Well I did it! I officially became a nerd today. A Trail Nerd, that is. I paid my membership dues in dollars and also paid my dues in sweat. This morning I participated in my first official trail run, and as crazy as this may sound: It Was a Blast!!!
The event was the 2012 Trail Nerds Summer Intro 2.8 mile run. The run took place through a wooded local park on trails that were (by my unofficial estimate) about 90-95% single track, which means the bare area we were running on was about 2 foot wide in places and very difficult to pass. And, despite its advertisement as having “no major hills”, there were some “minor” ones that gave this trail-newbie a good kick in the pants, or shorts as it were. We were jumping over exposed roots and fallen trees, occasionally ducking under overhanging branches, and generally having one heck of a good time.
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens
~Ecclesiastes 3:1
Years come and years go and so many of us find ourselves confessing silently (or to the world at large if you are a blogger) that this is going to be the year we do it: get (and stay) healthy. I have certainly done so publicly many times over the years. This year I skipped it. No annual weight loss or healthy eating strategy in my resolutions. It was time to stop talking about it. I had made that decision months before the dawning of 2012.
For several years now I have fought a losing battle with cholesterol. Note here that I define “fought” as taking medicine and doing nothing else AT ALL. My doc would put me on a low dose of meds and a few months later, after blood tests, I would get a call from her nurse instructing me to stop taking the medication “immediately”. Regardless of the medication, my lipid levels would be elevated to a point that obviously concerned my doctor. When this happened again in September I told her that I guess it was “time to grow up” and that I would take a more hands-on approach to lowering my cholesterol*–a promise which I promptly forgot as I entered the three-month-long autumn Eating Season.
In late January everything changed. I wish I could tell you what that magic formula was that flipped the switch, but I just don’t know. Perhaps it was me relating the very funny story at my grandmother’s funeral of our last meeting, where she declared (referring to me) that she never would have recognized me because she didn’t think she had a grandson that fat. Maybe it was seeing other family members with health issues that are exacerbated, if not caused, by weight and diet issues. Maybe I did finally grow up (in this one tiny area of my brain). Whatever it was that lit the spark**, I started a new lifestyle on February 1st and the results are these:
“…I’m leaving in the mornin’ on a Q-Electra-Blue,
I’ll hang a right at Jupiter on the far side of the Moon;
And I’ll stand before the Elders and they’ll ask me of this place,
And if the Earth could be a home for folks from Outer Space.”
~Shel Silverstein, from I’m From Outer Space
This week’s Lets Blog Off topic explores the familiar theme of what you wanted to be when you grew up, but adds the more sobering twist: Are you still getting there?
Given the title of my post one might assume that the simple answer is “No”.
The topic for today’s Let’s Blog Off is “What is Home“. My first inclination when seeing that four letter word is to examine my relationship with God and family and ideas like: “home is where the heart is” and “home is where you make it”. Without any intent to belittle thoughts of that nature, my mind went elsewhere when this topic was posted.
It went to the places where I often make my home during the cool autumn days and the long winter nights, during the first signs of the return of spring and during the sweltering heat of summer. I am talking about books. But not just books themselves, but a home filled with books, for I have to agree with the Roman scholar Cicero:
My friend James recently blogged about writer’s myopia in relation to the practice of creative writing on one’s blog. He related the discussion to the week in which he skipped a topic that was offered by the Let’s Blog Off project, a regularly scheduled blogging assignment that exists to encourage bloggers to practice the art of writing rather than giving in to the ennui that occurs when the Muse has taken flight. He mentions regretting passing on the topic of “What’s your favorite color”.
Reading his post got me thinking. Not about my favorite color, but about how we as human beings often miss the opportunity for deeper conversations with one another because of the innocuous questions we ask one another and the pat answers that we give to those questions. “How are you?” is probably the most oft used in the course of the normal day and yet I would venture to say that 99% of the time we say “fine” and just move on. It is probably safe to say that 99% of the time when we ask others that question we honestly don’t care to get a real answer. We are just filling up the space of that awkward moment when we make eye contact with another, or pass them in the hall.
James mentioned that it might be fun to each revisit that theme. James’ post can be found here.
I have to admit that unlike most people in the world, when I hear or read any variation of the “What’s your favorite color?” question, the first thing that pops into my mind, and often comes out of my mouth, is some portion of this dialog uttered by a tall thin frustrated Irishman in the film The Matchmaker
“What is your favorite color?”
“Dammit, what kind of shite is this?”
“I don’t have a favorite color! Jesus! Who has a favorite color?”
“I’ll tell ya me favorite color. Bollucks! That’s me favorite color!”
If you need to hear it for yourself, you can follow this link. The conversation begins at minute 6:23.
And if that isn’t the first thing that pops into my head, this scene is:
As I said, it got me thinking.
If I had been assigned the task to write about my favorite color during the initial Let’s Blog Off discussion, this is how I would like to think I would have answered:
