Midterm

Today my bones hurt. I stand in front of my class watching them take a midterm exam. I handed out crisp, clean, white exams. One by one, they drop them off at my desk in the front of the room, covered in ink (the brave) or pencil scratch, stacked on top of their cheat sheets. One girl turns in more than one cheat sheet, and now I’m faced with an issue I didn’t anticipate. Do I subtract points from her exam? My ankle bone hurts. Which is interesting because to my knowledge, I have never injured the bone in my ankle. Maybe it’s the cyst that’s apparently growing out of my joint.

I sip cold coffee as the room slowly empties. Three students remain. The construction outside provides a constant loud hum that I’ve managed to tune out. The stack of exams on my desk grows larger and I wonder who does more work for these things- myself or my students?

Rubble

After returning home from the Northern California wildfires, I dropped all my gear on the floor, ate a sandwich from the sack lunch provided by the fire, and peeled off my clothes. My feet had been in my old fire boots for 26 hours. I crawled in to bed to tack on a third hour to the two broken hours of sleep I had gotten out on the fire the night before. When I woke up, I was cranky and felt helpless. I took a hot bath. Mike texted and asked what I needed. "Dinner" I replied. I managed to put all my gear away before he made it over.

After eating, I crawled into the soft down comforter of my own bed. As I closed my eyes, I found myself surrounded by the rubble and char of Fountain Grove, the leveled community I had spent the night in, conducting LiDAR scans from our mobile research truck. I let the images play in my head. Dispatch informed Night Ops of another fire, and that the caller had said "People are running". Night Ops responded with an order to get on RedCom and order up anyone and everyone who might have resources available. They were going to lose another town.

I sank into a deep sleep.

This morning, as my mind raced with all my uncompleted tasks, the horrors of the last 24 hours, and my own insignificance, Mike tells me to save all those thoughts for my run. I wondered how far I'd have to run to escape the images of all the wreckage, and evacuees holding hands, comforting each other. I wonder how long I will need to press my feet to the pavement to out run the thought of an ocean of fire rolling over people as they desperately tried to escape. And people wonder why so many are still missing. But people, like animals, look exactly like everything else when all that's left is char.

I told Mike I felt worthless. I wasn't out saving people, or saving their homes. I had stood and stared at the rubble, over coffee heated in a JetBoil on the bed of the pickup truck, hoping that morning was not the day they'd let survivors back in to see if their homes still stood. When I was fighting fires in San Diego, we had driven past homes completely destroyed. Families sifted through the burned remains, looking for any token of their lives before the fire. Those days, fighting fire wasn't fun. Fighting fire was fun when it didn't kill anyone or destroy anyone's home. It hurts to watch others come to realize their grief. I've inherited my father's empathy.

"You paid your dues" Mike responded. I don't know. When is it really enough? Some people spend their whole lives fighting fire. Me, just a small fraction. But you can't keep pushing yourself to do something you no longer love. It takes the life out of it.

I put on my shoes and went out into the brisk morning. I started to jog and the impact jostled my bones. I was exhausted. I thought about the neighborhood we were advised not to go in, because they were still searching. For people. Or what was left of them. I had a 16 mile run scheduled for yesterday and made a plan to make that up on this run. 16 miles should make all this go away.

I needed to write the midterm for my class, analyze the computer simulation of the winds driving the fires, go shopping. My breath started to even out and my legs strode forward on their own. I'm not sure what it is about cars that melts into a bright silver liquid when they burn. Maybe the rims? It looks like mercury, shining in the sun. Complete ruins, surrounding an untouched playground. Buildings crumbled to the ground next to a broken pot for a plant. Two cars parked, presumably, in what used to be the garage, next to what looks like was once a lawn mower.

I ran down onto the entrance to the paved creek trail and turned left under the bridge. I came upon a homeless man sitting on a bench, going through his backpack. I wondered "What's the difference?" Thousands of people are now homeless, but this man has probably been homeless for a good portion of his life. My GPS beeped. 1 mile. 7 more to go before I turn around and head home.

