Ten Feet Tall - XTC

Finally. 


I'm at my desk, my computer is hooked up, and I can almost see my house becoming a home. Almost. I've been in the weeds over here at marathon headquarters. What with a move, a crazed work schedule, trying to train, and various body maladies, life seems to have kept me away from my reports here. Turns out, I can't do it on the fly in weird places. Or rather, I don't want to. I tried it on my break at work, a plate of food steaming next to the PR computer as my fellow workers drifted by. The writing was disjointed and flat, lacking a certain toothsome quality I enjoy. Tried it on my laptop surrounded in boxes, the ever present load of donations piling up with crap I lugged to a new house than I never needed in the first place. That, not surprisingly, didn't feel so great either. I even made an attempt in longhand in a notebook that I imagined I might retype here later. But that felt counter to my idea of being where I am at as I tell the marathon/novel story. Seems it all just feels right to do it this way: I like to sit down, have my coffee in my favorite Frankoma mug, a treasured gift from my Tulsa friend Judith, on my right, at home on a tile coaster boasting a faded dandelion weed. Then a short hop from that, the mason jar sweats, beads of water collecting on the sides of it, having spent the evening in the refrigerator infusing the lemon and cucumber flavors. I just don't like water that much. It's boring. Gimme a lime. A lemon. Mint. Something. 


Anyhow, since we last met, I took a whole week off after the shots in my feet. Partly because I was unsure of them, and partly because I had to work full time and pack up my life and move. But I did manage to take the advice of a friend and look up a very sports-specific chiropractor to have him look at my condition. I added this nice member to my healthcare team. Dr. Zachary Greene is a dude from Boston. And by dude, I mean like a regular dude kind of guy. He's incredibly handsome, in a way that a lesbian such as myself might forget immediately. It is a breed of good-looking that is ripe with the zest of life, but a life that reads not of my world. Which is perfect because I am not functioning in my world right now. He's also a Red Sox fan, so we've already dispensed with the idea that we will ever speak of this. I loathe the Red Sox. Actually all things having to do with sports in Boston. Until Dr. Greene. Here is my Boston sports bright spot. 


Here is a story:


It seems that after a woman reclines through twenty years of her life, she develops a certain subset of muscles that do the majority of limited work required to get through an average day of strolling along a boulevard, smoking a pack of cigarettes on a second hand couch, waitressing in whatever establishment that has come to value wit and personality over speed, and sitting hunched over a keyboard at strange hours stolen during the night. Her body, over time, stops firing certain muscular synapses, while others begin to compensate for their lazier comrades. She develops secret heels spurs she knows nothing of over years of inactivity and slanted posture. She also acquires what a strapping doctor from Boston will later refer to as "a brick" in the middle of her back, refusing to give way to motion and startled by any suggestion to do so. And later, as she nears middle age and develops a desire to care for her long neglected body, donning a spandex ensemble and hopping into a running practice she never could have imagined while lighting the twelfth Marlboro Red of any given Tuesday, she is pounding on feet that seem to be jammed up, having done their best over the years to do what was asked of them in less than optimal circumstances. The tan doctor will wrap his hands around her feet, reminding her that these extremities have 26 bones in each, and those bones all have connective tissue, ligaments, cartilage, fascia surrounding all of it, and then maybe he would perform an educated yank and jerk, popping the arch of the foot to place it hadn't been since sixth grade, and maybe she would burst our laughing right there on the treatment table, the kind of laugh you'd see her let loose with on an old wooden roller coaster at Coney Island. An easy laugh of pure pleasure. The laugh of satisfaction. The laugh of having everything be right. These feet are then wrapped in ice packs with electrodes stuck to the soles, pulsing energy into the stuck places, asking them to wake up again.


Having my feet adjusted was, 
like, 
one of the best things ever. 


I am now under orders to be at physical therapy twice a week, each session coupled with adjustments. The feet, the hips, the back, the neck. Turns out I'm quite a mess. The doctor says I can make it through the race without killin' myself over it, but apparently I have a good amount of work to do to get myself to healthy. I feel pretty prepared to do the work, run the race, unpack my house, and hang out with my people. And charmed life that it seems to be, I may very well have the amazing opportunity to do that whole list of things. 


Ok.
I'm less than a month away.


Love,
Sara Elise