one bear of an ultra

(photo credit: Hillary Johnson)

Note: this race report also appears on Farnorthendurance.com



Race Report: The North Face Endurance Challenge 50k, Bear Mountain State Park, New York

The day began early in Anthony Wayne Recreation Area, the huge lot that serves as the shuttle pick-up and drop off area for the Bear Mountain Race. I was fortunate enough to have carpooled with my friend Sue, who owns a 19-foot Sprinter, fully equipped with beds, sink, lights, phone chargers, and that all-important piece of runner’s equipment, the coffee maker. We camped in the far end of the lot, saving us the trouble of having to drive from hotel to shuttle and allowing us at least 15 extra minutes of sleep.

My alarm went off at 5:25am. A few fellow campers stood in front of the pop-up next door. Three of them were wearing down jackets, hats and gloves. Though the forecast was for sunny skies and warm temps, the morning air in the Catskills had a bite to it. I dressed quickly. As I pulled tight the laces on my Salomon XTs, I heard the sound of fabric tearing. I looked down to see a two-inch-long, half-inch wide rip in my right shoe. To be fair, the shoes had been around the trails a few times, and had a few small holes here and there, but since the soles were in good condition, I liked to think of these holes as extra ventilation. This new rip, however, was a little disconcerting. I wondered if the aid stations stocked duct tape. Too jittery for a proper breakfast, I nibbled on a bagel and banana, filled my mug with rocket fuel, and made my way over to the shuttle.

The race is sponsored by North Face, so I shouldn’t have been surprised by the booths, massage tents, and general glitz one usually finds at road races. But, having recently run only trail races in which you practically need a GPS just to find the starting area, I found myself somewhat awed. The packet pick-up booth was staffed with young, tan blonde women decked out in colorful North Face hats and jackets. An unstaffed booth held a large bowl of free energy swag: Clif Bars, Shot Blocks, gel packs. Three or four warming stations, small fires giving off welcome heat, peppered the area just beyond the starting line. There was a podium. Later, runners would take turns posing with resident North Face Ultrarunner Dean Karnazes, the superstar behind the event.

The 50k start was divided into two waves. I tried not to think too much about the elevation chart on the course guide, which really had to be a joke, anyway. A sadistic joke. Approximately 5,000 feet of elevation gain, and almost 10,000 feet of elevation change. If not a joke, then surely a typo.

Having gone out much too quickly in my last 50k, I sidled up next to my training pal and toughest competitor, “Nadia,” so nicknamed for her trademark cartwheels across the finish line. I had no delusions of keeping up with Nadia for the whole race, but I have witnessed her conservative starting strategy, so I decided she’d be a good running buddy for the first few miles.

As Nadia and I wove our way through the runners, vying for a decent position before we hit single track, one thing became immediately and abundantly clear: I hadn’t tapered properly. Tapering is usually the part of the training process I look forward to most, and unlike a lot of runners I know, I tend to taper conservatively—three weeks rather than the more trendy two. I have even been preachy on occasion: “Smart tapering is every bit as important as smart training.” But, the previous week, there had been a half marathon in my town—on roads!—and I hadn’t been able to resist the temptation to run. “It’ll be a training run,” I said. “Yeah, right,” my husband responded.

His dubiousness was not unfounded. It’s tough (impossible?)not to get caught up when you’re running with people who are actually racing. As a result, I ran much faster than I would normally, on terrain (pavement) that is much more unforgiving than dirt. By Thursday, two days before Bear Mountain, I was still sore and stiff. I felt slightly better by Friday, but the first hill on Saturday morning let me know that my legs had not recovered.

“Not sure I have this in me today,” I said to Nadia. She reminded me that it often takes 7 or 8 miles for the legs to warm up. That’s true, I thought. This will be a recovery run. I’ll take it nice and slow. I won’t worry about place, or time. I’ll just enjoy the scenery. Right. A 31-mile recovery run.

For the first four or five miles, my feet were the focal point. I was worried the laces wouldn’t hold; at this point, they were the only thing keeping my right shoe together. But as the field of runners thinned out and the course became more technical, I had to concentrate on the terrain, which often consisted of sharp rocks covered in loose, dry leaves. The first four miles were mostly uphill, though not strenuous (at least, not for someone running on fresh legs).

