Why the Boston Marathon Bombings Hit Particularly Hard

I can describe it as a cement-block hardening in my chest. It’s not that other tragedies don’t affect me viscerally. But sometimes, we feel certain events more intensely, without being able to explain why — and not wanting to explain it, not wanting to come off as unfeeling toward those starving in X country, toward bombings every day in Y country.

But, I think I’ve figured it out.

The end of a marathon — especially Boston — is a symbol of hope, accomplishment, and a life goal to so many people. Back in 2004, I was very involved in the running-marathons community, if only in my head. I ran a half-marathon in San Francisco. I’ve run 5Ks, 10Ks, have done those “add it up and it equals a marathon” runs.

I’ve been there: the planning, the effort, the excitement. The setting out of matching argyle socks to wear with a boyfriend when we ran our first 5k in Miami. Holding my best friend’s sweaty hand at the finish line of the San Francisco half-marathon. The way she slowed for me when my lungs tightened; the way I slowed for her when her stomach tightened. And the loosening, the ecstasy, the heart-with-wings feeling at the end.

I remember running the Bolder Boulder in my mountain home, what it represented for me to move my body in that way after a 90mph car accident. To claim a place as mine by pounding down its streets with thousands of people, all striving for the same thing, the energy of it, the flow forward.

And now, bombs. At the finish line. Humans, actually did that.

It sickens me. The cement block feeling returns.

::breathes::

My heart sends love to everyone in Boston, to everyone who flew there, to their beloveds. And, to the people who planted them — these pain bodies in the world are in all of us, and healing them on an individual level is where we can all start, until we get to a place where we can grow and heal through wisdom — not experience.

The Writer’s Shop: A Business Proposal

Dear investor,

The shop will acknowledge a writer’s many layers of inspiration and put them in one convenient, sensitive space. It will have a section for music—grouped by headings such as Sultry, Spiked, Airy—and a section with a variety of pens, journals and keyboards. The shop will serve wine and coffee at all hours of the day (see attached: Operational Requirements) and perhaps manzanilla and bourbon.

The shop will sell books on writing, poetry, sin, sex, evolution and consciousness. In the back we will have a “perfumes of ex-lovers” corner, a “spices from your mother’s kitchen” shelf, and various aromas of common narcotics. It will have a second story with an open balcony for throwing oneself off of a ledge and climbing back up again (see: Budget Plan, Section C: large used mattresses, ladders). It will have a dark attic equipped with shovels, and sand-filled crawl spaces, where writer’s can practice digging toward things we can’t see, whose edges are undefined, whose sprawl is unknown.

We will not do any writing, for safety precautions.

Thank you.

A thing to admit

"Admit" is a word you'd have to teach an English learner very carefully. It brings with it a weightiness; it's a thing you've been carrying around that you really need to set down for a minute. It brings to mind the idea of burden, of secret magnitude. It is not bulbous but meaty, made of stone and carved in the dark alleys of your impulses.

Here is something I'd like to admit:

I hardly ever read (entire) books.

I carry them around a lot. I buy them new, often at full price, and carry them with my laptop while headed to a coffee shop or wine bar to write or edit. Then, I sit them on the table in front of me... and open my laptop. And close it. And leave, books thumbed but not truly entered.

Due to the nature of coffee shop tables—often sticky with cream, sugar, ink that's escaped a page—the books I bring begin to look worn. I go, I come, I take them to my car where they are subject to the weariness of travel. They are on the passenger side floor next to the magazine I edit, they are in the backseat on top of my yoga mat, they are next to me under my Spanish teaching books, fellow warriors in the odd metallic bookcase that is my car.

But they are not often in my hands. Their words remain on the pages and don't travel through me—just, with me.

My current "books I'm walking around with" pile.

Often, we admit things because we'd like to change them. Or, we'd like to think that the admission will spur a change without us having to try so hard. If the whole world can see my faults, perhaps when I am in a coffee shop a friend will come by and ask, "How is that book?" with a wink, and I will know they are part of the team I created to conspire against myself to make me close my laptop, stop working on whatever I'm editing—and editing is also an art to me, but it's so close to my soul art of writing that I can do it and feel productive without producing—and read.

I'm an editor and a writer, but so much of what I do is not reading. I write a piece, and though I'll look it over several times for errors and places to amplify it, this is not reading. I edit other people's work, pull it apart and gnaw on it. And oh, how I remember the details—"This isn't my edited version, this hyphen is not an em dash." But I may not remember the heart of it, even if the peelings are scattered next to me.

