Independence

It is hot. The neighbor is in her small garden, hair swept up on her head, the sky a haze. Behind us, a group of lithe young women have spread a lacy tablecloth over an ancient wood table, cleared their yard of weeds, are barbecuing and drinking out of red cups. Each of them in a shirt that barely skims their ribs, their taut bellies golden in the evening light. I wonder if I was ever that lithe; certainly, not that free at twenty four or five, or thirty, or ever. By their age, I was married, and if I am estimating them younger than they are, then a single mother. I am feeling uncertain about my body, about aging, these days. Some nights, I'm thrown awake by a hot flash soaking through my pajamas. When I was checking out a gardening book from the library on Monday, the clerk looked at the book and said "I should probably get into this eventually. That's what older people do." She then said she was turning forty soon, but clearly saw some chasm between her and me. I am forty-six, though I alternately feel nineteen and one hundred and twelve.

This morning I woke before dawn and drove to Sauvie Island, where I ran my annual Fourth of July half marathon. I've been running half marathons for eleven years now, off and on. This cycle, I was plagued by tendonitis. Twice I had to be rescued from attempts at long runs. I bought KT tape, orthotics, determined to run more slowly. Running a half marathon--the longest distance I'll run so far though I see many of my friends getting into marathons late in their forties, it doesn't seem likely--is an act of continuous bargaining: one more mile, one more block, is my leg hurting or am I just aware that I have legs, etcetera. This particular race goes through beautiful country--farms and copses of trees, ospreys circling overhead, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams all looming up from the early morning mists. Today, a large black cow wandered onto the course. The sun was relentless, the last three miles almost unbearable, even though it was still early and not yet hot. I ran to the Les Mis soundtrack, crossed the finish line to the Indigo Girls, as I always try to do. I weep, every race. Often, I sprint the last two miles, vomit as I cross the finish line. More than thrice, I have run through a kidney infection (do not recommend). If you had told me at 18 that I would run races, let alone half marathons, I would have thought you insane. Then, I had taken to riding my bike miles and miles down Telegraph Road, into Bannockburn where the mansions were, then Lake Forest to the Lake. Then, and for so many years afterwards, the only reason I would have exercised was out of punishment, was in conjunction with food restriction, calorie apps on my phone.

I started running, though, in my late twenties. I had just left my first husband, had a baby, and believed that my body was inherently unloveable. By me, by anyone. For most of my early thirties, I struggled mightily with disordered eating--my first husband had been a chef and any cooking attempts I'd made were met with scorn. He cooked for us. I had no idea how to grocery shop, how to cook, how to eat. I come from a family where the women have no appetites, where eating is shameful, where my father cooked and my mother was notorious for being a Terrible Cook(TM). Our diet as kids was an 80's lower middle class diet--processed foods, off brand Cheez Puffs, Wonderbread from the outlet store. My father cooked dinner every night, and our bodies, once puberty hit and my mother's genes for being large breasted and short-waisted manifested, subject for critique. In high school, I began dieting, severely restricting calories--just another arm of the self harm I'd practiced since toddlerhood. Except instead of banging my head against the wall, I stopped eating, started punching myself in the face, rode my bike miles and miles and miles into the posher suburbs.

Then, despite the freedom that college had offered, I married young. Learned my body was good for one thing and one thing only--to be fucked. Then I had a child and my body, finally, did something amazing: my remarkable boy. But then, of course, it was ruined. It had already been ruined, by cervical cancer and an STD and years and years of shame compounding upon shame.

And after my divorce, I had to find a way to inhabit myself that was kinder. Though--I wasn't kind for a long time. Though, I dated men who put me on severe diets and men who told me running was bad for me and men who--

men who believed my body belonged more to them than it did to me. What I have always wanted was bone and angle, not the roundness my body has always offered. What I thought was: I am good for one thing and that is being fucked by a man.

