I spent much of the last month away from home – almost two weeks in the Fraser Valley taking a course, and then a short stint on the west coast of Vancouver Island, as part of a team assigned to an investigation.
Wildfire smoke clogged the valley, the debris of millions of incinerated trees hung in the air for days on end. The floating particles found their way into my lungs and permeated my clothes. Every piece of clothing I wore outside reeked.
While I was in the valley, a police officer was murdered not that far away. I was in a room full of cops when the news broke. Grief hung in the air, as real, and more hurtful than the ash from the fires.
Everyone on the course had many years, even decades, on the job. The officer who was killed, had barely three – her career was in it’s infancy, her life, in many ways, just beginning.
When the course ended, I drove home. The wildfire smoke did not dissipate until I reached the ocean, more than 100 kilometers away. I took a ferry home. I was so glad to see my family.
I took the same ferry again last week. One of thousands who gathered for the slain officer’s funeral. Her family, friends and colleagues spoke so well. It was clear that she was a special and remarkable person.
It was in the days between ferry rides that I was on the west coast of the island. My unit investigates death. The small town where this occurred is a tourist mecca. However, we were not there as tourists. We stood out everywhere we went in our pressed pants and dress shirts. A few days in this town reinforced a truism of our work – that when someone dies suddenly and unexpectedly, the effects are wide, profound and long lasting.
Despite my observations, and my job, none of the things I write about above were about me. My career, and my current job, put me in a position where I have the privilege of trying to play a part, however small, in trying to help people through dark times.
However, the things I write about above do affect me. They continue to mold and shape me even though I’m over fifty years old, with more than two decades on the job.
This morning I’m at home with my wife and daughter. There’s coffee and juice, waffles, dolls and a Barbie movie. A perfect Sunday morning. Outside it’s grey, the fog hanging over the trees reminiscent of the wildflower smoke which hung over the valley.
Today I will run on trails, read whenever I have a spare moment, call my parents and hug my girls. I’m thankful to be at home.
I’d like to write more, but often I’m pressed for either time or ideas. Sometimes a photo prompts my next piece. Usually something happens that I feel compelled to share. When the ideas strike, the pieces often write themselves. I’m just the conduit. At least that’s how it feels.
Today I have time but no ideas. Photos but no stories behind them. Many things on my mind, and none of them flowing through my fingers. More like scattered thoughts colliding.
I’m fifty-one. Maybe closer to death than high school. I was thirty when I became a cop. I remember driving home at the end of a nightshift, pulling into the driveway, and wondering: wondering when I’d feel like a grown-up, wondering when I’d feel comfortable in my own skin, wondering when the world would make sense.
The world still doesn’t make sense. Yesterday in Buffalo, New York innocent people were slaughtered in a grocery store. I grew up near the U.S. border. My parents shopped at that grocery chain regularly. The grocery store is called “Tops.” I can still hear their jingle in my head “Tops Never Stops Saving You More.”
I’ve given up trying to make sense of the world. That’s not going to happen. Which ironically, may be an important step in having a better understanding of myself.
I may not be there yet – understanding myself that is – but I feel like I’m on the right path. It’s only taken half a century.
Fatherhood has helped. Not that it’s easy. Every day I grapple with being a dad. When to discipline? How to teach life lessons? What’s the best way to help an innocent child become a strong and confident girl?
Until very recently I listened to the Marathon Talk podcast. The hosts embraced the notion of trusting the process. It’s fine to have a goal, but the goal is secondary to the work you do along the way. It’s the steps that matter, whether in marathon training, or raising a daughter. Any goal is the product of the steps and moments that came before it. Take your steps. Live in the moment. Keep your eyes on the horizon. Never stop moving.
I became truer to myself when I stopped eating meat. I eat a whole food plant-based diet because I believe it’s my best chance to live a long and healthy life. There’s more to it than that – changing the way I ate showed me that, daily, my ideals and values could be in alignment with my actions. That was a powerful lesson.
