Least Complicated

“So what makes me think I can start clean-slated?/ The hardest to learn was the least complicated.” –Indigo Girls

It’s not necessarily getting harder to run longer distances but it is getting harder to live a normal life while training for this marathon.

The 2-hour early morning adventures are as romantic as ever, with all the mysterious exchanged glances/shared pain and 360 degree sunrise beauty.

It’s both as difficult as I like and as peaceful.

This morning I did only my second run to Fullerton for 10 miles. A lot (and nothing) happened and my mind started twisting after I turned to come back. Knowing I had made it halfway, I started to worry—why am I slowing down? What’s that ache in my hip? How long will I be out if that becomes an injury? Why can’t I focus on anything not related to running anymore? What if I never go back to work? (I don’t want to.) Will Farm Sanctuary or the yoga ranch have room for me when I sell my condo, abandon society, and devote my remaining years to meditating and volunteer service to rescued goats, pigs and cows?

The simplest thing—putting one foot in front of the other, over and over—became a mental matrix, a web that immobilized me in complication. (It reminded me of the overused TV medical drama subject—the ‘locked in’ patient. Like my body was running but my mind didn’t know it. Total psych/physio disconnect.)

Yesterday (as most of the world knows by now) I found a fallen baby bird. That’s Lennox, on the left above, who lived. I watched the sweet sparrow struggle for hours under a tree, waiting for a miracle. A probable mother would flutter over to visit, but…what could she do? The nest was 50 feet above.

As I watched, I felt as helpless as the bird. Eventually I got my ass in gear and called around for help. Turns out Chicago has an organization that will come and rescue fallen and injured birds—pick them up!—and take them to a wildlife sanctuary for rehab. Chicago Bird Collision Monitors is a hard-working and generous woman who took my call and immediately arranged to meet me in my neighborhood to pick up and save the bird.

I met her van in a McDonald’s parking lot. I had carried Lennox in an Earth Balance margarine tub (talking soothingly to the margarine tub during the whole walk down Foster). This amazing woman assessed his condition and said “Oh, this little sparrow will be fine! The wind in the last two days has just blown a lot of nests over.” She added Lennox to the collected fallen. He even had a Tupperware roomie who looked like he could be his big brother.

As she closed the door I said “I love you” to the baby bird and this lady didn’t look at me like I was crazy, so she is definitely my kind of people.

And what did I learn about running from this episode? Life, marathon training, city dwelling and witnessing struggle will render you helpless. You’re locked in even when you’re fully conscious. What’s crazier than having wings but not knowing how to fly? Lennox and I are each full of potential and also crippled. So are you.

I won’t get to witness my Foster-child learning to fly. But it’ll happen. Clean-slated now, he’ll decide to trust his new family, adapt to his new surroundings, gain confidence and, one day, fulfill his simple destiny of flight.

And that’s all he has to worry about.