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How ironic that I was stressed over my inability to get in a walk today.  Tonight’s walk was one of the best I’ve had since I started this.  In the top five, for sure.

Brian and I took advantage of her Living Social coupon for wine tasting, a tour of the winery and a pasta dinner at The Vineyard in Florence.  It was exactly what I needed at the end of a long and very stressful work week.  The grounds were beautiful and bucolic, with horses grazing beyond the vineyards.  Six hundred green, peaceful acres.  I had joked yesterday about facing a walk after a vineyard tour and a designated driver, but the truth is, I’m not much of a drinker, and the probably less than one glass total that I had during the wine tasting was enough for me.  Dinner was three-cheese manicotti, a salad and (gulp) four pieces of bread with olive oil, then we split a piece of pecan/chocolate pie with vanilla ice cream.    

Lynn has frequently asked me if having a five mile walk hanging over my head every day isn’t burdensome, and the honest answer is, of course it is some days.  But tonight all I could think about was this – I had a delicious, indulgent meal, and all I had to do is walk five miles and it’s over with.  I’m fine.  No damage done.  Let me compare that with this time last summer.  A typical scenario would be, overindulge at dinner, hate myself, vow to start a sensible eating and exercise plan on Monday.   Hang with it a few days, blow it.  Vow to start a brand new program on June 21, the first day of summer.  Hang with it a few days, blow it.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  An endless cycle of good intentions, shaky discipline and self-loathing. 

My walk isn’t burdensome, it’s freeing.  It’s simple.  It isn’t easy, but it’s simple.  I long to convince my friends to stop counting carbs and points and do it my way.  Throw the diet out the window.  Go to the pound.  Adopt a big-hearted dog.  And start walking.

Heating Up

We've reached a turning point on the hike and bike trail, and not in a good way.  When you go there now in the early evening, there are a couple of spots, mainly near Barton Springs, where the insects are heavy and thick -- the kind that force you to shut your eyes, close your mouth and flap your hands frantically in front of you for a few yards while trying to convince yourself that the tickle in your throat is not a gnat working its way down your esophogus.  Worse, the water from the fountains is no longer lukewarm.  It's WARM.  No relief whatsoever.  Banks and I watered up at the 0 marker, and it was two miles before we got to the next group of cold water barrels.  I could just about taste it.  We pulled into the alcove right off the 2-mile bridge....and the orange barrels were already gone.  Another two miles of hot, unsatisfactory fountain water. 

You know what I noticed tonight, for the first time?  As many times as I have walked that trail, I have never, ever recognized the same person twice.  I mean, every so often I'll see someone I know, of course.  But wouldn't you think that with the number of miles I've put on that thing, and often at the same time for several days in a row, I would start recognizing familiar faces?  I don't. How is that possible?

Tomorrow's walk is going to be a challenge.  Brian got a free dinner at a winery in Florence, and since Mark wasn't free, I got the extra ticket.  The only logical time to do the walk is in the morning, but I know myself well enough to know that is probably not going to happen.  Noon?  Are you kidding me?  That of course leaves late at night, after I return from dinner -- at a winery. With a designated driver.

I've been in tighters spots before, and I always come up with something.  That's half of the fun of it.

Edna, Emily and Me

As tired as I am getting of the usual neighborhood/Stacy Park/St. Ed’s walks, I’ve been getting home so late (8:30 tonight) that I simply haven’t had time to be more creative.  So I took the exact same walk tonight, twice; once with Banks, back home to drop him off and hydrate, and back to retrace my steps.  It was a much more lighthearted walk than last night’s – both of the issues I was struggling with last night, and really troubled by this morning, were miraculously resolved today, one completely serendipitously, and one that required a little effort on my part. 

At Allison’s wedding a couple of weeks ago, I spent a lot of time with my friend Vicky from Colorado.  She being a very literary type, I asked her, as I always do when we’re together “What are you reading these days?”  She had just finished reading, “She Walks in Beauty: A Woman’s Journey Through Poems,” a collection of poems selected by Caroline Kennedy to celebrate the different passages of a woman’s life.  Vicky confessed that she has always loved Caroline Kennedy, so I was thrilled to point her to another wedding guest, Allison’s cousin William, who had served as personal chef for Caroline and her family a few years back.  I’ve always liked her myself, and even more so after I grilled William a couple of Thanksgivings ago about “What’s she really like?” She was always “Caroline,” not Mrs. Schlossburg, or Ms. Kennedy.  No matter how busy she was, she always took the time to ask William about what was going on in his life.  She had three beautifully-mannered children, due in no small part to her own vigilance and example.  And she had incredibly healthy eating habits.

