An End and a Beginning

The end of one year and the beginning of another is always cause for reflection.  We look back at what we accomplished in 2021, and we look forward to what we intend to do with the opportunity of 2022.  Christmas has come and gone, and in only a couple of days we have taken down the tree and all of the decorations.  What is left behind is the warm memories of the holidays – visits with Martha’s two aunts Anne and Mary, with our daughter and her husband, with friends and neighbors.  That means more to us than any gifts we might wrap up and place under the tree.

For 40 or 50 years, I have received or given myself a copy of The Old Farmer’s Almanac, a quirky little publication containing detailed but dubious weather forecasts for each part of the country, some good gardening and nutritional advice, weird but interesting articles such as “The Art and Science of Animal Tracking,” and back pages containing outrageous and thoroughly enjoyable advertisements for everything from Spiritual Oils and Lucky Eye bracelets to “Powerful Soaps.”  But I think the thing I like the most is the dense, detailed descriptions of the motion of the moon and the stars and the planets, of Ember Days and Halcyon Days and moveable feasts.  They remind me how small we are after all on this little blue planet beneath the great revolving constellations.  With little ceremony, I will consign the 2021 edition to a dusty bookshelf somewhere and open the first page of 2022.

Another tradition we have kept for many years now is to print out the things we took turns writing on the little blackboard in our kitchen throughout the year.  It is a record of holidays celebrated, funerals attended, hopes and dreams and promises made and kept.  The first thing Martha wrote in 2021 was in Atlantic Beach:  “More long walks, more books, more music, more dancing, more sunsets, more hugs, more road trips, more laughter, more fun, more love, more memories, more beach.”  We sought and found most of those things last year.  As I scan down the page I see Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, birthdays, Valentine’s Day, Anniversary.  “Workers in the driveway,” we wrote when our new addition and carport were under construction and we were greeted by the sound of construction early every morning.  Right before that is “Bells in the Night,” the book that I published this summer.  “Take every chance you get in life,” Martha wrote just after that, “Because some things only happen once.”

Now I have written the last thing on the blackboard to mark the end of a long, tumultuous year, a year that began with a violent insurrection and a deadly pandemic, but pivoted into new and competent leadership in Washington, the return of some justice and truth to the political arena, the hope of a vaccine and new treatments.  We are looking forward to a New Beginning.  It is time for our annual Sabbatical.

It was John Muir who famously wrote, “The mountains are calling and I must go.”  But now we are looking forward to the opposite, to returning to Atlantic Beach for another Sabbatical, a time for reading and reflection, for writing more poetry, for drawing closer together and struggling to find peace during a time of turbulence and change.  And for hiking and running.  This year, we managed to complete eight races since September after an 18-month hiatus due to Covid, and we are looking forward to continuing to race with two already on the calendar.  Because although it has been unusually warm for the past two or three weeks – breaking an all-time record in Asheville just after Christmas by four degrees, and here in Highlands yesterday a balmy 60 degrees in the morning – the weather will soon change, and the older I am the more I seem to feel the cold.  The Asheville weather report predicts an abrupt arrival of winter on Monday which it is calling a “Weather Whiplash.”  While we don’t expect it to be 70 degrees in Atlantic Beach very often, neither will it often be 23 degrees, and we hope we can avoid that icy blue face with icicles.

Yes, we are looking forward to the wide Atlantic Ocean, the moon and the stars, the sunrise and the sunset, and the unending rhythm of the surf.

Tell me . . . have you walked out today,
Out the short walkway to the top of the dunes,
Where the sea oats are quivering in the breeze,
And children are running heedless with joy into
The abundant surf, the gracious wide-open ocean?

Trotting for Spot

I have participated in some small races over the years, but today’s Trot for Spot 5-K was a new record.  Martha had signed up two weeks ago, but I was unsure whether I was ready for another race – this would be the third in less than a month.  The race benefited Evelyn's Place Rescue, a no-kill shelter for canines.  “I’ll bet there’s a dog on the shirt,” I told Martha, and there was indeed (although, surprisingly, there were no dogs in the race).  

It was a beautiful, warm day, temperatures in the mid-50s only six days before Christmas.  We arrived at Pitts Park in Clarkesville, where a dozen or so people were gathered near a FINISH banner.  I do enjoy these small races, perhaps even more than large crowded events, but as we warmed up and the time approached for the race to start, there still were not many runners at the park at all.  We lined up on a sidewalk and I counted heads; there were twenty-one of us trotting for Spot today.  These small races are informal affairs; the race director walked over and described the course to us, and then just like that we were off, crossing a bridge over the Soquee River, and then out Beaver Dam Road into some pretty countryside with rolling fields and cows.  The road climbed higher and higher up a long hill, then after an intersection down another hill to a traffic-cone turn-around. 

