The Soul of Soulpower

Feeling, thinking, doing

Because it is time

Right now I am watching a dog pace my floor, she doesn’t know what to do. She knows there’s no more play time. The last trip outside has been completed and she doesn’t have a whole lot of room around here to get into stuff.  This pacing she’s doing is reflective of my current state, restlessness.

I am so tired, but can’t go to sleep, have so much to do but can’t get started on any one thing without picking up the next thing and leaving the former unfinished. I’m a fairly satisfied person at this point in my life. Things are alright, many burdens have been lifted, my relationships are good and I smile more now than I have in a long time. Yet, there is something missing, something that has yet to be fulfilled I believe that it’s the Dream.

In a previous post I spoke about a dream that couldn’t be remembered, one that I finally had to lay to rest and how I wouldn’t let stuff (life) get in the way of my dream going forward. The restlessness that I feel right now is due to not having a dream. I stopped for the funeral, I stopped to catch my breath, but in all the breathing in of the fresh air of my new life, I have yet to breathe life into a dream.  Do I need to figure out why I don’t have a dream? The answer is a resounding no. In my adult years I’ve spent more time thinking about why something exists as it does, why certain things happen and why people do the things they do, than I have actually doing something, anything really. I will cop to being a big thinker and a “do-over” dreamer at this point in my existence here.

The area that I am NOT satisfied in is the area of dreams. I need to have one, I need to have some.

Are you restless? Is it because the excuses are gone and it’s time to make a move? If so join me, it’s time to have a dream I’m ready. Let’s go.

http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/Dream_On_Dreamer/902688

The Posterous Problem - Finale

I made a decision, a snap one on the surface, but actually something I planned to do anyway and that was to get a domain name. I have some content on various sites and thought it was time to dotcom something. Based on my very unscientific research of my writing pattern over the last several months I found that I was spending most of my time posting to Posterous.  I landed there because I was looking for something clean where I could post random things, thoughts, pictures, music that didn’t require me to do anything but type, insert a link or paste something. I looked at some of the content on these types of sites and found Posterous to be the simplest, cleanest of all that would fit what I thought I wanted to do. 

My content started off simple enough and it’s still simple really because mostly it’s my thoughts, observations and experiences that are shared there. Then it became a little bit more than that, something more cathartic. A healing through sharing and now a way in which (it is my hope) that other people can heal and grow and share based on something I shared with them. So there you have it. I started posting there in March.  On Monday July 6, 2009 I decided that I wanted to dotcom it.  I followed the instructions on how to register a domain name and link that name to Posterous and that’s where it went wrong.

I’m not a techie. I say it all the time. I use technology to get stuff done, period. I don’t really study it but do try to stay abreast of things of interest to me.  So when I looked at those instructions, followed them and didn’t get the result the correct result I said, ok I’m a bit over my head here, time to ask for help. So I went to the tweeps.

Yes I’m a twitter user, absolutely love it and thankful to have jumped on board. There are so many smart, funny, astute people on there and they have all taught me plenty and did it without fanfare.  I had no doubt that I would get an answer so I sent a message out. I didn’t get any responses so I went to the folks I like to call my Hall of Fame (HOF) team , tech folks that showed me the ropes and answered all manner of silly questions from me over the last several months.  Here’s what I said. My desperation must have been palpable, because I started getting replies from them as well as from a good Samaritan.  I later expanded the search for help by adding another sharp young gun. That addition was critical, as the information was passed up the ladder to this guy. He took my little problem straight to the top. That’s right, my little problem went straight to the top of the food chain to one Garry Tan, co-founder of Posterous.  Guess what happened? My registered domain now points to my Posterous and I am absolutely overwhelmed by it all.

I’m a newbie to social media. I was a myspace user but never really got the social part, I mean I’m an accountant by day/writer by night. I started using Twitter only to participate in the discussion of the 2008 General Election, at least that’s what I thought. After the election was over, I found out that I actually landed right smack dab in the middle of: a family, a university, a church, a bar, Capital Hill, a concert venue and anything else you can think of.  What happened with my little problem, the resolution of it is one example of the power of social media.  For all of those who continue to dis social media, dis Twitter and the like, listen up: you’re missing out on something that even YOU could learn.

