I run because I can't dance

A light bulb went on in my head the other day while running. Suddenly it all made sense, how someone like me could come to love running...

I am a naturally inward and sedentary person. I could pass entire days sitting in a room, thinking, daydreaming, writing. As far back as I can remember, I never instinctively felt the need to get up and run around. My childhood memories are largely filled with stillness and silent spaces, despite apparently being chatterbox as a kid. I just remember my surroundings being very quiet to the point of dull. But every now and then, there would be a song. I don't remember any specific song but I remember me either singing or hearing a song I liked, and how that song would have me springing to my feet, shaking my hips, bopping my head, and flailing my arms. Music could always move me. In my teens I used to go into a state of near-trance dancing away to songs that electrified my soul. I couldn't help it.

In keeping with my sedentary nature, for years I hated exercise. I never felt the urge to exert myself physically unless there was no risk of pain, or there was some ulterior motive (like seeing if I could beat my older brother or male cousins at tennis to prove that girls were not athletic inferior like they claimed we were). Otherwise, I just didn't see the value of pushing myself to the point of discomfort when I could be home listening to music, munching on a bag of potato chips, or dancing my heart out to Bow Wow Wow's "Do You Wanna Hold Me." That was as close as I got to physical exertion.

I began exercising voluntarily in my twenties. I joined a gym. My boyfriend at the time figured it could be a pastime we enjoyed together. Except it turned out that we never worked out together. We would enter the building together, but once inside he mostly hung out in the weight room while I went to a class. One place where we overlapped was the treadmill. I ran on it, just like everybody else who worked out at a gym. But I found it painfully boring and a bit physically disorienting. After about ten minutes I would feel dizzy and out of balance. Meanwhile I would look around and see everyone else plodding away unfazed. These people were listening to their Walkmans. I concluded that music must be the key to erasing the monotony. From that point on, I never ran without one. And that was more or less what phase one of my running career looked like.

Phase two came when my husband and I began dating. By then I had let my gym membership lapse and gravitated more towards rollerblading. I don't know if it was the speed or the outdoor setting, but rollerblading seemed infinitely more fun than being holed up in a stinky gym banging out miles on a treadmill. My husband in his infinite wisdom suggested that I try running outside. We ran in Central Park on the same routes where I would typically rollerblade, and along the Charles River whenever it was my turn to visit him. When we moved to San Francisco, our runs continued in Golden Gate Park and culminated in yearly 10K races from bay to breakers or bridge to bridge. I came to love running for the chance to breathe fresh air. My Walkman broke, my Discman became unwieldy, so I ran gadget-free. Then two rambunctious boys came into my life. Running was left behind.

Phase three, where I am now, was borne out of a perfect storm of age-defiance and rebellion from everyday responsibility. My fortieth birthday was looming large and I felt compelled to do something epic to mark the occasion. At the same time I needed a solitary outlet from being a mom, a wife, a person needed by someone else to do something urgently every minute of the day. I resolved to run a half-marathon. The training was my escape. Running became a form of meditation. The longer I ran, the more I could blur out the chaos back at the house, the fight last night, the anxieties and frustrations making loopty-loops in my head, the cold air, the deluge of rain, the unforgiving road beneath my feet, the tweaky pain in my knee...everything. And at some point I acquired an iPod and rediscovered music's transformational effects on running despair. When my favorite tunes are being piped into my ears, I feel joyful and light and invincible. I can't help but move. My heart can't help but sing. Having uninterrupted interludes with my music became the ultimate reason to sneak off with my running shoes.

If there is one type of athlete that I wish I could be, it is a dancer. I envy the dancer's ability to let music ripple through her body and make it look so beautiful and raw it brings tears to the onlooker's eyes. The fact that a dancer can conduct music the way a lightning rod conducts electricity gives me hope that there is a god. I can't dance like that, but I'm decent now at running. So when a song sends power surges through my veins, I get out and run and I keep running. No matter how bleak the weather. No matter how sweaty the brow. No matter how achey the feet.

Fantastic four

I'm in the bathroom at home, and as usual someone bursts in.

It's Elie. He's squirming around as though he were dancing to a tune that only he can hear. He then suddenly focuses on me and pronounces, "Mommy, when I'm a grown up, I'm gonna go poop from my wee-wee and go pee-pee from my tushy!"

