A Trial of Miles

Today I woke up and did what was supposed to be a really effortless, shake-it-out, relaxed 30 minute run.  But by the time I turned up the ramp onto the Mass Ave bridge, I was picking off “fast-looking” runners on my way to creating about 18 different challenges that would leave me breathless and heaving against the wrought iron fence under the dogwood tree in front of my three-windowed apt.  It’s days like this where I perform recklessly for the sake of one big fat Kay-Litmus test to see if I have what it takes to....to what?  School the early morning joggers?  sure.  Anything to entertain my mind and drop the innocent like flies.   I rue the day i became competitive and the days when i should take it easy and i decide to lay guts on the esplanade.  reminds me of one of my most FAAAAVorite quotes, which secretly I want to memorize and perform to an unsuspecting audience during 

1. an acceptance speech
2. a wedding ceremony

“Or we can blaze!  Become legends in our own time, strike fear in the heart of mediocre talent everywhere!  We can scald dogs, put records out of reach!  Make the stands gasp as we blow into an unearthly kick from three hundred yards out!  We can become God’s own messengers delivering the dreaded scrolls!  We can race dark Satan himself till he wheezes fiery cinders down the back straightaway....They’ll speak our names in hushed tones, ‘those guys are animals’ they’ll say!  We can lay it on the line, bust a gut, show them a clean pair of heels.  We can sprint the turn on a spring breeze and feel the winter leave our feet!  We can, by God let our demons loose and just wail on!”  ~Quenton Cassidy, Once a Runner 

(ummm, can you imagine saying it - with theatrical pause - as the opener to a Maid of Honor/Best Man speech?  fantastic.)

I measure me.  I take little measurements of me every day.  Mostly, I think, without knowing it.  And then I stack it against the backdrop of the tapestry I think I am.  It’s like knowing what you look like, and seeing your face in the mirror.  The two are very different, because one accounts for the 3D picture, the other is just your surface shot:)  

For me, running is the simplest way for me to be every angle of who I am; vulnerable, fierce, timid, engaged, happy, distracted, cool, pensive, confident, uneasy, etc.  What I think is funny is the weight I give to the fact that I pass others or others pass me.  It really doesn’t matter.  The guy could’ve eaten a banana with bad almond-butter.  Who knows?  The truth is, a run reflects very little of where you stack up against others, and very much of where you stack up with yourself.  

some days, you just need to wail on.

xo,

kay

About Today.

I’ve moved!  Which is partly why it’s taken me a long time to update the blog.  

I am in my new space in a city that tucked me under it’s wing again, only this time it feels like I own a little more of myself and i like it that way.  it’s like making snow angels in snow you feel good about.  it’s a perfect temperature to make snow angels in snow that makes good snow angels and it makes the angels even better.  but enough about snow.  i’m here to say i’ve started chapter 11 of my life and thus far, it’s been one tiring journey.  

Tuesday afternoon I drove the UHaul down to Marlborough St (avoiding crazy Storrow Drive and all its low bridges even though I was pretty certain I could clear them) and unloaded just before the big thunderstorm hit.  Poor KateMills had to drive a very unfamiliar UHaul back through the city streets and up to New Hampshire.  She is a rockstar, but still - scary.  It took 32 minutes to unload.  Having moved almost every year since I moved into the city back in 2002, I am STILL in awe of how long it takes to pack n’ load and how quick it is to unload a truck.  Physics are involved.  

Wednesday I started my brand new job at Full Contact.  I love it.  The people are smart, kind, funny, creative and they make me laugh alot.  They all like each other and that’s huge.  It’s always tough the first few days at any job - adjusting, diving in, uncertainty of the process but confident in your ability to figure it out.  It’s like being the new kid in school.  You know how to be a student, it’s just....well, new.  

