Perspective of living — abroad and otherwise

As an American and a runner I am shocked and horrified by the bombing at the Boston Marathon. As a student living abroad, I’m even more shocked and horrified by the subsequent reactions and am struggling to find perspective. And peace.

War and war-like actions are the worst mankind has to offer this world. Violence begets violence. It always has been a self replicating and escalating cycle and it, I fear, always will be.

View from the DuomoI am by no means the most erudite student of history on the planet but I grew up in a news-aware home as the daughter of two Peace Activists. Some of my earliest memories are of holding a candle outside the White House and Pentagon. I remember vividly trying to wrap my young mind around the concept of a hunger strike. I celebrated my 8th birthday around a bonfire while participating in the Great American-Soviet Peace March in the Soviet Union in 1987.

In this light — my own perspective — I look at current events.

Perspective, let us share some

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“Barely” Surviving Tough Guy 2013

My eyes are locked on my gloved fingers grasping the 4 inch plank between my feet.

My focus shifts past the mud on the beam to the rope cargo net and then the ground two stories below.

“No, Jo, you have to stand up. We have to go across.

I look up into his eyes. His jokers cap long gone but the jovial still framing his face.

“I know but…” my voice reverberates in my head with the echoes of fear and frustration which drown out the wind, “Ben, I can’t feel my feet.”

We spend a beat or two looking at each other. Then he says, “ok” with authority and conviction and reaches out his hand to take mine.

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Strong, Stubborn or Stupid: Why I finish(ed)

It is the smallest of cracks that send us careening ofttimes.

My third GoRuck Challenge, this one in Munich, was going so very well. The welcome party was welcoming to my favorite brand of fun, the weather was perfect, I was enjoying connecting with comrades new and old as well as rousing renditions of Sponge Bob Squarepants (great wrap video of the entire event).

It was good livin’ at its best. Until it wasn’t.
29_Park_Flags

It was mid-afternoon and I was carrying the flag. We were simply doing a “shuffle” up a sidewalk. I noticed the water egress cover but stayed in line.

Then I was falling.

Even on the way down I thought “this is going to be bad.”

I didn’t get my hands out in time.

The brim of my hat offered little resistance to the concrete and my mouth hit hard. The bruises on my knees that only fully developed a week later say that it could have been worse. But it was bad enough.

I lay face down on the concrete for a about 10 seconds, hearing shouts and shuffles around me. I tasted blood.

I composed my game face and said into the white stone: “I’m fine. I think I lost a tooth.”

Munich_Ouch3I had, indeed, chipped off about half my front tooth. My lip was busted up pretty good. After I asked for “please, only one voice,” Cadre tended to my wounds as best he could in the middle of a sidewalk. I was a bloody mess but didn’t require stitches (or so we thought).

Then he had one question: Do you want to go to the hospital?

“I want to finish.”

It was perhaps too much adrenaline. My lip had stopped bleeding, the damage to my tooth ugly but done. There was nothing, I thought, that the ER or a doc could do for me.

Right then, I had something very important to do for me.

I got myself up and, I’m not sure if it was outloud or not, said: “I’m going to finish.”

If you want the pictorial version of the story, click here through to my new sandbox site Tredecem.

Finishing

It was never a question really. It was, after all, just my face.”Merely a flesh wound.”

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Fallen Caryatid

I sit at my computer and the words just will not come.

Shine onI don’t want to talk about it.

I don’t want to think about it.

I don’t want to explain it.

I don’t want to tell the story one more damn time.

I just want it to go away.

My emotions, you might have guessed, are running pretty high.

I took a tumble during the GoRuck Challenge in Munich over the weekend. Somewhere between renditions of the Spongebob Squarepants theme song you see in this highlight reel, I tripped over a manhole cover while carrying the flag and fell on my face. I broke off half a front tooth and busted up my lip pretty good.

Stubborn chick I am, I finished the challenge and earned my 3rd GRT patch.

That was the easy part.

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Figure That Sh*t Out

“Please. Please. Just start.”

Tennessee SunsetIt is Tuesday, 8am EST. I’m supposed to be waking up in Oklahoma City. Instead, I’m willing Stan the Tan Sedan to start and make it to the Honda dealer 13 miles away in Chattanooga, Tennessee

This is the second time in as many days that I have had my head on Stan’s steering wheel, willing him to please, please just go.

I’ve cried twice since the start to my Great Adventure to World Domination (and back). Neither time was during the GoRuck Challenge.

I would so much rather embrace the GRC suck again then spend the last 2 days as I have. Give me a fountain to pushup in, a flag to hold, a stream to cross, a buddy to carry… something, anything within or even outside of my physical limits.

I got it. Give me more. I will push and find the strength…grin into the pain.

But bad decisions to be dealt with? Plans collapsing? Frustration upon frustration? Loss of control? Mental and Emotional wringer?

Uncle.

Which of course, is why the Universe decided to toss those type of curveballs at me. Thanks for making me strengthen my weaker side by lobbing all these tests my direction.

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