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The Finish Line

15 Apr

Two bombs went off at the finish line of the Boston Marathon today.

I still feel quite shocked and numb, and the words to my feelings are slow to come. I did have a fleeting moment of clarity, about finishing races, which I have done nine times in the past four years. A finish line is a mixed-up crush of elation, pride, relief, exhaustion and celebration, where the accomplishment of a race is realized both in hours and minutes and seconds, and in hugs and high fives.

At each of my finishes, I have basked in my strength, but also in distinct moments of vulnerability. As the body comes to rest, muscles twitching, asthma flaring, sweat turning quickly to shivers, these physical shifts can give way to an emotional overflow. Mostly it’s joy, but sometimes it’s disbelief at what you’ve just accomplished and a burst of reflexive tears just fill your eyes. So when I think, that today, the personally sacred moment of crossing a finish line was disrupted with the most unimaginable violence, the tears that come are just so deeply sad.

My thoughts and concerns are with all of the victims who have been injured, or killed, and with their loved ones who feel so helpless right now. My deepest gratitude to the first responders who ran into danger and mayhem and also to the doctors and nurses who received the wounded with focus and determination to ease their pain. My respect to the officials and citizens of Boston who I have no doubt will care for each other until every last person is healed and justice is brought to the criminals who blew up their city.

My heart though… my heart is with the runners and the finish lines they have yet to cross. Something tells me that when they do, they will let those tears flow and flow and flow.

Justine crosses finish line 12.09

Justine & Kevin at finish line 12.5.09

Zane congratulates Justine on race 12.09

de and J finish

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gammie half

TM finish line

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Mudder4Life

23 Sep

I entered my first half marathon in the fall of 2008.  I had never run over five miles at one time, let alone be officially timed while running.  I had only started running as a way to tire out my Golden Retrievers, then I realized it was good, cheap exercise, and it was stoking some creative energy that I thought I had long since snuffed out.  The only reason I entered that half marathon was at the nudge from a friend who is without a doubt the most authentically warm, genuine and positive person I have the pleasure to know and I had not one good argument to tell her I couldn’t do it.  Plus, I was getting addicted to that runner’s high.  I know, gag me, but it’s real.

Since that race in 2008, I have run six half marathons, two of which where off-road trail halfs, and as of tonight, three Tough Mudders.  As my team, the mighty Mudtallica walked around Truckee this morning, we were chatting about how we became Mudders, and it all goes back to me and an email I wrote on April 30, 2010 to several good friends who were each experiencing some of life’s hardest and darkest times.  The email was a rallying cry, an effort to inspire my friends to join me in showing life that we were not going to take its worst days without showing it how we live our best days.

As I sit here, sore as hell and chuckling about our adventure on the course yesterday (yet also feeling a bit of the post Mudder blues), I realized that my next organized event is not a run, but a much needed nudge to honor my writing and creativity, Camp Mighty.  I am seriously WAY MORE terrified of that than any eight foot Berlin Wall will ever be.  But, since I used my writing to inspire the friends that have now helped me complete three Tough Mudders, I wanted to share that email, and a picture of me, with my actual face showing, however covered in glorious mud.

Hope this inspires you too.  I imagine it can.

30 April 2010

So there I was last night, on my walk with the pooches, not really running this week as my body needed the rest after the half on Sunday, and my mind started doing its thing where it lets go and settles into my “write” brain.  My feet would not not run, so I let myself settle into short bursts of jogging as gentle as possible since my feet still ache from the race, I had not taken my inhaler, and most of all, was without proper boob support.  I started thinking about the next physical challenge I wanted to pose for myself since that seems to be the way I have kept sane the past two years.  The ideas and images of half marathons and trying out Cross Fit and getting back to yoga all meandered by.  Then I remembered an article I read in the NY Times the night before about a challenge called Tough Mudder.

Apparently the Tough Mudder is a not-race, meaning it is untimed, but it is a 7 mile course with intensely crazy-fun obstacles, like a mud run on steroids.  I f’ing love it.

Now comes the imagining part…

As I walked along last night, I started going all GI Jane and thinking about climbing hills, and rope walls, and slogging through mud and doing it with glee and shouts and laughs and yawps and promise of beer at the end.  And then I thought, who would be the best people to have on a team for this insanity?  Please see list above :-)

Each one of us, for all our blessings has had their share of shitstorms, stresses, dramas, depressions, worries, and hells on Earth the past year or so.  Between us I tallied up three divorces, one nearing divorce, two strained marriages, two kids with life threatening surgeries, two pending bankruptcies, one mom on chemo and radiation, one dad in a coma, two sick dogs, two dogs who passed away, cats given up to others, family members dying, friends dying… just amongst the 10 of us.  Each one of us has found strength in the others and damn it all to hell, our tough asses are still here facing these seeming disasters.  And each one of us has used physical strength, movement and activity to heal ourselves, or at the very least, expend some of the nervous energy that builds up in our battered hearts and minds.  We have a triathlete, two marathoners, several collegiate athletes, skiers, both amateur and pro, and some who just like to run and all who like to move their bodies.

I started to imagine each of us, standing together as a team at the top of some crazy-ass hill in the Northern California mountains in October getting ready to hurl ourselves down it Braveheart-style, scramble across logs and rocks and mud and water all the while helping each other along the course.  We would be our own Race for the Cure: the Cure for Fear, the Cure for Worry, the Cure for Stress, the Cure for Hating Your Job, the Cure for Anger, the Cure for Sadness, the Cure for Others Who Cannot Hurl Themselves Down a Hill…  Us.  We together could do that.

And I would write about it.  Oh boy would I.

So, dear friends, I just ask you to IMAGINE.  Just spend a little time this weekend imagining this.  It is five months away and the same weekend as the Nike Half and Full, which two of you I know were considering anyway.  We would be an AWESOME team.  We already have a coach on the list.  And I am really good with logistics.

IMAGINE.

Love you,
J.

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I Met Nora Ephron On The Lot At Paramount…

26 Jun

… in a cramped, dark portable that was shoved in behind the grip and electric buildings and rented to productions at Malibu beach front rates.  They want you to feel lucky to be on the lot, proximity to services being the intended benefit.  Me and my staff got hired to work on a reshoot of her latest movie, something ultimately forgettable staring John Travolta called “Numbers” and as most movies that get to that stage of reshoots was then renamed to “Lucky Numbers” for its release, and it was anything but.  It was only a few days of shooting, but it required a lot of prep to reassemble the disparate parts, get back as much of the original crew, basically anyone who could help find where the bodies were buried.

No one was happy to be there.  Reshoots suck.  They most often do not save a film that is not working and they just cost a lot of money and time.  Since my team was not with the original production, we were slightly disadvantaged: we were possibly untrustworthy and might be stooges for the studio; we did not know any of the good dirt from being on location in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in the late winter; and we certainly did not know Nora.

That last one scared the shit out of me.

I was a huge fan of her movies, so much so that “When Harry Met Sally” made me want to move to my birthplace – New York City! –  and live in a fantastic apartment while saying witty things and falling in love with a totally unexpected yet so-right-for-me man.

“Someone is staring at you in Personal Growth.”

Both “When Harry Met Sally” and “Sleepless In Seattle” made me feel romantic and sophisticated and hopeful and made my guts ache with laughter.  It was not until much later, and having seen both “Silkwood” and “Heartburn” when I was perhaps too young to fully understand all the themes going on there, that I realized she was the same person who was responsible for all of them.  I rewatched the earlier films making me, at that point, a fully committed Nora Ephron fan.

And now I had to meet her.  On a reshoot of a movie everyone hated.  One that she did not write but rewrote  in an attempt to make it work.  And it had to be in the shitty production office.  I was bound to disappoint and so did not want to.