Veganism led me to Rich Roll. Rich chronicled his journey from addict to endurance athlete in his book ‘Finding Ultra.’ His podcast guests are leaders in their fields; health, neuroscience, athletics, and the arts. Podcasts have reshaped the path I’ve taken in my life. They’ve changed the way I breathe, encouraged me to write, inspired me to wake up at 3:00 a.m. to run miles in the dark, and, conversely, prompted me turn my alarm clock off because sleeping may be the best thing any of us can do to promote physical and mental health.
I used to have one or two books on the go at any one time. Recently it’s been five or six. Although the world doesn’t make sense, books help me navigate my way through it. I’ve been reading about survival, hostages in Iran, a German general kidnapped in wartime Crete, the latest Reacher novel, a collection of essays from Jedidiah Jenkins, and Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. I read with a pen in hand, underlying meaningful passages. I read with my journal by my side, and I copy especially meaningful passages into it. Great writing moves me. Incredible stories inspire me. They all help me focus on my process and my path ahead.
My wife and I have a close friend whose mother is terminally ill. Words so often fail in those situations. So we sought the answer in words more eloquent than any we could ever express. We sent a copy of Susan Cain’s latest book, ‘Bittersweet’ which is about grief. Cain wrote ‘Quiet,’ a book about introverts. It helped me better understand myself. Without having read it, I know ‘Bittersweet’ will be an eloquent, thoughtful work which will help people all over the world.
I have a friend who did something special yesterday. He ran one hundred kilometers in fourteen hours. That’s more than two marathons. He suffered. He endured. He finished. His achievement was even more remarkable because of his training. His longest training run was 10 kilometers. He’s in excellent shape. Obviously that helped. But, on paper, no coach would draw up a training program without incorporating much longer runs. On paper he should have done 20-, 30- and 40-kilometer runs. He didn’t. He didn’t need to. His mental toughness is off the charts. He ran sixty-two miles yesterday with his mind.
The mind. That’s another thing podcasts have helped me appreciate. The power of the mind. To heal. To create. To help us reshape ourselves through meditation, and by visualizing the lives we want to lead.
Two more scattered thoughts.
Yesterday we adopted a kitten. Her name is Molly. Our daughter’s name is Molly. We’re going to have to rename our daughter.
The pictures of the fallen trees are from a cutblock not far from our home. I walked through it, and although it was undeniably apocalyptic, it wasn’t awful. There was beauty in the desolation, and in the rich green forest behind it.
The trails near our home are open to everyone. The backcountry beckons. I run while others mountain bike, hike or walk their dogs. Some ride their dirt bikes or quads. Sometimes when I run, I hear their engines roaring in the distance. When we cross paths, I breathe exhaust fumes instead of fresh air.
But the forest and trails are vast and my encounters with motorized vehicles are always fleeting. I wave or nod to the riders as we pass one another. We have different interests but a shared love of the outdoors. We mean one another no harm.
I love to run hills. There is nothing better for the legs and lungs. And I’m lucky. I can walk out the front door, and minutes later be doing a grueling uphill workout. Long and steep it holds the false promise of reaching a peak. But there’s no summit for a long time, just short breaks, and then more inclines – steep dirt tracks with scattered rocks and boulders. They’re ideal for trail running. And motorbikes. Sometimes I see the bikes themselves. Usually tire tracks are the only evidence of their presence. They are loud but my encounters with them while running are rare. And we can not hear them from our home. But others must, because this isn’t the backwoods yet. More like the shared backyard of a subdivision where hundreds of people live.
A few weeks back I was running up one of these short, steep trails when I saw a nail laying on the ground. And then two nails, and a third and a fourth, seemingly buried in the dirt intentionally, all over the trail. Each one placed carefully and with malice, guaranteed to puncture the tires of a dirt bike, or a quad. Equally guaranteed to pierce a dog’s paws or a child’s flesh.
I picked up eleven nails and filed a police report. I returned a few days later and found at least ten more. Maybe I’d missed them the first time, buried underneath the dirt and rocks. Maybe whoever put them there had returned.
It is in our nature as human beings to hurt one another. We hurt those we love. We hurt people we hate. We hurt people we don’t know. So, I was not surprised to find those nails on the trail. Not surprised. But saddened and angered. Thankfully, no one was hurt.