At mile 3.9, runners arrive at the first aid station, which is back at Anthony Wayne. I had my first salt-soaked potato of the day, hoping it would serve as a magic elixir for my legs. From the aid station, runners encounter about a mile of technical trail. This was the terrain I found most appealing: the rocks were a mental distraction from my fatigue, the single track reminiscent of the trails I run in Connecticut, at Sleeping Giant and West Rock and Brooksvale Park.
More challenging was the .6 mile section of road (according to the course guide, this is a section where runners can “relax” before heading back into the woods). The air was beginning to heat up, and without treacherous terrain to distract me, I had to focus on the arduous task of actually running. Fortunately, Silvermine Lake was to my right, giving me a much needed aesthetic focal point. The field had really spread by now, and, back in the woods, I found myself alone at times. At one point, the path was overrun with fallen trees, and police tape diverted runners away from the trail: it was honest-to-goodness bushwhacking. The guy in front of me halted, then scratched his head. “I actually don’t do much trail running,” he confessed. “Is this really the trail?”

“Well,” I said, “it’s a trail. It’s marked with ribbons, so it’s the right way.”

He allowed me to pass him, and I waded through the prickly brush. Just after this came a technical ascent up a single track trail. I took small steps, my quads heavy and tight. I heard footsteps; someone was actually running this section. Nadia, whom I had encountered at the aid station at mile 13.9 about five minutes earlier, came sailing up behind me, looking fresh and strong. “See you at the next aid station!” she called cheerily as she passed, but I knew I wouldn’t be seeing her again until the finish.

I don’t have a 50k in me today, I thought again. The Les Miserables soundtrack played endlessly in my head, getting stuck for a while on the line, “How long, oh Lord, before you let me die?” Somewhere around mile 15, I decided I’d had enough. At the next aid station—which, conveniently, was at the shuttle parking lot—I was out. My first DNF. I was sad, and I cursed myself for having run that half marathon last week, but I considered it a lesson learned. I’d come next year, do a smarter taper, actually enjoy the course.

As I trudged down the paved road into the aid station at Anthony Wayne, Cathi, a woman from my trail running club, passed by in her car. “Go get ‘em, Trish!” she yelled. “You look great! Nadia’s up ahead!”

The energetic volunteers at the station uttered similar words of encouragement. “You look really fresh,” they lied. The lies helped. I ate another salted potato—my seventh or eighth of the day—and asked one of the women re-filling hydration packs what mile marker I had reached. I had lost track, and I was far too exhausted to take the map out of my pack. “I don’t know,” she said. Was I the first person to ask this question?

“Mile 20!” another volunteer called. I absorbed that information. 11 more miles, I thought, still debating. That’s like one more loop of the Traprock course!

This realization had the opposite of a spiriting effect. I took a long drink of Gatorade, one more potato for the road, and followed the orange cones through the park and back into the woods. I passed another runner, slowly, who muttered an unintelligible encouragement and gave me a half-hearted wave. “You, too,” I mumbled back.

Back on the trail, I passed a large group of hikers, hoping I wouldn’t have to stop and let them pass me. I contemplated bailing out one more time: it was less than a mile back to Anthony Wayne, where I had seen Sue’s van in the parking lot. I didn’t have the key, but maybe I could climb in through the sun roof. Take a nap.

The first part of this section was smooth and flat. “This is nice, isn’t it?” another fresh-looking runner said as he passed by.

“It should be,” I said, “but I seem to be having the most trouble on the ‘easy’ sections.” It was true: hills were an excuse to walk, and technical downhill was, well, fun. Smooth, flat trail? Forget it.

“Well, then, you’re in luck, because it’s going to get rocky soon.”

And then, yes! Technical downhill! My feet felt lighter all of a sudden, and I skipped over the rocks, over a stream and then. . . into a stream. My shoe—the other shoe, the one without the holes-- had caught a branch sticking out of the water, and I heard that sound again, the sound of fabric ripping. Miraculously, the laces had once again remained intact, but the front of my shoe was now a flap. I pushed my toes back in. I muttered an expletive. The hiker sitting on the rock across from the stream chuckled.

I resigned myself to the possibility of joining the barefoot running movement that very day. Duct tape, I thought again. Add that to the list of essentials.

