The further I run, the worse my taste in music becomes.
Last weekend I faced a 13-mile challenge. I have completed this distance only once before, when I participated in the Royal Parks half marathon last October, and a significant part of that accomplishment was directly owing to the atmosphere of the occasion: roads lined with smilingly encouraging spectators and my own dear family popping up at regular intervals to wave and cheer wildly.
On Saturday, I was on my own. I got up to freezing cold and darkness, leaving behind a warm bed and an even cosier toddler. In her white, poppered-up sleepsuit, baby Betty waved me off frowsily, hugging her bottle of milk to her. It took every ounce of my resolve not to crawl back under the duvet to her baby breath and soft burrowing body.
So as I stepped out onto the frost-rimed pavements, beneath skies that were purple with the merest suggestion of dawn, I was in dire need of aural sustenance. I have done many runs to nothing but the sound of my own pulse in my ears but increasingly as the distances stretch longer in front of me I find myself resorting to assistance from my ipod.
Early on in my running career, years ago when Grace was very, very little and the game was for far smaller chips, I crafted playlists to dream to: thoughtful, earnest warblings about spirituality, love and hope that inspired me.
They didn't last long, largely because when I listened to them on the treadmill my runs didn't either.
Next, I resorted to brash pop: Blondie was a favourite for a while and around this point I believe I managed a whole 3 miles. Then I segued into pop pop and hip-hop for a while, listening surreptitiously to Justin Timberlake (my husband did not approve) and NERD.
When my marriage was falling apart I went through a punky, shouty phase (I'm still referring to the music here) and slogged around the grid of streets near my home in Washington DC to the likes of Killing Joke and The Teardrop Explodes. Then when I fell in love again a few years later the happy optimism of old 80s favourites held sway as I skipped around Blackheath and under the big skies of Greenwich Park to playlists composed of Duran Duran and Go West.
The nearest I've come to contemplative music subsequently was probably a short while after that, when I was pregnant again and my run was reduced to the slow glide of a stately galleon. I would advance with languorous majesty and feel Betty kick and swim inside me in response to Kate Bush -- though Aerial made me cry I played it obsessively, repeatedly.
Then I was running again, and running for the reasons detailed here over the last months. To urge me on further and faster I sought the sounds of The Chemical Brothers, Justice and Fischerspooner (Just Let Go was my mantra for many weeks as I sought to overcome heart-pounding stress and upset.)
Lately though, I've been too tired and too busy to look for quality. Frankly, given the distances I'm travelling I'm happy with a bargain bucket of 12-inch Ibiza remixes and some extra banging bits. I'm guiltily aware of the damage to my soul. In terms of self-improvement this stuff is up there with Puff the Magic Dragon. Or not, actually, because the latter at least preaches a message of understanding and inclusion, while the main theme in my playlists now appears to be how quickly and successfully one can get laid.
It can't go on. I ran those 13 miles thanks to the mindless urgings of my current playlist and felt good at the end of them. Today it helped me to complete my interval training with bells on -- beating time targets for every one of the 5 miles I belted through on the treadmill in the gym, driving my tired legs to the, ahem, phat beats. But the videos playing on the line of televisions above me there further emphasised the moral quality of the tunes I'm now sickeningly hooked on: booby ladies in shorts and gangsta thugs in gold chains somehow do not making a fitting soundtrack to my noble marathon challenge.
That said, this last phase has been liberating. It's been kind of nice not to have something else to worry about. I find that actually I don't care about being cool, I have no clue who's been listed for the Mercury Prize and I don't need to be able to say I liked x, y or z years ago.
As some fella called Dizzee's been telling me: some people think I'm bonkers, but I just think I'm free.
Tuesday, 17 January 2012
Sunday, 8 January 2012
Go to sleep, my baby
It is nearly eleven o'clock at night and Grace is still awake.
It is the end of the holidays and she has just returned from a week with her father. Since spending Christmas week with me, she has been in Ireland, kicking up her heels and over the traces; all routine gone in exchange for a round of cheers and songs and jokes and music and up all hours and smoky rooms and go on just another one and well now Gracie D, I'd say you've grown, from endless rounds of relatives.
She has come back taller, happy in herself and relaxed. She is also paler and shattered, wearily elegant: wearing dark circles under her eyes and purple varnish on her fingernails.
It's been three weeks of presents, parties and time away from school. This sense of unreality is hard for her to shake off -- not least because an element of it is always present, for her, even on her most grounded and formulaic school-and-home-for-tea days. My first mention of piano practice was met with a shriek -- head tilted back, eyes screwed shut -- and a "NO!" and fists hammering on the chair. Later on a request that homework be finished this weekend was more calmly received but still the eyes rolled and nostrils flared; there was a pretty stamp of her foot. I breathe in and out and say calm things inside my head. It's a careful, slow process, this reeling her in and tethering her back down, and I sympathise with her reluctance.
I'm as tired as she is, and make it an early night. I encounter her in the bathroom, pacing and talking to herself. I send her to bed.
A short while later, I look into her bedroom. Then I climb the ladder up to her bed, where she lies stiffly, faking sleep beneath her eye mask (pilfered from my room, it helps her to calm her senses and close her eyes.) I can see only her nose and her mouth, the set of which tells me she is tense.
"Come on," I say gently. "It's time to get ready to go back to it now."
She winces as if I have struck her.
"But Mummy," she says, "I don't want to go back. I don't want to go back to school and all the arguments and getting people annoyed."