Special thanks to @nukirk, @rahsheen @fredricmitchell @corvida @waynesutton @posterous , and the Posterous founders Garry Tan and Sachin Agarwa. You guys are bonafied Rockstars. Thanks so much for helping this old broad get out of a pickle! Muah!


The Peachtree Road Race 2009

Out of a potential field of 55,000 folk 50,007 including myself walk, ran, and wheeled from Lenox Mall to Piedmont Park in the 40th annual Peachtree Road Race 10k.  The winning men’s time was 27:22 (yes 27 minutes, 22 seconds for 6.2 miles) and the winning women’s time was 31:30. Here’s my time. The race begins at 7:30 am but for folks in the rear time groups (7-9) there’s at least another hour to start and umpteen thousands of people in front of us. In fact my time group (8) did not cross the START line until 8:45 but that is a good thing. That gives all of us at least another hour of sleep. 

The weather was excellent. Low humidity and 65 at the start, which was a vast improvement over last year and it’s been my experience that the rear time groups are the most fun.  People will run in costumes, sing songs, chant and there have been some years that beer was consumed.  Along the route there are plenty of on-lookers to cheer us on (which you need when you hit Cardiac Hill which is near Justin’s and climbs up to Piedmont Hospital). There are also radio stations, live bands, and political candidates.  In previous years, Publix served donuts on the route but not this year.  During the drought years and park renovations the finish line was moved a few times but this year the finish was back at Piedmont (I’d not seen the Park in a few years it looks beautiful).  At the finish you get water, the coveted t-shirt and proceed to your company tent, link up with friends or in my case, get out of dodge and go eat. 

This was my 11th Peachtree.  I missed 1997 and 2005-2007 but of all the years I’ve done it this year was different.  The energy was definitely lower, the corporate tents fewer as well as the freebies especially for those of us at the tail end.  I heard lots of talk about the economy, company cutbacks and so forth but there were still some of the majors in Atlanta who held it down.  Overall my Peachtree experience was a good one.  My time (which is in the turtle zone) was better than last year and I ran more of the race this year vs. last. Some may think it’s crazy to get up early on a holiday off, but the way I see it, I can’t think of anything better than lacing them up with 50,000 other folks just like me who are nutty enough to get out of bed and run down this city’s most famous street. 

 

American Diabetes Expo

This is from the ADA expo in Atlanta, GA back in March 2009. Just wanted to see whether the best way to get this on was to attach the photo or paste into the email.

The Dream


Have you ever awakened in the morning thinking “I had a dream last night but I just can’t remember it”.  Your mind is saying this because there is something about that dream that you want to remember but at that waking moment it just doesn’t come to mind.  Later in the day bits and pieces of the dream may come back, the entirety of the dream may come back or it may never come to mind again.  A recent conversation made me remember, that I’d had a dream that I just couldn’t recall it.  The prospect of that makes me sad.

I do recall that I wasn’t always so cynical, I wasn’t always so doubtful, I wasn’t always so weary.  I do recall that I was at one time hopeful, energetic, ready to smile, ready to laugh out loud and ready to roll at a moment’s notice. Chalk those things up to youth, chalk them up to not having experienced too many hard knocks.  However, once the hard knocks started coming, it seemed as if each knock got harder and louder until they eventually broke the door of my soul.  When my soul got knocked down, the dream got knocked down as well and as of this date, as far as I’m concerned, the dream whatever it was is dead and I’m ready to give it a proper burial.  RIP.

Am I sad about this death? Yes I am, but only a little bit.  As I see it, every day that the Creator awakens me right in the mind and the body, I have an opportunity to dream a new dream. I have an opportunity to not only dream it, but to actually live it.  The error of my previous ways was to allow missteps, mistakes, mis-cues, misguidance and other misses get in the way of my purpose.  I’m fully aware that there will always be bumps in the road and bad news in my ear and in front of my eyes, but allowing those things to knock down my soul is simply not an option.  This could be my last chance, it could be yours too.