Getting to meet your idols is a bonus of working in film production that not many of us really talk about too much to the outside world. There tends to be a lot of undue mystique about actors, and movie-making, that generates a lot of interest and curiosity, but once you’re on the inside, you only can really dork out about your obscure writer crush with your compadres.  First rule of production, don’t talk about production; or similar.  (Yes, there is a coolness factor, but that is merely to keep those on the outside from getting heated up which they can and do at the mention of anyone who has been in People Magazine.)  I can however tell Katrina, “ohmygodohmygod nora ephron is going to be here tomorrow holyshit what do we do is she going to like us what if she hates us holyshit.”  Said with love.

Anyhow, she was lovely.  She was gracious and serious and funny and direct and (like Sally) she likes it the way she likes it and damn it GOOD for her.  I did not have some come-to-Jesus moment with her, nor did she pick me out and say, “Kid, you’re tops, I’m taking you to New York with me to teach you everything I know.”  Nope, she was totally human.  All my worry about letting her much hyped (like Sally) high-maintenance needs and requirements for office and work space went out the window.  She was there to work on a terrible movie that she just needed to get through as professionally as possible.  She did that.

And then she kept writing.  Lucky for us, we will always have her words and movies.

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Life List #20: Get Back In The Christmas Spirit

18 Dec

There has been a bottleneck of unposted writings here at sugarleg HQ, one that only compares to the glut of emails in my work inbox.  Not that this is any excuse for not writing, but it is linked and as one of my ongoing personal projects is to be nicer to myself, I am going to resist what has become a reflexive self-takedown and instead, (although infinitely harder to do)  just let it be okay that I have not posted regularly for months.  I will ruminate  further on why I need to write regularly, mostly because I love to do it, and  it always makes me feel better to hit “publish” and then I will just get it together and write.

An easy way to get myself back on the writing wagon is to refer to my Life List, and see if there are any progress reports I can share on these projects and wishes.  Sure enough, #20, Get Back In The Christmas Spirit is timely and has hit some benchmarks!  After many years of less than enjoyable Christmases, I knew I would have to make a conscious choice to participate in the festivities of the season, even though I do get a wicked giggle out of the contrary grinchiness that is so close to the surface for so many.  More seriously however, is a deep sadness that many of us do experience and for reasons only those who have felt it will understand, I am unwilling to dismiss entirely.  I wrote about that sadness with particular clarity two years ago and when I re-read it on Friday it made me both smile and tear up.

So, it makes me happy to report the following heart-size growing merriments the past two weeks (with accompanying slideshow!):

I got a tiny tree that fit in the back seat of my car, and holds about one-third the ornaments I own.

I went to several Christmas parties and instead of ducking out early without saying goodbye, I ate, drank, danced, laughed, hugged, danced, smooched, recovered from hangovers, sore feet and lack of sleep and then did it all again.

I exchanged gifts and still will not ever understand the nuanced strategies of gift stealing.

I ate Christmas cookies for breakfast.

I put jingle bell collars on the dogs whenever we go for walks.

I got my nails painted bright red and my toes greenie-gold.

But, the biggest Return to Christmas Spirit has to be that I am going home to New Mexico for the first time in I think close to 15 years.  And although I am a little nervous about any unforeseen emotional land mines, I am so excited to be in my hometown, with my mom and many wonderful old friends who love me just the way I am because I often forget, they see me the way I need to remember to see myself: happy and capable and fun and deserving of all their love, attention and affection.  Welcome Christmas, bring your light!

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Tough Mudder Recap Teaser

25 Sep

Transition Time up in here.  I have been every kind of cliche about busy since late August: swamped, up to both ass and eyeballs, running around like a chicken with my head cut off, crawling across the finish lines of each day, etc.  I have actually been texting friends to ask if I texted them/voicemailed them/emailed them/snail mailed them because I CAN”T REMEMBER ANYTHING!  Transition Time this time is pretty much all welcome and exciting change that I created for myself, as opposed to Transition Time that is forced upon you and mainly reactionary.  That being said, I am nearing the end of my energy fueled by magic adrenaline, and now need to focus and balance and get back in front of the line.  It’s a much more inspiring view up there.

As a reminder mostly to myself that I intend to write a post about the Tough Mudder, here is the official video of the NorCal event from last weekend.  It was SO fun and SO beautiful up on the mountain and that beer tasted SO good at the end.  Here’s a sip.