Thursday after work I went to see one of my FAVORITE bands, The National, perform at the House of Blues with my friend, Claire.  She got me into these fools and I blame her for my addiction.  Such an addiction, in fact, that I purchased my tickets way back in March and even as exhausted as I’d been over the last few days of moving, was STOKED to hit up the concert for what was sure to be a late night.  Started pretty dramatically with the HOB ticket police telling me I’d purchased last night’s show....(what??!)  I almost vomited, my knees went.  Pois was all levels of Cool as we speed-walked to the ticket booth to sweet talk me into the SOLD OUT show.  Two words:  Katrina Peruzzi.  She was the worker who exchanged my ticket.  I finally was able to swallow, and thanked her in my shell-shocked state.  Still berating myself with inner monologue “How could you be such an idiot?!”  Ah, well.  It all worked out:)  The opening act, The Antlers, were flippn fantastic and magical.  The lead singer has a crazy good voice and his harmonies were sick.  Great opener.  Hung around back until The National and then we made our way up to the middle section.  This really should be another post altogether but I feel like I haven’t talked to you forever so I’m going to Reader’s Digest that shiz right now:  B.O. man with a shirt soaked entirely through to the bone stood right next to me.  His buddy had the worst breath.  Oh gosh it was AWFUL.  honestly my eyes were burning.  He had this way of rolling/shaking his head around like he was at some Slayer concert.  I mean, I spent a good chunk of the sound-check time wondering how the H-bomb this kid got so sweaty.  The Antlers is not house music.  Then, to our front-right were about six kids (yes, children) who couldn’t have been more than 16.  Now, this wouldn’t have bothered me if they could’ve acted older than their age but let’s be honest:  I knew one girl who acted older than 16, and she was the President of our Senior Class and went to Harvard.  So I can’t blame these fools for showing up to The National and playing a rousing game of “whose back can I pour down all the ice from my cup?!”  And playing eight-way pattycake?  Yeah, i think they meant to hit up the Miley Cyrus concert and missed the boat.  

Aside from BO-man, Halitosis Boy,  The Babies of Boston...I loved it.  Everything melted like hot wax off a candle once the boys came on stage and took us to another world.  If you haven’t seen The National, find them, listen and fall in love, patiently.  It takes time to melt into their pacing.

So then it was Friday and then it was Saturday and IKEA and building a bed, a table, and outfitting my bathrooom with Toe (ask me about Toe), nursing a right hand who’s hardly recognizable because of the screwing, pounding, slamming, lifting, shifting it did all day with the IKEAness of my bed....I can safely say the place is coming along really nicely.  I love it.  And no small thanks goes to my friend, Ben, who’s been helping me via phone, email, pictures, texting, etc figure out where all stuff goes.  He’s an amazing designer.  And GIANT low-high-fives go to Pois, for driving us to IKEA, for Jazzy Jasmine Jetta fitting the bed package which definitely looked like it wouldn’t fit until Kind Man from IKEA helped us and tied knots + stuff:) 

I still nurse my right hand.  My thumb can’t type the space button and I’m nervous that tomorrow it will be immovable.  Hopefully I can get out on the river for a nice long run.  A deep breath.  A sigh.  A long pause.  A grateful heart and a high five for a city that winks at it’s regulars, the people who know it’s streets, it’s pulse, it’s skin beyond the stained Massachusetts Avenues and trodden park paths.  The people who love it for what lives under it all, the regulars.  The ones who return.

xokay

Sweet Disposition

today was a great day.  and it’s only 1:04pm as I type.  started off waking up pretty late.  8:24am with a church service that started six minutes later.  needless to say, i rolled in 20 minutes late, coffee in hand, Bible in the other.  i had the sunroof down the whole way; it’s glorious out.  how can you not smile on a day like today?

when i got home, i was feeling not so excited for a long run.  the temps had already climbed to mid-70s by 10:30am, and i become a SAUSAGE when I run (ask anyone who’s run with me in July), but after a conversation with Moo, she put me in the right head space.  She was about to run out to Teller Farms, so we decided we’d run together, separately.  I cut my run a liiiiitle short (9mi) because my skin was on fire and i wanted to drink the entire Atlantic Ocean minus the salt, of course.  

