortally wounded. As his life ebbed, Avery scribbled a note on a piece of paper: “Major, tell my father I died with my face to the enemy.” The picture of the blood stained note with the scrawled and failing hand writing in one of the major treatises on this part of the battle is etched in my mind as I cruise through the fields where Avery and his North Carolinians charged towards the waiting Union troops — many of German descent from New York and Ohio — lining a stonewall at the base of East Cemetery Hill.

I have just since passed the Culp farm that gives this part of the battlefield it’s name. Wesley Culp was a Gettysburg boy who ended up in Virginia and fought with the famous Stonewall brigade. He was killed not far from here, on property where he played as a boy.

I soon pass over East Confederate Avenue — in succession passing the tablets explaining the role of each Southern brigade in the attack on Cemetery and Culp’s hills — and into the open Spangler Meadow. This was a popular local picnic area before the War. After the battle, legends sprang up that temporary truces were called between the sides so that men from both armies could fill their cups and canteens from this spring. It is now warming up and the sun has turned the sky a pale pink; I wish momentarily that you could still steal a drink from the now closed spring.

This area was also the scene of fighting between the Union 1st Maryland and then the monument to the Confederate 1st Maryland. As I ascend the hill, I pass by first the Union 1st Maryland, then cruise past the Confederate 1st Maryland. If you’re knowledgeable, you will notice in perusing the Army of Northern Virginia’s Order of Battle that there is, in fact, no 2nd Maryland! And therein lies the relatively interesting history of the monument. In October 1884, the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association granted permission to the survivors of the 1st Maryland Battalion (which had served in Steuart’s Maryland Brigade of Allegheny Ed Johnson’s Division) to erect a monument indicating its position on the battlefield. Union veterans opposed a Confederate monument. Of particular difficulty was the fact that there were already TWO Union “First Marylands” memorialized nearby — the 1st Maryland “Potomac Home Brigade” and the 1st Maryland “Eastern Shore.”

In an attempt to compromise, the GBMA decided to allow the 1st Maryland CSA to build a monument, but required that it be designated as the 2nd Maryland Infantry, CSA, to avoid confusion with the two Union 1st Marylands. The men of the 1st Maryland CSA reluctantly agreed, but defiantly etched the words “1st Maryland changed to” right above the “2nd Maryland CSA” designation on the monument.

Culp’s Hill is filled with beautiful monuments, like the sculpture of Clio recording a history of the battle featured on the 123rd New York’s monument. As I descend into the saddle between the upper and lower hills, I pass by the statue to General John W. Geary, late governor of Pennsylvania. It is then up the hill at a steeper angle. On my left, in quick succession I pass two of my favorite monuments at Gettysburg — the monument to the 78th and 102nd New York regiments featuring a hidden carved lion in the stonework and the tall “tower of invincible strength” dedicated to the 150th New York from Dutchess County.

Another hair pin turn takes me to the summit where the circa 1895 metal war department observation tower still stands. It is now quite light and the sun is shining. Some days, I might scramble up the steps of the tower for a look into the town of Gettysburg, but not today. I turn around at the monument to General George Greene — when he died at age 98, he was buried in Warwick, Rhode Island under a 2-ton boulder taken from the crest of the hill I’m running down.

I descend back the way I came, this time taking a side road through Pardee field and past the 5th Ohio’s monument featuring a stony owl. It is then back through the meadow at Spangler Spring and again down East Confederate Avenue.

In the summer, there are often cows in these fields and their deep bass moos cheer me on as I run along. All too soon I cross back out to the highway and from 1863 to 2009, to continue my way back towards my temporary home away from home.

The last mile goes by the quickest — the traffic has picked up now and the desire to avoid a busy, dangerous road spurs me to finish the last mile at a fast pace. I safely arrive back, invigorated by my run through history.