Soft and Hard

6 parts: A bed, LSD or Fartlek, The bank, Music, My body PT, Science Camp

Looks soft, doesn’t it?

It used to be that I slept 7.5 hours a night. Without fail.  That somehow changed when KT died.  I think I’m down to 6.5 now. I don’t know if it’s because she is gone or because I am now 53 and my body's hormone levels changed.  Or, at least that’s my theory. According to a couple sites I looked at I don’t seem to be going through andropause. Yep, andropause. Look it up.

There was something very comforting about having her next to me in bed.  Maybe that’s where the extra hour came from. I do still promptly fall asleep on the couch to The Great British Baking Show (aka Bake Off).  Sometimes I get that hour back with that show on.

Or it could be that the now MOGUL SIZED dents in the soft mattress have finally gotten to me. And with my back issues those dents just seem to exacerbate my problems.  My L5/S1 is already slipped enough thank you very much.

So anyway. I’ve done it. I purchased a Japanese style futon and floor mat. The mat arrived today and the futon yesterday.  It’s kind of fun to get big huge boxes covered in Japanese Characters. Having instructions for the mat in Japanese is kind of a pain though. Hopefully I won’t do anything stupid to it. Regardless, I will soon be sleeping on the hardest/firmest friggin’ bed! Yeeeeup. Guests can have the softness and the moguls.

Part 2.

LSD or Fartlek?

One of the things I like about running is that it is basically as hard as you want it to be. LSD? and you can go forever. What? You don’t know LSD? NO! Not the drug. Geeze. Nor is it the power group of Labrynth, Sia and Diplo (excellent music btw). It’s long slow distance, silly. The S could just as easily stand for “Soft”. I like LSD to think, meditate on life, look at nature, smell the breeze… you know that sort of thing. It’s so soft it’s energizing. After LSD you get home ready to conquer the world.

Excellent LSD song to do LSD to:

 

Then there are things like Fartleks. Well, yeah, I really only put that here because I like the word. Say it out loud in a public place and just watch the reaction!  FARTLEK! pardon me? Did you just pass gas?  No, but I did just pass my running buddy by sprinting by them. Anyway, Fartlek here symbolizes the hard of running. It’s a choice. Somedays I push myself to the point that I can barely breathe hard enough and my heart is in my head beating to a VENUS HUM beat that I seldom know.  And btw, that powerful beat is very reassuring to a guy like me with a pacemaker. Look mom, my heart works!

So this week is Fall break at school.  I put out a notice to the Cross Country team that I would be ready to run Wednesday and Friday. If you show up, I’ll run with you.  I figured I’d just put it out there and see who showed up.

Wednesday.  2 of my coaches show up and one student runner. I joke with him that not even professional athletes have three coaches all to themselves. He’s one of my faster runners and I look at him and ask, “Are you up for a hill”? He just looks at me. Wrong answer! Hill it is! Off we go. Up, Up, Up. Hills that the other two coaches and my athlete didn’t even know exist. 1.5 miles of uphill.  He and I leave the other two coaches in the dust. My breathing is hard. I hear my heart. He hangs with me most of the way… that is until we hit the steep uphill single track. He slowed down then. At the park at the top the two of us hop on swings and swing until the other two, exhausted, coaches catch up.  I then look at him, “How about the stairs”? He just looks at me. Wrong answer! Off we go. The other coaches begged out. Up the hill another ¼ mile. I tell him no other student has ever been willing to run these stairs. He sounds interested and manages to talk me into letting him have 2 popsicles next time we have them. Smart fella. Then, we turn a corner and look up the slope. In about 100’ the stairs start and they go up and up continually steeper and from the bottom, you cannot see the top. 

And we’re off.  We hang together for probably the first 100 steps. He slows down, then finds new energy and passes me and finishes 10 steps ahead of me. Heart POUNDING. Can’t BREATHE. It’s fabulous.

