The Maker

happy morning!  what a great day today is shaping up to be.  I met Claire for an early morning long run and we decided to forgo the windy river (change up!) and hit Jamaica Pond - our route being the "Emerald Necklace" as it is so called.  It is quite lovely; a bunch of skinny swatches of greenery/scenery that snake through the city, ending at Jamaica Pond - a Pond about a mile in circumference.  it's a great break from the river - which can be harsh and unforgiving - especially on windy days.  

Claire's one of my absolute favorite humans to run with.  No matter what the pace, it just feels so....effortless...but not in the "i'm not working hard" kind of way.  More like there's no guess work or trying to be anything we're not on a particular day.  If we're feeling slow, we say it.  If our bum + hamstrings are tight from last night's yoga practice, that comes up in the first 2 minutes.  If we need to keep a certain pace and we're nervous about it, we say so.  we're very honest running partners.  We accept each other's pace, encourage one another, recognize the need for easy, comfortable runs but also challenge each other/ourselves when we need to - almost without having to say anything at all.  On most days, no matter what, we inevitably settle into a pace just under 8s and conversation comes and goes, as does the laughter and recognition that YES the two runner guys who just dove-tailed onto the same path were talking about "bandwidth" while we talked about "love"and isn't that life. Figures, right?  She's the best.  Or when we ran on that really-freakin-freezing-morning in -3 degree temps and barely said two words but were EXACTLY what the other needed in order to make it through the run.  My butt cheeks were ice cubes, but my heart was happy and my legs appreciated the adventure (albeit it it WAS too cold to run).  It's so great to be able to not only be blessed with an awesome friendship but to be able to lace up the shoes and share a run together.   No matter what else the day brings - covering a distance with her before the city wakes up will always be a favorite moment in my day.  Thanks, Pois.  

xohs,

kay

p.s. i flippn LOVE this band and hope they make an appearance in boston soon (thanks, greg, for bringing them to my attention and for taj who reinforced their awesomeness). a great post-run listen while making coffee and stretching...enjoy!

Get Your Cannons Ready, Light the Wick...

I’ve heard plenty of people talk about how they don’t like New Year’s celebrations.  That they find much more joy watching The Simpson’s reruns and falling asleep at 10pm.  That New Year’s Eve, “is, like, so Amateur Night out” and “Like, soooo not a big deal”.  To them I say, good on you.  Go for it.  Watch Homer for the 80th time.  

No, I won’t pay $75 for a cosmo at Mistral and coyly find a random dude to M.O. at midnight....nor do i get plastered, wipe my face on every greasy pizza joint window begging for the last slice-of-the-night before i pour myself in a cab....but i love new year’s eve.  I mean it’s great.

And yeah, I shout HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!! with every ounce of air i’ve got in my lungs because hot dang the last 365 days were tough and good and long and sad and meaningful and weighted and i learned a ton and so did you and i met new people and i let go of people and i changed my heart and opened it and discovered something about me and became more by becoming less and i just want to say thanks to you, Year.  And then, after i’m done saying thank you, I get to extend my arms to the blessing of a NEW YEAR with all my hopes and all my apprehensiveness rolled neatly into my suitcase as she approaches all clean and pretty and begging for paint all over her canvas.  My paint. Your paint.  Wild paint.  sure, every day is a new day, but it's nice to break it up in chunks and celebrate the chunks we've lived.

It doesn’t mean i get crazy with it.  In fact, this year - probably my favorite thus far - was spent quietly with my twinner on her last night in Boston before she hopped a plane back to boulder.  We went and saw a movie....then were completely blown away by the best view of the fireworks as they launched over the park, right in front of the movie theater....then walked through the park (hopped some iron fences to get away from the crazy mob of 80 million revelers), I fell up a hill with beautiful dexerity (i need to add this in because I really was quite graceful, mary said so).  We went to dinner at a great indian restaurant near my house and then we came back, baked cookies, and lay, head to toe, writing what we wanted to leave behind in 2011 and what we wanted to take with us into 2012.  We then burned these private inner hopes and wishes on my front stoop (it didn’t go so well - mine wouldn’t burn through which resulted in me going through a whole box of matches, almost passing out from smoke inhalation, and both of us having to take showers to rid ourselves of the noxious smoke smell) but we laughed and yipped and hollered at the physical letting go of the Heart Things that we’d written.  We felt lighter.  

