Sneakers and Wine

For my true final post to sneakers n wine, I felt it best to end in the place it began….. A physical therapist whom once worked with me on my hip and ankle, said to me once, “ I won’t tell you to stop running because I know runners are all running away or towards something. ”  I smiled knowing why I ran all these years.  I wasn’t running towards or away from anything. I ran because I had something to prove…. A very long time ago, when I was a little girl I had been running in an after school running program at my elementary school.  I was in second grade. One day running by the top part of the  field at my school, I saw a boy from my neighborhood. He was older and went to a different school so I didn’t see him often outside of our neighborhood. I waved, happy to see him  and he yelled out across the field, heckling me in front of everyone, that I was too short to run and my chicken legs were too skinny to ever run fast enough.   I kept running ...

It’s almost Aidan’s birthday again.  Oddly enough, in some ways I spend just as much, if not more time, preparing for his birthday than I do any other of our family’s birthdays.  Perhaps it’s because for Aidan’s birthday it’s not simply a matter of what will we do but how to do. And ten years later I’m still never really sure of what the “right” way is to go about this.   He’d be turning 15 this year.  He was a year behind in school so I imagine he’d probably be pretty excited about graduating 8th grade and starting high school with his friends.  He’d probably just settle for one birthday/graduation party.  I could continue on with all the different probablies, like what activities he was involved with, what sports he played, and so on as I’ve imagined over the years, but the thing is, that never really leads me anywhere but sadness and one thing I am sure of is he absolutely would not want that sadness.  So this past year, I stopped imagining the...

A couple weeks ago the temperature dropped so low, even as an avid outdoor runner, I felt it wasn’t safe to run outside, so when I got the invitation to run one morning indoors, after way too many days of not running and skipping workouts, telling myself I’d run after work when it was warmer, I knew I’d have to at least give it a try.   We run on these running machines similar to treadmills, but they are self propelled.   The first time I tried one, I thought I’d fall off of it, it was uncomfortable, but I’ve learned a little better how to use it now, well enough to run for a little bit. And this running partner, probably one of my favorites, because we run and that’s it, no  big conversations about this or that just simply facing the same direction forward and moving in place, the noise between us just the rhythm of breathing, the sound of the running machines, and whatever song happens to be playing on the music system in the gym.   The first run, I slept in...