Belated musings
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I'm standing braless in the Japanese whiskey aisle. I've set down my beer choices on the floor while I skim labels and attempt to discern the differences.
I'm braless because I shed my wet sports bra and t-shirt in the parking lot of the park after a very unexpectedly good tempo run. Part of me thinks I'll never quite get back to 2017 or 2023 fitness, but I know it was the only reward of the scars. There's slivers of me in there somewhere, but I haven't felt the same sadness and rage and disappointment and anger. Which is obviously not sustainable or even desirable. But my petulance for running effortlessly fast remains.
I've pulled out my phone to Google the brand names of whiskies I'm staring at when a very tall Scottish man appears in the aisle with me. He's wearing a kilt and has red hair and a red beard. He's probably younger than me, but not by too much. His accent is Americanized, but his lilt gives away his ancestry immediately.
He asks me if I need any help and I shoo him away at first, embarrassed I know nothing about the bottles in front of me. Beer? Wine? 90s alternative? Running? Cereal? These are all things I'm a connoisseur of, but not Japanese whiskey.
But he lingers a second too long and I confess that I do need his help. He launches immediately into whiskey vernacular, explaining peats and rice and casks at full throttle. I nod here and there, wondering if this is how I sound when someone asks me about running. His passion is infectious and when he asks me if I'd like a sample at 11am, I'm obviously game.
I turn the labels of a few of the bottles while he scampers off for my sample. This is like choosing a book based on the cover, the best-looking one doesn't always equate to greatness.
He comes back with a bottle of whiskey and a tiny cup, the same ones used in church communions. I sip it slowly, letting it burn a bit on my chapped lips and trying to not let on about the lush that I am. The one that desperately just wants to shoot it and have it burn my throat and belly quickly. But this is good whiskey so it doesn't really do this very much to my lips and I decide maybe I actually like it.
The one I'm trying is $70 a bottle, but he says if the gift I'm buying is for someone I really like, I should spring for the $100 one. I tell a white lie that I hate the person I'm buying it for, but that they may not show up for Christmas so it's best if I get something I'd drink too. It's true that they may not show up for Christmas, but I don't actually hate them.
I grab the bottle off the shelf and he offers to take my cup. There's still a swallow of whiskey in it and I tilt my head back to finish it. I beeline for the checkout, watching the store swell with people making their last-minute holiday purchases just like me.
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I never was much of a white wine drinker, but now this seems like the new regular. Like Sunday evenings spent cooking after a day on the trails. I get to listen to music and putz in the kitchen without the interruption of the TV. Many days, I like this because it's not the norm and I can be selfish in this space. But some days, it makes me feel a sense of grief for this life that has changed in a timeline that seems too short. I step outside with my wine glass to enjoy the last hours of the summer evening. But it's warm and the dogs aren't settled so I go back inside to my place on the sofa. It used to be Adam's, but now it's mine. There's grief again.
I walked from the creek back to the car with my shoes in hand, stepping carefully through the pine needles. They were numb from the cold creek and beat up from decades of running. No one was this deep in the woods this early on a Sunday morning. I took my time getting dressed in dry clothes and savoring cold pieces of watermelon.
There's a little bit of a knee twinge, some foot aches, and a tweaked shoulder, but I feel good otherwise. It's hard to gauge my fitness right now. Miles are so slow and it's so hot. This incredibly heavy pack feels more comfortable than ever, but I still long for the day to just wear my old vest with a few snacks.
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The mid-morning light was far too cheery for everything I was feeling. The weight of it all came crashing down, smothering me from every which way. Traveling in the opposite direction feeling like I'd been pummeled, both inside and out. I turned to those familiar songs about whiskey and heartbreak, letting them put the nail on the coffin of misery loves company.
The road snaked down the river, the canyon walls jutting high above the concrete. Trees along the top had started to change color and I almost pulled over a few times to take pictures.
But I was so sad and so angry.
Everything hurt. From the tips of my battered toes to the muscles on my shoulders, I was sore. My face felt like it was stuffed full of snot and my throat burned. My lips were chapped and my thighs were sunburnt.
But worst of all, my spirit felt destroyed. Not necessarily because I didn't finish, but because my body felt like it just slowly gave out. And I couldn't put two and two together at the time, but I had never felt so awful for so long. I was so, so mad.
I blamed a lot of my physical pain on dehydration and the race itself, not realizing how terribly sick I was. Drinking a lot of coffee and water the following morning, I realized some hour down the road that I desperately had to pee.
But there were no towns along this river canyon road and certainly no rest areas. I drove and drove, contemplating where I could stop until I thought I would burst. There was a small embankment that I could find a touch of privacy along this wide open road and I took far too long hobbling down in broad daylight, my quads and feet screaming with each step.
And then among the sadness and anger I'm peeing against the side of the road in mid-morning light.
I had just spent 24 hours in the outdoors, peeing behind boulders and trees, but in the light of civilization, this felt weird. And added to this atrocity of a Monday in which I was straddling a wild line of extreme gratitude and extreme darkness. Gratitude for a weekend away in a beautiful place with my body traveling 70 miles on foot with a wonderful friend. And darkness for a completely wrecked body and a mind that was holding on by a mere thread.
It hovered over me like I had been haunted for weeks. The sickness enveloped me for longer than I'd experienced in my adult life. I thought I'd never see the edges of the light again.
But just over a month removed, I finally broke free of the spell and started to feel semblance of hope again.