And as we watched the clock countdown to midnight, our dad called, telling us that the rest of the fam - still recovering from the flu that had passed through our house over the holidays - had gone to bed and he wanted to launch some fireworks to celebrate and “could ya count down for me girls? I’ve some bottle rockets that are realllly gonna make some noise!”  He sounded so much like a kid.  My heart broke with happiness.

and so we did.

10...9...8...

i am so blessed to have such a wonderful family and friends that lift me up daily

7..6..5...

i am so grateful that I have a God that loves me, that created me purposefully, that will never leave me and who is as real as the heart that beats within me

4...3...2...

i am thankful for my life, and for all that transpired in 2011 and for all that will come in 2012

1...

every day is a new day.  every second worth celebrating.

happy new year, peeps.  from my heart, straight as an arrow into yours.

xoKAY

SUNRISE!

Happy New Year! 

I was over Claire’s house the other night vegging out (you’ve heard me gab about her before).  Actually, we were watching a really enlightening show about women vying for a man’s attention with the hopes of getting married...and though we were already swimming in the deep end of the educational pool, she casually mentioned that my last blog post was back in November.  I jumped out my hypnotized reality tv state and shook off the dark chocolate on my lap.  my long lapse of non-writing is not cool.

and i’m sorry about my un-coolness.

you know the funny thing? I started this blog mostly because i write better than i speak and in 2009 i had a lot to say.  i uprooted my life. I was unsteady but steady (you know that kind: you’ve done the right thing for your life but turn to face an entire horizon line that’s completely new and scary and stuff....), I was learning new things, running a lot, liked a dude, and felt like it was the only way to get all these “mind pop rocks” sorted.  With most of my friends living an hour away, and me all hibernating in the great state of Maine (wearing coon hats, eating snow, etc), twelveohsix was my connection.  To me? yeah.  To you? for sure.  even if the “You” was some great Internet Oz with spiky hair living in a basement and scanning old people’s credit cards.  I was talking to him, too.

but now i’m talking to me.  look at me.  heads together.  I WILL START WRITING AGAIN.

aren’t you exxxxcited?? yah.  me too.

Here’s a picture of a sunrise that symbolizes a new day for kay to write more and often.

Yay 2012!

xokay

wait

as is often the case

the song you tossed aside

is the same one that

bites your arm 

breaks your flesh 

bruises bone 

cutting to the quick 

against a skin you didn't need

one you didn't think 

you owned

************

this has happened to me so many times. i toggle through albums and come away with my top favorites paying little attention to the others...usually only stumbling across the gem-of-a-hidden-song only after i've had my shuffle on shuffle or something.  i love it when that happens.  when a song you didn't think you liked is suddenly filled with so much meaning; as if it were exactly made for you.  this is, in part, why music never dies.  not ever.  this particular song struck me in the face on my walk to work early this morning.  like a bird to the face.  i'm so glad.

enjoyenjoy

xokay

 M83 - Wait by Reike 

Lazy Days

this week's been a lazy-kay week.  you know those days where hitting the alarm 4x before getting up makes complete sense?  where rolling over and grabbing the coffee pot instead of the running shoes or pulling the sheets over the head instead of a running jacket feels right?  that was my week.  i mean, it's that time of year when mornings are cold, it's still dark at 6am and the bed is a cozy place in the wee hours of dawn.  even though you really never go back to bed.  even though a few hours later you wish you'd just sucked it up and gone to the river for an hour.  even though.

and the rest of my week follows suit: baked goods are brought into the office by the spouses/significant others of coworkers - warm banana breads, coffee cakes, or piles of leftover halloween candy.  and i munch on it all.  i mean, it's been a lazy week, and i don't have plans to un-lazy the sucker now that i've started.  i didn't set out to make this week that way, but once it started, snowballed, i figured i'd own it and chalk it up to Fall Hallows.  