I stopped at the park to pee, then continued on. My stomach hurt. I wondered if it was smart to push so hard after having so little sleep in the past couple of days. I just wanted to do whatever it took to make myself feel better. Another beep. 2 miles. I wasn't helping anyone. I wasn't doing anything to make the world a better place, or to save people. I gave up responding to other people's emergencies and embraced the peaceful life, where choices aren't a matter of life and death.

I choked up and held back tears, tried to even my breath again. 16 miles were not going to make this feel better. And maybe that's the point. Maybe it's not supposed to feel ok. Maybe I'm just supposed to feel. I stopped running. I walked for a few more minutes before turning off my GPS.

Buddha taught that we suffer because of our expectations, our view that the world should be a certain way. We fail to see that things just are. People die, houses burn, we're all just ants building our own troubles. I made myself keep walking, trying to look at the fall leaves around me. I crossed over the bridge and looked at the ducks standing on the ledge before the waterfall. I took a few deep breaths and decided to just enjoy the day.

I pushed aside my thoughts about not being ready for the December marathon, not being where I should with my thesis, not saving the world, not being enough. "Be here now". I decided to find a turtle. I walked closer to the creek, glancing around as I did. I smiled and said good morning to others out on the trail. An old couple sat together on a bench. I found my turtle. He sat on a log, still as a statue. His neck stretched toward the sky, soaking up the sun. I stared for a couple minutes and he still didn't move. I walked home.

I had a snack and took a nap. When I awoke, I made the mistake of Googling the "Diablo Winds". My thesis. I wanted to see if my advisor had given me credit for the statistics on the winds that he had desperately asked for, as he was preparing for a radio interview. Because of the wildfires going on just north of here, the most catastrophic in California's history, the entire world was talking about Diablo winds, what they are and the science behind them. There goes my thesis. There goes any self worth I had mustered during my walk home.

Getting back up was tough. I suppose it always is. Hundreds of papers exist on Santa Ana winds, so my one among a few on the Diablos will be fine. I don't know where I read it, but it stuck with me: "You're always okay until you're not". With the memories and emotions of the last couple days draped over my shoulder, I went out to get groceries, grabbing a couple chocolate bars just in case.

Creature Week

The other day as I drove to the gym in the darkness, I started thinking about a weekend swim in the cove. I haven't done an ocean swim since September, so my mental comfort level has dropped a bit. As I walked into the women's locker room, a local news station was playing silently on one of the televisions. The headline along the bottom read "Up next: shark advisory". It went to a commercial.

I locked my things in a locker and tried to locate a tv with that station on as I prepared to warm up on the stationary bike. I saw the story pop up, but it was too far away to see the closed captioning. I had to wait until I got to work to look it up.

Sure enough, the shark advisory was for San Diego. A juvenile great white shark, about 8 feet long, was spotted by a couple of surfers.... last seen headed north. The advisory doesn't affect the cove, which is further north than the shark sighting, but I decided to cancel my open water swim anyway.

It's been Creature Week on The Weather Channel that plays on one of the many tv's in our meteorology office at work. We've been watching sharks, spiders, and snakes.

San Diego has also been having a bee issue lately, with traveling swarms (apparently not Africanized). My roommate told me about a swarm that came around before I got here and she nearly smacked into it. It reminded me to locate my epi-pen and be sure I always know where it is.

So last night, spurred on by all the creature talk of the week, and my upcoming triathlon (in the harbor), I had the craziest dream. I was doing a triathlon, but in a weird order. I ran first, then biked, and then had to attend to someone with an injury. About a half hour or so later, I was done and considered finishing the race. But I was worried because of my ankle injury that I've been rehabbing and wasn't sure I should even do the run. Then I realized I had already made it through the run just fine and only had the swim left. I decided to do it. My transition time would be horrible (like a half hour), but my swim split could still be good.

