Today’s run: 10 miles, in an amount of time I’m embarrassed to post. YT: 797.07. Still, a nice, thoughtful run, with some relaxing sadness. Another 25 mile week. Eight more to go.
My dad is having heart surgery Tuesday so I’ve been thinking about him, and the surgery, often.
In 127 Hours, when James Franco (as Aron Ralston) is sure he’ll die and filming a goodbye video, he says something like, “Mom and Dad, I know I could have taken more time to appreciate you in my heart than I did.”
So many people in our lives, not just our parents, that we don’t take time to appreciate in our hearts. You could spend all the time in the world with a person, and still not slow down enough to do that. We get wound so tight, we live life in a rush. We are impatient and in that impatience get brittle when what we should be is warm, open, loving, patient. Appreciating.
The brittle heart finds endless reasons not to appreciate. For example, my father calls anything with moving parts “the rotator” and gets irritated if you don’t know what rotator he’s referring to. He’s also in the habit of interrupting group conversations with nonsequitors, because he’s completely withdrawn from the conversation and it happens to be what’s on his mind – usually an esoteric fact about an election long past or a building long destroyed. He tends to leave the door open when he goes to the bathroom, and he’s prone to say things like “drop dead” when he’s angry.
Not My Dad - Just a Guy I Passed on My Run
On the other hand, I was smiling and exchanging a few words with an elderly neighbor while walking up my stairs the other day, and I realized that one of the great gifts my father gave me growing up was the mindset that you’re in a community with anyone you cross paths with. They are your friends and neighbors, whether they’re older than you or younger, speak a different language, or have holes in the soles of their shoes. My father strikes up conversations with people in elevators, on street corners, in government offices. He makes everyone feel at ease, welcome and respected. During the years when he did a lot of process serves in the ghetto, they’d see him coming and whistle, “It’s old blue eyes.” And I always thought that was appropriate, because when he makes conversation with people, there’s something lively and charming in his eyes, a kind of chuckle.
Knowing that I can connect with people the way my father does makes me feel safe wherever I go.
We have to relax to love.
I haven’t run for almost a week now – by far the longest I’ve gone without running in 2010.