For an English literature major, I have never really responded to poetry.  I don’t have the patience to linger over what I read, I want to plow through it.  I hated having whole classes devoted to one long poem, with all of us debating the author’s meaning.  The bottom line was, who the hell knows?  Your guess is as good as mine. 

But I picked up this book anyway. THIS is the way to read poetry.  The book is divided into sections like Falling in Love, Work, Motherhood, Breaking Up, and contain a mix of classics from Emily Dickinson, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Shakespeare, along with more modern writers.  And I’ve found a few that I love.  Tillie Olsen: “I want you women up north to know/ how those dainty children’s dresses you buy/at macy’s, wanamakers, gimbels, marshall fields/are dyed in blood, are stitched in wasting flesh/down in San Antonio, where sunshine spends the winter.”  It goes on for pages, and took my breath away.  This one from Georgia Douglas Johnson brought tears to my eyes: “The heart of a woman falls back with the night/And enters some alien cage in its plight/And tries to forget it has dreamed of the stars/While it breaks, breaks, breaks on the sheltering bars.”  Bear with me.  I found this short one by Dorothy Parker irresistible: “By the time you swear you’re his/Shivering and sighing/And he vows his passion is/Infinite, undying/Lady, make a note of this/One of you is lying.”

I love words, and maybe I’ve finally arrived at a stage of life where I can appreciate them in this forum.   I’m loving picking out just one or two poems a day, and really savoring the reading.

Here’s one more, by Gertrude Stein:  "Very fine is my valentine/Very fine and very mine/Very mine is my valentine very mine and very fine/Very fine is my valentine and mine, very fine very mine and/mine is my valentine."

Okay, that one’s  a piece of crap.

Perseverating

Okay, I’m not talking about my toes, but this is kind of interesting.  My day off was Monday, as usual, and overnight, my feet – both of them – seemed to sprout all kinds of things. A big, hard blister on my upper right foot, sticking out kind of like a bunion.  My left foot has a soft, watery blister dead center, right about the instep.  It also has what looks like the remnants of another blister, of the dry, papery consistency of an onion skin, about an inch above and to the left of the other one.  God, my feet are ugly.  Five miles a day is doing great things for my body, but wreaking havoc on my feet.  That’s going to be my next project.

When you work, you deal with all sorts of minor, everyday problems – personality conflicts, occasional boredom, occasional stress.  And then sometimes you get hit with the big ones.  I’ve got two going on right now, the kind that make you lie awake at night and pray for wisdom.  Serious, serious stuff, and you’ve got to get it right.  They’re costing me sleep and, for all I know, are taking it out on my feet.

So no matter what my feet felt like, I knew I needed a hard walk tonight.  Banks and I walked the neighborhood from 7:37 to 8:09.  I dropped him off, and headed to the hills.  Two of the bigger, steeper ones right before the park, and I was sweating and panting at the top of them.  At times like that, my work issues are a distant bell. 

Worrying about  a problem is not the same as solving a problem. I think it’s time to take the advice that  Don Draper (“Mad Men”) gave to his protégé Peggy when she was wrestling with an ad concept:  “Think about it deeply, then forget about it.  It’ll come to you.”  

The Long-Awaited, Final Toe Update

I mean it.  This thing could turn black and fall off tomorrow, and you won’t know about it.  But things were so bad yesterday that I have to give a brief and optimistic update before we move on.

So yesterday we left off with my foot elevated and my body full of Aleve.  That stuff is a miracle.  It really takes the edge off.  I took another three before I went to bed.  Took another three when I woke up, and then three more at about 4:00, a deliberate three hours before my walk.  Banks only lasted about half an hour, once again, and I went on to St. Ed's myself.  I was aware of the toe, but the pain was muted, gloriously muted.  I felt like I could have walked forever.  Sometimes I have to remind myself that there is a silver lining to illness and injury – it’s the only time you think of your health with any sort of gratitude. 

Lynn and I caught a matinee of “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.”  I loved it. I was a little corny and unrealistic for an enthusiastic, full endorsement, but it featured some of my favorite themes:  It’s a big, exciting world out there.  It’s never too late to do something outrageous.  Don’t live out someone else’s script. More things that you need to remind yourself about. 