"You don't have to go back to that," I say. "They're getting better at understanding you and I'm going to make sure that they keep getting better."
"But -- " she bites her lip. "What about X?" She names her latest persecutor.
"Don't worry about X," I say. "The teachers know she's playing up and they're watching her. Now, we're going to have a lovely weekend. We'll have lots of cuddles and kisses and rest and relaxing. We'll have good food and good sleep -- and if you sleep you'll be much better at keeping your temper and being patient and able to concentrate."
Grace exhales a long breath, slowly.
"Ok. But will you sing me a song, Mummy? Please?"
So I sing her a song, the same song that I have shushed her to sleep with for years. I lean over and put one arm around her and cradle her, while I murmur the words of the lullaby across her skin: along her forehead and into her hairline; into the pale gleam of her ear, down along her petal-smooth cheek to her jawline and along to her soft mouth, which I kiss as I sing: "Go to sleep, my baby, Close your pretty eyes, Angels are above you, Peeping at you, darling, from the skies." I stroke her hair and trace the length of her nose. "Great big moon is shining, Stars begin to peep, Time for little Gracie to go to sleep, Time for Gracie to go to sleep."
Her mouth curves in a faint smile. Her body has relaxed.
"Goodnight Grace," I say.
"Goodnight Mummy," she answers. "I love you."
The next evening, at around the same time, I check on Grace. She is still awake and asks me if I will sing to her again. She shuffles over to the edge of her bed so that I can put my arms around her again. Before I start to sing, she angles her head up to where she thinks my face is -- she is again wearing her eye mask and the action renders her entirely fragile and vulnerable -- to tell me something.
She says: "I've decided I'm really looking forward to the start of school, Mummy. There will be loads of interesting things to do before we get stuck into the boring old schoolwork and I'm thinking, hey, it will be good!"
The forced enthusiasm and bravery in her voice skewer me. I sing to her and I'm glad that she can't see my face. I sing to her with my voice cracking and my eyes filling up with tears. I think how courageous she is and how endlessly optimistic. I think of the baby she was when I whispered her to sleep with this song. I think of the toddler and the little, little girl she was. I think of Betty in her room across the landing, pink and flushed, cocooned in sleep and smelling of bubble bath, who also now asks me to sing her the same song. I think of the gulf between my two girls and fear for the differences in the lives they will lead and I tilt my head back as I sing so that the tears do not spill.
When I am finished Grace murmurs sleepily: "Just one more time please Mummy."
I swallow hard and start singing again.
It is the end of the holidays and she has just returned from a week with her father. Since spending Christmas week with me, she has been in Ireland, kicking up her heels and over the traces; all routine gone in exchange for a round of cheers and songs and jokes and music and up all hours and smoky rooms and go on just another one and well now Gracie D, I'd say you've grown, from endless rounds of relatives.
She has come back taller, happy in herself and relaxed. She is also paler and shattered, wearily elegant: wearing dark circles under her eyes and purple varnish on her fingernails.
It's been three weeks of presents, parties and time away from school. This sense of unreality is hard for her to shake off -- not least because an element of it is always present, for her, even on her most grounded and formulaic school-and-home-for-tea days. My first mention of piano practice was met with a shriek -- head tilted back, eyes screwed shut -- and a "NO!" and fists hammering on the chair. Later on a request that homework be finished this weekend was more calmly received but still the eyes rolled and nostrils flared; there was a pretty stamp of her foot. I breathe in and out and say calm things inside my head. It's a careful, slow process, this reeling her in and tethering her back down, and I sympathise with her reluctance.
I'm as tired as she is, and make it an early night. I encounter her in the bathroom, pacing and talking to herself. I send her to bed.
A short while later, I look into her bedroom. Then I climb the ladder up to her bed, where she lies stiffly, faking sleep beneath her eye mask (pilfered from my room, it helps her to calm her senses and close her eyes.) I can see only her nose and her mouth, the set of which tells me she is tense.
"Come on," I say gently. "It's time to get ready to go back to it now."
She winces as if I have struck her.
"But Mummy," she says, "I don't want to go back. I don't want to go back to school and all the arguments and getting people annoyed."
"You don't have to go back to that," I say. "They're getting better at understanding you and I'm going to make sure that they keep getting better."
"But -- " she bites her lip. "What about X?" She names her latest persecutor.
"Don't worry about X," I say. "The teachers know she's playing up and they're watching her. Now, we're going to have a lovely weekend. We'll have lots of cuddles and kisses and rest and relaxing. We'll have good food and good sleep -- and if you sleep you'll be much better at keeping your temper and being patient and able to concentrate."
Grace exhales a long breath, slowly.
"Ok. But will you sing me a song, Mummy? Please?"
So I sing her a song, the same song that I have shushed her to sleep with for years. I lean over and put one arm around her and cradle her, while I murmur the words of the lullaby across her skin: along her forehead and into her hairline; into the pale gleam of her ear, down along her petal-smooth cheek to her jawline and along to her soft mouth, which I kiss as I sing: "Go to sleep, my baby, Close your pretty eyes, Angels are above you, Peeping at you, darling, from the skies." I stroke her hair and trace the length of her nose. "Great big moon is shining, Stars begin to peep, Time for little Gracie to go to sleep, Time for Gracie to go to sleep."
Her mouth curves in a faint smile. Her body has relaxed.
"Goodnight Grace," I say.
"Goodnight Mummy," she answers. "I love you."