We then run single track trails back down the hill and finish the run.  Fabulous. Hard. Nothing soft about it.

Friday. Meeting at Lover’s Point. One 5th grade girl shows up with her grandfather. No other coaches.  It’s a weird situation. I don’t like doing anything teacher like/coach like with only one student. I talk to the grandfather, give him my phone number, tell him exactly where we are going and how long we’ll be. He’s totally cool with the whole thing. “I’ll just hang out at the coffee shop”.  So off we go!  She’s a new runner. A STICK kid with legs so thin you wonder how she can stand. She’s probably 4’6” tall. It seems like a light breeze would knock her over. 10 minute miles are pretty fast for her so we start off nice and easy. The day is gorgeous. Views of the bay are clear. We talk about baking and fall break and I ask if she thinks we’re going to see a whale today. “noooooooo”.  My distraction method works and she goes non-stop all the way to John Denver’s memorial rock. We talk about his plane crash a bit then turn around. Still an easy pace, but she’s fading. Then we see it. Near a tourist boat on the Bay a Humpback whale does a full breach. Not a partial, a full, entire body out of the water, breach. The whale looks as big as the boat and then there’s this phenomenal splash. We both see it. She’s distracted for the next half mile and keeps running. We see a bunch more spouts, but no more breaches. The end… she has to walk a bit but we make it 3 miles.  Phew. Soft?  Maybe, but she was there. She did it. It was super cool.  

Part 3 - The Bank (this is where I complain)

No, not a bank on a river. Though that could be hard or soft. I’m not sure which one would be easier to deal with. 

Death is hard enough and then there are these hurdles that no one really tells you about. Car insurance goes up. Hours on the phone with all sorts of agencies confused about what they need to do.. Apparently some memorial facilities will try to take advantage of you. Federal taxes! oh, that one pissed me off.  

Then there’s the whole bank and credit card thing. ERG. What the hell? Word of advice if you are married #1… each person needs their own credit card. KT had a great deal on two cards so she added my name to both of them. Those two cards were the only two cards I used for years. When she died I was a good citizen and went in and told Chase. I thought, since my name was on them, that they would simply remove her and put me as the primary. Their response… “Oh, so sorry to hear about your loss.” Weepy eyes. ”Thank you for telling us. Can we see the death certificate? You’ll need to call the number on the card and talk to the Credit Card department directly.” All peaceful and helpful and then I get home and BAM, the cards are already canceled. Unusable. Her cards. No changing them. NO transferring them. I was just allowed to use it hours earlier.  GONE. No actual warning. They were so super nice and sweet. ERG. Thank goodness I had one card from way way long ago that I had not canceled. And then! There were rewards left on the card so they mailed a check in her name to me 4 months later. Uhm. She’s not on the bank account anymore. AGHHHH!  What a pain. Word of advice #2.  Keep their name on stuff as long as you can stand it.  The headache of being proactive is just not worth it. Death is hard in so many ways.  Nothing soft about it.   

Part 4 - Music.   Hard: Motorhead, Ministry, Skinny Puppy and now Baby Metal from Japan - a weird mix of soft and hard (try Karate!) and the HU from Mongolia (try Yuve Yuve Yu)

Karate:

The Hu:

 

Soft.  I don’t listen to really soft stuff like my friend KS. I visit her and I’m instantly in a state of zen listening to babbling brooks and softness… zen. I think it’s her studying music. I do like Rachmaninoff’s Vespers an awful lot (soft, but intense)…  funnily - the Band Shriekback has Cradle Song.  

Rachmaninoff:

 

Shriekback:

 

Part 5 - MY PT body

Speaking of sand and my body. I once spent 30 minutes cursing the world loudly while mountain biking in Fort Ord. I had gone down a big hill and started up a ravine. Soft sand. It was probably only a mile of soft sand but it felt like an eternity as I had to get off my bike and push it up - through deep soft sand. I started calm but gradually I was yelling out a curse word at every step. Yup, me. Cursing. Yelling. Every step. It was that bad. 