To read and read well is a practice. It helps craft the imagination. It helps me sink into that place where I can pull things out and place them, sweaty-handed, on the table in a collage of emotion and inspiration. Reading is the other half of my writing, it is the folded-over blanket, the curve of the body that is so different from the back than the front, but it is still the same body. It is the salve to my ache when that ache is writing, when I have been so far away from it that it scares me. It is the stimulator to my over-edited mind. It is the—here, we're done, we've traveled in and through and out today… where shall we go next?

On triggers and disarming our inner landmines

We use the word "trigger" when we talk about someone/something that gives us an unpleasant feeling specifically because it relates to a bad experience or a negative issue we haven't worked through.

What he said really triggered me.
It triggers me when she talks about her boss.

I've used it, often back in my early days of Boulder, when every word with a new meaning—"manifest," "project," etc.—begged me to latch on to it, stitch it up in an invisible dictionary and toss it at unsuspecting East Coasters on my trips home.

For example:
Hey, sorry I'm late. But don't worry, I'm manifesting a parking spot right in front of the bar.
Or:
I think maybe you're projecting that on to me. Have you tried Emotional Freedom Technique?

But within this exciting world of New Age lexicon, what happens if we don't want to be triggered anymore, when we want to let go of and move through our issues?

Conscious communication gurus (like this guy and this couple, both of whom cradle me in sweet sanity in my darkest moments) teach us that nothing makes us feel a certain way; we own our emotions and we are the creators of how we feel. "You make me happy." No— "I feel happy when I'm around you."

When we say something triggers us, we give it power. Why frame it that way, blocking us from going inward toward further understanding? What does the trigger look like? Is it purple, black, red? What is its shape? Is it the shape of a golf ball, your mother's wedding ring, a ruler, a locker room? How does it smell, how does it taste?

My triggers taste like a French pastry (yes, I made this at Frasca's Caffe).

I'm trying to be grateful to people who trigger me, toward reframing the idea of a trigger and saying instead: this person reminds me that I have armory around, that I have things inside that can explode. Let's disarm the system; let's take out the bullets so there is nothing that can hurt me.

Instead of, "He triggers me," how about, "He helps me to notice my intricate and treacherous inner landscape of security sensors and landmines, and begin the journey toward disarming them." Over an almond-milk latte. On a sunny Boulder no-work weekday.

Better.

Boulderites: 5 Ways People Spot You in Denver (Lunchtime Edition)

You ask to sit with strangers.
While everyone else during lunch rush hour stands around and glares at everyone who is seated, you walk right up to two business ladies and ask to sit with them. They don't hear you at first—it's like that first time someone asks you something in a foreign language you are learning, and although you know the words, they're strung in a way you haven't heard before and you need to have it repeated. You repeat. They say yes, and you sit with them and get up once for your veggie sandwich, again for your vegan soup, and a third time for your organic vegetable juice with just a touch of ginger.

You take your Chinese herbs with no shame.
At the crowded water bar, you patiently scoop out one, two, three, four teaspoons of your Chinese medicinal herbs that your acupuncturist gave you and pour a few ounces of water over them. Then you must drink them and re-pour water once again to get any remaining herbs (don't want to miss any Dong Quai), drink, then re-pour a full glass one final time, while everyone waits.

You ask too many questions at the coffee shop.
What kind of milk do you have? Oh, you don't have almond? But you have coconut... interesting, does that foam well in a latte? If I were to get whole milk, would it be Morning Fresh? Um, yes, Morning Fresh is locally produced... And, where does your coffee come from? And your espresso beans? I'll just have an 8-ounce.

You leave thousands of dollars of electronics unguarded.
You go to the bathroom down a long hallway and oh, how cute, a little art gallery is attached to this coffee shop! Let's just look inside. And do some email and texting in the loo. When you finally come back the girl next to you stares at you, horrified that you left your Macbook Pro alone, without it even being attached to a plug, for seven whole minutes. Then you realize you forgot your Conscious Loving book in the car and go get that—taking your purse, of course.

You do all of this in the middle of the day on Thursday.
You're an independent entrepreneurial freelance start-up professional. You have time for everything.

[Sip-spiration] Snowglobe Friday

There is no new leaf; turn yourself over.

—Stephen Elliott, The Rumpus

Three links for a snowy afternoon in Boulder:

I have great respect for Elliot and his online culture magazine, The Rumpus. Fellow artists, creators and destroyers: have a look at why he writes.

Nurse reveals top five regrets people make on their deathbed. "I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me," and "I wish I didn’t work so hard," among others. Live by these now; the universe will listen.

[Talking Pretty Today] Logical Deduction

5-year-old Oscar: "Where are you from?"
Me: "I'm from New Jersey."
Oscar: "What is your..." ::pause:: "hairtage?"
Me: "Oh. Well, I'm American and Pacific Islander."
Oscar: ::frowns:: "Did your island sink?"