Ay ay ay

I had no particular plan for today’s walk. I took Jackson to work at Zilker Park this morning before 7:00, but wanted to come back and linger over the paper and my coffee.  About 8:30, I got a text from him – he’d forgotten his sunglasses, could I bring them please?  (I should probably interject here that, for a variety of reasons, which we won’t delve into right now, Jackson is without a license). I sighed, grumbled and rolled my eyes, but quickly embraced the idea – his job site is about ½ mile from the 2-mile marker of the Town Lake Trail, so this would be a perfect opportunity to kill the proverbial two birds with one stone.

Off Banks and I went.  The parking lot was jam-packed, which I’d never seen before.  At first I assumed there was some kind of lake festival going on, but quickly realized it was simply the whole day’s runners and walkers, trying to get their workout over with in the morning.

My toes hurt.  I figured they’d stop at least a half hour in, like they had the last couple of days, but they got worse, to the point where I was actively limping, constantly.  They THROBBED.  I think I know why.  Yesterday, “Casual Friday,” I wore jeans and flip-flops (but dressy flip-flops!). You know how, with flip-flops, you have kind of an unnatural step, walking while at the same time trying to keep your shoes on by bearing down slightly on your toes?  That must’ve put just enough strain on the toes to aggravate them all over again.

It’s a good thing I was walking a loop, because if I had been anywhere near my house, I think I would have gone back home.  As it was, returning to my car would have been equal distance, so I had no choice but to soldier on.  Oh, my God.  Every time I passed a ¼ mile marker, I would think, will this EVER be over?  I kept fantasizing about my right foot in a bucket of ice water.  About spinning on a stationary bike, pushing the right pedal with my heel or my instep.

I limped back to the car, came home, took three Aleve and soaked the foot in, yes, a bucket of ice water, and it was everything I’d dreamed it would be.  As I write, I’ve got the leg propped up on a chair.  Sounds suspiciously like “medication and bed rest,” doesn’t it?  This journey is nothing if not humbling; every time I think I’ve accumulated a kernel of wisdom, it crumbles into dust.  I may have a broken toe, and I keep walking five miles on it. Nobody has to tell me it's stupid, I know it’s stupid, but I can’t stop. 

Careful What You Wish For

I always forget how dark it is on the trail, first thing in the morning.  Banks and I got there about 5:25, and I noted that it was even darker than I’d remembered.  About 50 yards in, I realized we weren’t even on the thing, we were walking on the outer perimeter of the leash-free dog area.  We climbed down to the trail; the city lights from across the lake bounced off the water, giving off more light.  Good lord, how long had it been since I’d been there early in the morning?

It was beautifully cool and windy; I was oblivious to the fountains we passed, only stopping at one to make sure Banks got water, and even he had little interest.  By the time we returned from our loop, the big orange water barrels had arrived, but I elected to pick up some bagels and head straight home.

Around this time two summers ago, I was in Greece.  One of the street vendors was selling these incredibly cute pants, in weird, undecipherable Greek/Euro sizes, and I couldn’t try them on in the street anyway, so I just picked up a pair that looked like they’d fit me.  Boy, was I wrong.  The actual leg parts were big and loose, but the waist was disproportionately small.  The first time I tried them on, I swear to God, I got them pulled up to just above my knees.  From then on, I used them as a sort of barometer as to where I was weight-wise.  I remember once last year pulling them up almost to the top of my legs, but nowhere near the waist.

A couple of months into this year, I could pull them up, but getting the zipper zipped was a lost cause.  And then last night, I tried them on again.  I pulled them over my hips and up to my waist.  I zipped, and the zipper went right to the top.  An unimaginable victory. And then I looked at myself in the mirror.

Crikey!  What was I thinking? They look like clown pants!  My hips look 70 inches wide, my legs look like sausages, and I don’t even want to talk about my butt. Why in the world did I think they were cute?  I’ll tell you why:  Lynn, skinny Lynn, was with me and bought her own pair, in a more muted gray, and they look adorable on her.  I don't care how much weight I lose, or how many miles I walk, there is no way these things are ever going to look good on me.  Maybe I'll donate them to Goodwill.  Or maybe Keene could find some use for them in his circus routine.   Hey, I know, they could be kind of funky pajama bottoms! Let this serve as a humbling reminder that as happy as I am with how things have gone this year, I have a looooong way to go.

Triumph or Tragedy?