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To Do: Get More Hummingbird Nectar

9 Aug


I know, I know, get a REAL camera.  However, I just wanted to point out with a RED ARROW that one of the addicts was sitting on the electrical wire tiny-eyeballing me when I got home as if to say, “Yo, lady, that feeder you poorly framed in the foreground is nearly empty and will be by later tonight.  Get on that will ya?”

I will, sheesh!

 

Kermit: Part III, The Last

19 May

Tonight marks four weeks since Kermit and I parted.  These particular four weeks have been monumentally busy, both professionally and personally, and my gratitude for this jolt of vitality cannot be overstated.  First, it has helped me cope with transitioning to the new wheels.  (Cloth seats are grabby and confusing.  What side is the gas tank on.  Why the eff doesn’t the rear window defroster turn itself off.  Etc.)  Next and more importantly, it has been the catalyst I have needed to go forward again.  I have been forced to be patient with a necessary inertia for close to two years now, a time in which I have learned and grown so much, yet am more than ready to bid farewell.

Saying that to Kermit however has been a lot harder than I thought.  And tonight, on my drive home in the new auto, I saw him sitting at the dealership all shined up with a big price tag in his windshield ready for someone to come take him home.

INT. CAR – EVENING
She bursts into tears.  Tom Petty, “You Don’t Know How It Feels” plays on the radio. 

(No really, that was playing.)

I have been trying to write this last post for the last two weeks.  Yes, work has been crazy, mostly due to the fact that my company has been sold to our biggest competitor in a nearly billion dollar deal, and yes, I took a four-day road trip to Southern Cal, and yes, one of my closest friends got her literal dream job and is moving three time zones away and all the last minute socializing that stirs up, and yes, both my dogs have been on a vet bender, and yes, SEAL Team 6 took out bin Laden, and yes, Kate Middleton’s dress was sublime, and yes, I did get up at 2:45AM to see it live, and yes, all the regular life stuff on top.  Even with the added action I intended to finish the Kermit posts, but every time I sat down to write, only nonsensical crap was coming out.  (I still don’t know if this makes sense or if it properly respects my time with the big green Allroad.)  The only thing I have figured out about why that might be happening is that I’m really missing our groove together and not getting the post done is a slightly immature rebellion in hopes of keeping the memories fresh.

Getting a new car during this time of transition is nothing but positive.  The facts are this: Kermit required more repair work than I could afford, or that he was was worth.  What chokes me up, is that I have always maintained and repaired all of my cars with care and diligence, but as  some very serious financial circumstances closed in on me, deferring maintenance on Kermit was a deliberate decision.  Not only do I miss my car, I feel guilty for nearly killing it.

Then I remembered “The Giving Tree.”  As much as The Boy is a caricature of insolent behavior due to his relentless selfishness, The Tree epitomizes warmth and respect and grace and love.  I will not compare myself to The Boy, but I will compare Kermit to The Tree.  He so consistently took care of me, over the hundred thousand miles we spent together hauling around me and my life, always making me look good, even when I felt very, very bad.  His final good deed was to provide the completely unexpected and sizable down payment for the new car.  To not be able to fix him myself as repayment for his service has troubled me, which I know, sounds absurd.  I am aware that I am describing a car, not a person.  I am aware that Kermit is a machine, worth only how well his parts work and what that market values.

But no matter what, I will forever love and appreciate that car like a member of my tribe, for always taking care of me, and for sticking by me through the very end, and now watching me go forward into my limitless future.

In a few days, I’ll introduce you to the new auto.  Kermit approves.

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On The News of bin Laden’s Death

1 May

The last six days of my life have been, for lack of a better description possibly due to the overload, extremely eventful,  on a personal , national and global level.  I want to pause to focus on the global for a moment, and offer up a quick personal reflection on the news of Osama bin Laden’s death at the hand of an elite American SEAL team, the CIA and the command of President Obama.  There is a part of me that is quite satisfied that the last thing he saw was an American bullet hitting him in the left eye, but mostly I am in deep thought and throwing out a few prayers in my own way.

