Sleepy, sun-soaked days...

In these sleepy, sun-soaked days, life begins to slumber

and wither.

Bodies seek comfort in each other

Lives once bold and hungry for sex and song, promise and power

that too soon grew fat and lazy, begin to dream again.

Small, sleepy dreams sized to fit in their shriveled forms.

They sleep on porches, resting their heavy heads on each other's knees

like weary, obedient dogs.

Their limp hair intertwines like the gnarled fingers of ancient lovers

who have all but become one.

In these sleepy, sun-soaked dog days when life begins to slumber

The clock ticks

the air too heavy for sound to travel far

the young gather to sit amidst the old and bear witness.

Dry lips croak unsaid sentiments

These are the quiet days

Of tender blessings

When time and touch

are dreams enough.

Let these dog-tired forms find comfort in each other.

Let parched lips brush the hallowed cheeks of spent lovers.

Let the sun's hot, sweet breath

make them plump again.

  Rekindled desire spooning with grace.

A Part of It

“The party’s over,” the white-haired woman carrying the bag to claim her good said to me as we passed on the bridge between the parking lot and the fairgrounds. I carried my entries and my ribbons from the fair and I nodded in agreement. “It certainly is.”

We were referring to the close of the Tunbridge Fair. The buzz has died. Few animals remain. One sole tractor relocates the remaining hay bales. The merry-go-round is all packed up. A few stragglers, like me and the white-haired woman drop by to collect our entries.

The fairgrounds had been booming with excitement only the day before. Four days earlier I had dropped off my photographs and drawings in Floral Hall, walking past oxen drinking from the river and farmers hauling hay. I felt a part of a working farm. On Saturday, two days earlier, the fair was in full motion. Ferris wheel, merry-go-round, beer hall, carnie games, blooming onions, roasted corn and cotton candy dominated the fairway. I saw friends and acquaintances, caught up with the former manager of Borders and then of BAM (Books-a-Million) who had finally left to go elsewhere. We even chatted about Obamacare before parting paths in search of food. I perused the photos in Floral Hall, looking for names of fellow artists, finding few I recognized.

I like being a part of the party. Some could say going back to the fair is akin to going back in time – to a day when we were closer to the land and to each other; when neighbors conversed while haying instead of over Facebook, but I have a feeling that for many of these people, the fair still represents their way of life. They pickle and bake pies, knit, crochet, sheer sheep and plant pumpkins in their gardens. They still know that Carl Adams field is called the flattop and remember when Dan Riley used to mow it.

This weekend my best friend visited her family of Vermonters, whose grandfather had left his farm in trust. She remarked that some of the siblings were chatting over a piece of land called the Porkchop, “whatever that is,” she said, and I had to laugh because my family has names for my grandfather’s property such as the rounded piece of hill known as the Hogback. Next door from my brother’s house sits the pristine field called Sugar House Flats. Much of the land has these names, but I have become disconnected from them. I visit the farm where my Dad grew up. I do not live there. Only recently have I realized how tied to this rural world I really am – that I, like so many of my friends and all of my family, have never strayed too far from home. Today, I met a new student who proudly proclaimed he had grown up in Tunbridge and had returned there to the fair yesterday. He was slow to speak and once he finally acknowledged his origins, I saw the Yankee in him, realizing his reticence came naturally.

“My dad and grandpa grew up on a farm,” I told him.

“Where ‘bouts?”

“East Randolph.”

“ ‘bout four or five roads lead there,” he said.

I’m beginning to see more and more roads lead back to my roots. I may not be a farmer, although I have owned a horse and shoveled my share of manure in my time, but I take my pictures to the fair, every year! And, I bear my first and second and even third place ribbons with pride. I walk the dirt roads and covered bridges near the homes my grandparents forged and buy my milk downtown. I have written for my local newspaper and proofread its pages. I help Joan haul in her wood and I have become adept at following moose for long stretches down her road. The party might be over for now, but I celebrate rural life each day. I am a part of it.

Puggies

My license plate reads “Puggies” to the embarrassment of my brother and likely any other family member who has to drive it. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad if it simply said “Pugs” although I have a feeling they’d turn their noses up at that as well. But “Pugs” and “Pugz” and “Pug” were taken when it came time to register my car with the state, so “Puggies” it became.