I’ve mentioned my back issues before.  Leg issues. I have emotional issues. I’ve got issues. Anyway, I’ve been going to PT at this great place called Balance and they’ve been getting my core in shape so that my back will stabilize and I can get back to hopefully a reasonable number of running miles every week.  There’s nothing soft about my PT. My therapist has realized that she has a compliant and eager victim. I get forcibly stretched (like torture device stretched). I do dead bugs while holding stretchy bands at weird angles. I do dead bugs while holding 10 pound medicine balls in the air over my body. I do Monster walks and swipe heavy bags from side to side under my body. And the planking. Oh, the variations of planking I never knew existed. I have gotten to the point where I can feel my lower abdomen engaging when I stand up, sit down, walk, run, whatever. It used to be that I'd have to flex to get a hard abdomen… now - that’s just what it is.  Hard.  Under a thin soft layer of fat, that is. It still jiggles a little.

Part 5 - Science Camp

A couple of months ago my principal came by and asked if I’d be willing to go to Science Camp and be a floater Teacher/supervisor during the event. It would be real camping, there would be lots of parents and the whole thing is being put together by our science teacher. Where? Morro Bay State Park.  One of KT and my favorite places to visit. We’d go at least once a year. I know all the trails there. I mean, really. All the trails. I’ve been to every single place our science teacher lists in the itinerary. I don’t think about it at all and say “yes”. I do have to leave the last night thought, doctor’s appointment Friday morning. Too bad. 

It gets closer to science camp and the number of pre-science camp thank you’s I receive seems disproportionate to how big a deal I think it is. I begin to worry. More information flows in. I have no official duties. I am just there to make sure everything goes okay.  Oh, really? 

We leave at 9:30 Wednesday morning. We have lunch in Cambria. The kids ask me why I’m there. I tell them I’m the enforcer and I’m there to yell at them. They laugh. Yeah. Me, the enforcer. Funny.

Wednesday night. Nothing exciting has happened so far. I’ve just wandered around. Watched, listened. The science teacher leads us on a night hike. My job. “STAY TO THE RIGHT!” “CAR!” “STOP SHINING THAT LIGHT IN PEOPLE’s EYES” “HAND ME THAT LIGHT! You’ve lost it”.  Yup, the enforcer. Sheesh.

Back to camp and 10:00 it’s lights out.  That’s a long HARD DAY.

Thursday: The kids cook. Hike to the museum. 90 minutes of walking and museum stuff. The kids cook lunch. Drive to the Elfin forest, but there’s no single parking area big enough for all of us so we all start different places and this weird thing happens. The kids went all mob and just started running down (down) the narrow wood plank trail at a high rate of speed well in front of any parent or teacher. Who’s the adult runner to chase them?  Well, that would be me.  So I run, I blow my whistle, I run. I yell “Stop!”  and they do stop.  But some weird disease or something had come over them and they would only stop for like 3 seconds and then start running again. TEACHER VOICE STOP! Until finally they really do stop.  And then we have to walk back to the lovely Elfin forest cove where they all sit and recuperate from their running adventure. The teacher has no information on the forest. So I find an informational sign 30’ from where the kids are - yell at them (teacher voice) to be quiet and read a whole friggin’ paragraph in my teacher voice so they can all hear.  It’s quite interesting and I get a big thank you. Phew.