The Race Director was at that intersection and I called out, “I’ll bet that turn-around is at the bottom of the hill, isn’t it?”  And it was.  I had noticed that he seemed to be picking up rocks from the side of the road; Martha told me after the race that she guessed he was counting out rocks into a pile to be sure all twenty-one runners passed him.  The long hill that we had climbed was an advantage now as we headed back to the finish.  I heard footsteps behind me and a man passed on my right.  “Oh good, I’ll follow you to the finish!” I said.  “Those directions seemed a little sketchy at the end.”  He laughed and said, “I don’t know the way either!”  The blind leading the blind.  He stopped to walk and I passed him, and he did not pass me again, and in no time we had turned, crossed the bridge, and then down a short and very steep hill to the finish line, so steep that I walked for the first time in the race.

Martha had done well, taking First Place Master’s Woman and receiving a very nice trophy, the old-fashioned kind we used to always get in races, a shiny gold woman on a little pedestal.  I took first place in (I think) the 70-74 age group and was happy with my time of 36:53, almost as fast as my time in the Reindeer Run two weeks ago. 

It was another good day, as it always is when we compete in a race, no matter the size.  The largest race I have ever completed was the Boston Marathon ten years ago, where I was lost in an ocean of 50,000 runners, and today's was the smallest race.  Size really doesn’t matter.

 

 

P. S. - The day after I posted this - Monday, December 20 - Martha found our official times for the race on the internet and printed them out.  "Thirty-five: fifty-three!  That can't  be right. It was thirty-six: fifty-three!  They have these times all wrong," I insisted.  I checked the history on my GPS watch for Sunday and confirmed that it was . . . 35:53, one minute faster than I had thought - not "almost as fast as my time in the Reindeer Run two weeks ago," but nearly a minute faster.  I realized that I had not had my reading glasses on when I looked at my watch.  "Thank you!" I told Martha  "You just made my day!"  35:53 made this my fastest 5-K time since we resumed running in September after not having run races for 18 months.  To a runner, gaining an entire minute in a 5-K is significant progress.  So I must conclude that running a race every two weeks or so, as we have been doing at Martha's urging, has had a positive effect on my running, which is especially empowering for an aging runner who is accustomed to saying, "The older I get, the faster I was." 

When's the next race?

Gingerbread Houses

For the past two months, I have been limiting topics covered in this blog to running and races.  But it is mid-December, and now that Covid restrictions have been easing we have been attending some holiday events, such as the Van Gogh Alive exhibit at the Biltmore House over the Thanksgiving Holiday (see post of November 25).  Last Sunday we attended a show at the Highlands Playhouse called the Scott and Patti Holiday Spectacular and it proved as entertaining as it had been billed (“Join Scott & Patti as they celebrate the season through songs, dances, side splitting comedy, and a bevy of special guests.”)  The Sunday before that we attended the first performance from the North Georgia Players since before Covid, We’ll be Home for Christmas, four cute mini-plays, and it was equally entertaining.

This week, we attended the National Gingerbread House Competition at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville.  We have been to this competition in past years, and the Grove Park Inn is always a treat to visit under any circumstance.

Constructed in 1913 and listed on the National Register, the Inn was built by Edwin Wiley Grove and Fred Seely near Sunset Mountain overlooking Asheville.  It was constructed of rough-looking granite quarried from the mountains above the inn and transported by mule and wagon to the site.  William Jennings Bryan, Secretary of State at the time, was present when it opened and gave the keynote address, proclaiming the Grove Park “was built for the ages.”  I attended conferences a few times at the Inn when I worked for the Town years ago, and it was always a special treat to wander its long corridors and look at the old photographs showing its construction. 

The roof, for example, is five-and-a-half inches thick, a single pour of concrete to avoid seams – it was promoted as a completely fireproof structure at the time.  The granite is deliberately rough as intended by Seely, and I spotted this sign among the photographs which poetically described the intent of the builders.

In contrast to this massive structure, we marveled at the dozens of intricate miniature houses constructed not from granite and concrete but from gingerbread and candy.  Curious about the construction, I read on-line the rules and regulations for the competition: 

Everything above the base of your entry must be composed completely of edible materials. . . The main structure of your entry must be constructed of at least 75% gingerbread, some of which should be exposed.  Edible materials are not limited to candies and icings. Use of gum paste, fondant, pastillage, chocolate, modeling chocolate, royal icing, isomalt, cast sugar, gelatin and pressed sugar is encouraged. Use of "Disco Dust," "Rainbow Dust" or “Hologram Powder” is permitted.  Due to the danger of working with hot sugar, techniques using poured hot sugar or isomalt are reserved for the teen and adult categories only. This includes melted sugar candies.  Candies must be unwrapped and free of any non-edible materials, for example: lollipop sticks.