The next evening, at around the same time, I check on Grace. She is still awake and asks me if I will sing to her again. She shuffles over to the edge of her bed so that I can put my arms around her again. Before I start to sing, she angles her head up to where she thinks my face is -- she is again wearing her eye mask and the action renders her entirely fragile and vulnerable -- to tell me something.
She says: "I've decided I'm really looking forward to the start of school, Mummy. There will be loads of interesting things to do before we get stuck into the boring old schoolwork and I'm thinking, hey, it will be good!"
The forced enthusiasm and bravery in her voice skewer me. I sing to her and I'm glad that she can't see my face. I sing to her with my voice cracking and my eyes filling up with tears. I think how courageous she is and how endlessly optimistic. I think of the baby she was when I whispered her to sleep with this song. I think of the toddler and the little, little girl she was. I think of Betty in her room across the landing, pink and flushed, cocooned in sleep and smelling of bubble bath, who also now asks me to sing her the same song. I think of the gulf between my two girls and fear for the differences in the lives they will lead and I tilt my head back as I sing so that the tears do not spill.
When I am finished Grace murmurs sleepily: "Just one more time please Mummy."
I swallow hard and start singing again.
Wednesday, 4 January 2012
Running up that hill
Dealing with the bureaucracy and paperwork associated with my daughter's diagnosis feels like running uphill.
The last two weeks have been a welcome break but the start of term in four days marks the next laborious leg of the journey.
I have meetings with the staff at Grace's school, with her special advisory teachers and with her counsellor, to continue the process of checking, assessing and cajoling as I try to secure the educational and emotional support that my daughter needs.
The short-term goal is simply to ease her days, make her feel better about herself and equip her with the skills to socialise, make friends, and understand those elements of the national curriculum -- maths, reading comprehension -- that elude her. Longer-term the aim is to obtain a so-called 'statement of educational needs': a nod from the local council that will free up extra funding and assign her one-to-one help and a place at the best secondary school in the area. We have to apply for a secondary school place in October. The process of getting a statement takes approximately 6 months in total. Time is ticking and I cannot afford to ease up.
I feel entirely alone in this endeavour. The local authority does not want to 'statement' my daughter -- it costs money. The staff at her school would like to get help, but their priority is the overall performance of the school. The various health specialists are sympathetic and want to assist, but my child is just one of many demands on their too-scarce time. I must scurry around and around them collating information while politely prodding and nodding.
Often the hill feels very steep. Factor in the constant knock-backs, random screw-ups and semi-malevolent obfuscation by local authority officials and it can feel like running up a very steep hill in lashing rain and gale-force winds.
For the last few days of my holiday the thought of what awaits me has been preying on my mind, making me anxious and irritable. Finally, this morning, I decided to do some preparation.
So I went running. Up a very steep hill. In the wind and rain and isolation of a dark grey morning under lowering skies. I am staying at my parents' house just outside Sheffield, on the edges of the Peak District and I selected the worst part of an occasional circuit I run when I'm here: a winding climb that has defeated me on many occasions in the past.
Twenty times I ran up that hill. To begin with I ran fast, full of tension and anger. Then I ran more steadily, grimly repetitive. Then I began to weave and stagger a little bit, and shout aloud my frustration. A few sheep looked up. The wind continued to blow hard against me. Several petrified trees dotted along the brow of the ascent struck attitudes of cowed wintry defeat. I huffed and puffed downhill between each attempt, counting in my head the remaining efforts as I reached the bottom, braced and once again flung myself back up the way I'd come. By the end I was almost hysterical, giggling inside my laced-tight hood at the sight I must have presented and listening to the rasp of my sleeves against my sides as I tried to power myself along using my arms as pistons.
After forty-five minutes I had achieved my goal and taken the first steps towards being mentally and physically stronger for the task that awaits me when I take Grace back to school on Monday morning. I had also officially started my training for the London Marathon on April 22, which I am running on behalf of my daughter and the National Autistic Society.
And I also remembered that this road is a long one and there will always be new hills in front of me. The trick is to use them to make me stronger. And not to think about them too much. Sometimes you just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
The last two weeks have been a welcome break but the start of term in four days marks the next laborious leg of the journey.
I have meetings with the staff at Grace's school, with her special advisory teachers and with her counsellor, to continue the process of checking, assessing and cajoling as I try to secure the educational and emotional support that my daughter needs.
The short-term goal is simply to ease her days, make her feel better about herself and equip her with the skills to socialise, make friends, and understand those elements of the national curriculum -- maths, reading comprehension -- that elude her. Longer-term the aim is to obtain a so-called 'statement of educational needs': a nod from the local council that will free up extra funding and assign her one-to-one help and a place at the best secondary school in the area. We have to apply for a secondary school place in October. The process of getting a statement takes approximately 6 months in total. Time is ticking and I cannot afford to ease up.
I feel entirely alone in this endeavour. The local authority does not want to 'statement' my daughter -- it costs money. The staff at her school would like to get help, but their priority is the overall performance of the school. The various health specialists are sympathetic and want to assist, but my child is just one of many demands on their too-scarce time. I must scurry around and around them collating information while politely prodding and nodding.
Often the hill feels very steep. Factor in the constant knock-backs, random screw-ups and semi-malevolent obfuscation by local authority officials and it can feel like running up a very steep hill in lashing rain and gale-force winds.
For the last few days of my holiday the thought of what awaits me has been preying on my mind, making me anxious and irritable. Finally, this morning, I decided to do some preparation.