A book that I'm reading (in preparation for Elie's fourth birthday in a couple months) says that four-year-olds are prone to exuberance and drama and, alas, potty talk; and if at all possible parents should indulge in their extremism and have fun with it. So I say, "Oh really? Well, maybe when I'm a grown up, I'll go poop from my wee-wee and go pee-pee from my tushy too!"

Elie scrunches his nose, guffawing. "Noooooooo! Girls don't have a wee-wee!" So he is somewhat grounded in reality after all.

"Well, maybe when I'm a grown up, I'll get a wee-wee," I wonder out loud.

"When I'm a grown up, I'm gonna have a giant wee-wee!" he declares.

"Me too!" I say, and we high-five. I can see in his eyes that part of him is enjoying our outlandish conversation, and part of him is nervously contemplating whether what I say is actually possible for girls. Oh, I can already tell that for this wild and silly guy, four is going to be one fantastic ride.

Nine

Another morning in my office spent staring at the computer. The phone rings. The monotony breaks. It's Nine. "Hey, are you free for lunch?" he asks.

"Sure, I can have lunch! What time?" Social plans with him are always spontaneous. Not that he's a spontaneous kind of guy. It's more because he works so much that he can't commit to leisure time in advance. But the opportunity does spring up in the wake of a work meeting rescheduled or cut short. You learn, as his friend, to grab him whenever you can.

"Noon-ish? I'll meet you at your building outside."

"I'll see you then."

Noon comes and we meet on the sidewalk below my building. We say hello. He is smiling, but tensely. He seems weighed down. As we begin to walk towards the restaurant, he tells me, "Can I talk to you about something that you can't tell anyone about?"

Without a blink, I say, "Sure." The prospect of sharing the burden of his secret does not faze me. I've been the guardian of men's secrets seemingly all my life. I have two brothers, and most of my friends are guys. And guys do a lot of things they aren't necessarily proud of the day after. At that point they come to me, as if to come clean at the confessional. As if telling me, a woman, was equivalent to telling the woman they actually offended.

Nine's secret is not a day-after secret. It is a day-before one. As I listen, I begin to realize what it means to be in this is unfamiliar territory, how it obligates me to take on a certain unaccustomed responsibility...

He tells me that he met a woman. It was one of those chance encounters, those casual conversations with strangers that typically amount to nothing more than passing time. But this woman mesmerized him. He can't stop thinking about her. She is exotic and beautiful. She shares his passion for existential inquiries, art, and travel. She is an artist of sorts herself. And she is married. As is he.

We are sitting on a bench at one of the piers by San Francisco Bay. His secret falls onto my lap piece by piece then flows into the depths of the ink-blue water. Seagulls squat on the bleached-out wood posts near us, eyeing our every move, hoping to snatch a crumb from our lunch. "I haven't done anything," he assures me without any solicitation on my part. "I've spent time with her, hanging out and talking, as friends. I don't think she even realizes that I'm attracted to her --"

"No way," I interject. "She definitely knows. Trust me, she knows. And I would bet she's attracted to you too. If she wasn't, she wouldn't bother giving you the time of day."

"I don't think she finds me attractive," he quibbles disingenuously, like an awkward teenager fishing for compliments to numb the sting of unrequited love. "Seriously, if you saw me in a bar, would you find me attractive? I don't know..."

I want to pull out a mirror to show him that he has officially transformed into a lovesick puppy dog. Instead, I give him this pat on the shoulder, "I can't answer your question because you're my friend. I don't make it a point to check out my friends."

Something about my high-road comment must have unnerved him, because out comes this, "Haven't you ever been attracted to someone besides your husband in the time you've been married? C'mon, be honest!"

"You know, I actually haven't," I answer truthfully, then pause to dwell on why this is. It's not because I subscribe to some holy morality. And it's not because I'm married to Adonis. The reason, it turns out, is quite mundane, "Ever since we had kids, sex hasn't exactly been at the forefront of my daily consciousness. What I crave more than anything is sleep, and time alone."

He doesn't buy my answer, "Must be a guy-girl thing then."

"Apparently it's not," I chuckle, "because this woman you've met seems to be straying!"

"Well, we haven't done anything...it's been completely innocuous. The thing is, I can't stop thinking about her. It's crazy -- I don't know why I'm doing this! I love my wife. She's great. She's amazing with the kids. There's so much that I love about her --"

"But there are things you don't love about her, right? These are not new things, are they? Have you ever talked to her about how you feel? Maybe if she knew, she could try to give you more of what you need."

"She's not gonna change. She is who she is. We've talked about it a little but honestly I don't think she really gets what it is I'm after. I've just resorted to seeking that kind of stimulation from friends."