Then we go to Montano d’ Oro.  The whole goal of the teacher here is to give the kids time to wander. I check the trails and see tons of poison oak… so teacher voice again, I have to explain the leaves and suspicious twigs and don’t touch it and then she says.  “ok kids, you have 20 minutes to go wherever you want, just come back when we call you.”  WHAT!?  Did she not just see what happened at Elfin Forest?   Oh my.  Yes, repeat. The kids start hiking and then I can see a bunch break off from the front down this massive hill toward the ocean. RUNNING at full speed. Down down down. They have no watches. Very little concept of time. No one will catch them. A parent says, “Oh no”.  I  sigh. I tighten my camelpack and grab hold of my fancy camera and start running.  Down down down.  Occasionally yelling stop.  Eventually one of the kids hears me and sprints down the hill to catch the kids that are way ahead. I meet the front runners, make sure our count is okay and come back with them.  They’re shocked at how big the hill is they just ran down.  Well yeah.   One of the parents when I get back, “you were bookin’”.  Yup. Remember. I have no formal responsibilities. I’m tired. This is hard. 

Then back to camp.  I’m thinking I’m going to have to leave before the final hike to get back to Monterey at a reasonable hour. Darned Upper Endoscopy! Oldness. The kids cook dinner. They know there is still one more hike. A sunset hike up Black Hill. I have no doubt it will be gorgeous but the kids are tired. The teacher and I are talking and trying to figure out what time to leave so that we get to top at the right time.  A chant starts up.  Nearly the whole class is sitting around the fire chanting loudly, enthusiastically, “NO MORE HIKES. NO MORE HIKES. NO MORE HIKES...” I look at the teacher and she goes quiet and walks toward her tent. I sigh. The chant fades.

I walk over to the group. A parent is taking a group photo. She says, “Oh look, Mr. Swanson has joined us for the photo.” I say, “No, I’m here to yell at them” and it goes quiet. Only I don’t yell at them. I use a soft, quiet voice. “Your teacher has spent a lot of time and energy preparing this three day event for you. If you had worked so hard to create this trip and then you heard that chant, how would you feel?” A few “pretty bads” are uttered. “Well then,” I say. “I don’t know what you need to do to fix it, but I do know you need to hike up that hill tonight”. I point up the hill and I walk quietly away.  I now know I’m staying for the hike. I want to see what happens.

About 20 minutes later I’m sitting next to a girl near the fire. We’re watching the other kids play and she asks me, “Do we need to apologize to her?”  I say, “I don’t know what you need to do, but you need to do something.” She looks at me, nods, gets up and walks over to her classmates. I get up to find a snack.

A few minutes later a stream of kids forms. They are asking, where is she?  When they find her they all rush over and in a giant chorus yell out, “We’re sorry Maestra!” (she also teaches spanish).  She responds, “That’s NOT good enough!” pause, shock “I need a hug too!” and then there’s a massive group hug. Parents are smiling. Parents are crying. I smile. Kids are pretty cool.

The hike is great. “The view is amazing”. 31 kids streaming up a single track trail to see the sunset over the ocean and behind Morro Rock. So cool. As I’m taking a picture I see one girl still coming up. She looks very unhappy. She’s having a hard time navigating the steep rocks. Someone goes to help her and I wait for the photo. She has tears in her eyes. She may have never been on this kind of hike before. She looks like a newborn fawn, unsteady on her feet. 

When we gather to head back down it is obvious the young girl is going to need help. Getting to the top had emotionally exhausted her. The parents lead the rest of the class away and back to camp. Maestra takes her hand, “Hold my hand like we’re friends” and she walks with her the entire 2 miles down the trail. Holding tight on the steep parts. Offering advice on corners. Letting her gain confidence on smooth sections. I hang back behind them just in case more help is needed. It’s slow. Darkness comes in and we get out the flashlights. Meastra and I didn’t talk about what we needed to do. She was the rock. I was the subtle support that was there if needed. I just offered occasional words of encouragement.  When we got back it was pitch black and the other kids all gave a big cheer. The girl got hugs from her friends (after washing her hands - maybe poison oak?).   I get in my car and head out. What a day.

My takeaway is not that I had to use my TEACHER VOICE, or my quiet voice at science camp.  My takeaway is the beautiful power of love that kids have and the amazing force of will that 6th grade girl had. She conquered that upward climb all on her own. So powerful. I cannot imagine just how hard that must have been. It softens my heart.