First, I offer up my sincere and humble gratitude to the military and intelligence community for their service and tireless efforts to protect all Americans and in fact, most citizens of the world.  The sacrifice involved in making that kind of commitment to a duty is one that I have not pondered enough to fully grasp, but know without a doubt that it is deeply honorable and deserves respect.  So, I thank you again and again, and support your service that keeps me and our country safe.

Tonight, after the speech from President Obama declaring that we had killed bin Laden, I watched the reports of crowds in front of the White House and then took a look at Facebook to see the reactions.  For the most part, I felt dismayed, not by the genuine release of emotion at this news, but by the semi-thoughtless way in which people were basically celebrating his death.  I felt strongly it was not the time to break into chants of “USA!” but instead to gather for humble reflection at what the symbolic power of his death is about.  Yes, this perhaps brings a sense of peace for those who lost family and friends on 9/11 and in the ensuing 10 years of war, but mostly, it should be time to find that strength and unity so palpable immediately following the attacks.  I know this is idealistic and some would say naive, but I know it is possible, because I experienced it in the months right after… before it became a quagmire of politics and war.

On the anniversary of 9/11, I have often shared the following photos of my brother and I on top of the World Trade Center, or as we liked to call them, the Twin Towers.  They were taken on a hot July night in 1983, on a sunset trip to the viewing deck with our aunt.  We were on a  month long vacation to visit our family in New York and hit all the biggest and best NYC tourist spots.  We are wearing tee-shirts that we had gotten at a make-your-own shop in a mall in Albany the week before, mine is emblazoned with a decal of Duran Duran, also the same photo that hung in a massive poster on the ceiling above my bed.  Oh, to be 12 again.

In this photo, we are horsing around on the pay phones, and undoubtedly were looking in all the coin returns for forgotten dimes.  My brother has the visitor’s guide book in his back left pocket.  The copy reads, quite chillingly, “The closest some of us will ever get to heaven.”


Next is my favorite photograph, one that makes me tear up and smile nearly every time I see it.  My grandmother wrote on the back of the photo, ” …doing cartwheels in the sky.”   I actually have a memory of doing  that row of cartwheels, down one side of the deck, seeing the sun setting and the city lights brighten.

My thoughts and prayers are with all Americans today, especially those directly affected by bin Laden’s hateful attack.  Let us rise up together, with all our myriad opinions and backgrounds and stories and go forward, if for no other reason than  to honor those who died that terrible day.

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Kermit: Part I.(V)

27 Apr

(Work went sideways today and into this evening.  Don’t know if I will finish the rest of this tonight, so here is the in between.)

Kermit the 2nd went into service about a month after the accident, which at that time was about a month prior to the wedding we were about to host.  We were already married, but were finally getting around to having the big celebration, and if you have ever hosted a wedding, you can understand that having a colossal car accident which requires replacing the car via car insurance claims and attorneys and a car dealer two months before you are inundated with family and guests and a weekend filled with highly coordinated events and logistics, well, yeah, it was a bit of added stress that I did not need.  (Oh, and my caterer died.  Literally dropped dead and I just happened to read his OBITUARY in the LA Times while drinking my morning tea a short time before the accident.  Again, pay attention to the signs people!!  The answers are always there. )

Annnnyhoodle, getting my new Kermit was a welcome calm in the chaos and we bonded instantly.  One of the only places I ever felt safe emotionally was during my drive time.  Even if I was headed home, the place where all the hurt and yet unknown dramas were waiting for me, I would float along in my big steel cage on wheels signing songs with all the windows down like I had not a care in the world.

Right at the very height of our relationship’s demise, he took my car to Utah for a ski vacation.  The ski vacation of course that we took together every year, but he announced he was going alone and he took my car since it was four-wheel drive.  I did not like this one bit.  Not only was I pretty well wrecked at that point because we had not yet made The Decision (even though we both knew it was coming and frankly, had not figured out how to get there sooner), all I wanted to do was get in MY car and drive drive drive away to get my head cleared.  When he came back, there was a big white chunky stain on the driver’s side floor mat.  It was from road salt that he must have tracked into the car on his boots from the snowy roads.  Even months after we split I used to sit and look at that stain and seethe that he didn’t place the all-weather mats properly, and that he didn’t clack his boots together to get off the excess salted snow and so every time I looked at that damn stain I thought, “What kind of a jerk leaves his wife he’s about to divorce alone for two weeks but takes HER car to do it?”  An asshole that’s who.