I quickly pulled on my wetsuit, tearing the ankle cuff in the process. I entered the water near the officials who directed me into a shallow, rocky area. I carefully waded through the rocks. As I came upon larger rocks that forced me to rise up out of the water, I was swarmed by bees. I crawled over the rocks and in front of me lay a deep, dry canyon. On the other side of the canyon, rocks piled up in the form of a wave. As I looked on, a huge wave crashed over the lip of the rocks and flooded the canyon. I was terrified. That kind of power was more than I was trained for. The wave subsided. As  waited for the next one, a giant killer whale flung itself over the rock wall and landed in the canyon in front of me, awaiting the next wave. I would have to swim through the powerful wave.... with a killer whale.

I woke up.

I have a feeling I'm going to have to get my nerves in check before the triathlon. Even in the harbor, I'm going to worry about the creatures of the deep. But being in the water with a hundred other people at least statistically decreases my chance of getting eaten.

Homo sapiens

We are anxious creatures.
Full of expectations of ourselves
and of others.

No one tells you
that for every day you weave flowers into your hair
there will be one you draw the bath
extra hot
to scorch the day from your skin.

The knots in your stomach
and in your shoulders
will compete for dominance
even as your feet glide freely over cool morning concrete
and your lungs expand into the sacred space
of your chest.
Your courageous wings will flap angrily against the weight
of your own insecurities
and you will be stretched thin
between the earth
and the sky.

And you will breathe.
And you will crumble.

And you will breathe.
And you will rise.

No one tells you
the most heinous battles are not fought between countries
or religions,
but rather inside of yourself.
Every part of you will be a rogue soldier
fighting for his own cause
and you will burn down whole villages
built from your bones.

And your skin
will cover it all.

You will carry that skin
with every ounce of bravery you can muster
and for every day that it is a crushing stone,
there will be one in which it is a cape
with super powers.

And you will breathe.

No one tells you

that breathing is enough.

Floor

I knew today was a floor day shortly after 6 am. That early notice was made possible by a 4:30 am wake-up.

I put my foot in a hole while running in December. It seemed ok, nothing seemed injured. I kept running. I had been running since then, with intermittent swelling and pain that I attributed to achilles tendinitis. After a hilly half marathon in March, my ankle swelled substantially. The swelling was all in the front, the pain was all in the back. I made a doctor's appointment. Several appointments, an x-ray, an MRI, two doctors, and one physical therapist later, I have posterior ankle impingement due to os trigonum syndrome, and capsulitis thanks to the hole in the snow. I am in the middle of ten weeks of physical therapy, making a shoe switch, having orthotics modified by a sports medicine podiatrist, and following a "return to run" program. I am trying my best to stay positive. In my opinion, an athlete's strength can be measured by his or her ability to endure in the face of adversity. All athletes get injured.

I can cycle, as long as I don't stand on the pedals much. I can swim, as long as I don't kick. I can do weight training as long as it doesn't bother my ankle. I can now run 30 minutes at time, at a moderate pace, on flat ground. All doctor-approved.

Last week my physical therapist scolded me for wearing flip flops (it was 91 degrees outside) because it encourages my big toe to curl, and she's trying to get it to go in the opposite direction. I talked about going barefoot, but then I'd burn my feet, and then what?

"Well then you'd be forced to take a break!" she exclaimed.

I kept quiet and focused on my exercises. But it made me wonder if she didn't approve of the return to run program that my podiatrist had outlined for me. I didn't ask. Later that day she told me how impressed she was with my foot strength. "Good job!" Ok, I guess I'm doing alright.

Sometimes kicking happens while swimming. Actually, my podiatrist said not to kick, my therapist said to try to start kicking so that we can improve my functional range of motion. I'm trying to pick a happy medium. I try to do a little light kicking. After my swim, I run. I'm always stiff and heavy after swimming, as if my body has forgotten what to do with gravity. After my post-swim runs, my ankle is generally a little sore. I don't remember if I'm allowed soreness. When I run on Saturdays, there is no soreness, and I decide I must be doing ok. I am constantly in doubt of my progression.

Last week's meeting with the podiatrist, she told me I was coming along real well. I guess so.

Tuesday's post-swim run left me stiff and sore. And I wonder again, if I'm doing too much. Add onto that my sore wrist from helping Mike move and I can't help but be frustrated with my body as a whole. My wrist hurts more than my ankle, which is either a good sign for my ankle or a bad sign for my wrist. I can't tell.