“Puggies” is in homage to a statement my mother and I heard years ago at one of the joint concerts and dance recitals my friend Joan would host with her daughter, TDB, and her students. I hadn’t known Joan long, when she invited my family to attend. I had recently bought my pug, Vader, from her and she thought I’d enjoy it given that one of the musical numbers would feature Joan’s cast of pugs being pulled in wagons and on leashes by her littlest students.

At intermission, my mother went to use the bathroom and found a roomful of giggling, little girls in pink tutus and ballet flats squealing, “the puggies are in the building.” It was cuteness personified and so the memory stuck, as did the name, which popped to the surface, when scouring my mind for possible pug-themed plates.

To complement my license plate, I have adorned my car with an array of bumper stickers – a bone reading, “I love my pug” and a round car magnet declaring “I work hard so my pugs don’t have to.” I also have a yellow and red sticker reading “Thank God for Hana” and a silver "HI" logo for my beloved Hawaii, as well as a small stuffed, tuxedo-clad pug that hangs from my mirror.

All this paraphernalia has been there since I got my first Versa in 2009, but they show up ever so better on the brand new royal blue Versa I purchased last week. Until the license plates are officially changed, my father, who kept my old car, has had to ride around in the former “puggie-mobile” as has my brother, who borrowed it. My new car awaits its new moniker, but that hasn’t stopped passersby from pausing by my car to read the transferred bumper stickers. I know because I’ve been watching this interaction from the windows of Books-a-million as I work. So far this evening there have been several. They pass my car only to hit reverse, backup and smile. The other day in Waterbury I parked next to a man in the exact same car, color and all. I jumped out declaring – “We have the same car!”

“We also have the same dog,” he shouted back, nodding at my pug bumper sticker. “Ours is a blonde,” he noted. We stopped and chatted, walking away with huge grins on our faces.

I know my family humors me. My siblings probably seeing me as the doddering, childless aunt to their children, who projects her affections onto her two somewhat annoying dogs. “Puggies” is silly, but harmless, they seem to convey while I try to argue it’s only good branding for when I finally write my dog book. Truth be told, my car and I sport the title with pride. Yes, I love my dogs and the enjoyment they bring and yes, I was serious about the branding, but the real reason I’m glad my car doesn’t read VT 4342 or some other banal number is the same reason I remember the squeals of those girls. Puggies conjure up smiles, glee and grins, if also an occasional shake of the head.

"Say Yes!"

Writing Prompt: Write about a time you said “yes” – to anything…your job, your spouse, a new opportunity? Did it go right or wrong? What did you learn?

I am reading a book by William Shatner (Captain Kirk of Star Trek fame) called Shatner Rules.  One of Shatner’s rules is “say yes!” Whenever asked say yes, because you never know where the opportunity will lead.

Funny, I try to follow this advice as well as his advice to stay busy, hence my declaration to my best friend yesterday that I may be William Shatner – she didn’t even blink – she was probably not surprised as she has seen my tricorder and uniform. But this isn’t a post about William Shatner, it’s a post about being comfortable and realizing that as much as I try to follow his advice to always answer in the affirmative, I often wish I didn’t. I’d rather not say “yes” to things that make me uncomfortable. But if I only said “yes” to things that made me comfortable, I’d be saying “no” to an awful lot. And, I likely would have missed out on the things that make me the most – me!

Like teaching, for example, no matter how good it makes me feel afterward, no matter how wonderful that moment in the middle when everything kicks in and I think “yes” this is what I was made to do, I never, once look forward to it. Not once! I never feel comfortable going in.

A mentor and friend once told me that a little anxiety is a good thing, so I guess I should have known I’d be good at teaching; it always makes me feel anxious. Up there at the front of the classroom, I feel like that guy who just walked a tightrope across the Grand Canyon praying all the way. You never know when you might fall and there is no safety net; like a standup comedian whose joke falls dead, all the eyes are upon you. And, even when you suspect that it will turn out okay, even when it has a 100 times before, you never quite believe it, you know the risk is there. Until that moment when it’s not, when you know that it’s safe to stop praying and you can just go with the flow.