Ultimately, I know where our conversation is going. He wants me to understand that it's hard to live with less when more is right at your fingertips, which I do. He wants me to see the frustration of not having needs met year after year, and I do. He wants me to agree that it's amazing to find someone on this planet who loves what you love and thinks like you think and makes you feel utterly alive like never before, and I do. He wants me to be a friend and tell him it's okay to go for it just this once. Or, because his wife is also my friend, he expects me to damn him to hell on her behalf so that he doesn't take this any further. But I do neither. I just tell him what I believe. I tell him that marriage is a commitment that in this country we have the privilege of making by choice, and that has to mean something. I tell him that love is not always about feeling good because sometimes it requires sacrifice. I tell him that if he acts on his feelings for this woman, it may turn out to be the experience of a lifetime, but he will forever have to look in the eyes of the woman who bore his children and dedicated her life to raising them, knowing that he betrayed her. I tell him that only he can decide if that is a cross he can bear. I tell myself that I could not.

Superpuck

Faster than a speeding bullet! Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound! It's a bird... it's a plane... it's Superpuck!

Puck wakes up in the morning, shakes his head, and in a matter of mere seconds, he is collected and ready to go. He bounces off his bed, beelines to the bathroom, and in a flash pulls on the clothes I laid out for him. Before zipping down the stairs, he stops at the bathroom one more time to brush his teeth. This he insists on, because Daddy has been coaching him on the importance of brushing one's teeth not only before bed, but before starting the day too. So even when I forget to bark it out during morning drills, he makes it his duty to execute.

Not a morning goes by that I don't pinch myself for the great fortune of having a child who's happy in the morning. Puck is never surly when he wakes up. He never whines. He springs to life as if imbued with the glory of the sun itself. On weekday mornings, the faster I rattle off the commands, the faster he moves. If I were to say jump, he would most definitely say how high. What is the carrot that he sees on the end of stick? School. He just loves being there. That's his motivation.

And there is a bonus incentive on the mornings when he carpools with the family on our block. You can always tell which mornings those are. You'll see him put on his shoes without me having to remind him. You'll hear him ask if he can go out and wait on the front steps. There he'll sit -- all 43 inches of him -- looking longingly westward, a blue and orange Diego bag straddling his back. At 8:05 a pale blue Lexus SUV will pull up and he'll wave excitedly at the sweet eight grade girl sitting in the backseat. At that moment he'll hop off the stoop, often times forgetting to kiss me goodbye. Oh, yes, it starts early. It starts so very early. Be still, my aching mama's heart... And that goes doubly for a mama of a superhero.

Me and nothing like me

The other night after the kids went to sleep, my husband and I spent a quiet evening watching online video clips from the VMA ceremony. It began with wanting to see what the Kanye West hoopla was all about. After that, we got hooked. One after another we clicked and clicked. The tribute to Michael Jackson with Janet stepping in at the end. Lady Gaga. Pink. Taylor Swift and the song that sparked the controversy. He was genuinely intrigued and entertained. I was simply amazed at how I had no clue who most of these people were. I have become what I disdained when I was 17: an out-of-touch middle-aged mom.

Then we clicked on Beyonce's performance. She was wearing a scintillating pewter-colored lacy leotard that hid nothing, and high heels. The first thing out of my husband's mouth was, "Wow, she's in good shape."

My immediate reaction was to protest. "No, she's not!" It was my jealousy talking. I mean, really. Compared to prepubescent curveless me, wouldn't you say she is fat?

I don't compare myself to other people very much and seem to have an infinite capacity for appreciating beauty of all forms when it comes to my family, my friends, and people I know. I don't worry about what people think of how I look or how other people look. But when it comes to what my husband thinks of how someone looks, I care. My female brain cannot get over itself when it comes to this.

When someone loves you and says he wants to spend the rest of his life with you, you come to think that you should be the apple of his eye to the exclusion of everything else on the planet. Or you think that he has expressed his preference for your type, and assume that if his eyes were to stray, they would stray in that particular direction.

Well, Beyonce and I look nothing alike. And as we watched her shimmy and shake, while my mouth continued spewing out envy, my eyes scanned her thick lioness mane, her captivating feline eyes, her bronze skin, her ample curves. Nothing that wasn't supposed to jiggle jiggled. She may not be textbook thin, but what is it to be thin? She's a goddess. Anyone who loves women would have to agree. Including my husband.