At the gym this morning, a friend asked about my running. I gave him the spiel.

"Why don't you just take 6 months off?"

"I'm doing what my doctor has cleared me to do."

"Yeah, but are you listening to your body?"

In all honesty, my body told me I wasn't injured after putting my foot in a hole, so I trust an MRI and a couple of doctors more than I trust what my body is telling me. If my body tells me something hurts and my doctor says that's normal, then why would I stop doing what I love? Should I just sit on the couch for a few months and see how that goes?

I told the podiatrist that the back of my ankle hurts sometimes when I kick.

"That may take awhile to go away" she said. Alright, then this is ok.

I stood on the table while my therapist manipulated my ankle bone to sit further back. The pain was horrific.

"What hurts?" she asked, in an impatient tone.

"My ankle bone! Where your thumb is."

"Oh, that's okay then." she said and continued pushing.

Later, she assessed her tape job's ability to hold my ankle bone back and commented on my "drama" I unleashed while she was messing with it.

"Well you were dislodging my bone!" I argued.

"I was mobilizing your joint." She corrected me.

"A joint is made up of bones" I said as I looked at her in the mirror while balancing on my left foot.

She was quiet.

"Alright, I'll give you that."

My therapist is brutal, but she got me healed for Boston. So I take her abuse.

I digress. The point is, some pain is normal. I just don't always know what is. My friend put even more doubt in my head, and a whole lot of anger. I'm tired of people telling me to stop. Three doctors later, not one has suggested I stop running (ok, I didn't run for an entire month during the time they were trying to figure out what was wrong). I have good doctors.

I left the gym in a foul mood and thought about riding up Hick's Road. I have come to the conclusion that Hick's Road is not my demon, but I certainly meet all of them on the way up. I mulled it over in my head. There would definitely be standing on the pedals, Hick's is too steep not to. I knew my anger would be replaced by fear the closer I got to the base of the mountain.

I ate a banana and a piece of bread with peanut butter, adjusted my rear brakes, and headed out the door. Even on flat ground I was running out of gears. Is my tire flat? What's happening?

Maybe you should just go home and lay on the floor. 

I thought about the last time Mike found me on the floor.

"Uh oh" I heard him say as he entered the room. He knows what it means if I'm laying on the floor. The floor is the last resort. The floor is where I go when I have exhausted all of my coping mechanisms. I lay on the floor where there is no further down to go, and I take a break. I let tears run down my cheeks. I let the anger and the frustrations and the fears come and go in my mind. I am not allowed to get up until my time down there is up. I usually give myself a time limit. "Time out" if you will.

I pushed away on my pedals and fought back tears. I would lose myself in the breeze and the ride, then my mind would come back to everything that was bothering me and I'd get all upset again. You're going to stay out here until you change your attitude. I dropped my head. Hick's Road it is.

I came up on a 12 year old riding a fixed gear on his way to school. The light turned green. He took off with apparent ease, even with his backpack on. You're getting your ass kicked by a 12 year old on a fixie. I caught him though...and passed him.

8 miles later, I turned right on Hick's Road. Trees on either side of the narrow two lane road covered the path with shade. A small incline to get up and over a bridge nearly bowled me over. Pull over, you're not ready for this. Maybe your tire is flat.

I pulled onto a side road and pushed down on the saddle. The back tire gave a little. I wasn't sure. I looked at my Garmin. 8.60 miles. Just go home, you're not up for this today. I couldn't figure out what was wrong. Yes, my legs were tired from the gym, but I had squatted more today than I have in months. My legs are strong. I pedaled home.

As I pulled into the driveway, I tested the back tire again. It's not soft, your legs are. 

That's probably true, I thought as I hoisted the bike up onto my shoulder and climbed the stairs. I set it down on the floor inside and leaned it against the wall. I took off my gear and glanced over my bike. Hmmm.

I inspected the back brake pads. They were sitting snug against the rim.