I think it may be this very anxiety that makes me good at what I do. Consider if the tightrope walker just barged on out across the rope, unconcerned. He is right to be anxious, putting himself smack dab out there on the precipice – past the precipice in his case – is a scary proposition. And, that’s how my students feel every time they read their essays. And, that’s how I feel, too. Putting yourself out there not only opens you up to failure, but to criticism and insecurity and all the ghosts from the past admonishing you to keep your mouth shut!

I can’t listen to those ghosts because I’m the teacher. If I remain quiet, it would be a pretty boring classroom, but because I understand that feeling I can empathize with my students, encourage them to find their voices and soon I hear the whispers rise in all of us – “yes.”

The woman in my assisted-living class, the one who said she couldn’t write anything last week and sat there until we encouraged her to just talk to us about her memories, wrote a wonderful piece this week inspired by our conversation. Yes, she began with an apology – “I’m just a beginner, I don’t know if I did this right” – but then launched into a beautiful piece about being an English speaker growing up with Czech grandparents. Her style was easygoing, amiable, a pleasure to listen to and follow along. I trusted where she’d lead.

A new student showed up, a reticent New Englander, who didn’t want to share much other than his name, but who I saw jotting down a list of memories after listening to his classmates.

Even crashing can be a good thing. Living on the road where I grew up was dangerous for the family cat. The only one that ever survived it was my cat Mime, who as a kitty got hit by a car and came back kicking. We always attributed her subsequent old age to the wisdom she learned from this event. I bet she never felt comfortable when crossing the road, yet she put her anxiety to use, learning how to negotiate the dangerous terrain. Once she followed me down the sidewalk when I needed to cross the road to the neighbors to deliver a package, batting me with her paw the whole way, like a mama cat, warning a stray kitty to stay in line. She didn’t seem to want me to veer from sidewalk into road.

My anxiety about sharing, about being up in front has become my greatest tool. It allows me to understand, not criticize, to encourage and bear witness, because out of the whimpers and apologies, despair and discomfort, if we stay with it and see the tightrope to its end, the whispers turn to hallelujahs, and we find ourselves shouting, comfortable or not, “yes, here I am” to the world.

Why not try saying “yes” to the writing prompt above. I’d love to see where it leads you. Feel free to share your responses in the comment section or use the contact form to send them to me privately.

Grace

Love doesn’t always look like we expect. Today, it looked like three old dogs. None are pretty. One is blind, bitten, unable to sit up on his own. Another looks like the Creature from the Black Lagoon – all folds and skin and gaping mouth. She breathes like a labored guppy and hops on three feet like a rabbit, holding her right, rear leg in the air. She has a luxating patella; her knee pops out. The third’s tongue hangs from her mouth where a horse once kicked her in the jaw. If her youthful luck was poor, age itself has caught up with her and her legs are now crippled and buckled. Still, she moves with the speed of a slithering sci-fi alien, clearing an expanse with surprising grace. They are not the dogs one would choose to bring home. No cuddly puppies, here. The ears of two are bitten from rambunctious play and pack rumbles gone awry. Some would say these dogs have seen there day.

Narnia

My friend Joan doesn’t think so nor her friend Norma. Looking at Norma with fractured hip hobble ever so slowly to and from the car, one might suspect she has seen her day as well. She has suffered strokes and broken bones. Yet, Norma shuffles and picks up blind Ghanny to take him in the thrift store, to show him off to her friends. I worry as she lifts him with shaking hands that she will drop him. I worry she will slip on the wet ramp and fall. I worry she will hurt him. I worry she will hurt herself. She lifts him anyway and I hold my breath and scurry out from the car to spot them both. “Who do I catch first?” I ask Joan.

But with a luck reserved for fools and children, both make it inside. Norma falls into a fading upholstered chartreuse chair amidst other furniture that has seen better days. Ghanny buries his head into her shoulder. He cannot walk any longer. Joan thinks he may have had a stroke. If he were my dog I would scoop him up and take him to the vets. Spend the hundreds and thousands on tests and medicine. She does not. She nurses him as she has done many before him, cleaning his sores and soiled bedding, letting nature take its course.

Ghanny

He is limp and ungainly like a pile of wet laundry spilling out from a hamper; he spills over the lips of Norma’s folded arms. She announces him her “grandbaby” and I monitor the reaction of the chunky, bearded twenty-something store clerk. He approaches to see “the puppy.”