So I went running. Up a very steep hill. In the wind and rain and isolation of a dark grey morning under lowering skies. I am staying at my parents' house just outside Sheffield, on the edges of the Peak District and I selected the worst part of an occasional circuit I run when I'm here: a winding climb that has defeated me on many occasions in the past.
Twenty times I ran up that hill. To begin with I ran fast, full of tension and anger. Then I ran more steadily, grimly repetitive. Then I began to weave and stagger a little bit, and shout aloud my frustration. A few sheep looked up. The wind continued to blow hard against me. Several petrified trees dotted along the brow of the ascent struck attitudes of cowed wintry defeat. I huffed and puffed downhill between each attempt, counting in my head the remaining efforts as I reached the bottom, braced and once again flung myself back up the way I'd come. By the end I was almost hysterical, giggling inside my laced-tight hood at the sight I must have presented and listening to the rasp of my sleeves against my sides as I tried to power myself along using my arms as pistons.
After forty-five minutes I had achieved my goal and taken the first steps towards being mentally and physically stronger for the task that awaits me when I take Grace back to school on Monday morning. I had also officially started my training for the London Marathon on April 22, which I am running on behalf of my daughter and the National Autistic Society.
And I also remembered that this road is a long one and there will always be new hills in front of me. The trick is to use them to make me stronger. And not to think about them too much. Sometimes you just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Thursday, 29 December 2011
Confession
This has been a hard entry to write.
It's been ticking away in the back of my mind for several weeks now. Come clean, confess, discuss, a voice has whispered.
The Christmas period meant taking time off from writing, but if I'm honest the break was less to do with the busyness of family activities -- the tending to clamouring hyped-up children that makes this holiday so particularly un-restful -- and more to do with the fact that each time I attempted to write this post I felt queasy.
My discomfort is unrelated to the amount of mincemeat and cheese I have consumed recently, as is my wincing approach to the kitchen these days. But the source is indeed located at the fridge, which hums carelessly as though unaware of my torment. There, pinned in place by an array of colourful magnetic letters, is my marathon training plan, which I abandoned three weeks ago.
Just looking at what I've written makes me feel sick again. If only a salty glass of digestive medicine, or a chalky teaspoon of pink antacid gloop could cure it.
Outside it is iron-grey and hard cold. The tail-end of the month, the last gasp of the year. There is a sense of judgement all around: newspapers, television and online media are full of lists of what was good and bad in the last 12 months, who and what have succeeded and failed; assessments with the benefit of hindsight confidently outlining past events with a view to foretelling the next. Amid their chatter I have judged myself and I have found myself wanting. I am a hypocrite and a dissembler. Since extolling the life-changing and life-affirming joys of running here I have stopped running.
I'm not quite sure what happened.
At first I was under the weather and eased off. Then I was just exhausted, so indulged in a short break. My trainer had prepared a six-day-a-week plan which I just couldn't keep up with, so we changed it. After that, it was a busy period at work for my husband, who notched up so many late nights in his office that for me to actually leave our home full of sleeping children was impossible.
Then there was that terrible, terrible treadmill session, when my legs felt like they did not belong to me and would not move to my will, and my throat and chest burned with the effort and still I missed every time target for every mile on my training plan for that day. Soaked in sweat and dismay I thought: this is no longer what's helping me to keep going. It has become another task, another project to juggle along with all the other demands on my time, and another yardstick by which to measure my failings.
We are good at this, we women. In particular, there is a certain kind of mother who does this. When the job is not quite demanding enough, or when circumstances dictate that it must be downgraded, or even halted altogether, when the kids occupy every moment and their accomplishments, needs and desires rotate further up the list of priorities and the food shop and the laundry and the constant tidying and the to-do lists teeter higher and ever higher, the thing that is yours and yours alone -- the whatever it is you do to make time for yourself amid the hubbub -- becomes the thing that you do to prove to yourself that you still matter. That you've still got it. It becomes the thing that offsets that seam of gnawing constant anxiety, that thread of worry present throughout all the other activities, that voice that says "Is this it? Can I do more? Did I fail yet?" Thus the joy and the accomplishment of it turn to ash.
So I have stepped off the treadmill. I have looked through the pages of my diary and counted along to April 22 and so long as I start running again in the week of January 1 I still have time to complete a 16-week marathon training plan. I am not running and all I can think about is running. My not-running guilt is particularly toxic because the running is so interwoven with my maternal responsibilities: the act of putting one foot in front of the other has come to represent progress for Grace too, and when I am not doing it I feel as though the process of supporting her has also ground to a halt. But. When I think of putting on my running kit, something rebels and says no, not yet, I'm not ready again yet. On two occasions I have managed to get out of the door and jog six miles, which felt like utter fakery. According to the schedule on my fridge, I have missed three sessions of stamina-building hill sprints (find the nearest one and run up it as fast as possible, 20 times), three sessions of speed-building interval training (walk, jog, run, sprint, over and over again) and two of those stomach-churning Long Runs -- I have not completed 11 miles or 12 miles over the last two Saturdays and am struck with fear to contemplate the 13 miles that is assigned to the day after tomorrow.
And lo, my body has taken control of the situation. It has succumbed to a thick cold that makes my teeth and eye sockets ache, my nose stream constantly, and my legs want no more challenge than that of walking upstairs to bed, where I am writing this. I am shivering despite the fact that the heating is turned up high enough to make the bedroom radiator groan and clank with effort and beads of condensation trace their way down clouded window panes.