Well that is not helpful. I rode 16 miles with my rear brakes applied. I sighed and started in on all of my other responsibilities. I took a hot bath and ate a hamburger. I called the insurance company and had a 30 minute discussion on why one bill wasn't paid, one was, and are orthotics covered? Meanwhile, Shelly texted me: Read your email. I got dressed while the insurance lady went on about coverage. I got off the phone with her, jumped in the car and drove to school. I parked and checked my email. Admin stuff for the fire lab.

There's an oral quiz on Friday in Japanese. I still haven't written tomorrow's lecture. Can I get all this paperwork done in time for the lab members to get fireline qualified? I'll talk to the physical therapist on Friday to get her take on any soreness I have in my ankle. What is she going to say? Next week is finals week. I need to pay bills. I need to get work done for my other job. There's another email from a student. Forget my thesis. What am I making for dinner tonight? Hold your shit together!

Floor. Floor later, I thought as I made my way to class.

You aren't even going to make it to the floor.

I texted my advisor while walking. I texted Shelly. Class started. Class ended. Texted my advisor back, texted Shelly back, drove home and sent out a couple emails.

Floor. 20 minutes of staring at the ceiling. The floor is for when breathing is not enough. I picture the conversation with my therapist and I cry. I will probably cry when I talk to her. I picture Mike's kind reaction when I tell him it was another floor day, and I cry again. I imagine swimming in the ocean, during a triathlon. Salt and sun, and a little adrenaline. I wonder about the half Ironman in September. I think about the marathon I missed last weekend, that I had a chance of placing in the top three. I think about tomorrow's lecture, how I can't wait for this semester to be over. I glance up at the door where my motivational collage is taped. I made it when I tore my hamstring 2 months before the Boston Marathon. "You are a force to be reckoned with." I put my head back down and stared at the ceiling again. I should make one of those for my upcoming triathlon.

Before or after you write your lecture?

Yeesh.

Non-professional athletes

I've put on 6 pounds since March. I've been putting in extra time in the gym doing strength training since I've been sidelined by an ankle injury (since March) and have been attributing a lot of that gain to muscle mass. I haven't been fooling myself that much though. Having an "apple" shaped body or metabolism, or whatever you'd call it, most of my fat gain shows up around my waist. I know what my waist looks and feels like when I'm in shape. This isn't it. This morning I finally pulled out the measuring tape. I've put two inches on my waist since March.... which I do not attribute to muscle mass gain.

"Can you think of anything that changed right around that time???" Jen texted, followed by an emoji that was laughing whilst tears were streaming from his eyes.

"What are you referring to? I stopped running due to an injury. I started dating. I went on a three week sugar binge...."

Yesterday I did a Google search on weight gain in injured athletes. A couple of interesting things popped up. The first was by a coach, nutritionist, and triathlete herself. I've heard it before, how what we consume while exercising (as long as you stay within your 200-300 calories per hour of exercise) doesn't really contribute to any weight gain. Well her take on that is if you're craving sweets or salty foods, basically your "bad foods" (because who craves carrots...besides my boyfriend), you can eat them during your ride (or run if you so wish) as long as you return to saintly eating off the bike. The article is called "Be a saint on the couch and a sinner on the bike". My only question is: how do you keep a chocolate bar from melting on a bike ride? Research for another day.

Elite runner Laura Fleshman gained 15 pounds during one of her injury breaks. Well geez. If an elite athlete gains 15 pounds from an injury and I only gain 6 (so far), then that's pretty good.

It doesn't help that I've been entirely overwhelmed by the rest of life that demands I not be an athlete. You know, the whole part about being a grad student and producing a thesis. The part about teaching a bunch of new college freshman about weather and climate.... and how to be responsible adults, which I didn't realize was what I signed up for. The part about working another part time job. The part about taking a Japanese language class. And yes, the part about fostering a new relationship.

Cooking is harder when both people have different tastes and nutritional needs. There has been quite a bit more eating out lately than what my metabolism is used to. And who is going to order two eggs and a couple slices of toast for breakfast when confronted with 6 different choices for eggs benedict and crepe specials?