When he got back, he moved out.  Double good news:  I was going to be freed from the mismatch that had temporarily turned me into a shadow of myself, AND I got to keep my car.  It was on to the next part of the journey for me and Kermit.

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Kermit: Part I

24 Apr

Last Thursday night I ended my day in an unusual way.  I went and got a new car.  New car getting is terribly exciting and I have been very lucky to have had this experience many times in my life.  If I count just brand spanking new cars with less than 20 miles on the odometer, that’s four times including Thursday night.  I have also had two private owner cash purchases and one “pre-owned dealer-certified” experience as well.  It should be noted that this covers nearly 25 years of car getting.

I am of course very happy about the new car with its distinct new car smells and fuel efficiency and shininess and practicality.  But I am sad too.  I am missing my Kermit, my four-wheeled companion for the last nine years.  A lot has happened in the past nine years, but one constant has always been me and my big green Audi Allroad who faithfully carried me and my life in and out far and near and always through everything/everywhere/everyway I wanted to go.  And yes, I am crying buckets of wistful tears over my time spent with this hunk of metal.

Kermit actually existed in two versions of itself.  The first generation joined me in 2002 fairly soon after I was engaged and moved in with my fiancé.  I was driving another beloved Audi at the time, Ruby the A4, but she was too sporty for all the schlepping that I was needing to manage with my two new charges, my soon-to-be-step-daughters not to mention the plan to get a dog, (which then became two dogs).   She was a manual transmission too, so fun to drive, but again, not so practical.  His Land Cruiser, while bitchen, was just too huge, so I suggested the Allroads, being an ardent Audi fan.  (Including my three, there have been a total of seven Audis in my immediate family, one still being thoroughly enjoyed by my brother.)  He found one that was a year old, had 17,000 miles on it and every single solitary option you can think of as it was owned by a full-on Audi geek.  The geek man loved it, but wanted a new Audi toy, so we lucked out and got it for a great price with all the tricked out features to boot.  Plus, it could handle the amount of gear and sports equipment we were about to foist upon it.

My love for that car was immediate and intense.  I would read the manuals before bed until I understood all the specs; I would get it washed once a week; I would snuggle into the heated seats if it was anything below 70 degrees outside.  And it could pass going 80 uphill!  And it could take a corner like a Porsche!  And it could 4-wheel drive romp through mud and snow!  And the stereo was a private front row concert to all my favorite tunes every day!  Plus, it felt like it was all happening while riding on a cloud.

Then, one morning while driving along in a 40 MPH zone on the now almost auto-pilot route to work, a kid pulled a U-turn from a parked spot right in front of me and I crashed into her left front axle, thankfully not her door or I would have killed or maimed her. There was smoke and screeches and airbags and broken glass and adrenaline and when I could see again a few moments after impact, I unlatched my seat belt and walked away from my car that was now, as they say, totaled.  When my then-husband arrived at the scene and I burst into tears at the sight of him, he was apparently so comforted that I was up and walking around with no visible signs of injury, he dismissed me, and instead went over to the car as it was getting loaded up on the flatbed tow truck and sighed perhaps too heavy and sad a sigh over a hunk of metal in the face of my obvious shock and oncoming bruises and pains.  (That should have been the final straw for me that the marriage was not going to make it, but it took a few more car-crash like events to really get it through my head.  Live and learn, and please, just listen to your gut every single time!  An important digression…)   He came back over to me and said with utter exasperation he didn’t know what he was going to do now, and I said, through more tears, “All I know is, I want the exact same kind of car.”

And so, the 2nd generation Kermit came into my life. 

More on him and me tomorrow.  I need to back away from the keyboard, wipe these tears and go for a run!

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