I started running in 1968 and I've been thinking in running metaphors ever since. And since I do some of my best thinking while I am running and my brain is soaking in endorphins, I benefit in that way as well. One more fact. In 1976, I accepted the challenge of the National Jogging Association to celebrate the bicentennial by running 1776 miles--or was it 1976 miles?--between July 4 or 1976 and July 4 of 1977.
There's another story there, but I did run the distance and in the process, I devised several ways to add to my daily log of miles. One was to run the half mile around New Faculty Circle, where we lived in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, at the end of a run. So, for instance, I would wind up running 18 and a half miles that day instead of just 18. Every little bit helps when you get as far behind as I was. To help me do that extra half--only half of the biblically mandated distance, it now occurs to me--I called it a "victory lap."
It wasn't just words after a while. I found myself thinking back over the run I was just finishing. I would revise the route, celebrate that very nice 10 mile stretch in the middle of the run when everything worked so well. I noticed that physical problems I had had on the run, blisters, for instance, stopped bothering me during that extra half mile. So the essentially fraudulent "victory mile" actually felt different; my mind worked calmly and reflectively and my body stopped complaining. Pretty good.
Then I got to thinking that my life was dividing itself almost naturally into scores of years and that four scores of years would bring me very naturally to the age of 80. I married Donnie when I was 22 (barely). Our marriage came to an end when I was around 40--just when it ended isn't as clear as when it began--and shortly after that, I met and married Marilyn. That looked like the end of lap 2 to me, still thinking of the mile. To begin the third lap, we moved to Portland and I got serious about being a stepfather, but Marilyn died when I was 66, so the third lap was longer than a competent race official would have allowed. From the time I was 60, I began thinking about the last lap, the one that would end when I was 80, and about what my victory lap would be like.
I am now well past the halfway mark of that final lap. I married Bette when I was 68, so at least, I thought, I get to finish the lap in the company of an intimate friend. I still hope for that, but there are 8 years to go before I start on the "victory lap" and I've had too much happend to me to take it for granted any more.
So what's a victory lap going to look like? I need to say at some point that my kids never much liked the victory lap idea. They may have imagined that I was planning to hit 80 at full speed like running into a wall. Or maybe they just didn't like the idea of my thinking about being that old. I explained as well as I could that what I really had in mind was a time when my (largely metaphorical, now) blisters stopped complaining and my intense focus on finishing the run eased off into a satisfied reflection on what a good run it had been. I hoped that would make it sound like a good idea, but I don't think it did. Kids! What do they know about being old?
I still like the changes that came over me during the victory lap, but I'd have to say that is the only area of my life that has worked like that. I was imagining that it would be a good plan to keep pushing until I was 80. Keep trying new things, keep taking risks, keep taking seriously the commitments I took on when I was young and couldn't imagine being an old man. Then after I crossed the line, I could relax and reflect and celebrate what a fulfilling run (life) it had been and how good it was to spend some time reflecting on it and treasuring it. It's as far from dying at my desk at the office as I could picture.
But I don't think I really ever have stopped trying new things, etc. Take this blog, for instance. What if I don't like resting and celebrating? What if I'm no good at it? Does that mean I keep on doing what I've been doing, so far as I am able to continue it? According to our current plans, Bette and I are going to think seriously about moving to a senior center when I'm 80. (So 2017 is really just a sticky note to ourselves, not a contract with an actual place.) I like the four-lap approximation as an aesthetic matter and I like the notion of spending some time reflecting and being grateful. I could say of myself, as they say of a Broadway play that is closing, that I had a good run. There's a question of how a person of faith would characterize those reflections and I'd like to write about that some day; not today.
I like being grateful. I've had a lot of practice. I've had a lot to be grateful for, it's true, but the literature I read mostly substantiates the idea that gratitude tracks better with grateful persons than it does with situations you really oughtta feel grateful for. Gratitude feels good to me.; it doesn't feel like an obligation. It feels natural. Can I spend that relaxed time the way I had been thinking I would if I keep on charging through life the way I am? OK, I do take a nap every day, but I charge before the nap and I go back to charging after the nap. If I were a battery, I'd probably fry myself.
So that's where I am today. I'm on the last half of the last lap. I get to look forward to a victory lap of undetermined time after the race. (I am reminded that Steve Prefontaine used to run victory laps after his wins in Eugene. Once, I saw him take eleven victory laps after a 10K race. He averaged 68 seconds--on the victory laps!) It will be a time to relax and refresh, I tell myself. But, what if, when I get there, I discover that I'm really no good at it. Then what?
Seems to me that you have been reflective all your adult life, even while charging. I am not sure the two are in in opposition to each other. Or that you have to stop one to do the other. Some people do neither. Need it be a Mary/Martha thing?
ReplyDeleteI was surprised at your comment that your kids didn't like the idea of a victory lap. Assuming that you're speaking metaphorically, I don't remember your talking about that.