Last Saturday I helped Mike move into his new apartment. The two of us did it in less than a day. The next morning I sat on the couch while he unpacked things in the kitchen. My back to him, I was recovering from a large plate of eggs benedict (California style), hashbrowns, and about 12 cups of coffee.

"Are you going to the gym tomorrow?" I heard him ask.

"I guess...." I replied.

"What do you mean you guess?"

"Well I'd kinda like a day off..." My voice trailed off near the end of that sentence.

Silence. I didn't even have to turn around to know he had stopped unpacking and was standing there staring at me. What did you do today, Carrie? What is today if not a day off?

"Yessss, I'm going to the gym tomorrow." I groaned. I like that he doesn't take my shit.

I don't take his either. Last night he poked at the new item on his plate. "What is this?"

"You're new favorite vegetable. Eat it."

"But what is it?"

"Jicama."

"What does it look like?"

I laughed. "What do you mean what does it look like? You're looking right at it!"

"Yeah but what does it look like when it's on the tree or whatever.... it doesn't grow like this." He looked around for a whole vegetable. During dinner I saw him try to hide the three small sticks of jicama behind the salt and pepper shakers on the table.

"Hey! No no no!" I admonished him while putting them back on his plate. I watched him stick the first piece in his mouth. No reaction. In went the second piece.

"Well?"

"It doesn't have much taste."

"That's because you didn't put salt and lime on it." Later he had seconds of all his vegetables, including the jicama.

My sports medicine podiatrist has cleared me to run for a half hour at a time, three times a week. I can increase each run by ten minutes each week if my ankle does ok. She's confident I can compete in the San Diego International Triathlon in June. In my mind it's in the bag... I start eyeballing the Santa Cruz Half Ironman in September. I do some rough calculations in my head. A half marathon seems doable by that point. I push the reality of the 1.2 mile swim and 56 mile bike that precedes the 13.1 mile run, out of my mind. Not the important part. Can I cover the run by then? Yes.... I think I can....

Dejection

Thesaurus.com says the synonyms for discouragement are as follows: hopelessness, pessimism, dejection, depression, despair, disappointment, discomfiture (huh?), dismay, downheartedness, melancholy, sadness, and a few more that were less closely matching apparently. Yes, dejected. That fits here.

I sit in the 8th floor lab with my feet up on my desk, staring at my old physics, meteorology, computer programming, and GIS books. Sharky McSharkface shakes his hula skirt with a wide grin on his face, reminding me of happier times. Times when I wasn't choking down a sad salad wishing it was Phish Food ice cream.

I should've known by my uterine cramps at 5 am that today would be rough.

I teach a class of 55 students. Three of them have been MIA since week two, so they no longer count. Two more of them come and go randomly. So 50 something is what I'm left with. They all show up when there's a quiz scheduled.... and then 25 of them get up and leave after the quiz. Twenty five students can't just sneak out. It's like a mass exodus. I watch the remaining students watch the others file out and try to pretend I don't see them. I start my lecture.... and watch the eyelids start to droop.

It is days like this that I have no idea why I do this, other than to get my tuition paid, and a fraction of my rent paid for.

Ok, it's a noon class. Everyone is either starving or just ate a burrito from La Vic's. We're also in our first heat wave of the year... this is what a fellow meteorology grad student says to me.

Yeah, maybe.

Hawaii is stamped on McSharkface's solar powered podium. His torso shimmies opposite of his hula skirt clad hips (well... what would be shark hips anyway). He wears a pink lei and blue sunglasses. He seems so happy. I blink away tears while another grad student types away at his thesis programming code.

Even my salad is sad. I added dill and everything to make it interesting. It's not.

I have never had an affogato.

My Japanese homework goes untouched.... although it would probably take my mind off my apparently lame teaching methods.

The head of the department says not to take it personally. That was easy to do in a class of 25 students when only three got up and left. When 25 get up and leave.... well that does something to a person. I'm pretty sure even Buddha would feel a little tug in his chest at that one.

My fellow grad student says to me "You're doing it for the 25 that stay".

I'm sure they don't want to be there either, they just aren't assholes like the rest of them. I down a chocolate peanut butter smoothie to ease the pain and open up my Japanese book.