I still run that trail. I was there yesterday. I found six more nails. One was visible, churned up after I ascended, I spotted it on the descent. I excavated the area and found five more. I picked them up and added them to the now harmless pile of nails I’ve created inside a nearby concrete barrier. There are thirty nails in that pile now.
Thirty. Someone carried thirty nails to that trail, got down on their hands and knees, placed them individually along both sides of the trail and right down the middle, and then covered them with dirt and rocks. That’s cold. That’s premeditated. That’s malicious. That’s humanity.
The dark side of humanity.
We’ve had illness in our family recently. Metaphorically one of us stepped on a nail on the trail. That nail was Covid. It hit hard. Its effects are still being felt. Things are improving but not back to normal. In the toughest days we saw the best of humanity. A sibling and parents who dropped everything to care for the one they love. Friends and neighbours coming to the house and offering their medical expertise, bringing soup, dropping off cookies. Flowers and well wishes arrived from across the country. We saw the best side of humanity.
There’s no such thing on Vancouver Island. Up and down, up and down. Every run is a series of ascents and descents.
Southern Ontario is gloriously flat. I took advantage of that a couple weeks back, when I was home, alone, visiting my family. I logged a lot of miles. It was easy to do. I had lots of time, and few responsibilities.
I ran every day, except one.
Things happened in Ontario. And I ran.
That’s the thing about running. It’s with you always. Wherever you are. A runner can always run. A runner can structure his day around a run. Or a runner can squeeze in a run even when the day is busy and unyielding. A runner finds time to run.
And think.
I had lots to think about when I ran in Ontario.
My mom. Recovering from a stroke. Working so hard on her rehab. Moving so well. Speaking so well. I was very proud of her.
My dad. We ran together. That was special. He’s been doing it for five decades. Part of the first great running boom of the 1970s. He’s nearing eighty and still running. Runners run.
My grandparents. I visited my grandfather’s grave. Born during the Great War, he and my grandmother started their family during World War II, in occupied Holland. My mother and her twin sister were born as the Battle of Arnhem was fought nearby. A famous battle – The Bridge Too Far battle. My mother’s twin died shortly after she was born, in a starving nation, torn by war. My grandmother’s name is not on the gravestone. Her ashes were scattered elsewhere. In my memory, they are always together.
My wife and daughter. They did not make the trip. My daughter is too young to be vaccinated. There was an emptiness to this trip home, because my entire family was not together.
Guelph. A small-town in Ontario. I miss small-town Ontario. I miss the brick buildings, Main Streets, and cenotaphs in town squares. I miss walking in a small-town. I miss feeling I’m part of a small-town. I didn’t realize how important it was to me until I left it behind.
ACAB. An Acronym for ‘All Cops Are Bastards.’ Spray-painted on the wall of a cake shop in Guelph. I know a lot of cops. All cops are not bastards. I thought about how widespread anti-police sentiment has become. I thought about the assaults my colleagues in Victoria have been subjected to recently. Serious assaults. I thought, if the ‘C’ in the acronym was replaced with a letter that stood for a different group, it would be a hate crime.
People. I didn’t fly home to wander through small-towns. I went for people. Like my wife’s best friend and her husband. They have become my friends. A trip back home without seeing them is unimaginable. People I only met a few years ago, are now important parts of my life.
Life takes twists and turns. I had dinner with my ex-wife. For the last 18 months, she has been on the frontlines of the battle against Covid. Her efforts have kept vulnerable seniors alive. She has endured immeasurable stress. She’s led her staff through difficult times. I am proud of her.
In life’s twists and turns, there are constants. Like my brother, and his wife and their children. They are proverbial rocks in my life. We don’t talk often and see each other rarely. And yet we are there for one another, with a closeness and comfort level that transcends distance and time.
I thought about the people I did not see. My friend Stitch. A man who has suffered, and endured, and come out the other side. Strong and resilient. If I called him and said I needed him, he’d drop everything and fly across the country in a heartbeat. No questions asked.
I thought about some people I have not seen in many years. Once good friends who I let slip away.