I climbed over a moderately brutal section called The Pines, looking forward to more technical downhill. But this time technical did not equal fun. It equaled ankle-rolling, somersaulting, and general discontent. Loose footing, dried leaves. “This soooo sucks,” muttered a guy who had come up behind me. Expletive. Yep.

But the potatoes seemed to be working at last, and when I pulled into the next aid station, I felt, for the first time that day, almost nimble. The volunteers were decked out in purple: purple wigs, purple running skirts, purple pompoms, purple calf sleeves. I looked at the food on display. I was ready for something different. A PB&J, maybe even a pretzel. A tall, bare-chested runner stood off to the side, looking perplexed. “This all looks good,” he said, “but what I really want is a milkshake.”

“Oh, man,” I said. “That sounds so good right now. Does anyone have any chocolate milk?”
No luck. I picked up a cup of green liquid, which I assumed was Gatorade. One long swig told me it was actually Mountain Dew, a drink I haven’t had since I was about twelve or thirteen. The sweet, carbonated drink was surprisingly, blissfully good.

“You have Timp Pass coming up,” the purple-haired woman said. I wasn’t sure what Timp Pass was, but I figured that if it had the word “pass” in it, it probably involved a climb. And I did remember that the last section of the elevation map was ugly. “The next aid station is two-and-a-half miles.” Another bad sign. If the aid stations were so close together. . . “After that,” she went on, “it’s just another two and a half to the finish!”

The Mountain Dew and potato high brought a rush of (misguided) optimism. I looked at my watch. It read 5 hours exactly. 5 miles left! I could actually do this thing in under six, sore legs and all! “Thanks, everyone!” I called, waving as I set off down the trail, which was a slightly rocky double-track. I glanced at my watch every few minutes. Following the blue ribbons, I turned right onto the Red Cross Trail.

And then I saw it: Mount Doom. I could almost feel the fires burning. I looked around for Gollum, or for a Samwise Gamgee who might throw me over his shoulders, but all I saw was the runner who had been behind me during the last descent. “I’m really pissed now,” he grumbled. “This late in the race? I mean, come on.” I put my hands on my hips and stared at the steep, craggy incline. Should I side-step, or does that only help when you’re cross country skiing? Could I walk up backwards? As if the grade weren’t discouraging enough, the footing was uneven, full of hidden ditches, loose rocks, and leaves. I grabbed the straps on my hydration pack, perhaps hoping a balloon would suddenly inflate, and made the long, slow trek to the top. And then to the other top, and then the top after that, which was, blessedly, Timp Pass. Between the Mountain Dew and the exertion from the climb, I began to fear cardiac arrest. I took a few deep breaths.

The descent from Timp Pass was as rocky and uncertain as the climb, but I would have been happy to roll down at that point. Applause greeted me at the next aid station. I looked at my watch. 5:45. Those 2.5 miles had taken 45 minutes. So much for the 6 hour finish.

I had one last potato and looked at the sign by the trail. “Distance to finish: 2.8 miles.” 2.8? But I had been told 2.5! I couldn’t wrap my brain around another .3. A Shot Block might help. I popped one, downed some Gatorade, and set off for the finish. Two more climbs and I would see the big red inflatable arch, the glorious finish line.
At some point during that last stretch, a very tan, very fit runner in very orange shorts glided toward me from the opposite direction. He stopped briefly. “Doing okay?” he asked? I nodded, and he was gone. Must be a trail angel, I thought. That’s the North Face for you. Later, I realized the orange wood sprite was Dean Karnazes.
Climbing the ski trail towards Route 1777E, I could hear music and cheers and the muffled boom of an announcer’s voice. “I can smell the finish!” the man in front of me yelled, and I actually felt my eyes tear up. And a few minutes later, there it was: the crimson arch. I heard the “beep” of the chip timer as I crossed. Another smiling volunteer in North Face garb draped a medal around my neck. I glanced down at my shoes; they had held together. I couldn’t wait to get them off.

Nadia waved from the massage tent. “That was hard!” she said, though she looked like she had just returned from a three mile jog. She had done the marathon two years earlier, and hadn’t remembered the trail as being quite so challenging. “It must be like childbirth,” she said. “You forget the pain.”

Ah, yes, I thought. Once the child is in your arms, you forget the agony that preceded his arrival. Otherwise, you’d never be brave enough—or insane enough—to go through it all again.