RIP – Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Karl Malden, Billy Mays, Steve McNair, fallen solidiers and all of those that we have loved and lost in our lives.

The Intersection

I found myself at a curious intersection today and in that intersection I found PEACE.   I don’t believe that it was an accident as I really don’t believe in such a thing. What I do believe is that thoughts, actions and events can intersect and results in some condition or state of being.  My state of peace right now is a result of the intersection of things that I want to do with things that I need to do.  On this day and at this want and need are the same.  This event is so rare in my life (and maybe in yours to) that I had to take a moment to acknowledge it.  In that acknowledgement I find a curiosity and a desire to land at this intersection more often. So often, that the meeting of the two is no longer an event, but the way that I actually live.

What I know is that I did the work to get here, I also did the non-work of letting things develop without stepping in and trying to change or fix anything.  This time I just let stuff be and in doing so I experience FREEDOM.  I’m free from the worry, from the timetables, the expectations and all the other stuff that can affect my peaceful state of mind.  Attaining freedom and peace within is an active of self LOVE.  When you can love yourself, you can love so many and you can love fully.

Are you at an intersection?  Is it the one that you want to be in? If not, look at the thoughts, actions and events that placed you there. What you find out, will get you to where you really want to go.

See

It’s so easy to

get high on the sweetness

feel at ease in the wit and charm

be impressed with the intelligence

lose your breath at the very thought of, let alone the act of.

Then, just like that you begin to see the humanity

The imperfection is like cold water in the face

Your eyes buck, mouth flies open

You almost got the okie doke

You can see again

WHY I RUN

I have never had a drop of athletic ability. As the eldest of three girls, I tried to manufacture some athleticism for my dad’s sake since he had no son.  Between 6th and 7th grade I tried out for several team sports and failed at each one of them including cheerleading which back then didn’t require all the gymnastics but plenty of jumping, I just couldn’t do it.  So by 7th grade, with the exception of playing on a couple of sorry softball teams my so called athletic career was done. Since I had (or thought so at the time) some weight issues as an adolescent and a teen and carried them into e issues through my adulthood as well (more on that later), I had to do something to keep my weight in check.  My dad introduced me to something that didn’t require me to beat anybody, I could do it alone and I could do it just about anywhere, running.

Now mind you my physical makeup (thin or heavy) had not changed. I didn’t grow any fast twitch muscles, so speed was definitely not my thing.  Yet I was undeterred.  My pops took me to this sporting goods place back at home called Dunhams.  It was here after trying on several pairs of running shoes (which were pretty low tech back then, I’m talking around 1983), I settled on some white Adidas.  He took me out to Shadyside Park, one of my favorites to this very day.  This park has a loop that is that is 2.65 miles and encompasses a little body of water.  Now this is in Indiana, so one thing that I had on my side, that got me going in the first place is that Indiana is flat as a pancake. This course for the most part is flat and fast in runners speak and as the name suggests, there are plenty of trees.  Pops, an avid runner took me out for my first go in my new Adidas. Of course he left me and in fact looped me doing the course twice.  However I held my own, made it around one time and did not die at the finish, hence began my love of running. 

Phase 1 - Running for Fitness

In college I didn’t run during the semesters but on summer breaks I took it right back to Shadyside and got it in as much as possible.  Upon graduation, I to Chicago and settled in the western suburbs, running in the morning at a neighborhood park, on the street or at Ballys.  I took the running to New Orleans for graduate school, where I used to run at Audubon Park, uptown right which was near my university and near home. Audubon is also a favorite because it too is flat, fast and shaded. I really enjoyed it there because it was almost like running somewhere tropical.  During summer break I returned to Chicago and ran the Lakefront starting in Hyde Park and going north to 31st on an ambitious day, but not as far on most days.  This was a HOT route, there was really no shade but there was generally some sort of breeze and it was flat, which kept it enjoyable.  After completing my studies in NOLA I said good bye to NOLA and Chicago and headed to Atlanta.