These are some of the things I thought about when I ran flat miles in Ontario. It was hotter than I would have liked. No crisp cool autumn days. And the colours of the leaves were muted, not vibrant.
Runners run.
And runners think.
And when this runner arrived home, in rainy, hilly, British Columbia, he was greeted by a daughter who shrieked, “daddy,” and he was a hugged by a wife he loves and missed, and he was thankful for everything he has, and everything that was.
Our daughter is not a dud. She rarely stops moving. Or speaking.
I’m quieter. Not talking is my default.
When I fly across the country to visit my parents after not seeing them for months, I often sit in the living room and read. It must frustrate my poor mom as she regales me with stories, and I do not respond. Instead, I’m mute, poring over the local newspaper.
Last week, after Covid restrictions loosened, we visited with my wife’s parents and sister for the first time in forever. They are a passionate family – interested in everything – lulls in the conversation are rare. We sat outside on their patio, which offers a spectacular view of the ocean.
True to form, I said almost nothing. I sat. I gazed at the water and Mount Baker in the distance.
I must appear disengaged. Lost in my own world.
Yet that’s not the case. In those situations, nothing is more precious to me than my family. Being surrounded by those I love means more to me than anything. It is where I want to be. It is my comfort zone.
Talking isn’t.
My wife and I joke that I “bury it deep.” Why speak aloud what can safely be tucked away inside?
I could do better. I could talk more. I do believe we should all push beyond our comfort zones.
Yet, we have comfort zones for a reason. Water finds it level. We do too. Learning to accept who and what we are – those things that are intrinsic to our personalities, and fundamental to our beings, is essential.
I don’t actually bury it deep. If I did, this blog wouldn’t exist. On it, I share some of my innermost thoughts. Things I wouldn’t say over coffee with my family, friends, or co-workers, I write down for the world to see. I can’t explain it. It just feels right.
Like silence.
As we sat on my in-law’s patio, and they talked, I spotted two Orcas, no more than a hundred meters offshore. The fins of these killer whales cut through the water with grace and precision. It was a spectacular sight.
“The hardship of running somehow softens the hardship of life. Running turns the madness into music.”
Those words, from the foreword to Phil Hewitt’s ‘Outrunning the Demons’ capture the essence of this book – Life is hard. Running helps. Hewitt himself was stabbed, beaten and left for dead alongside a South African highway. He survived. Running helped.
And inspired him to collect the stories of others who, in their darkest hours, found solace in running. People shaken by grief, addiction, disease, injury, and mental illness – in the worst of their pain, running helped them survive.
As is often the case, I write this on the couch, my daughter beside me. A mini-crisis has just passed. Strawberry yogurt everywhere. “Oh no, I got some on my pajamas,” she yelled. A very big deal for her. Less so for me. I responded that if yogurt spilled all over the sofa, and covered her and painted the ceiling, it would be okay. We would fix it. We would survive a Yogurt Disaster.
As the yogurt spill played out, I looked out our front window and saw a runner, in her bright yellow vest, racing along a path near our home. I know her. A little. She runs every day. I’ve seen her running in deep snow on days when I struggled for hours just to shovel our driveway. In winter’s darkest days she is out there – in driving rain and howling winds. I don’t know her story. But I suspect she needs running. Needs it just as much as food, and water and air.
That’s how I feel too.
Not many years ago, someone very close to me was diagnosed with cancer. I was terrified she would die. It was a bad year. Stress, worry, uncertainty and fear churned within. So I ran. Signed up for a marathon and trained for it not because I wanted to. I had no time goal. The distance was no great challenge. I’d run marathons before. I entered that marathon because I needed to. A lot changed in my life that year. But running was a constant that helped see me through the worst and emerge on the other side.
The other side is a new life. A life that might be very similar to yours. A spouse, a child. A career with constant stress, modulating daily, sometimes hourly, from moderate to severe. Always present and always a roller-coaster ride.
Yesterday was Easter. My wife and I watched a day of joy unfold as our daughter hunted Easter eggs. We watched as her grandparents and aunt showered her with love, and chocolate, and placed a pink Easter bonnet on her head.