Five minutes later, waiting in line for my massage, I was cradling a cold, fruity, Shock Top, compliments of another fellow runner, California Kid. The pain hadn’t receded, but by the time the beer was gone, I was already thinking about next year.

voices soft as thunder

Recently, my kids—ages 7 and 9—asked if they could see an upcoming production of “Les Miserables” in New Haven. We’ve been playing the soundtrack ad nauseum since the film came out, and the story has captivated them, even if much of it is beyond their comprehension. But even though Bryan and I are going to the show, I was hesitant to purchase tickets for the kids. “Not yet,” I told them. “You’re too young. “ I wasn’t thinking only about the bawdy profanity of songs like “Master of the House” (“Everybody raise a glass—raise it up the master’s ass!”), or about the bloody battle scene at the barricades. What concerned me most was “Lovely Ladies,” the number in which prostitutes advertise themselves to hungry sailors (“Seven days at sea can make you hungry for a poke”). Halfway through the song, Fantine sells her hair; by the end, she has sold herself (“Come on, dearie, why all the fuss? You’re no grander than the rest of us. Life has dropped you at the bottom of the heap. Come on dearie, make money in your sleep”).


The lively music of the song is a chilling contrast to Fantine’s fall (contrasted further still by her swan song, “I Dreamed a Dream”). When she first heard it, Lexi thought the song a happy one, and why wouldn’t she? You can dance to it. It’s witty. And the whores seem willing enough.


I said “no” to the kids because we haven’t had the “sex” talk yet. Because, despite the prevalence of sex and violence in our music and film, I have held fast to a (possibly outmoded) notion of childhood innocence. Thus far, their exposure to the theater has been by way of “Annie,” “Lion King,” and “Seussical.” How was I to explain Fantine’s demise?


Then, three weeks ago, I read about a girl who was raped by three minors. One of them was nine. Nine. The same age as my son. Another was 11. The girl, whose family was from a country in Africa, was disowned by her family. After all, she had shamed their family. So, after her brutal assault, she was placed in state custody, ashamed and alone.


Yesterday, Facebook was alive with breaking stories surrounding the conviction of two high school students who had raped an inebriated young girl in Ohio. As if the rape itself weren’t humiliation enough, her photo was all over the internet, captioned everywhere by those who witnessed her demoralization: tweets that labeled her “slut,” “whore,” and someone who “deserve[d] to be peed on.” Most of these tweets were by kids, high school students who watched as her body was dragged to three different parties. Some of the tweets were jubilant: “I finally saw a dead body.” Others casually amused: “She looks so dead lmao.” Not one, as far as I know, called for help, or addressed the blatant moral depravity of the situation.


You can blame the alcohol. Many did. But now that convictions have been issued, “Jane Doe” is receiving death threats, not only from those kids who were implicated, but from their parents. So, while I’m worried about shielding my kids from the reality of prostitution, these parents are tacitly condoning the actions of the rapists by suggesting that the victim is to blame. It’s an old story. The girl had her dignity torn from her in one drunken night; the boys will have their wrists slapped for doing what boys have always done: given the girl what she was asking for in the first place.


Lovely ladies/ready for the call/standing up or lying down or any way at all


Yesterday was a wake-up call for me. If nine year old boys are sexually assaulting young girls, I can’t put off “the talk.” Not when teachers are letting kids watch “Gangnum Style” in the classroom (“Hey, sexy lady”), and when my daughter’s six-year-old friends are making up songs about cheating on their men.


And the violence at the barricades in “Les Mis”? What is an onstage battle compared to the sickening reality of Newtown? At least the boys in the musical were fighting for something noble. Adam Lanza was seeking notoriety. The war he was waging was an internal war, and thanks to our shamefully loose gun laws and a culture that privileges “personal freedom” over moral action, he was gloriously victorious.


If nothing else, I thought after days of trying to process the incident at Newtown, at least this tragedy will lead to action. We have no choice but to pass new gun legislation now. Newtown has made this startlingly clear.


And people did stand up. Veronique Pozner was strikingly open about the damage to her little son’s body. We have to see, she insisted. We have to talk about it, and not think of these kids as “little angels.” They were brutally murdered. Petitions were created, signed, and sent to Washington. Cyclists rode in the name of the victims. Obama declared he would use every power available to him to see the gun laws changed.


