ODE TO LEGS

When the grueling miles stretch 

ahead,

my heart will doubt, my brain will stumble

in a tired loop.

But my legs will always move me

forward.

i remember

I remember the cold night air on my face and arms. The YMCA was only a block from the dorm so I threw on a tee-shirt and shorts—no coat—and braved it. 

I took on that tiny, indoor track with purpose. When sole hit ground, I let the tears come. Lap after lap, I replayed that afternoon's rehearsal in my mind. "It's clear to me that you just don't care." Her stare like talons, her words like knives. She was visiting violin faculty, known far and wide for her carefully delivered cruelty. She'd sized me up—ivory poet's blouse with a sweet pearl button, earnest eyes that cared so much—and chose the phrase that would hurt me the most.

I don't remember if I cried in that little rehearsal studio or if I held it in until after I’d left. I don't remember who talked to me when it was over. But I'll never forget the burn, the weight in my chest. 

And I remember thinking, I have to run.

Afterward, I left the track and walked back to the dorm. My lungs were screaming and my shirt was soaked, but my eyes were dry and my heart was light.i remember

I remember the cold night air on my face and arms. The YMCA was only a block from the dorm so I threw on a tee-shirt and shorts—no coat—and braved it. 

I took on that tiny, indoor track with purpose. When sole hit ground, I let the tears come. Lap after lap, I replayed that afternoon's rehearsal in my mind. "It's clear to me that you just don't care." Her stare like talons, her words like knives. She was visiting violin faculty, known far and wide for her carefully delivered cruelty. She'd sized me up—ivory poet's blouse with a sweet pearl button, earnest eyes that cared so much—and chose the phrase that would hurt me the most.

I don't remember if I cried in that little rehearsal studio or if I held it in until after I’d left. I don't remember who talked to me when it was over. But I'll never forget the burn, the weight in my chest. 

And I remember thinking, I have to run.

Afterward, I left the track and walked back to the dorm. My lungs were screaming and my shirt was soaked, but my eyes were dry and my heart was light.

i saw the clouds

The day we met, you nestled into my heart and made yourself at home. You’d found your perfect, plush, red chair.

I loved the way you woke me up every morning, snoring and scratching. Your soft, close-cropped hair and warm, searching eyes. The way you basked in the sun until your nose was red and you were squinting so intensely you could barely see.

You were a girl who rocked a tuxedo and ate as much as you damn well pleased—it never even occurred to you to worry about what anybody else thought.

I wasn’t ready for the day we went to the doctor. She sat across from us without smiling. But even as you coughed through the nights and lost your appetite, in your eyes, the sky was still blue. So my sky was still blue.

One day, we met a lady at the park. She said the way we looked at each other reminded her of Albert. She’d lost him only two weeks earlier. 

“Knives,” she made slicing motions across her chest. “It still feels like knives.” 

That night, I held you close and kissed your face as you slept. My cheeks were wet as I thought about Albert. The lady at the park had shown us his picture: floppy ears and a big, soft belly. 

I stroked your paw and for the first time since you got sick, I saw the clouds. 

I let you rest a while longer in your chair—still uncut, still strong enough to hold you.

55 WORDS ABOUT DEATH

Someone once challenged me to write 55 words about death. This was my response:

Autumn is so ugly. Beautiful, blazing New England fall foliage, whatever. Those brilliant reds and oranges say, "dying." Leaves are dying, summer is dying, strappy shoe season is dying. Boutiques start bringing out brown and beige and brownish beige. But most importantly, autumn is the harbinger of a new school year. Which means I'm dying.

THAT ONE POEM I WROTE

UNTITLED POEM ABOUT HIGH SCHOOL

Painted lips, lurid eyes, masks

at Mardi Gras, and hair so carefully forced.

In front of you, their sugar

-coated empty words drip

like honey

from pasted smiles. But behind

your back,

their vicious words are thorns.

Their slippery 

Promises – a trap that lured

me, dutifully clinging,

exclusive.

And others’ envy – nectar

for the swarm from which

I fled.

BACK TO RUNNING

WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER 2013

Something happens when I see my running shoes. I start hearing things. Soles hitting pavement. Inhaling, exhaling. Wind, cars, dogs barking from behind a fence. Someone else’s soles, someone else’s breathing. The little beep from my watch at every mile. My iPod.

And then all I want to do is put on those shoes and head out so I can hear it for real. And so that I can hear the best sound of all: the noise in my brain. Thoughts flowing, connecting, sorting themselves out. Or sometimes just a single thought: keep running.

Sometimes running feels like celebrating. Sometimes healing. Sometimes release. Sometimes I have to run until I feel like a normal person again. Sometimes it’s just making it to the next mile. Sometimes it’s perfectly ordinary.

And I love it. 

I don’t know why some people hate it and some people love it. I didn’t ever really have to learn. But since the first time I started doing laps around the little YMCA track in college 15 years ago, I’ve never doubted this great love of running. Of course, back then, I was also adding mileage haphazardly, not running with a group of more experienced runners, and not consulting with a running coach about my form and training. Shortly after, I started having pain in my hip flexors and my shins and was advised by a health professional to drop the running. 

I was just recovering from an eating disorder and was afraid that I was destroying the body that I was trying to learn to respect again. So I stopped running and started my love affair with cross-training.