But at 29, I started running. Running was cheap--all I needed (then) was a few sports bras and a pair of shoes and the jogging stroller I'd been gifted. I didn't run with music, just took off from our little house on Boylan Street and ran toward the paper mill, toward the river, watched cedar waxwings darn the evening sky. Then, when we had to share custody of the baby, I started running when the baby was with his father--it hurt, and it also made me present. My body could do this, even if it was awkward and bumbling. I ran my first 5K in 2007, a few months after my boy and I had had moved into our first apartment, a month or so before we adopted our dog. I couldn't believe i did it--I ran three miles with other people, felt like a sort-of athlete.

In 2012, I ran my first half marathon. I'd been dating a colleague who was a distance runner, who ran over to my house when my boy wasn't there and we'd fuck or talk about early american history. That's another story, that relationship, but we decided together to run a half marathon. Of course, we'd broken up before it happened, but that May, wearing Vibrams and with my phone tucked into my bra, I ran my first half. At mile three, I passed the church I sang at and my friends were outside, with signs and yelling my name. Near mile 9, a woman and I ran together for a while, and she remarked how amazed she was I was essentially running barefoot. Near mile 11, we were lapped by the marathon winners. When I finished, I called my parents and my father answered, and I wept, saying Dad I just ran a half marathon! I can still picture that moment--walking through a field to find my car, the sun halfway in the sky. My dad seemed confused, probably said congratulations or something like that, went to find my mom. I was so proud--I could hardly believe I'd done it. Afterwards, my boy wore my finishers' medal to school. He was six.

My father died in 2019. I don't think I've ever called my parents after a run again, or anyone. Usually, I put my medal over my head, get a drink or an ice cream or whatever it is they have for finishers, and drive home. I usually cry when I cross the finish line, even now. Even all these years later. At mile three, I love running. At miles 7-9, I hate it. Before the race, I want to stay home. Who am I to do this? When I am training and slowly running through neighborhoods, I cannot imagine anything else. When I get home--today, or when training--it seems a dream that a few hours ago I was miles away, as if it were someone else living that life. But it isn't. I used to attempt to keep my various lives completely separate: singing life, here. Writing life, there. Teaching life, to the right. Mothering, everywhere. Running was something outside of all of this. I don't run with friends or a group, though maybe I'd like to start. I am less interested in, have less energy for, this kind of compartmentalizing. A colleague's daughter ran today, another colleague ran somewhere in the crowd with me. Maybe one of the gifts of middle age (or "middle life" as my former admin called it when I turned 40) is that I just want it all to be one thing, together. I just want to feel present, even though I've never really known how to do that.

I run far slower than I did 11 years ago; hell, far slower than I did 3 years ago when I fell and broke my elbow. I watch the elite runners and their rubberband-taut bodies lope past me while I slog along, water sloshing in my camelpack, KT tape wrapped around my ankle and calf. This year, I've been plagued with the injuries that come to a middle aged woman; this year, I just wanted to finish under 2:30 (fastest time I've run a half: 2:10. Slowest, today's 2:22.) Today, I watch the young people behind our house, their taut bellies, their beautiful youth. My back is chafed from my bra strap, my belly soft and striped, and the older I get the bigger my tits seem to become, now upholstered beneath two running bras. When I came home, my husband was out walking, my son, still asleep. 

Now it is hot, tomorrow hotter. J upstairs in his air conditioned room, and earlier at the wood with the person he is seeing. I spent most of the rest of the day napping, watching videos, sitting in the garden until it got too hot to bear. The garden--that's another thing. Or maybe the same thing. Like singing, or writing, or running, or mothering (whatever that looks like when your boy is 18), or marriage or or or. How has it taken me this long to see the actual world? To consider, for a moment, that I might be in it?

I know: I shall become invisible soon. I am a woman of a certain age. But. I don't know where I am going with this, or if it is of any interest to anyone at all, besides myself. But maybe that's ok. Maybe that's the point. It is hot and it will be hotter tomorrow. My boy is essentially the age of the beautiful women behind our house, is no longer interested in me or our old life. A new life is yawning--abyss, chasm, promise--before me. 

The sky is pink. I can smell the jasmine I've planted along the fence, the ever blooming daphne. The women behind us are laughing, the moon is just above the horizon. Today it hung, huge and thin-sliced, over the bridge on Route 30. Holy shit, I said as I drove over the river. 

Whatever this life is, I guess I've been in it all along.