verse Thirteen

Having graduated law school and passed the bar, I am now in line with thousands of other recently minted attorneys looking for work. Humbling experience to understate things. And then there's loans.

Verse Thirteen opens with a slap. Accept disgrace and misfortune graciously. Sh!t happens. Disgrace is equated to complacently being unimportant. I am not unimportant in all spheres. None of us is unimportant in all spheres...There are some ways in which I do not want to be important - the infamy conferred by getting caught screwing up badly, for example, I am happily doing without. No hit and runs, no random assassinations, no corruption charges.

The kind of importance where I make a difference outside my comfortable sphere, that kind of importance I crave. And without a job, it seems the farthest thing from possible (although volunteer opportunities are helping me fulfill those leanings).

Misfortune, says the Tao, is a natural by-product of having a body. cf: my post on running hills. But I get it. No one gets to the end of the race without confronting adversity in many forms. Physical pain, conniving competition, tactical failures. To avoid emotional pain I think the Tao is saying not to expect gold medals to drop onto one's neck: be humble, don't worry about winning, simply take care of doing what it is needs to be done. That's where to find satisfaction. That's how to be if not important then authentically human  - by doing what must be done, not by trying to be important.

Having never seen the show about Snooki (Jersey Shore?) I can't really say, but I'm guessing that's where the striving to be important leads you. And there's another lesson for politicians - hearing the siren call of taking care of the world in a doing-what-needs-to-be-done sort of way is tantalizingly close to the taking-care-of-the-world to be important way. The striving, I think, the Tao frowns upon. The striving, I think, leads to injuries physical and mental, and harm to the connected community that is the planet. In a big-picture kind of way. (The small picture kind of way lands you in op-ed columns and cable talk shows as an example of "Don't.")

I confess to a neurotic fear of driving in snowy conditions. I get through by reminding myself to drive the road I'm on. Maybe it's not slippery, maybe it's not hilly. Maybe it is - aside from moving to someplace warm year round I'm stuck where I will sometimes have to drive snowy roads. Perhaps driving (or running) the road I have will lead to the last line of verse thirteen: if I love the world as myself I will be rewarded with the gift of being able to care for all things. Perhaps life under the radar will fulfill. Perhaps my rising panic about not having the vehicle of a job to work through will send me off the rails into the icy median strip a few more times before I sort things out. All bets are off. I accept not knowing the future (and all blame for mixing up one big batch of metaphor that last sentence).

I am driving the road I'm on (running, walking, talking, reading, thinking). Is that the best I can do? The Tao tells me to avoid the value judgment. I'm not sure I can but when all else fails it's a good place to start.

To Run Like a Dog

(yes, it's been awhile. this is what blogs do best, collect dust...)(I will get back to the Tao where I left off...promise!)

I have a new sense of empathy for my little house wolf, a fluffy but sturdy cockapoo approaching 3 years and 30 pounds.

We run together, sometimes, for half an hour, an hour depending on the weather. She would follow me anywhere, and pretty much has. She doesn’t speak English. Just accepts the collar, the leash, and trots on hunting for good smells and markers to pee on. She doesn’t get to decide where we go, how far, how fast. She doesn’t get to decide how long her little pit stops last, either, beyond what I allow for her biological necessity.

My fast friend and I have been running together a couple times a week for half a year. We do two speed workouts a week. My fast friend and I are well-matched: I don’t quit and she doesn’t slow down.

Here’s where the inter-species empathy comes in.

Mondays are hill days. On hill days, I run like a dog. We have a route set that goes up gradually more challenging hills. Probably too many of them. I’m breathing heavy. My heart is pounding, my lungs are burning and if I am lucky my knees don’t buckle.

But I am not going to stop. Maybe I am two paces behind my friend. We crest a hill, pick a landmark and turn around. I catch my breath on the downhill only to go through the whole process again. And again. We live in a very hilly neighborhood.

The workout takes about 40 minutes. After our warmup, I cannot distinguish where my will stops and my friend's starts. Unlike my dog and I, there’s no leash. Just commingled intent to chase up and down hills repeatedly until we have completed the route. By the time we’re cooling down, a combination of exhaustion and the animal instinct to get home usually prevent me from holding a conversation in English or any other language.

Like my loyal dog who runs with me, I relinquish control over the route, the time, the pace. I tether my will to my friend’s pace and she probably tethers her pace to my endurance. Together we run farther and faster than we would have alone.

Tellingly, neither of us has tried the hill route solo.

On Tuesdays, to make sure Monday’s run did no lasting harm, I click my dog into her collar, leash and head out for a nice easy run. On Tuesdays I am back in charge of the pace, the route, the distance -- quite mindful of the creature tethered running next to me unable to express anything but the run and occasional need to relieve herself. And the ancient domesticated dedication that wakes her when I do, ambling downstairs with a stretch and a hope that this day is not Monday, that I will bring her along so she can run like a dog.