Now, I’m waiting for my good friend, Claire Wood, to arrive so we can hit up the York Beaches and catch up, talk about the move, gab on about The National (which we are going to see on Thursday - SO excited) and discuss life in general.  It’s always better with the ambient sounds of gulls and waves.  And laughter.  Between Pois, Moo and I, we could feed small countries with our laughter.  If laughter was food.

I’m up to my ears in picture frames, sundresses and old journals.  Packing is so hilariously tedious.  I came across old journal entries I’d written back in 2004 - when I’d gone off to Montana for a week, when I reminisced about my college soccer experience, my first work crush.  Oh gosh, it was heartbreaking and so sweet to read my thoughts from six years ago.  How much I have grown; how much of me remains the same.

Signing off.  Feeling good.  My psoas gave me NO TROUBLE today and I was sure to stretch the salmon filet for a long period of time today.  I think I’ll name my psoas muscle Sockeye.  Not only is it a type of salmon, but I’d also rather be socked in the eye than have it act up on me again.  Sockeye stay stretchy for me.

enjoy your day!

xkayoh

ps check out "sweet disposition" by The Temper Trap.  Finished my run with this one.  I love its happiness.

embed was disabled, so you'll have to get to youtube all by yourself:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxKjOOR9sPU

Psoas, They Say

Short post tonight lads n’ lassies.

Psoas muscle is going haywire.  Last two days have been beeeee-rutal.  On Sunday, I was dropped off 4-miles from home for what was going to be the start of my long run and five minutes into it I had to turn around and hobble/walk for a while before I was finally warmed up enough to canter my sucker-self home.  Pathetic.  Feeling valiant, I tried yesterday and the same thing happened.  My psoas was wound as tightly as a violin string and played the familiar notes of “Kay It’s Not Your Appendix Bursting; It’s Just Me”.

Yes, this psoas thing is “at that point” where I start seriously wondering the extremes, “will I ever run normal again????I”  and I replay the warning signs.  I should’ve seen this coming a few weeks ago at the Cape 13 Relay on my last leg when I felt the familiar gut wrench the first few miles and slowed it down until it went away, not giving it a second thought once I’d finished.  Well, I’m on my 200th thought about it now and here’s what I know: I really should’ve stretched more.  I should’ve known that day that it wasn’t the last I’d hear from the little salmon filet attached to my L5.

So today I just laid at the beach.  Best day off ever.  Now it’s 11:43 pm and I’m itching to run in the morning and praying I can run without halting half steps.  Only two days of serious complaining and I miss the untetheredness of lacing up the boots and moving in sweatbreaths and chestheaves toward the horizon line and the black curve of road, with nothing but the sweet motor of muscles working harmoniously to keep me company.

We’ll see what the dawn brings.

Keep it real and stretch your filets.

xokay 

psoas major (top) is where i get hit with a baseball bat then stuck with a swiss army blade then shredded with a cheese grater every time i pull my right leg forward.  it feels great.

"Having a true faith is the most difficult thing in the world. Many will try to take it from you."

-Steve Prefontaine, American middle + long distance runner

i'll explain everything to the geese

hello friends!  

exciting news:  in one week I am moving back to Boston, to a sweetly beautiful apartment on a street i used to walk down with my parents when we'd go down to visit the big twinkling city, back when we first moved to Maine.  I was nine years old.  I loved the brownstones and the wrought iron lamp posts that dimmed slightly as I walked past, as though they were winking, as though they knew in 20 years I would be seeing them again.  Older, wiser, hipper.

The countdown begins!  

Memorial Day is fast approaching and this girl has no plans other than to enjoy these last few days of beautiful weather.  I may head up to the Pineland Farms Trail Running Festival and partake in the 10k on Saturday (i'd LOVE to try the 25k but I’ve sort of dropped the ball on quality running these last few days due to many crazy events that have taken place like my bro’s album release show, and then an early AM haul to Boston to check out the apartment of my dreams, but I can’t complain with the results of my real life ironing out quite nicely!)  Anyway, the races last two days and range in length from 5k to 50-miles.  Though there is camping available, I may just ride up early morning style.  My bro is playing some music at the event on Sunday so an overnight post run might actually be an option.   It’s supposed to be brilliant skies this weekend.  So I’ll let that be my focus, and not the hardship of the hills:)