While I hide under the covers and wait to get better and to run again, one thing above all else gives me hope. Over the last week or two a steady stream of generous donations to my fundraising pot has shown me that my family and friends still have faith. Their message that I won't let them down gives me the courage to believe it myself.
It's been ticking away in the back of my mind for several weeks now. Come clean, confess, discuss, a voice has whispered.
The Christmas period meant taking time off from writing, but if I'm honest the break was less to do with the busyness of family activities -- the tending to clamouring hyped-up children that makes this holiday so particularly un-restful -- and more to do with the fact that each time I attempted to write this post I felt queasy.
My discomfort is unrelated to the amount of mincemeat and cheese I have consumed recently, as is my wincing approach to the kitchen these days. But the source is indeed located at the fridge, which hums carelessly as though unaware of my torment. There, pinned in place by an array of colourful magnetic letters, is my marathon training plan, which I abandoned three weeks ago.
Just looking at what I've written makes me feel sick again. If only a salty glass of digestive medicine, or a chalky teaspoon of pink antacid gloop could cure it.
Outside it is iron-grey and hard cold. The tail-end of the month, the last gasp of the year. There is a sense of judgement all around: newspapers, television and online media are full of lists of what was good and bad in the last 12 months, who and what have succeeded and failed; assessments with the benefit of hindsight confidently outlining past events with a view to foretelling the next. Amid their chatter I have judged myself and I have found myself wanting. I am a hypocrite and a dissembler. Since extolling the life-changing and life-affirming joys of running here I have stopped running.
I'm not quite sure what happened.
At first I was under the weather and eased off. Then I was just exhausted, so indulged in a short break. My trainer had prepared a six-day-a-week plan which I just couldn't keep up with, so we changed it. After that, it was a busy period at work for my husband, who notched up so many late nights in his office that for me to actually leave our home full of sleeping children was impossible.
Then there was that terrible, terrible treadmill session, when my legs felt like they did not belong to me and would not move to my will, and my throat and chest burned with the effort and still I missed every time target for every mile on my training plan for that day. Soaked in sweat and dismay I thought: this is no longer what's helping me to keep going. It has become another task, another project to juggle along with all the other demands on my time, and another yardstick by which to measure my failings.
We are good at this, we women. In particular, there is a certain kind of mother who does this. When the job is not quite demanding enough, or when circumstances dictate that it must be downgraded, or even halted altogether, when the kids occupy every moment and their accomplishments, needs and desires rotate further up the list of priorities and the food shop and the laundry and the constant tidying and the to-do lists teeter higher and ever higher, the thing that is yours and yours alone -- the whatever it is you do to make time for yourself amid the hubbub -- becomes the thing that you do to prove to yourself that you still matter. That you've still got it. It becomes the thing that offsets that seam of gnawing constant anxiety, that thread of worry present throughout all the other activities, that voice that says "Is this it? Can I do more? Did I fail yet?" Thus the joy and the accomplishment of it turn to ash.
So I have stepped off the treadmill. I have looked through the pages of my diary and counted along to April 22 and so long as I start running again in the week of January 1 I still have time to complete a 16-week marathon training plan. I am not running and all I can think about is running. My not-running guilt is particularly toxic because the running is so interwoven with my maternal responsibilities: the act of putting one foot in front of the other has come to represent progress for Grace too, and when I am not doing it I feel as though the process of supporting her has also ground to a halt. But. When I think of putting on my running kit, something rebels and says no, not yet, I'm not ready again yet. On two occasions I have managed to get out of the door and jog six miles, which felt like utter fakery. According to the schedule on my fridge, I have missed three sessions of stamina-building hill sprints (find the nearest one and run up it as fast as possible, 20 times), three sessions of speed-building interval training (walk, jog, run, sprint, over and over again) and two of those stomach-churning Long Runs -- I have not completed 11 miles or 12 miles over the last two Saturdays and am struck with fear to contemplate the 13 miles that is assigned to the day after tomorrow.
And lo, my body has taken control of the situation. It has succumbed to a thick cold that makes my teeth and eye sockets ache, my nose stream constantly, and my legs want no more challenge than that of walking upstairs to bed, where I am writing this. I am shivering despite the fact that the heating is turned up high enough to make the bedroom radiator groan and clank with effort and beads of condensation trace their way down clouded window panes.
While I hide under the covers and wait to get better and to run again, one thing above all else gives me hope. Over the last week or two a steady stream of generous donations to my fundraising pot has shown me that my family and friends still have faith. Their message that I won't let them down gives me the courage to believe it myself.