And there was sadness too. My parents are a long way away. So is my youth. I remembered Easter when I was a child. Chocolate and church and sunshine. Yesterday I wanted to hug my mom and dad and my brother and his family. And be with them and tell them how much I love them. And thank them for those wonderful memories.
One of those memories is music. “Morning has Broken.” A song for the ages. A song that captures light and life and spring and sunshine. An Easter song. So yesterday, in the midst of it all, on a bright beautiful April day, I ran to the trails and listened to Cat Stevens sing that song. I played it over and over again. I found a valley and a lone daffodil. Just the one, in a sea of grasses and weeds. And I thought about it all. And was thankful for everything. Joy and youth, light and life, family and friends. Running and hard miles.
I work with good people. Dedicated. Smart. Engaged. Kind. If I must be away from home, those are the people I want to be with.
Still, it felt great getting back.
Hugging my wife and daughter. Sleeping in my own bed. Waking up, drinking coffee, and reading.
Returning to normal, after a few days of not normal.
Not normal meant five days without running. Instead, I traded running for sleep.
That doesn’t happen often.
So, it felt wonderful to lace up my trail shoes this morning. A clear sky. A cold day. Well below zero with a biting wind.
To run with no other purpose than to run. To move my legs, inflate my lungs, and clear my head. To appreciate the beauty of the forest along the path I’ve run a hundred times before. An isolated path with traces of snow, alongside a stream of icy water. The crunch of frozen dirt underfoot. No people, no phone calls, no stress. Blue Rodeo in my earbuds. More than a band. Poets and philosophers of life and death, joy and pain. Songs about navigating back to normal when your world strays.
A one hour run. Never fast. Or slow. Just a run. A little bit of uphill, a little bit of downhill.
Like most of our days, most of the time. Normal. A bit good, a bit bad. Usually somewhere in between.
We are all desperate for normal now, almost a year into Covid. Lockdowns and masks. No travel. Distant family. Those damn arrows on the floors in grocery stores. I hate those arrows.
Anger at those who break the rules. The temptation to break them ourselves – to ignore the arrows, visit a friend, travel.
A virus jolted us out of normal. We took too much for granted for too long. And now we wait for vaccines, and double-mask our faces, and challenge ourselves to be more patient than we’ve ever been in our lives.
If only it was as easy as a run, along a trail, on a cold winter’s day.
It’s raining again. On Vancouver Island. Which as newsflashes go is right up there with “Trump Says Something Stupid.”
On a walk this morning my daughter, cold, wet and shivering, asked when the rain would stop.
I answered honestly. “Never.”
She knew I was teasing.
So I told her the real truth. “In forty years.”
That’s how it feels anyway.
I have no right to complain. I choose to move here. To an island. With rainforests on it.
There are positives. Like between November and March it rarely snows. And you can count on seeing the sun. At least once a month.
We had a glorious April. Sun almost daily. Light and heat. At a time when the darkness of COVID was shattering the lives of so many people, we walked in magnificent forests with sunshine streaming through, creating a mosaic of sparkling shadows to rival anything the finest art gallery in the world could offer.
In April I ran in shorts and a t-shirt. I needed sunscreen.
Today we’re drinking hot chocolate. It’s drizzling between rainstorms and the clouds look like they’ve captured the sun and banished it forever on this Victoria Day long weekend. The unofficial start of summer.
Some people embrace this weather. Our neighbour loaded up his paddleboard and headed down to the ocean.
I’ve tried. But I can’t. Not when the grey and rain and blah seem to never go away. When the 7-day forecast on the nightly news shows: rain, showers, cloudy, rain, rain, showers, rain.
But when the sun does come, it is glorious. Like the best of everything distilled into golden rays. Everything is better in the sun. Running, sweating, cutting the lawn, flying kites. Working from home and looking out the window at a yellow world. Everything.
And just like everything is better in the sun, everything is worse when it rains. Stress weighs heavier, the blues are darker, injuries hurt even more.
But sometimes a little light bursts through. I started writing this post sitting on the couch. Alone. Miserable. Now sitting beside me are my girls. Eating watermelon. Watermelon! The quintessential summer fruit on a hot chocolate day.