But “personal freedom” wins again. Hooray for us. Or, as the Daily News put it, “Shame on Us.”


It’s hard not to feel hopeless amidst the insanity. I’m trying to channel the despair into action: perhaps not by marching on Washington, but by thinking more locally. By having open discussions with my kids—my own kids, and the kids I teach—about respect: respect for women’s bodies, respect for male dignity, respect for the lives and properties and even privacy (does privacy exist in our social-media-obsessed society?) of others. Respect for their values, so that they can grow up to take on insensitive, single-minded “leaders” like Wayne LaPierre, or understand that “sexual freedom” is not synonymous with “giving a guy pleasure.”


I hope we don’t just collectively close these cases and think of them as tragic events that happen in other places (especially hard to do with Newtown, since it was so close to home).


We owe it to our children and their families. The time is now. Let the state of Connecticut become an agent for change with respect to gun safety. Our little man, and every other child and adult who died that day, deserve it. –Veronique Pozner, mother of Noah, Newtown victim.


Here's hoping someday in the not-too-distant future the misfortunes of Fantine will be only found in fiction and not in real life. -- Anne Hathaway, upon receiving her Oscar for Best Actress.

i wish i had a river

Such a delicious distraction, music. I'm working, reading essays, and then Joni Mitchell enters, singing "River." Within seconds I am in my living room in Fort Collins, my cold hands wrapped around a mug of coffee, reading Tolstoy before my 9:00 class. Sometimes I wish I had a river I could skate away on, if only for an hour or two.

running on planet zephyr

Last month, we adopted a puppy through Labs 4 Rescue. These folks take the adoption process very seriously, and before adoption is final, prospective dog families must pass the “home visit” interview. Labs, we are reminded, are energetic dogs. According to some sources, Labs, more than any other breed, often end up in shelters, because unsuspecting new owners, choosing Labs based on their reputation as a family-friendly and highly trainable breed, are unprepared for the overabundance of energy and exercise requirements. The interviewer who visited our home was thrilled to hear that we had already owned a Lab, and were therefore hip to the fact that a quiet quarter mile walk does little to appease a 6-month-old pup. Having lost my favorite running partner, Sasha, last June, I was looking for a new companion on the trails, so a Lab suited my purpose.

But instead of schooling me in breathless tempo runs, Zephyr has reminded me of the spiritual and psychological benefits of slowing down. On our first couple of trail runs, when he stopped to sniff yet another deer pellet or taste his thirty-eighth pinecone, I became frustrated. I looked at my watch, wondered how I would make up for the lost time. And then, last week, running in torrential rain, water on the trail up to my ankles, Zephyr stopped to examine a Great Blue Heron perched on a rock in the water. I had been running alongside the trail for at least a mile, but my mind was on the coffee waiting to be brewed, on the kids waiting to be fed, on the dishes waiting to be washed. When Zephyr stopped (and I nearly tripped over him), I stopped too, and it wasn’t the Heron that held my attention (I’d seen him there before), but the sound of the brook. It wasn’t murmuring, as it usually was; it was bellowing like a mountain river. Our tranquil little stream had become, overnight, honest-to-goodness white water. I marveled at the momentary wildness of our usually tame local forest.

Today, during Sunday services at the Unitarian Society http://usnh.org/,one of our congregation read a passage from Thich Nhat Hanh, one I had read before, about mindful dish washing. If, when we wash dishes, we are only thinking about the cup of tea that awaits us afterward, then we aren’t really washing dishes. If, however, we wash dishes to wash dishes, then we are paying attention. If we can’t pay attention to the dishes in that moment, then it’s likely we won’t be able to truly enjoy the cup of tea that follows, because as we sip before the fire, we will be elsewhere—in our offices, in our checkbooks, in our sorrows. But if we wash the dishes purposefully, mindfully, then we will be present in the moments that follow as well.

When I returned from my run, I brought the wild water with me in my hair, in my sneakers, and on my dog. And then I stripped off my wet clothing, changed, and entered the next moment. In the kitchen that had been clamoring for my attention an hour earlier, the coffee had already been brewed, the kids had fed themselves, and Bryan was putting the dishes in the rack. Zephyr, having shaken off the rain, was chewing on a piece of bark in front of the fire, thinking only as far ahead as the next bite.

the smile on a dog

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid
and self-contain’d.
I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition.
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins.
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of
owning things.
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands
of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.