Monday, 19 December 2011
The lessons of a decade
These are the things I didn't know ten years ago:
that when I packed that little white suit and took it to the hospital, I really would be coming home with a baby girl in it
that my arms would know your size and weight from the moment you were given to me, as though I had always been waiting for you
that running my cheek across yours and inhaling your smell would be pleasure close to bliss
that you would still let me do this now
that you would always be so hard to wake up
except when you woke me first
that your eyes would be green and then brown and then topaz
that your eyelashes and nose would be exactly your father's and so too your expression of delighted mischief on learning another spectacularly bad joke
that I would be ready to fight tigers for you
but that balloons and hand-dryers would terrify you above all else
that I would come to know by heart the lyrics to many, many Disney songs and belt them out without shame
and that sometimes they would make me cry
and that sometimes sentimental adverts would make me cry
and that any books involving small girls in peril would make me cry
and that still I would underestimate how often the love of you would make me cry
that you would teach me how to draw the perfect mermaid
that you would teach me not to care when people look
that you would teach me infinite patience
and that you would teach me when it was time to start a riot
that I would always be a bit lonely when you weren't around
that being your mother would break my heart, several times over
and that being your mother would be the greatest achievement of my life
Happy Birthday darling Grace. Here's to the next ten years. xxxxxxxx
that when I packed that little white suit and took it to the hospital, I really would be coming home with a baby girl in it
that my arms would know your size and weight from the moment you were given to me, as though I had always been waiting for you
that running my cheek across yours and inhaling your smell would be pleasure close to bliss
that you would still let me do this now
that you would always be so hard to wake up
except when you woke me first
that your eyes would be green and then brown and then topaz
that your eyelashes and nose would be exactly your father's and so too your expression of delighted mischief on learning another spectacularly bad joke
that I would be ready to fight tigers for you
but that balloons and hand-dryers would terrify you above all else
that I would come to know by heart the lyrics to many, many Disney songs and belt them out without shame
and that sometimes they would make me cry
and that sometimes sentimental adverts would make me cry
and that any books involving small girls in peril would make me cry
and that still I would underestimate how often the love of you would make me cry
that you would teach me how to draw the perfect mermaid
that you would teach me not to care when people look
that you would teach me infinite patience
and that you would teach me when it was time to start a riot
that I would always be a bit lonely when you weren't around
that being your mother would break my heart, several times over
and that being your mother would be the greatest achievement of my life
Happy Birthday darling Grace. Here's to the next ten years. xxxxxxxx
Monday, 12 December 2011
The art of tomfoolery
Grace is sitting at the dinner table with a scarf wrapped around her head. In front of her is a plate of my finest fish pie, untouched.
Opposite her and down at my side, Betty sits ramrod straight, holding herself tensely in anticipation. Her face, barely peeping over the tabletop, shines with merriment; a tiny giggle, a bubble of glee, escapes from the back of her throat.
My girls are playing.
With a sudden flourish, Grace whips the material away from her face, revealing crazy eyebrows, crossed eyes and lolling tongue. On seeing this Betty gives a great shout -- delighted affirmation -- and collapses drunkenly against her seat, so overwhelmed by laughter that she can barely catch her breath.
At this point I intervene to ask if they will both please eat their food now, before it goes cold. Grace complies. Betty straightens up and reaches for her fork, but her eyes never leave Grace's face. With a stagey sigh, Grace flicks a strand of hair away from her shoulder and eats, but her eyes slide away with a deliberate skittishness that prompts another joyous gurgle from Betty, still watching eagerly for her next move.
Grace spears a piece of broccoli and goggles comically at it. It is all it takes for Betty to explode again into gales that leave her so weak she sags against me, hiccuping, afterwards.
"Come on now, enough," I say, a bit more firmly, and start spooning food into Betty, who is still prone and snickering softly beside me. Grace protests: "What? I didn't do anything!" but then breaks into a wide smile.
In the brief stillness, we all get on with the business of eating. Candles flicker on the table, the fire crackles in the sitting room behind us. Our reflections are ghostly dim in the subdued light, in the kitchen windows, splattered with rain from the storm outside. Across from me my husband catches my eye and smiles as he lifts his glass to drink.
My girls are playing and it brings me such pleasure that I hardly care, really, how much they eat, or whether they finish the meal at all. Hostilities have ceased. Grace has discovered that she can make Betty laugh. She has discovered how to watch her, to read her mood and coax those lovely noises of baby joy from her. Betty has discovered a clown, a tumbling jester behind her sister's often stern countenance. Suddenly the possibilities for revels seem limitless.
Once Betty's hiccups have abated, we move on to cake. Grace tells me a story as she eats, sketching out a scene between two of her latest imaginary characters. But as she talks, she draws everyone in: twinkling at Betty and her stepfather beside her, drawing gestures in the air and turning to us all to see what we think. She is holding court but she is entirely aware of all of us and taking her cues from our reactions. She smiles at Betty and sees her excitement as the little girl grins up at her, icing smeared across her chin. She smiles at me, and sees my enjoyment of her story warring with concern that she finish her meal.
As soon as they have cleared their plates and I have acknowledged their request to get down, Betty slips off her chair and trots -- pat, pat, pat in her slippers -- around to Grace's side.
"C'mon CeeCee," she says, and holds out her hand. Grace takes it and together they scurry into the sitting room. Just as they disappear from view I catch Grace executing a perfect pantomine pratfall onto the sofa, collapsing with an "Urgh!" that provokes an explosive guffaw from Betty.
So little, and yet so, so much. It is nothing. It is everything.
Opposite her and down at my side, Betty sits ramrod straight, holding herself tensely in anticipation. Her face, barely peeping over the tabletop, shines with merriment; a tiny giggle, a bubble of glee, escapes from the back of her throat.
My girls are playing.
With a sudden flourish, Grace whips the material away from her face, revealing crazy eyebrows, crossed eyes and lolling tongue. On seeing this Betty gives a great shout -- delighted affirmation -- and collapses drunkenly against her seat, so overwhelmed by laughter that she can barely catch her breath.