I wondered what "Disco Dust" might be - it sounded like a performing-enhancing drug.  And lollipop sticks!  I had not thought about it, but that would have been a structural element that would have come in handy; I noted that one or two of the non-adult houses were already starting to lose their roofs.  But lollipop sticks, though serving the same purpose as steel rebar in the Grove Park Inn, would have been cheating, and apart from the wild imagination and technical skill exhibited, it was a marvel to think about the construction and transport of these houses to the site of competition.  Unbelievable!

It was unseasonably warm in Asheville for December, and as we left the Grove Park Inn in mid-afternoon the temperature was sixty degrees, so pleasant that we were able to put the top down on our Mini Cooper.  We drove the relatively short distance to Candler, just west of Asheville, and had a nice visit with Martha’s aunt Mary, whom we had not seen since before Covid.  Mary will be 90 years old in a week or two and is doing quite well; it occurred to me that she is nearly as old as the Grove Park Inn, and like the venerable Inn is apparently constructed of equally sturdy material.  When she saw our little car, she said she would like to go for a ride in it some day.  “Why not right now?” Martha said, and so they did.  

Reindeer Run

We ran this race in Brevard two years ago on a day that was just as clear and bright as today, but considerably colder - I remember there had been frost on the windshield.  The temperature this morning at the start was about forty degrees, and it warmed up even more by the time we finished.  We drove over on Friday morning because we both had appointments at Looking Glass Eye Center, and then we re-acquainted ourselves with the course, which has some steep hills in the first mile but then a nice, nearly flat two-mile stretch out into farm country east of Brevard.  We had the obligatory pasta with marinara sauce at Big Mike’s Pizza downtown, which we remembered from two years ago, and then walked up and down the street a little, enjoying the festive decorations and mild temperatures in downtown Brevard.  We spent the night at the Sunset Motel, our usual accommodation.  When we tell people about this place they assume it is a dump, because it was for many years.  But new owners came in, renovated all of the rooms in retro 50s-style décor, put in nice modern bathrooms, and acquired a good rating on TripAdvisor, which is how we found it.  

This race is well organized by the Center for Women and takes place at the Boys and Girls Club building, just off Highway 276 outside of Town.  A former school, it features a warm gymnasium and good restrooms, which are always appreciated.  We gathered at the start and listened to a very good rendition of the National Anthem, and then in keeping with the reindeer theme we were encouraged to sing that silliest of Christmas songs, Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer. I had noticed that there were a disconcerting number of dogs in this race, and we realized we needed to be aware of leashes and unruly canine behavior, especially at the crowded start.  But the first hill sorted things out pretty well, children stopping to walk and then thundering past us on the downhill, dogs safely avoided.  At one point, though, I felt a sudden and unusual cold spot on my right leg, and realized it was the curious nose of a dog checking me out and fortunately not tripping me up. 

The course circles just before the two mile mark and returns again, the road flat and fast at this point.  Martha passed me and she was looking strong.  In the last half-mile, I noticed that the runner ahead of me was a man who might be in my age group (it turned out later that he was in the 80-99 age group), and he seemed to be slowing down, so I tried to "reel him in."  I cut the distance in half, but did not quite catch him before we passed under the big blue arch of the finish line; still, I ran a faster final mile because of him.  I was surprised when I reviewed my splits afterward that I had run nearly even miles – 11:54, 12:00, 11:52 – and only two seconds different in the first and last miles despite those hills.  I was pleased with a finish time of 36:37, 22 seconds faster than the Turkey Trot we had completed only nine days ago in Lake Junaluska.  It was good enough for third place in my age group, especially since the man who took first place, who was only a year younger than I, clocked an incredible time of 23:36.  I also realized later that this was my fastest time this year since we began running races on September 11.

Martha finished four seconds slower than at Lake Junaluska – which had been her fastest time since September 11 – at 32:12.  And with four women in her age she took first place once again.  What a great day this was!  We again realized how thankful we are to still be running races together, enjoying the competition and the struggle, celebrating out fitness and strength . . . and then celebrating afterward.

The celebration today consisted of a very good barbeque lunch and good local beer at the unfortunately named “Hawg Wild Barbeque” with our good friends Skip and MaryAnn, whom we had not seen since early September.   

Is there a better way to celebrate an achievement, no matter how modest, than with good food and drink, and with good friends?