--Walt Whitman, from Leaves of Grass

One of the most beautiful sections in Milan Kundera’s brilliant novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, is “Karenin’s Smile,” in which the protagonists, Tereza and Tomas (played by Juliette Binoche and Daniel Day-Lewis in the film version), are confronted with a terminal illness diagnosis for their dog, Karenin, and must decide which course to take. In the chapters that comprise this section, Kundera reflects, mostly through the character of Tereza, on the differences between our relationships with animals and our relationships with each other:

. . . the love that tied her [Tereza] to Karenin was better than the love between her and Tomas. Better, not bigger. . . .
It is a completely selfless love: Tereza did not want anything of Karenin; she did not ever ask him to love her back. Nor had she ever asked herself the questions that plague human couples: Does he love me? Does he love anyone more than me? Does he love me more than I love him? Perhaps all the questions we ask of love, to measure, test, probe, and save it have the additional effect of cutting it short. (Kundera 297)

I thought about Karenin yesterday after receiving a similar diagnosis for our own dog, Sasha, who has been suffering good-naturedly for the last several months. Though she has been plagued by arthritis for the last couple of years, she has managed to stay, up until about a month ago, relatively active, and healthy aside from her aching joints, which cause her to groan when the weather is heavy. Though it was clear she would never again be able to join the running group, she has been able to hike, swim, and accompany us on our neighborhood walks. And, true to Lab form, her appetite never wavered, not until last month. That’s when we knew things were changing. One morning she did not come down for breakfast, not even when she heard the sound of the top spinning off of her food container, nor when she heard the rattle of kibbles hitting the metal bowl. When it was time to feed her dinner, her bowl was still half-full of breakfast. I offered her a banana slice, a favorite treat, as an appetizer; she sniffed it and turned away. My heart sank.

Yesterday was ostensibly a routine visit to the vet. It was time for her rabies vaccine. Of course, I brought my concerns with me, but I barely had time to raise them before the vet had decided that Sasha’s condition was “not good.” Her gums were pale, her stomach inflamed, her heartbeat irregular. She had lost almost ten pounds (and she was already quite thin for a Lab). They kept her at the vet for some tests, but I did not need results to know that Sasha was preparing for her next journey.

The results: enlarged lymph nodes, a big one in her chest. Enlarged pancreas. Blood cell count showed likely evidence of lymphoma. We could send her for an ultrasound, then to an oncologist, and then on to other specialists, or we could swallow hard, accept that she had lived a rich and active life, and send her off with love and memories. So, with very heavy hearts, we have chosen the latter.

I’ve said good-bye to pets before, and it’s always painful, but Sasha and I have been together for over ten years. She arrived when I was at graduate school in Vermont, and though I told Bryan he would have to assume the bulk of the responsibility for her while I was finishing up my degree, I could never stand being away from her; as a result, we shared custody, and she spent her first few months as our puppy living in two states. She snoozed on my lap while I read for my Comps exam. She hung on the ears of my roommate’s 115-pound Great Dane/Chocolate Lab mix, Perry. She explored the spur trails and higher peaks of the Green Mountains.

When Bryan and I got married, we spent two months on the road, going out West, up through Canada to Alaska, and back down through the Canadian Rockies and into Washington, Oregon, and Colorado. Sasha was on the trip, and was even present at our wedding ceremony on the summit of Flattop Mountain, just outside of Anchorage (though she did try to sneak off with a trail runner who came through).

Her adjustment to Dylan’s arrival took some time, and in the early days she did express her disapproval at having been usurped, but she later grew to tolerate the kids, especially now that both are able to toss her a ball (she still brings the ball back to one of us, rather than to either of the kids, presumably as a way of stating that, though she has accepted them as roommates, they will never be her masters).

Still, her happiest days are in the yard, chewing on grass, sniffing out a dead animal, chasing anything we can throw. Though we’d like to think she enjoyed the road trip, I suspect she would have been just as pleased—perhaps more so—to run after a Frisbee right here in Cheshire.