Phase 2: Fanaticism

Lord have mercy, for the first time in my running life I encountered something I was not ready for, HILLS. It took me about a month, which puts me into June of 1992 before I  was able to suck it up and get used to it, but I did and did my first running at Brookhaven Park I never did care for it and it took a couple of months but once I settled further north in Doraville, that’s when all kinds of crazy started.  I moved to a complex that on the outerloop was about 1 mile around. I started running that loop, then I started running in the adjacent neighborhoods. I was running four or five days a week back then and had much better shoes. (actually, the shoes were much better by the late 80’s and I had zillions of them since I sold them).  I ran before work, after work, in the rain and yes even in the few times that it snowed but I wasn’t missing that run.  I endured the catcalls, the “are you crazies”, the dogs and the weather.  When I started working downtown I ran at the gym, on the track and then I got really crazy and starting running the streets, in the middle of the day. Downtown streets, sidewalks and traffic were always precarious, still are but I did it anyway. I was so addicted.  My running was so important that anything else I did had to be scheduled around that.  I finally decided that since this thing running was running my life, it was time to put my money where my BAM was. In 1995, the year I got married, I entered my first Peachtree Road Race, a 10k (6.2 mi), and had no fear whatsoever about doing it I had to challenge myself.  I finished, got the prized t-shirt and some bragging rights.  I started entering smaller shorter races and really enjoyed them and have completed 10 Peachtrees.  In this span of time though, something or some things happened. I felt like I couldn’t run anymore, couldn’t do anything anymore and I didn’t.

Phase 3: Running out

In 1997 something strange happened. I’ll never forget it because of when it happened. It was during the NBA finals. The Bulls were playing the Jazz. Jordan put on a hell of a show on a night that he was very ill, food poisoning or something.  I was totally in awe of 23, doing what he did, in the shape he was in.  The next day I went to work and for some reason I just couldn’t get right. Then I started feeling funny, heart racing, getting hot, sweaty, nauseous, my head was racing too I couldn’t understand what was going on. I thought I was coming down with some flu or something, because there was something going around. I left for home but that feeling wouldn’t leave me. I stayed to the right on 285 thinking I would have to pull over and toss ‘em but I made it home.  I called my Bible Study teacher and she prayed with me. I laid down and slept.  The next day I was anointed and diagnosed with demons.  Further diagnosis from a shrink told me it wasn’t demons but anxiety and depression, wow.  For a while I would just go to session, talk it out and keep running. The running helped because it would tire me out and keep my mind from racing, however within a year, that was taken away from me too.

Tax day 1998 I was going to buy cigarettes (yes I did all that running while smoking) I totaled my car, fractured one ankle and put some sizeable holes in the opposite knee. I was scheduled to run Peachtree again, having missed the deadline the year before. My whole world crumbled, because I was on schedule with my winter training, now I wouldn’t be doing anything, or so I thought.  As it turned out, I pushed the rehab and I mean really pushed it. I could only walk since I went from a cast to a boot, but that boot was made for walking so I altered my training to accommodate it. I couldn’t go really outside of my townhouse subdivision but I kept it moving. I walked Peachtree with an ankle brace and cried at the end, it was great. From that point on my running became more sporadic, my mental health even worse, I was on medication and my physical health even worse than that.  I had a series of back to back to back bad diagnosis from doctors and specialists, that put me in a tailspin and by 2004 I stopped running altogether.

Phase 4: Running for my life.

