Running Through Downtown Los Angeles

A few months before my 25th birthday I found myself fat and dumped.  I had to move out of the cottage that we shared and move into a series of temporary living situations that I hated.  In an effort to get out of the house and shed some of the extra pounds I took up running. 

Anyone who knew me before age 25 might find this comical.  I was never sporty and had such a severe case of asthma that a good joke could send me into a dreadful attack.  Yet I needed an outlet, something to get me through the pain of the break up and the stress of moving forward alone.

I began at the start of summer, in the evenings after work.  At first I could not run past two driveways on the suburban sidewalks without having to stop to catch my breath.  By the end of the summer, I was running two miles without stopping.  My asthma has rarely bothered me since. 

In the 15 plus years since I have taken up running, I have moved to 3 different states. Travelled to many others on vacation. Nothing thrills me more than to explore my new surroundings by lacing up my shoes.  I have run Central Park in NYC, rural Easter Oregon and Downtown Los Angeles. 

When I lived in a loft in Downtown LA, I would run each evening before dinner.  My husband and I lived in a loft located adjacent to Skid Row where I worked with homeless women and children.  Each evening as I would run, the men who lived in cardboard boxes and tents along Spring Street would call out, “Here she is, right on time! You can set a clock to her”.  They’d clap and cheer as if I was in a marathon as I ran by.  One time I turned the corner and into the exhale of a man smoking PCP.  The route took me through the spectrum of social classes as I would run up Grand Ave, pass Disney Hall.  Men in tuxes and women in diamonds would stand at the crosswalk with me as they walked from dinner across the way to the symphony.  Dripping with sweat I’d turn up the Jay—Z in my headphones, embarrassed at the contrast in our scent.

There was one incident that always stayed with me.  Running near City Hall I noticed a young man, around 19, running parallel with me across the street.  Small and wiry, he was sobbing and appeared to have metallic paint over his eyes, nose and mouth.  He was running with determination toward the 101 freeway over pass.  I increased my stride and crossed the street to meet him before he reached the overpass.  “Hey!” I said with a small smile as I ran along side of him.  “I am just so sad!” he screamed sobbing.  We were on the bridge now. Without time to think I said “I know you are, sweetheart. I’m here.  I’m listening.”  I wanted to get him off that bridge.  He was clearly high.  “Let’s go sit down and talk”. Miraculously he back tracked back to City Hall with me and we sat for two seconds on a planter wall.  He sobbed something incoherent, got up and ran down the street. I had a good 40 pounds on him, there was no way I was catching up and I thought to myself, “how far am I actually going to take this?”  Shook up by the experience I went off to run an extra couple of miles.

I have slowed down in the past few years.  Unable to run as fast or as far as I once did, running continues to not only, help me work out things in my own mind, but to see past myself to people I wouldn’t normally interact with in the rest of my day to day life.  May I always be quick to see those around me.

Palm Sunday and Bagpipes

We gathered in the school gym across from the Cathedral as we do every year on this day.  The children are giddy as we pick out our palm fronds to wave.  Parishioners aren’t obstructed by pews, excited to see friends and family.  The gym is full of electricity as we look forward to join the processional across the street and into the church.  The Archbishop has come for this special occasion and blesses our palms.  We follow the cross, the Archbishop and our Priest out of the gym into the sunshine to proceed to the church, trumpets blasting on all sides of us. The children are in pure delight, waving the fronds as we sing joyfully “Hosanna!  Hosanna!  Hosanna in excelsis!”

As we approach the Cathedral, we stall as the pathway becomes narrow, there is a corridor ahead lined with the choir to join our singing.  The mood begins to shift as our gait slows, those nervous of crowds, tense as we are packed tighter to walk through the corridor ahead.  Then I hear it. On the other side of the Cathedral.  Bagpipes. I had forgotten.  Each year on Palm Sunday, a bagpiper in full regalia plays during this procession.  I don’t know if it is because I am part Scottish, as the sound of bagpipes stirs in me a sense of longing for a connection to a country and a family I never knew or if it is my association of bagpipes with funerals, but my heart drops.  I am reminded that at the end of this Holy Week, Christ will be on the cross. 