“He’s not a puppy exactly,” I warn. I want to apologize, embarrassed for Ghanny, for Joan, for the young man. “He’s an old one. He doesn’t exactly look good.” And, then I wait, watching for any look of distaste – daring him to make one, expecting it at the same time. And, I am disappointed and simultaneously made happy when all he says is, “Aww, sweet puppy and smiles at Ghanny and at Norma.” He is a good young man.

He even stands and chats for a few minutes as Joan peruses this palace of discarded items for a few finds. She debates over two seven dollar molded chairs, considering them for the kitchen of her new house. I survey them for stains. Was the tan molding once white or always tan? Joan and Norma both deem them “wonderful, a good price.” They lack disdain for the worn; they don’t seem to need everything to be in good shape.

Still, we slip from the store without the chairs amidst a friendly goodbye from the young man and a declaration from Norma that “that place has everything.” We make our way to the feed store where Joan debates over dog food, comparing prices while I offer to buy Ghanny a can of grilled salmon and chicken and Norma throws in a stick of beef jerky. We split it among the other geriatric dogs. They gum it down, drool dripping from the side of their mouths. Each squeals for more.

Tar Baby and Narnia

Dogs fed, it’s our turn and though Joan parks as close to the Chinese restaurant as possible, we still have to walk a block or two. If Norma were my mother, I wouldn’t have her go, but she stifles our protests and makes her way out of the car. We totter down the streets and I remind myself to exhale. We will get there.

We do. We feast on curried chicken, wonton soup, fried rice as Norma struggles to hold her quivering cup. Joan makes a not-too-subtle jibe in my direction about eating out too much. Norma offers to start crocheting a blanket for Ghanny – an undeclared death shroud because we know his days are numbered. We chat about pleasant things, too. It is not how everyone would describe love, but as we return to Norma’s apartment and let the two old-lady pugs out to do their business, another young man awards us with smiles.

“What’s wrong with them? Poor puppies,” he says, watching them hobble, but still reaching down to pat their heads and chuckle.

“They’re old,” I offer, resigning myself to the fact that not everything needs to be fixed. Sometimes love looks like three old dogs. Sometimes it is about letting go and experiencing grace.

Nice to Meet You

My 18-month-old niece Ellie knows me well. Her Mom tells me that she even talks about me when I’m not around. Yet, when I saw her yesterday she gleefully announced, “Nice to meet you, Bee.”(Bee is my nieces’ and nephews’ nickname for me.) Today, I understood the sentiment.

The last week or so I’ve been feeling blue – a long-term project, in which I had put in a lot of time and effort came to an unceremonious end. An attempt to get financing for a new car filled me with familiar anxiety when I was forced to acknowledge once again how close to a starving artist I really am. And, the more I did the math, the more assured I was that I was going to stay this way. I saw my life and subsequently myself through a lens of doom and gloom. It wasn’t just that I was down, it was that this person I was seeing, I knew well. She was my nothing’s ever gonna happen, nothing’s ever gonna change, this is as good as it gets self. Head down, feet shuffling, she is the epitome of hopelessness. She knows statistics  -- the chance of getting married at her age is less than the chance of getting struck by lightening; the paycheck for her 750 word article on Obamacare will no way represent the 750 hours of work she put into it; she will be 90 in less years than she has lived, and what will she have to show for it? It was she who entered the activity room at the assisted living facility where I began teaching today, writhing her hands, sweating in nervousness and counting the 60 minutes until the new class she was starting would end. She sat at the head of the table, straightening the papers in front of her, making chatter with the English woman who had shown her to the room. Listening to her precise, clipped accent, she felt like a lowly peasant in the presence of the Queen. She hated those moments before the beginning of a class, when it felt like she might step out into an abyss and fall…and fail…when all those eyes would suddenly be upon her and she would fear she’d find her bag of tricks empty, when she risked exposing herself as utterly inadequate.

And, thus, it was with surprise that I found myself 20 minutes later assuring a student that claimed she couldn’t write that she had a story in her. When I asked her the defining sound of her childhood, she could tell me, but she just couldn’t write it. “If you can tell it you can write it,” I say. “There’s nothing magical here. We all know how to tell stories. We do everyday, when we pick up the phone, chat over coffee, click send on the keyboard.” I read back the notes I had taken as she had related her story and I see the hope begin to appear in her eyes, like a wake-up lamp on a timer getting brighter. “Maybe,” she thinks, “just maybe, she is right.”