I don’t remember a whole lot about what happened between really around 2002 up to 2006 I know I was sick, I knew I wanted to get right but didn’t know how, I knew my family and financial situations were dire. I lost a job, it was just bad.  One of those health situations was a bad back.  I resumed going to a chiropractor after a few years of seeing an orthopedist and not having my back get better.  I used to talk to him about running and how I would look wistfully at runners on the street, remember the days that I used to run, recalling how much I missed it and how my orthopedist and my former PCP said my running days were over.  Then he said something profound, he said not necessarily, if you could get your weight down, you could run again.  At the time he said this I could barely walk because of my back. I was taking 16 medications for various ailments and was at the end of the rope for real, I had nothing to lose.  When I headed back to the gym in November 2007 I could only walk one mile at 2.0 mph. I cried after that first attempt, but I went back.  You see around that time a co-worker, around my age had just dropped dead, I thought I could be next. I was scared, that fear motivated me to keep going. By March I was running again, short distances but happy to be back. I was seeing results, seeing what I could do emboldened me to make some fairly drastic changes in my life and I’m so glad I did.

Phase Now:  Harmony

I ran 4.6 miles on Saturday, I’ll be running Peachtree again this year.  This is the second one since my return in 2008. I ran half of it last year. I’d like to run it all if I can this year.  You see now I still run for my life but not out of fear of death, but more to enjoy the life I have while I’m still here, without all the medication and pain. I realize I could die while I’m running, but I would go doing something that I love.  I’m no longer fanatical i.e. I don’t run in all kinds of weather.  In fact I only run outside from May to October and that’s once a week. I’m older now my body doesn’t tolerate the pounding, the pollution nor the pollen and I’m fine with that.  I do it for health, I do it for love and I do it for what it gives me.  There is a point in every run, physiologically it’s the endorphin rush, but for me it’s more than that.  When I reach that point of the run my mind, my body and my spirit are in absolutely harmony that is something I would not trade for anything.  It took a long time to get here. I’m not about to let it go. That is why I run. 

 

Living in THAT Space

Saying don’t go there isn’t always enough to keep you from landing in that space, that space of darkness in which all you do is hit your head, stub your toe, bump your knee and maybe even fall down. Yeah it’s a dark space that for a person like me, a person with an affinity for darkness, has been unavoidable. There was a time, not long ago when I took up residency in that space.  I lived there for years which made the darkness seem all the more normal.  My eyes got used to maneuvering in the dark, it was easy because one dark day was the same as the next and as the next.  That dark space cannot be a home for love, nor joy, nor peace, nor freedom.  The darkness was a prison and living in it with me were what became my friends, torment, resentment, anger and pain. Those friends made the rest of the world appear as a blur.  The world that everyone else was living in was one that I used to live in but became a memory, it certainly wasn’t a place that I ever expected to live in again.  I believed in my heart of hearts that living in the dark was my destiny, I believed in fact that it would be the space in which I would enter my death.  I was living beneath the earth as is and started thinking that maybe, just maybe I would force the issue.  Surely, the other side would be easier, surely.

Saying don’t go there was enough in that instance. I wasn’t ready to go to the other side. Going there in the manner that I’d contrived would be the ultimate act of selfishness and in spite of all that was said to me at that time, selfish was something that I was not. What I did become was an actor and practice the craft daily. The straight face, graced with a hint of a smirk or a trace of a giggle every now and then was what I did. Then I started doing the real work. What in the world got me here in the first place? Who/what was responsible? Was I responsible? Absolutely I did what I thought would work to get out, but it really did nothing but offer up some immunity, without offering up a cure in which immunity would be irrelevant. I started getting some clarity, started recognizing the triggers, started understanding that yeah maybe I’m prone to it but I DON’T have to go there and when and if I do go, I certainly have a choice in whether I live there. So I packed my bags.

There was no reason to stay any longer, staying made me ill in the head and in the body and the only way to get well was to leave. This wasn’t easy. There were fits and starts, lots of falling down and getting back up but I got out and was determined, to not ever go back. Today, however, I am visiting.

I get slapped and I mean hard, every now and then as a reminder that I can always go there.  That thing or things that can send me into that space are always lurking. Thankfully I do not look for them around the corner anymore, thankfully I’m not waiting on them to show up anymore, but I give those things their recognition. No love, just recognition that sometimes the darkness has to be visited as a hurdle, or as the finale to an episode that is necessary before entering into the next phase.

The next phase, yeah, I’m welcoming that.