At this point I intervene to ask if they will both please eat their food now, before it goes cold. Grace complies. Betty straightens up and reaches for her fork, but her eyes never leave Grace's face. With a stagey sigh, Grace flicks a strand of hair away from her shoulder and eats, but her eyes slide away with a deliberate skittishness that prompts another joyous gurgle from Betty, still watching eagerly for her next move.
Grace spears a piece of broccoli and goggles comically at it. It is all it takes for Betty to explode again into gales that leave her so weak she sags against me, hiccuping, afterwards.
"Come on now, enough," I say, a bit more firmly, and start spooning food into Betty, who is still prone and snickering softly beside me. Grace protests: "What? I didn't do anything!" but then breaks into a wide smile.
In the brief stillness, we all get on with the business of eating. Candles flicker on the table, the fire crackles in the sitting room behind us. Our reflections are ghostly dim in the subdued light, in the kitchen windows, splattered with rain from the storm outside. Across from me my husband catches my eye and smiles as he lifts his glass to drink.
My girls are playing and it brings me such pleasure that I hardly care, really, how much they eat, or whether they finish the meal at all. Hostilities have ceased. Grace has discovered that she can make Betty laugh. She has discovered how to watch her, to read her mood and coax those lovely noises of baby joy from her. Betty has discovered a clown, a tumbling jester behind her sister's often stern countenance. Suddenly the possibilities for revels seem limitless.
Once Betty's hiccups have abated, we move on to cake. Grace tells me a story as she eats, sketching out a scene between two of her latest imaginary characters. But as she talks, she draws everyone in: twinkling at Betty and her stepfather beside her, drawing gestures in the air and turning to us all to see what we think. She is holding court but she is entirely aware of all of us and taking her cues from our reactions. She smiles at Betty and sees her excitement as the little girl grins up at her, icing smeared across her chin. She smiles at me, and sees my enjoyment of her story warring with concern that she finish her meal.
As soon as they have cleared their plates and I have acknowledged their request to get down, Betty slips off her chair and trots -- pat, pat, pat in her slippers -- around to Grace's side.
"C'mon CeeCee," she says, and holds out her hand. Grace takes it and together they scurry into the sitting room. Just as they disappear from view I catch Grace executing a perfect pantomine pratfall onto the sofa, collapsing with an "Urgh!" that provokes an explosive guffaw from Betty.
So little, and yet so, so much. It is nothing. It is everything.
Monday, 5 December 2011
What have I got myself into?
So. Marathon training.
The clue's in the name.
When I decided to run the London Marathon I didn't give much thought to the process of preparation. Sure, I thought it would be pretty hard: you don't just get out of bed one day and run 26 miles without some kind of limbering-up process. (Well, you can, and people do; but they're usually the ones on a stretcher or on the ground somewhere around mile twelve.)
Way back in June I asked my friend Kate -- who has run the marathon in a time that makes grown men blanch -- what the training involved and just how tough it would be. She laughed and said: "You just run. And run. Then you keep running. And you eat lots of bananas."
So I started running. Somewhere in the early months -- back in summer, those lovely days of sunlight that I took so much for granted -- I realised that getting a marathon place wasn't as straightforward as I had expected. Naively, I had imagined some kind of scenario in which I would step forward proudly, perhaps slightly bashfully ("No, really, don't clap") and giving a gracious nod, announce my participation, upon which grateful organisers would deferentially usher me in, perhaps shaking my hand and patting my back.
In reality I had to put my name into a ballot, pay a fee -- refundable, but only if I was too much of a miser to donate it to charity -- and hope to beat the odds to be one of the lucky ones. Everyone I told regaled me with tales of people who had applied for years with no success.
I then realised (it's all in the research, folks: aren't you glad I've done yours for you?) that if I wanted to run the marathon for the National Autistic Society, I needed to apply to them separately. So again I stepped up, filled in the form, and waited to hear trumpets. Thank you very much, they told me, we'll be making our decision in a couple of months and we'll get back to you.
So I ran the Royal Parks half-marathon to feel like I was doing something while I waited: to get strong for Grace, to tell people what her life is like, to run away the stress, to secure that place on the NAS marathon team and to prepare for the biggest physical challenge of my life.
And here it is.
What they don't tell you is that marathon training is basically running in the dark. (Unless you don't work and can fit it in during the day, in which case you have it easy my friend: go and look for running sympathy elsewhere.)
There are several options around running in the dark. You can run in the dark in the morning, before work, when the streets are cold and silent. You can run in the dark in the evening, once work is over and the kids are fed and bathed and put to bed, when the streets are cold and silent and every window you pass frames an imagined scene of cosiness and languor. You can also pretend you're not running in the dark -- there are a couple of options here. You can run on a treadmill with the light on, forcing wakeful cheer as you grind away on the spot in the spare room and outside the streets are cold and silent apart from slightly hysterical marathon runners who are at least breathing fresh air and watching passing scenery rather than that unloved armchair and the clothes rack. Or you can run outside with your eyes shut. This one doesn't work.
The exception to running in the dark is the weekend, when you get to stride out under brighter skies (or grey skies, or rainy skies, or windy ones.) This is bliss, not least because running in daylight means parks and woods are safe again and you can pace to the sound of leaves crunching or birds singing: even in inclement weather the drip of rain on trees and grass is infinitely preferable to the dreary patter of it on pavements. The downside of this is that it's your Long Run (this is the only run that other runners want to know about: "How far did you go for your Long Run?" "Long Run this weekend? How did it go?") So after a while running in daylight seems like less of a gift when it means you have to keep going for 10, 11, 12 miles. In the New Year these runs will reach 18, 19, 20 and I will have to set aside three hours or more and take a packed lunch.