The other day I went to the beach with my mom.  The waves were the biggest I’d seen in a while, the sky was on it’s way to twilight and the saturation of it’s yellows brought out beautiful shadows and a buttery wash over everything.  I couldn’t stop clicking, so I thought I’d post some of my favorites here (the rest will be posted on Flickr)...I’ve also added my favorite shot from later that night - when Pete Miller played his show at One Longfellow Square...

more to come on the move later this week.

make it a good day:) 

xokay

...the shutter pre-development, the ink full in the pen...

it’s been a while since i’ve talked real stuff up in here.  that’s mostly because the last three weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind and dorothy didn’t quite know where to put the bowl of oranges while her furniture was still up in the air.  are you with me?

anyway, the tornado that is my life has left me alone for a hot minute, so this hot minute will be used on the blog.

I started this blog 6 months ago with the idea that it could be (should be) a place for me to put my crazy on paper.  disassemble my musings one by one and contemplate their design - kind of like what you do with russian nesting dolls.  there really is nothing else you can do with those dolls, except put the smaller one inside the bigger one and the smaller one inside that one, and so forth, until you end with the baby.  the beginning.

so here’s my beginning:  nine months ago, i left a very good early/kind of early professional career.  i left because i could feel my heart change...there were things i’d always loved that started to gather cobwebs, there were fears i never had that started to fill the room under my ribs, there was this filament of Not-Kay that started taking over and there was that d r e a d f u l thought of, “is this it?”  that filled my joints every morning and sat with me at night when i’d land exhausted on the couch (quite nimbly holding a giant glass of wine in one hand, however; i surprise myself with this ability) only to wait for tomorrow’s stresses.  not fun.  most of you who know me know I am a pretty happy person.  well, I was not happy.  

so i left.  it was the most reckless thing i’ve done.  i don’t even have a tattoo.

and i thought when i was leaving that i would only need three weeks to figure out the rest of my life, would spin a plastic globe beneath my fingers, fly to wherever my pinky pointed with camera in tow, and document the world’s ramblings so i didn’t have to figure out my own.  

but instead, i traveled (nationally), caught up with and met so many awesome and talented humans, fell in love with a non-profit that helps kids, lived life with my camera around my neck, drank more water than I have in years and ran the country roads around my town so hard I swear there is mizuno tread prints in the tarmac edges forevermore.  and then two days ago, i accepted a job.  in boston.  in advertising.

it’s funny how God works.  and yes I say God because I believe He is absolutely real and a part of my life.  Because everything that happens in my life could not possibly be by coincidence or fate or fault, and because I am perfectly imperfect, and there’s no way that happened by accident.

ask me six months ago if i’d ever get into advertising again and i’d shake my head and your shoulders so hard we’d both get kicked off the team.  but timing is everything and over time, i experienced the building up of a confidence i thought was out the window for good.  i experienced friendships that grew and held mirrors for which to see the reflection of a girl who has a TON OF AWESOME to share with the world, and most importantly, i reconnected with Kay Miller, you know, that girl in that girl in that girl who somehow found that she made herself smaller to fit other people’s visions of where she needed to be, and it’s weird how easily that can happen.  but as easily as i slipped into a sea of inauthenticity, i began living out in small ways, gaining my sense of self back.  i came to realize how much i actually loved aspects of old job; the building up of brands, working with clients and creative teams, collaborating and having the ability to affect change.  i started finding myself on long walks with ex-ad execs trilling on about what brands were successful and why.  i became a bit of a dork about it, actually.  but the love was coming back.  i was dating the idea of returning.  it was nice. 

so here i go, back to boston, into something so similar, yet so different.  i’ve made a list of who I am to me.  it’s pretty hilarious...but i have learned too much about this fantastic woman that I am and am becoming, that i certainly do not intend to water her down ever again.  i’m excited.  there are new adventures to be had and if there’s one thing i know for certain:  there’s always room for a good adventure.

xo

KAY