I look at the joyous faces of the choir, eager to join the celebration, now appear jeering as I am reminded that this same jubilant crowd who welcomed Him into Jerusalem would be shouting “Crucify Him!” later in the week.  I begin to cry.  As if we are thinking the same thing, my 6-year-old looks up at me and asks “Mommy, did Jesus know He was going to die?” I answer, “Yes, son, He did.” I imagine myself as Christ on that donkey looking out on these faces with more compassion than I can muster.

I am reminded of my own faith, so enthusiastic and then waning. Even at the beginning of this Lenten season, I was so eager to give, to return to basics, to listen.  But…my excitement dwindled.  I know come Friday I would have been standing with the crowd calling for His death, even after celebrating His glory just days before.  

We enter into the Cathedral to begin Mass.  In years past I have dreaded standing during the entire Luke reading accounting the entire Passion: Today it is the very least I can do to honor Him.  I enter Holy Week with a heavy heart but looking forward to saying "Alleluia" next Sunday for the 1st time in 40 days and truly meaning it.

Puzzles: An Awkward Goodbye

Today I opened a puzzle from my dear friend, Martha.  She passed it on to me last year before she died, before cancer ate away her brain.  That brain that earned a doctorate, ran museums, and met presidents.  That brain that believed in me.  

I open the box and it’s full of cat hair.  My eyes fill with tears.  Is it because I am allergic?

I met Martha nearly 10 years ago at an event for Seattle Art Museum.  It was a beautiful summer night; a new exhibit was opening celebrating the museum’s 75th anniversary.  There were cocktails, hors d'oeuvres and a jazz band set up outside on the lawn of the museum.   My husband recognized her from an event they both attended the night before and we saddled up introducing ourselves.  We talked, laughed and drank the night away until we realized the exhibit was closing, the band was packing up, we had never made it inside.  Not one of us cared. We gave her a ride home that night and became fast friends.

Older than my own mother, Martha and I spoke the same language.  We filled our homes with interesting people we loved and then shared stories about why we loved them when they were not present.  

I was one of the people she loved. 

She cheered for my husband and I as we became a family of three and then four, attending every baptism, birthday, and brunch with the love and attention of a devoted grandmother.  She noticed when my happy hour stories were more than bar stool chatter but a desire to write.  She encouraged me in it, as if I had something to say, something people wanted to hear.  It is a powerful thing to have someone believe in you.  Especially someone like her who should have been impressed with so much more, not so little. 

She told us she was sick one brunch as we celebrated the New Year.  She wanted us to know but not to concern ourselves as she assured us it was manageable.   We came when she asked us to, bringing flowers and cartons of buttermilk, a comforting childhood treat of hers. She continued to work, managing the move of an entire museum, then making that museum a home.  She only let the illness have the weekends.  Until it came back, again and again.  Then she knew it was time.

She arranged to return to the place of her birth, where her son still lived and could take care of her during her last days.  She arranged last meetings with all those she loved to say goodbye.  It was the most gracious, beautiful, goodbye anyone could hope to give …but I couldn’t.  Mine was rushed, uncomfortable, and hollow.  I couldn’t say all the things I wanted to, in front of other people, in front of my children, in front of her cats.  I couldn’t say that she was more family to me than mine ever was.  That I didn’t understand her faith in me.  That I wanted to make her proud.

I couldn’t say that I loved her.

Looking down at the puzzle box in my hands, I know she understood.  She didn’t expect me to be as lovely and gracious as herself.  She understood when my anxiety over downtown parking had me arrive at her apartment disheveled at best.  She understood when I worried whether my sons were developing on track, saying “Don’t worry too much.  They aren’t going to receive their college diploma in diapers”. She understood that there were years in my life where I wasn’t allowed to be myself.  She let me be myself. Even liked that self.  She had carefully folded the puzzle back in the box, with large sections still attached, making it easier for me to put together.  Is she giving me direction from beyond the grave? I hope I have all the pieces.