Christmases Past

I recently came across a couple of old photographs from Christmases past. When I was a kid, my family often got together with the families of our Irish friends for Christmas eve to share Irish whiskey, snacks and lots of good cheer. Somehow the night always came to an end with everybody sitting around the floor singing - usually into a tape recorder for Grandma Fay back home in Ireland or my Grandma Coulthard back in England. I loved sitting around the rug in a big semi-circle, wrapped in love and security and hoping that each and every Christmas time would always be like this. After all, that's what it was all about - being with family and the people I love.

Oh yeah, it was fun to get presents too. For years my sister Vicky, a die hard tomboy, got a cowboy suit for Christmas, complete with holster and badge. My presents varied. One year I got a nurses kit, even though I hated blood and hospitals. What I really wanted was an artist's kit. The following year I got a box of 100 Crayola crayons laid out side-by-side in a colorful array. Although they were beautiful, somehow, I knew real artists didn't color. They painted. So, the next year I asked for paints for Christmas and this time I got a box of water colors and a couple of paint-by-number kits. I was sure that real artists didn't pant by number either.

Somewhere along the way, I kind of gave up asking for anything in the way of art supplies and made do with what I had. Instead, I received books, a blacklight poster of butterflies, plants, clothes and lots of other things I loved and wanted. I knew my parents sacrificed much to get us nice gifts and I appreciated every one of them, tied up beautifully with a pretty ribbon and Christmas giftwrap. What I remember most, I guess, is the love that went into each and every Christmas. The presents may be gone now, but the memory of all that love still remains, wrapped around me like a cozy quilt on a frosty winter night.

Running and Writing

I recently started running again, albeit slowly. Now that I've picked up a little bit more speed (very little, I might add) and have gotten past the point where I'm clutching my side, gasping for breath and stopping every few hundred feet to take a walking break, I'm enjoying it. I even entered a few races this fall. While I didn't set any course records, I did manage to take a minute and 20 seconds off my time from the end of October to the beginning of December. Hope twinkles like a star in the early night sky. If I can run through the winter - at least 15-18 miles a week - maybe I can take another two minutes off my time by spring. Perhaps more!

When I write, as when I run, I always have a short term and a long term goal in sight. With running it might be to take another 15 seconds off my race time or to run hard to the end of the block so my body begins to learn the feeling of moving fast. With writing, it might be to find an unforced rhyme, to work through a particularly difficult scene like a fight or an escape scene, to crawl inside my mc's head and communicate her fears and her hopes or to finally make it through to the end of the chapter.

Long term goals are easier. Why do I run? Because it's a challenge and I love a challenge and the feeling of accomplishment I experience when I've completed a long run or a tough race. I like the afterburn and the way running sculpts my muscles. My longterm goal is to improve my health and get off all my diabetes meds - for good.

With writing, it's always to complete my work in progress and eventually find a home for it. Much harder to do than say. The real joy is in the doing, in the time spent treading the streets of my neighborhood or sitting before my computer and rising to the challenge of a blank page - of making something out of nothing more than my thoughts and dreams.