Spring Lapsed...

In light of the fact that it is all of the sudden full on blazing summer, I thought I might pay a little tribute to spring, that little miracle that just happened. This is currently the view from our apartment:


In mid-April (yes, mid-April all you Southern people), it looked like this...

It's just as exciting every year isn't it??

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There are two ways to live:

you can live as if nothing is a miracle or you can live as if everything is a miracle.

-Albert Einstein

Thunder Snow in Narnia

The other night, I was deep into the Boards question bank on a snowy evening,
sitting across from
The International Man of Mystery,
Mr. Matthieu Larochelle,
when we saw flashes of light out the windows.

I looked at him totally confused,
"Was that lightening?"

We walked to the window as the sky let out the longest rumbling roll of thunder I've heard in spring, summer, or winter time weather.

"Do you think it's the apocalypse?" I asked,
convinced that wintertime thunder had never happened before.

There was another flash and rumble from the sky that was glowing with a yellow atmosphere.

Well, we decided this was something we couldn't miss.
So we suited up in coats, snow boots, and mittens over our unwavering study uniforms of sweatpants and hoodies,
and headed out into the night.

We were going to trudge across his backyard to a trail through the woods, but quickly realized the snow was above our knees.
So we shuffled along the sidewalk to the proper trail entrance as another bout of lightening and thunder unfurled over our heads.

We walked along the trail in the silence that only falling snow can create,
under formerly bare branches now thickly slathered with an icing of heavy, sticky snow.
We turned a corner to head further into the woods and came upon a clearing guarded by a 30 foot fir tree so laden with snow it was more white than green.
I paused before passing its branches and braced for the other side of the wardrobe,
we were entering Narnia.

Past the fir tree,
we couldn't see the apartment buildings any more,
there were no boards to study for,
no one else,
no footprints,
no signs of civilization.

Only snow and quiet and trees robed like angels looking down on us.
We followed the trail alongside a creek until we spotted a huge, untouched clearing on the otherside.
I stepped off the trail to make my way there and instantly sunk to my thigh.
I looked to the boy from Maine,
"It'll be like that all the way across."

I took another step, exhilarated at breaking fresh snow,
at stepping off the trail,
at snow falling into my boots,
covering my sweatpants,
and at stomping clumsily all the way to the creek.

We jumped across it, worked our way a little ways into the clearing,
and then sank straight down,
forming thrones out of the snow.

We sat breathing in the cold air with 12 gigantic, apostolic fir trees standing guard around the edge of the clearing and a few stars blinking down at us through the breaking clouds.
The night was glowing with an ambient light reflecting off the snow and sparkling against all the haze shuffling through the air.

I had forgotten about spiritual moments in the boards hustle.
But this one settled down nicely, resting in my hair and on my shoulders in the form of snowflakes.
And I breathed.

As we made our way back out, I nodded to the original fir tree keeping watch over this other world and thanked it for the brief respite.

This time, instead of taking the sidewalk, we charged up the hill in Matt's back yard, laughing and huffing our way through the thigh deep snow,
and as we crested the hill into his driveway,
this world suddenly felt like the foreign one.

--------------------------------------------
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.
-Robert Frost

My tree.

Someone came over the weekend and swept away the rest of the leaves from my yard,
and the temperature keeps dipping down to the 20's,
so I guess fall is really over.

This is the maple tree in my yard
throughout September and October
for those of you who don't get a New England fall.

I'll let you know when there's snow on it!

The Marathon: Part II aka Training gets real

Bronchospasms and Doubts:

At some point towards the beginning of training, I ran a 7mile mid-week group run with Erica and Chris, my how shall we say...speedier friends. I was struggling throughout the run but somewhat keeping it together, even though the thought "I can't even run 7 miles, how am I going to run a marathon?" kept cycling through my head. That is until we came upon Main Street, the biggest, baddest hill in town. If you turn onto Main St by Lake Champlain like we did, it goes up and up all the way to school. It doesn't start off too badly, so I was breathing heavily but still running with everyone until we passed in front of Edmunds Elementary where the hill looks like it decided to throw its head back and laugh mockingly at me. I kept heaving and heaving, but the oxygen getting to my legs was no longer enough and they slowed, despite my best efforts, to a slow shuffle. Erica and Chris looped back around for me. We hit a part that leveled out for a while and I caught my breath somewhat, but then we turned up another hill.

The shuffling started instantly this time and then heaving and the wheezing took on a life of their own. A shackled rattling sound started coming from my mouth so loudly that Erica & Chris (now well ahead of me) stopped and turned to see what it was. I pointed to my mouth and shrugged my shoulders, my eyes slightly panicked, to indicate to them I had no idea what was going on. I'd stopped running and my ribs were fluttering in and out in jagged motions. It's sheer panic when you're trapped in a body that's lost control of something so vital as breathing. Erica and Chris ran back down to me. I could only get words out in random spurts since I couldn't predict when the spasms would let air cross my vocal cords. The embarrassment started to reign, my breath sounds were uneven and loud and I had uncontrollable tears streaming down my face. Chris, whose brother has asthma, told me to bend over. He put his hand on my back and told me to try to push my ribs against his hand, to gain some control with my accessory breathing muscles. My tears splashed against the concrete sidewalk as my breathing slowly calmed down. Woah. That was scary. That's never happened to me before. We decided it must be a combination of pushing too hard and the cold, February air.

Erica suggested we walk up the rest of the hill and then start running again.

'Woah, wait...can't I be done now?! Remember when that really scary thing just happened?!? Surely I shouldn't keep running. But I guess they would keep running?? Although I guess I'm not by home so I would probably need to run home at least. Maybe I should run with them a little first to make sure I'm okay.'

All this runs through my head as we start running again, and I actually feel fine except the residue of panic left in my lungs. We end up on one of Chris' 'adventure runs' through fences and woods and yards, which slows us down a bit and gives my lungs some more recovery time. As we head back to school though, we turn up another hill, less steep by relentlessly long. One of those hills that keeps going around every corner. A little ways up, I'm struggling and announce 'I think I'm going to walk' as my feet change gait, which is met instantly by Erica whirling around with shock and concern on her face "No. You can't stop now! This is the training part! This is how you train for a marathon because your body always wants you to stop, but you just have to keep going."

"Even when the last hill you ran up caused you to temporally lose control of, oh say, YOUR BREATHING??", I think. I really thought I would be off the hook with that one and still can't quite believe I started running again, but Erica's enthusiasm is a force to be reckoned with, the force that convinced all of us to run the marathon in the first place, and it turns out she was right. I ran up the rest of that hill fine, and it was probably good I did it right away. And on my way up that hill, I formulated my 3 goals for this marathon training:

1) Finish the marathon in under 4:30
2) Be able to run up Main St. without even changing pace
3) Be able to run comfortably at Erica & Chris' pace

Gratitudes

Obvious statement of the week: Medical school is not so fun.

So,
I've decided,
like this amazing girl,
to start keeping track
of
some of the many, many,
many
things
I am grateful for.
Because there are many.
Did I say many?


Gratitude #1

Having about 25 of your friend show up for a sunrise (the sun rises at 5:30am people!) hike on a Friday morning before class.
Having your friend lead you in yelling "BANZAI" at the top of your lungs to welcome the sun and celebrate 10,000 years (its translation) of life & happiness.
Ya feelin' it?