ReplyDeleteBut it's true that I have a hard time thinking about you getting old and, someday, dying. No child is ever really ready for that. And I don't think it's that I'm not prepared to go on without my dad so much as my mentor and friend. I think we've made that transition nicely.
I know the day will come when the world will have to go on without you, but that will be a sad day for so many people. You've touched so many in so many meaningful ways.
I don't mean to turn this into a eulogy, but you've always been a teacher to me, and one who taught by example. You've led an extraordinary life in that it was, for the most part, exactly the one you wanted. May we all someday be able to look back on a life so well lived. . . just no time soon.
-Doug
Many thanks to Doug and Roger for their comments. To Doug, I say thank you. If "dad" refers only to the early times of discipline, care, and dependency, I am glad we have left those behind. Being friends as adults, and yet having all those common memories in our joint possession is as good as it gets. I'm not at all eager to die, but I am puzzling more and more about just what the "celebrating" will comprise. What is "running" is all I'm good at?
ReplyDeleteWhich brings me to Roger's observation that the two may not be related in a Mary/Martha sort of way. They may very well not be; they may not be related at all. I have hitchhiked on this metaphor for nearly 40 years now and if I had to get out, I'd have to go back to walking, I guess. Maybe the struggle and the celebration of living are mixed together more thoroughly than the struggle and celebration of running. Or maybe golf. Don't you struggle and celebrate at the same time in golf.
This is a great Father’s Day for me. I read your 3 essays and enjoyed each very much. I really loved the metaphor of the father holding the child in the water toward the unknown and scary but safe and protected. That metaphor really worked for me and how I have experienced you in my life throughout. When I finished that one I almost started writing, but I was premature. I picked this one instead because I remember each period well and can experience each time from my perspective. I won’t, but did want to weigh in on the last version of Victory Lap Time. One might guess that the original lap time might have cut into your success in your running since it often ended in Roll Log Columbia.
ReplyDeleteI have responded to language differently than you have, but we have found many ways that have commonly delighted us. A great skill you have is picking the very best word out of many that would do. It has everything to do with the nuance which translates how we as the reader experience the written sentence/work. Only in my advanced adult life have I come to appreciate the skill that you have had your whole life (well, my whole life. I am aware you weren’t this way as an adolescent).
As a manager, I had begun to use words that compel action and if necessary, demand it while still giving people the power to choose for themselves. When I have an important meeting I don’t make it mandatory; I ask that people “support” the meeting. It almost always gets a higher turnout and gives back to the team personal accountability. It was only after a few years of looking for the right words that I discovered a personal lexicon developed in the home of my youth. How delightful! I had begun to think of the words as personally empowering and not manipulative. I began to see that it made an impact not only on compliance but attitude as well.
Back to your point about “Victory Laps:”
I became concerned about not only your language but your actions and a noticeable change in tense (like past). I came to believe that your language was changing you from a participant to…something less. You do the things you enjoy but in a VL mode you don’t “do that” kind of a thing. I experienced those language changes as a change in personality; a change in who you were and how you approached your life. Because I learned from you the power of language and how it manifests itself in the experience of the speaker as well as the spoken to, I felt I was more intensely aware of your change and wasn’t surprised by the idea that when you change your language you change your life. I remember my frustration and worry keenly. I remember our talks. I remember talking to Uncle Mark about it. I remember imploring my sibs about it and getting a lot of similar feedback from their equally honed listening skills.
I don’t feel as if I need my father “hitting 80 at full speed.” I need my father present and creating life at his ability. Unlike a run, one doesn’t know what you have in front of you. You feel the metaphorical blisters of course. Unlike life, you get to stop and reflect on a good run…because you aren’t running…or are about to stop running. Imagine how alarming it must have been for us when you to started thinking about how good life was now that you don’t have to live it anymore. That isn’t at all the metaphor that helps either of us. When you stopped talking like that I believe you started living your life differently. And that your language changed and along with it your life wouldn’t surprise anyone who knows you. You still have so much to teach and I have so much to learn. You are still figuring out how to grow old. As the percentage difference in our ages becomes less I find that many of our lessons are being learned at the same or similar times. I look to you to talk about changes in my body that I couldn’t have when I was an adolescent. I am growing old with you. You are so fit and have taken such care of your vessel we are having similar issues. I have no intention of dying soon, but neither do you. And there is much to share. There is life to drink. There are things that are so funny.
ReplyDeleteAnd while it is true that no father should have to bury his son, it is also true that no son should have to reply to his father’s blog!
Happy Father’s Day you OLD Tisher!
Whoa! I blew right by the "lap time" "Lap Time" pun in the first paragraph. I'm sorry I missed it the first time, but I'm enjoying it now. You may not remember, Dan, but you are the one who named "Roll Log Columbia."
ReplyDeleteI do remember that...and I also remember the havoc it played on your knees. I remember in vivid detail those kind and gentle mornings; the smells of your coffee and the sleepy flannel and my grumpy sibs. We always talk about Simon and Garfunkle, but it wasn't always. There was a lot of music on those reel to reels.
ReplyDelete