I've known my husband for more than half my life. I know that he is not prone to setting limits on himself, how he views things, or where he roams. His mind is wide open. He wants to go everywhere and try everything. He is enrapt by a variety of things. His expansiveness is what I love most about him because this quality does not come naturally for me. He spurs me to get out of the box, or at least widen it a bit. So I am okay with him ogling Beyonce. The fact that he can appreciate me as well as people who are nothing like me speaks to his incredible open-mindedness. It makes me feel so very lucky.

The greatest gift

Puck made this the other week. I had no idea what it was but kept seeing it around. On our foyer bench. On the dining room table. In the kitchen. On the backseat of our car. In Puck's hand. Finally I could not bear the suspense any longer, so I asked. His very matter-of-fact answer? "It's my purse."



I took the liberty of opening the purse to inspect its contents. I lifted the scotch-taped flap closure. In the first compartment he kept Lego components for making a vehicle of some sort. The main compartment had a race car and a gold coin that he got as a souvenir from a hillside temple near my hometown in northern Thailand (in its original plastic case). And in the third compartment, more Lego pieces.

So there you have it: life's essentials according to a five-year-old boy. His equivalent to my wallet, phone, keys, makeup bag, pen and notebook. I like his version much better. I still remember the days when my life revolved around a handful of tiny things that served to amuse, stimulate, occupy, and remind. Thankfully with Puck and Elie by my side, I get to relive those days now and again. Don't believe anyone who tells you it's never as good as the first time. It's so much more amazing seeing it through their eyes. This has been one of their greatest gifts to me and, little as they are, they don't even know it. One day when they are old enough to understand, I will thank them. I will tell them how profoundly grateful I have been for the opportunity to live twice in one lifetime. We humans may not be immortal, but through these time-transcending experiences made possible by our children, we come awfully close.

ENTJ

I went through an intense Myers-Briggs obsession a couple weeks ago. In the midst of a discussion one evening about our respective personality types, my husband speculated that Puck is an ENTJ -- the quintessential CEO. ENTJs are natural born leaders who have a flair for the dramatic. They are gifted, forceful, decisive, and enterprising. They possess an economically savvy mind and often excel in business.

Indeed, Puck is a bossman. He is happy and quirky and full of life...and the clear leader of our household. So much so, that instead of "Mommy and Daddy, um could you...?", lately we tend to hear "Hey guys! Let's...." He likes to orchestrate and organize. Not just in our house. He does it wherever he goes. Wherever a leadership void exists, Puck quickly fills the gap.

And true to the ENTJ type, our soon-to-be-kindergartener is a budding businessman. He likes money. He likes to have it, he likes to acquire it, he likes the function behind it.

Today at the neighborhood chain drugstore, while waiting with me at the checkout counter, Puck pulled a bunch of plastic gift cards off the rack and collected them in his palm. "Can I have these?" he asked, staring at the bright designs and glossy sheen. Clearly he had no idea what they were, but apparently the human propensity to covet all that is bright and shiny runs deep. It didn't matter when I told him what boring things they were, that they were not a toy, not something that does anything fun, just cards that allow you to buy something else. He wanted them all the same, and probably all the more. Not one to pass up a teachable moment, I decided to convert this glimpse of Puck's uncanny knack for business into a reading lesson. I told him we could not buy the gift cards because they were too expensive. He asked how I knew. I pointed to the price stickers on the hooks where the cards were hung. He scanned the row of stickers for a few moments then pointed to something, "This one's only ten dollars." He was right. Good job, Puck. And no, we still cannot buy the gift card.

Even as he lay down to sleep, his busy businessman's mind continued ticking. In the blue-black light of night, he piped up and said: "Mommy, at our lemonade stand tomorrow I'm going to sell lemonade and paper airplanes. I can make paper airplanes for whoever buys a lemonade and they can give me four dollars. That's how much that kite is that I saw with Daddy that I like."

"Hmm...I think four dollars is a little expensive for one lemonade and one airplane. Why don't you charge two dollars? Then all you have to do is sell to two customers and you'll have the four dollars."

"All right," he agreed.

And with that, he was content to end the day, and probably drifted into a dream about his trademark blunt-nosed paper airplanes swirling in the cool breeze, the cups of tangy ice-cold lemonade glistening in the sun, and the gratifying feel of four dollar bills in his hands. The hands that seemed so tiny not too long ago, but can now execute grand plans to set up lemonade stands and earn money for a kite.