Erstwhile Okie on St. Mark's Place. "That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past."
29 days until 5k
Garbage day. Did five minutes on the treadmill and just noped out. Can't say why exactly. Was it harder than any of the days before? Did I just not have the mental capacity to push? Who knows. But honestly it's a relief. I had six days in a row where I went further/longer than the preceding day which created a constant pressure to do more. So I'm glad I failed today so anything tomorrow is an improvement. Besides, for the 7th day in a row I got up at 5:30 and went down to the gym.
Weighed in at 178lbs this morning, a not-insignificant leap. But I've continued pigging out with Sammy here. Oh well, losing weight is easy. Much easier than this. Weighing 160 by race day would be a breeze compared to running 3+ miles and I could do it without getting out of bed.
Ah well, very grateful for the day. Waking up in a cool apartment in the East Village with Sammy in his bedroom. It's a dream.
· 1 min read
1 years ago
For something like 15 years now, I've kept a daily diary, using Leather Gallery's Desk Weekly Leather Planner (Open Format) - 8" x 5.5". Last night, I stuck 2024's on a pile in a cabinet and set pen to 2025's for the first time, starting the January first entry: The scene opens.
I went on to detail where the night found me, broadly, which painted a pretty positive picture in terms of all the metrics generally regarded as meaningful. I could write endlessly about God's endless indulgence and providence towards me; I've been hurling myself off increasingly tall cliffs and landing in the beds of increasingly luxuriant marshmallow-and-goose-down trucks for a long time. I'm very lucky and increasingly focused on being happy with my luck rather than fearful.
If I took any particular lesson from 2024 (other than constant reminders that I am of more value than many sparrows and will never get stones in lieu of bread), it is that many of the foundational attributes I ascribed to myself -- anxiety, sadness, laziness -- were either misattributed or not-particularly-relevant derivatives of my real core quality: cowardice.
Which is a promising diagnosis, as I think it has more ready remedies than the others. Namely, patience and gratitude (or patience, experience, and hope).
I'm always grateful for fatherhood as it provides such great illustrations of God's perspective. It annoys me when my sons worry about things that are far beyond them and really only my concern. The affordability of something, managing certain details, etc... And it saddens me to see how it can dampen what should be a purely positive experience I've afforded them.
· 1 min read
2 years ago
[Pictured: Me at a low-point in 2020.]
Anyone who would cite Job or try to compare themselves would be deserving of the ensuing eye rolls, but throughout the last week I've kept thinking of the line "the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning". I kept waking up overwhelmed with gratitude and just praying a silent, repeated thank you. It was a quiet week, but I think it was the best of my life.
In the early months of the pandemic, I deleted my social media because I didn't have anything left to share. My seventeen-year marriage had met its catastrophic end; I'd left the charming little country house I'd called home for a decade in favor of a run-down apartment in the shadow of a feed mill; my job had joined a few others on the chopping block as COVID wrecked the college's budget.
And now here I found myself, waking in an apartment overlooking one of my favorite blocks in Manhattan, its bedrooms occupied by a pair of sons that think I hang the moon. I made decisions, good and bad and most all of them reckless, that contributed to this, and plenty that should have precluded it. But somehow, in tabulating the ledger, Providence credited more than it debited and I find myself occupying a life vastly fuller than the sum of my efforts.
I recently read a book my church's rector had recommended to me: The Will of God by Leslie D. Weatherhead. A line that stuck out to me reflected on loss and hopelessness, and compared it to what the Apostles must have suffered upon the death of Christ: "But they were wrong, weren't they? [...O]ne day, like them, you'll find out how wrong you are and be sadder at your despair than at your loss."
Trimble took the hand. He was crying. He said huskily, tears all down the red glistening cheeks, "I want to thank you, sir, for the opportunity you have given me, sir, to serve here. I have prayed, sir." He stopped, choked. Longstreet pressed his hand. Trimble said, "I will take that wall, sir."