If Karenin had been a person instead of a dog, he would surely have long since said to Tereza,
“Look, I’m sick and tired of carrying that roll in my mouth every day. Can’t you come up with
something different? And therein lies the whole of man’s plight. Human time does not turn in a
circle; it runs ahead in a straight line. That is why man cannot be happy: happiness is the longing
for repetition. (Kundera 298)

Dogs thrive on routine, and a Lab will suffer through just about any amount of pain for the sake of a walk. I have sometimes worried that, left to her own devices, Sasha would literally retrieve until she keeled over from cardiac arrest. In fact, she has a kink in her tail that is a testament either to her stamina or her foolishness. At our wedding party, which took place on Lake Spofford in New Hampshire, the children of our friends threw tennis balls and sticks into the water for Sasha to chase. When dogs swim, they use their tails as rudders, and at the end of the day, Sasha’s tail hung limp and was sore to the touch. The next day she could lift it, but just slightly. When it finally healed, it stood at a crooked arch, and so it remains. But she’d probably do it all over again. Tomorrow.

Last night, we gave the bad news to the kids. Dylan was sad but inquisitive, as is his nature. Lexi was more visibly upset. She has experienced death before, having lost both of her beloved grandfathers, but the frightening notion of death itself upsets her greatly. It’s the “f” word—“forever”—that sends her into a spin. I made the mistake of using the tired euphemism, “putting her to sleep,” when explaining the process of euthanasia. I thought she had understood (though why I would make that assumption, I’m not sure); later she came to me and said, “Mom, Dylan said we’re going to have to say goodbye to Sasha forever.”

I took her hands and said, “We are, honey. It’s time for Sasha to go on to a place where she doesn’t have to feel any more pain.”

And she lost it. When she woke up this morning, she started all over again. I showed her pictures of Sasha doing all of the things that make her happy: chewing, hiking, swimming, sleeping on our bed. I told her we’ll sprinkle her ashes in her favorite places: Brooksvale Park in Hamden; Camel’s Hump in Vermont; Flattop Mountain in Anchorage. She will literally become a part of her favorite trails. We’ll save a little for our backyard, of course.

In Kundera’s novel, Tomas, being a doctor, decides to euthanize Karenin himself, so that Karenin might die in the comfort of his country home, surrounded by his family. “Assuming the role of Death is a terrifying thing. Tomas insisted that he would not give the injection himself; he would have the vet come and do it. But then he realized that he could grant Karenin a privilege forbidden to humans: Death would come for him in the guise of his loved ones”(Kundera 299-300). When Karenin sees Tomas enter the room, he gives a weak wag of his tail. “Look,” Tereza says through her tears, “He’s still smiling”(299).

Bryan and I have yet to work out the logistics of what happens next, but we do know we want her here, at home, if at all possible, perhaps on her lumpy old bed in front of the fireplace. I’m looking at that bed now, at its ridges and wrinkles and stains. Sasha spends most of her time in the bathroom now, preferring cool tile to foam cushion. She doesn’t greet us at the door anymore, but I hear her tail thump against the floor when I enter, and I know that, in spite of her discomfort, she is happy.

But most of all: No one can give anyone else the gift of the idyll; only an animal can do so, because only animals were not expelled from Paradise. The love between dog and man is idyllic. (Kundera 298)

big girl tomboy

There’s just something about mud.

In creative writing classes, whenever I would be issued a prompt to write about nature, or to give a positive spin to something usually seen as dreary, I would always go back to mud: sloppy trail runs; mountain bike rides through soft, wet soil; hiking in the pouring rain and getting to camp with dirt-speckled calves. It’s no wonder that luxury spas offer mud baths: mud is rejuvenating. Getting dirty makes me feel grounded—pun intended.

Like most folks my age, I spent a good portion of my early childhood making mud pies. Kids are instinctively drawn to soil, and will find a murky puddle on the driest patch of land. A couple of months ago, I went with my family to a maple sugar event at Brooksvale Park, and while the ranger was giving a demo in the sugar shack, a toddler reveled in a mud puddle behind us: first standing, then sitting and splashing, then rolling. I mean really rolling. Many of the faces present expressed horror, but the child’s mom stood calmly off to the side, half-listening to the lecture, bemused and utterly unconcerned. I was fascinated: I was enjoying the show, but had it been my own child, I would probably have worried about what the other parents would think, much as I hate to admit it. When the sugar expo was over and it was time for maple syrup over ice cream, the mom pulled a trash bag out of her purse, exchanged the boy’s soiled jacket and snowpants for a new shirt and fresh pair of sweats, and the two went merrily on their way. I made a mental note to get this woman’s number.