I could learn a lot from my girls. Injecting a slice of summer into an entirely miserable day.
Although truth be told, instead of eating watermelon in the rain, I’d rather be drinking hot chocolate in the sun.
From a distance the park in our neighbourhood appears to be surrounded by police tape. Yellow plastic fluttering in the wind prohibiting children from swinging, climbing and sliding.
It’s a park we’re at frequently. Practically daily. Kids play, parents socialize, our community comes together.
Not anymore. You don’t. I don’t. We don’t.
Profound changes in our world affecting us all. For how long, none of us know. A virus that knows no borders has crossed all borders and injected itself into every moment of our lives.
Victims suffer. Their families grieve. Health care professionals risk their lives. First responders hold the line. Heroes work in grocery stores, pharmacies and in the utility companies that keep us warm, lit and connected.
The rest of us continue in a sort of limbo. Working from home, digging in our gardens, walking our dogs, avoiding strangers, standing six feet from friends.
For introverts this new world is familiar – introversion on steroids. For extroverts, it must be awful.
For the millions of newly unemployed it’s hell.
Where it all ends none of us knows. Hopefully well and soon. With shops and restaurants reopening and airlines flying and life returning to something like normalcy.
In uncertain times I embrace normalcy and routine. I ran on the trails near our home every day this week and savoured fresh air, pink blossoms and random beauty – a heron swooping down from the treetops towards the stream below. Another day, another run, I explored a different trail – darker and secluded – as the path ended I found a burnt chair surrounded by beer cans. A reminder that not all is right with our normal world. That some people seek out beauty and then desecrate it, dragging in their garbage and leaving their trash behind. The world we long for isn’t always that good.
Today, normalcy meant starting a quiet Sunday morning in the living room. Writing while my daughter sat beside me, crying real tears because her mom brought her peanut butter and jam and not peanut butter and honey. There is something very special about watching a 4-year old’s sadness that is so real and yet so fleeting.
Before the Strawberry Jam Incident my daughter had asked for the book and pen which were on the stand beside me. I always read with a pen in hand – constantly underlining passages. She has seen me do it a million times. And wanted to do the same. She took the book and the pen, and turned away, so I could not see what she was doing. As she drew she repeated over and over, “You’ll never guess what this looks like.”
This is what she drew.
She was right. I couldn’t have guessed how beautiful her drawing would be.
Port Hardy to Victoria in eight days. Over 600 kilometers of running.
One cause. Support our Wounded Warriors. Honour the fallen. Support the living.
Eight intense days. Fast running. Slow jogging. Gruelling hills, treacherous declines, glorious flatness.
Eight humbling days. Meeting heroes in Legions up and down the island. Veterans of long ago wars. Veterans who still wake at night reliving those horrors.
Eight days of overwhelmingly gracious receptions. Men, women and children flooding those Legions, and community centers. Preparing meals for us, wrapping their arms around us, digging deep in their pockets and thrusting cash in our hands.
Money to support the injured – our veterans, first responders and their families. Injuries caused by the horrific things so many of them have had to see and do. Trauma after trauma, experienced over and over, and imprinted on their minds.
Our team barely knew one another at the start of the run. By the end we were a family. We loved one another. We watched each fight through tough miles. We shared stories, laughs, and bathrooms. No secrets. No egos. No attitudes.
We succeeded as runners because of the people around us. Warriors themselves. They organized this run, drove us, fed us, clothed us, housed us and cared for us. Unconditionally. One big family.
In This Together. That mantra inspired our run. We repeated it a hundred times that week.
In this together. Those words have taken on a new meaning these last few days.
Our world is experiencing a crisis unlike anything most of us have ever lived through.
Daily life continues, and grinds to a halt simultaneously.
Our run squeaked in under the wire. Before mass cancelations and social distancing. Before we had to stop hugging and high fiving. Before a gathering of hundreds became life-threatening.
Life. That’s all that matters. Life and everything that goes with it. Physical health. Mental health. Love. Family. Community.
For weeks, maybe months, all our lives will change.
We’ll get through it. As a team. In this together.
readerwriterrunner.com 