But I’d still think about running now and then. I even ran some. A 5K here and there. But it wasn’t until the end of last year when I was spending a lot of time with runners that I found myself thinking about it even more. 

Then at the very end of December, I was sad and confused and I couldn’t stop thinking about soles hitting pavement. So I just put on my shoes and ran. This time, I was running to feel like a normal person again. I figured if my old injuries started screaming, I’d just stop. But it didn’t. When I came back in, I felt calmer. 

So running is now back in my life. 

And a few weeks ago, on a rare afternoon run, a lovely butterfly fluttered right into my path. I smiled, laughed out loud and thanked God & the Universe for the beautiful gift of running.

REMEMBERING MY FIRST RUNNER'S HIGH

It's winter of 1995. I go out for a run at the crack of dawn. I’m a 19-year-old college student living the same schedule as my grandfather.

When I first started running, the sub-freezing Western New York air made my lungs hurt and it was all I could think about. But these days, my lungs have adjusted and I spend most of my runs thinking about everything else.

My thoughts meander, more lucid yet more ambiguous. But today, as I make my way through the main campus, feet pounding, thoughts popping, something happens. My heart takes control of everything in my brain—and in every other part of my body. I forget about my knees, I forget about my arms, I forget about all of my thoughts except one: how exhilarated I feel. My heart has swept me right off my sneakers and into the air like I’m flying. I could go for hours.

I’ve just met my new love.

MY TAKE ON "I AM FROM"

I am from soft-spoken-ness,

from spelling nerds and sweets after dinner.

I am from the long, gravel driveway.

(Straight, seemingly endless

I raced and beat my brother on it.)

I am from the deep-end of the pool,

those colorful rings

I grabbed before floating

victoriously up to the surface.

I am from camembert and photo albums,

from June and Richard.

I’m from think before you speak,

and think of others first,

from trust people and stay suspicious.

I’m from we believe,

but you must

believe for yourself.

I’m from Alberta, Colorado, and Texas,

ketchup chips and sopapillas.

From the country my grandparents left

for promise,

the mindless summer jobs my father worked to keep learning.

In my heart are truths

tinged by life stories.

Generations of voices

simmering in my daydreams.

I am from places that

don’t feel like home,

but from people that do.

STORY OF A RECOVERING VIOLINIST

I don't want to be a violinist anymore.

I’m barely whispering, but the words scrape my heart.

Flat on my back on the floor of my tiny apartment, I don’t even notice that the sun’s gone down.

These words have been swimming around in my brain since the summer. But it's not until tonight—six months before I’ll graduate with a Bachelor of Music in violin performance—that I’m brave enough to say them aloud. Tears well in the corners of my eyes, then trickle down my cheeks and into my ears.

For sixteen years, this has been my life. For eight years, it’s been my entire identity: Stacey, the Violinist. My crown jewel.

When did it start feeling like an old winter coat? Scratchy, hot, buttoned too tight.

Maybe it was in February, when my teacher died. I thought I'd just been mourning. I was still going to class, still practicing and going to rehearsals. But I woke up every morning wanting to go back to sleep. I watched everyone around me start to heal and move on by throwing themselves right back into the music. A new piece to work on, a new recording to discover. But those very same things made me feel even worse.

Maybe it was a few years ago when I first started feeling too big, too small, too something for my skin. My friends would rhapsodize late into the night about Shostakovich No. 7 or the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and I'd get so bored, I'd daydream about taking a nap on a sunny beach. 

Maybe it was as far back as high school, when despite my grand dreams of becoming a violin superstar, I'd routinely choose reading or writing or even vacuuming my room over practicing.

Or maybe it was today during a late afternoon rehearsal. The conductor—a man who wore his ass-holery like a badge—stopped the entire rehearsal and stared at me with disgust emanating from his pores. I flushed from my scalp to my chest to my armpits. Beads of sweat popped up along my hairline. “Why the hell are you even here?” As the words flew out of his mouth, prickles burned up and down my arms.

Two hours later, I repeat his question into the darkness. Why the hell am I even here?

I’m here because I've practiced so hard my fingertips have morphed into thick, bulbous callouses. I have a rough, red mark right where violin meets neck—not unlike a quarter-sized hickey—that all violinists gripe about endlessly but are secretly proud of.

I’m here because I finally feel like the hard-core classical musician my friends and I idolized when we were in high school. I can stand up in front of my peers while my playing is sized up, dissected and ripped to shreds. And I’m not afraid to elbow my way to the front of the line so I can find overhead space for my violin on an airplane.

I’m here because I own enough tops, skirts, slacks, and shoes for at least seven combinations of all-black concert attire.

I’m here because if I wasn’t, what would my friends at home say? After all my talk about dreaming big and becoming even bigger? That I'm selling out? Not good enough? Because if I'm not here, what have my parents been investing in for eight years?

But there's one thing I can't say, lying here alone where nobody is watching. I can't say I'm here because I love the music more than anything else.

The sky is completely darkened now, the shadows settled in for the night.

I always thought my first love was violin. But really, I’ve been in love with the way I walk around town with my violin case casually slung around my shoulder, my callouses throbbing and my neck sore. I’m in love with the pride I feel when I catch people staring.

I say the words again.

I don't want to be a violinist anymore.

This time, when the thoughts come hurtling, I put them aside. There’s time for that later. For now, I lie quietly and let my heart break.