The Laze (as i'm now calling it) has permeated my apartment living: i have no food in the fridge - more specifically, no fresh fruit or veggies. I've been eating out or eating hummus and chips for dinner.  very healthy.  my running clothes have piled up on the chair that i've unofficially made the keeper of all the apparel that finds itself out of it's respective drawer, closet, shelf.  i need to vacuum, i need to do laundry, i need that toilet bowl cleaner thing and i need to clean my windows.

The Laze.  felt so good for a few days but now i feel like a slob:)  so it's changing this weekend and i'm excited about it.  the clocks are resetting, the mornings will brighten, and i'm reclaiming my active self (and my apartment!) again.  I miss the sweet exhilaration and spent happiness of a long run and the steamy sweat fog that lifts off the shoulders once it's all over.  

this video inspired me this morning and i'm so glad to know that all it takes to reset the self is stepping outside, and hitting the trail.

enjoy.

xxoo

kay

Onwards from AKQA on Vimeo.

rando commando

i’m eating yogurt covered raisins, watching episode #1 of Masterpiece Theater’s Little Dorritt and just 33 minutes into it have had complete attention deficit disorder of the non-prescription kind.  so i thought i’d take a hot few seconds to pull a couple rando thoughts off the conveyor belt of my brain and overshare with you:

i have half a running outfit on.

i bought a brand new bottle of olive oil but the screw cap won’t unscrew and, upon close inspection, the perforation of the safety seal never indented far enough so there’s no way it will come off.  I banged it on the floor.  i tried both lefty and righty twists and i thought about asking my neighbor, James, to have a go except I haven’t my sports bra on and I don’t feel like putting it on to go out there to ask him for help. so, i’ll have to bring it back to trader joe’s and i’m a bit annoyed about that.

every time the wind blows it sounds like a fly is in my apartment and i have no idea what’s making that noise except that it seems to be coming out of the vents of my AC (which is not plugged in which reminds me that I need to take it out of the window sill)  which reminds me that it takes two people to pull the AC it out because I have 2x4s jammed up inside the windows so that a burglar can’t readily push the unit into my apartment and have his way about my household.

i have a small apartment

everything he’d want won’t amount to much.

i’ve checked facebook twice in three minutes.  i accepted a friend request that i wish i had left in purgatory a bit longer (forever) and every time i get the gumption to unfriend i realize how pathetic the whole facebook thing really is.

my blinds are turned up so the people on the street can’t see into my apartment and watch my every move.  there are people out there who do that, you know.  I do it when I’m walking down marlborough.  it’s fun.  I once looked up into an apartment and there was an old man making dinner completely naked.  he had his blinds facing the wrong way so it wasn’t really my fault.  I also didn’t feel grossed out because the kitchen counter was blocking my view.  but i knew he was naked because when he turned the corner and went to the oven...

BUT now i realize that with my blinds turned up every floor on the opposite side of the street can look down and see right into my livingroom/bedroom/kitchen.  This makes me laugh and i like to think if I lived over there, watching me would be the highlight of my day.  once i get dancing there really is no stopping this machine.

i really like my apartment.  i never get tired of looking at it when i’m in it.  

i really like how i can go outside and run run run and then stretch at the fire hydrant that sits outside and also sit out on the wrought iron chairs in the garden.  there’s a sinkhole out there, though.  a few weeks ago when it was still warm and still light after 7pm, my friend kim and i were having some wine out there and the back legs of her chair sank so fast into that ground that she went right over backwards into the bushes!  she managed to keep her wine glass level all the while.  atta’ girl.

i need to take a shower.  I smell like running clothes which means i need to do laundry. 

i need to put the yogurt raisins back in the freezer, get my coffee mug ready for the morning and set my alarm. 

a 7am around the river is in order.  

now back to Little Dorritt....

x's + oh's,

kay

between the devil and the deep blue sea

i remember waking up in my bed one spring day, back when i lived at 291 beacon, and hearing van morrison's "stranded" floating up through the alley (turns out it was coming through my roommate's open window into mine).   and i remember thinking that that was the BEST wake-up on a saturday morning that I've ever had.

And I also remember thinking that that sax solo says everything my mind wants to say, but can't.  still true.

not the best embed, but i couldn't find it on my usual sites.  it's beautiful. enjoy.

xs+os,

kay