But here's the thing. It's very, very hard, and it's daunting, and quite often these days I have a feeling in my stomach close to fear or panic when I consider what I've got myself into (six million television viewers in the UK alone are enough to give you stage fright, even if you are going to be running alongside 34,999 other people.) But then I will go out for a training run, and out of nowhere, magic happens.
It might be that I remember the money I raise will go towards giving worried parents advice via the Autism Helpline, or pay for a friend to regularly meet someone who has autism, or give practical support to someone with autism who is looking for work.
It might be that while I'm slogging along painfully I remember that Grace often feels the same way as she struggles to get to grips with school work, or understand the social cues of her friends, and that she doesn't get a day off, or the option to stay at home and eat chocolate on the sofa.
Or it might just be the huge adrenaline rush that kicks in sometimes and makes me laugh aloud with joy as I sprint and remember that the last anti-depressant I took was six months ago.
So yes, marathon running is excruciating, and monotonous and humbling.
But it's also the best thing that's ever happened to me. So if you'll excuse me, I've got to go and eat some bananas.
The clue's in the name.
When I decided to run the London Marathon I didn't give much thought to the process of preparation. Sure, I thought it would be pretty hard: you don't just get out of bed one day and run 26 miles without some kind of limbering-up process. (Well, you can, and people do; but they're usually the ones on a stretcher or on the ground somewhere around mile twelve.)
Way back in June I asked my friend Kate -- who has run the marathon in a time that makes grown men blanch -- what the training involved and just how tough it would be. She laughed and said: "You just run. And run. Then you keep running. And you eat lots of bananas."
So I started running. Somewhere in the early months -- back in summer, those lovely days of sunlight that I took so much for granted -- I realised that getting a marathon place wasn't as straightforward as I had expected. Naively, I had imagined some kind of scenario in which I would step forward proudly, perhaps slightly bashfully ("No, really, don't clap") and giving a gracious nod, announce my participation, upon which grateful organisers would deferentially usher me in, perhaps shaking my hand and patting my back.
In reality I had to put my name into a ballot, pay a fee -- refundable, but only if I was too much of a miser to donate it to charity -- and hope to beat the odds to be one of the lucky ones. Everyone I told regaled me with tales of people who had applied for years with no success.
I then realised (it's all in the research, folks: aren't you glad I've done yours for you?) that if I wanted to run the marathon for the National Autistic Society, I needed to apply to them separately. So again I stepped up, filled in the form, and waited to hear trumpets. Thank you very much, they told me, we'll be making our decision in a couple of months and we'll get back to you.
So I ran the Royal Parks half-marathon to feel like I was doing something while I waited: to get strong for Grace, to tell people what her life is like, to run away the stress, to secure that place on the NAS marathon team and to prepare for the biggest physical challenge of my life.
And here it is.
What they don't tell you is that marathon training is basically running in the dark. (Unless you don't work and can fit it in during the day, in which case you have it easy my friend: go and look for running sympathy elsewhere.)
There are several options around running in the dark. You can run in the dark in the morning, before work, when the streets are cold and silent. You can run in the dark in the evening, once work is over and the kids are fed and bathed and put to bed, when the streets are cold and silent and every window you pass frames an imagined scene of cosiness and languor. You can also pretend you're not running in the dark -- there are a couple of options here. You can run on a treadmill with the light on, forcing wakeful cheer as you grind away on the spot in the spare room and outside the streets are cold and silent apart from slightly hysterical marathon runners who are at least breathing fresh air and watching passing scenery rather than that unloved armchair and the clothes rack. Or you can run outside with your eyes shut. This one doesn't work.
The exception to running in the dark is the weekend, when you get to stride out under brighter skies (or grey skies, or rainy skies, or windy ones.) This is bliss, not least because running in daylight means parks and woods are safe again and you can pace to the sound of leaves crunching or birds singing: even in inclement weather the drip of rain on trees and grass is infinitely preferable to the dreary patter of it on pavements. The downside of this is that it's your Long Run (this is the only run that other runners want to know about: "How far did you go for your Long Run?" "Long Run this weekend? How did it go?") So after a while running in daylight seems like less of a gift when it means you have to keep going for 10, 11, 12 miles. In the New Year these runs will reach 18, 19, 20 and I will have to set aside three hours or more and take a packed lunch.
But here's the thing. It's very, very hard, and it's daunting, and quite often these days I have a feeling in my stomach close to fear or panic when I consider what I've got myself into (six million television viewers in the UK alone are enough to give you stage fright, even if you are going to be running alongside 34,999 other people.) But then I will go out for a training run, and out of nowhere, magic happens.
It might be that I remember the money I raise will go towards giving worried parents advice via the Autism Helpline, or pay for a friend to regularly meet someone who has autism, or give practical support to someone with autism who is looking for work.
It might be that while I'm slogging along painfully I remember that Grace often feels the same way as she struggles to get to grips with school work, or understand the social cues of her friends, and that she doesn't get a day off, or the option to stay at home and eat chocolate on the sofa.
Or it might just be the huge adrenaline rush that kicks in sometimes and makes me laugh aloud with joy as I sprint and remember that the last anti-depressant I took was six months ago.
So yes, marathon running is excruciating, and monotonous and humbling.
But it's also the best thing that's ever happened to me. So if you'll excuse me, I've got to go and eat some bananas.
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