I don’t make mud pies anymore, but I still find all kinds of ways to play in the mud, preferably with friends. An April trail run almost always ends in soggy shoes and a communal hose-down. Just yesterday, I came home from a wet bike ride to find my face covered in brown freckles. Even my eyelashes were spotted. Today, I weeded moist onion beds at Boulder Knoll farm, and in order to keep my 40-year-old knees from groaning, I had to keep switching position, so that, at one point, I was practically lying on my side in the mud, much to the amusement of another volunteer, Starla, who asked if my rust-colored Carhaarts had started out as white. When I had finished for the day, I was at least two pounds heavier, as the mud clung to my gloves, my soles, even the tendrils of hair that had escaped from my cap. Just like a day at the spa.

Truth be told, it’s harder to get out of bed when it’s raining, and I would almost always take a crisp autumn day over a soppy spring morning. But it is a hell of a lot of fun to run a-muck.

parsnip therapy

Today was my first day of work on Boulder Knoll Farm. After having followed the farm’s CSA (Crop Share Association) program since its inception three years ago, Bryan and I finally decided to join. Our own vegetable garden has, for the past few years, been an exercise in frustration: each spring we turn the soil, clear the beds, plant the seeds, fix the fence, wait for the harvest, and then watch as our beans, peas, tomatoes, and other vegetables and herbs are ravaged by deer, moles, Japanese beetles, and a host of other insects and mammals.

So this year we decided to learn something about successful gardening by participating in a work-intensive CSA program. In exchange for 30 hours of work on the farm, and a small sum of money, we will take home a share of the crops every few weeks from June until October. Even more exciting than the booty, however, is the opportunity to participate in a community agricultural program. Today, before starting work, I looked at the rows of empty beds, at the folks working in various corners of the field, and thought about how great it would be to document, day by day, the subtle changes, changes wrought, in large part, by the hands of a small group of dedicated workers.

But before that, I was sitting in my dining room, reading freshman essays and sighing anxiously, working my way through the paper pile and pausing to consider other piles—laundry, dishes, clothes to be sorted through for spring. I looked at the clock and swore, wishing I hadn’t chosen today—a day I really needed to use for catching up on work—to volunteer on the farm.

At 11:20, I headed over to the farm. My first task was to harvest some parsnips that had “over-wintered.” I had help from two other women, both of whom were delighted by the surprise crop of vegetables. Who knew we’d take home a share on day one? Even more amazing was the fact that these hearty roots had survived the weight of this year’s unusually harsh winter. So many of them, too. And they hadn’t just survived; they had thrived! I dug the pitchfork into the ground, and it took all of my weight to break the roots from the dirt. They clung to the soil, secure in their subterranean shelter. I reached down and pulled, gently but firmly, and was surprised by the girth of these hearty vegetables. The other workers were awestruck, and at the end of a half an hour, we had filled a laundry tub with parsnips. We all agreed that this was a positive omen: an unexpected harvest on the first official day of the season.

I spent the next ninety minutes lopping dead flower stems and pulling out roots to make way for new seeds. It wasn’t intellectual work, and it wasn’t overly physical, but there was a supreme satisfaction in pausing to look at what I was able to accomplish in a relatively short amount of time. In my own work, my school work, there is rarely a sense of completion. I hack away, perpetually behind in my grading, my reading, my prep, and always feeling as though I could be doing more, or doing something better. On the farm, my task was simple, and I could easily set a reasonable goal. Pull parsnips. Clear four beds. Dump the debris in the compost pile. Write the time in the log.

“This is a wonderful place,” said one of the other workers who passed by me as I pulled roots. “It’s amazing to stand here and look at these fields and know that, in three months, everything will have blossomed as a result of our work.”

Though he was right, I wasn’t thinking that far ahead at the moment. I wasn’t thinking about much of anything, in fact. The sun was dancing in and out of the clouds, my fingernails were dirtier than they had ever been, and the work pile on my dining room table was, for the moment, a matter of little consequence.

Roasted parsnips, anyone?