That’s when it happens. That’s when I feel the light myself. It’s when the fear and helplessness melts away, warmed by an inner confidence and a realization – when I help others find their voice, I find my own. I stop doing the math and trust…I inhale the hope in the room, the courage and the strength as my students’ voices rise. Doom and gloom flee and for a time, so does that false sense of self. In the classroom, amidst my nervousness, in the teaching and the sharing, she slips in and I recognize her. She’s me, “Hello, Bee, nice to meet you!”

Transformation

 

“Ask him about the orange one,” I say to my brother Mark, elbowing him in the ribs. “Tell him your wife is interested in it.

“Yeah, right,” my brother says, shrugging off my request.

“No, really,” I try again, tugging at his sleeve and pulling him back in the direction of the tangerine bicycle in the center of the bike shop.

We are there because I am considering a bike, although I haven’t ridden one since I was in high school.

The store clerk comes over and asks if he can help us and I grab my brother again. “Tell him we all are interested in cycling,” I whisper, but he doesn’t seem to hear me.

“My sister is interested in a bike,” he says.

The clerk’s head swivels in my direction, reminding me of Linda Blair in The Exorcist. Okay, maybe it wasn’t that dramatic, but suddenly all eyes are on me and I don’t want them there.

“We – all three of us – are interested in riding the Stowe Bike Trail,” I mumble, although my brother and sister-in-law have expressed no such interest.

The thing is, I don’t want the eyes on me – the questioning eyes, wondering why I, who am obviously not athletic, would even consider getting on a bicycle. At least that’s what I feel the clerk is thinking. He may not be, he’s probably not. But that’s how I feel and so, I inwardly plea for my brother to step forward and take some heat off of me. Because he can’t read my mind, he doesn’t and thus, I try to muster some inner courage and bluff my way through the conversation with the store clerk.

I promise to come back and to take the bike he recommends for a trail run, all the time wondering if I can even get on a bike and whether or not the clerk will be watching if I do, a fear that could just keep me from fulfilling my promise. I might just be able to do it, but not if he’s watching. Not if anyone’s watching.

I leave the shop dissatisfied, knowing nothing about the tangerine bike and very little about the bike the clerk recommended, having nervously cut him off from asking any more questions by offering to return at a later date.

“I wonder what type of bike the orange one was,” I say, getting into the car. And, I really do wonder. I wanted to ask, but I didn’t want to look stupid. I didn’t want the store clerk to know that I was interested. I didn’t want to expose myself in that way.

“Aww, Kimbi. you really wanted me to ask? I would have if I’d known you really wanted me to,” my brother says.

Um, yeah, that was what all the whispering and nudging were about, I think, but I let him off the hook. “It’s okay. You couldn’t have known. It’s just I can’t ask. I don’t want the attention. All I can think is the guy is wondering why the fat girl wants a bicycle,” I say. And, that’s exactly the problem. Sure, I am considering the bike to try and get in shape and yes, I’ve lost some weight and yes, I’ve been walking and probably the store clerk if he knew all this would be supportive, but it doesn’t change the way I feel and it doesn’t help me rise to the occasion. Although I should happily be surveying the bikes and asking questions, I feel like running away and maybe I can’t do this bike thing after all, because who am I to think I can be buying a bicycle?

This isn’t a new thought. It’s a familiar one and its not always exercise or body image related, but it’s always about feeling vulnerable. I just don’t like that feeling and when it kicks in so does that deer caught in the headlights phenomenon. I freeze or flee or lie – declaring that all three of us are interested in cycling the bike trail, for example. Anything to not feel so exposed, so defenseless, so ready to be mocked. I know how ridiculous it is, how this feeling can hinder me, prevent me from experiencing some potentially cool experiences, but it’s a feeling that’s hard to kick and regardless of whether it has to do with riding a bike, getting a physical or entering a room of strangers alone, I have to try really hard to remember that I’m probably the only one picturing that chubby little girl on the playground. And, again, I emphasize that it isn’t really about body image, although that’s the form it takes, because we all have an inner self that’s naked and vulnerable. For some that vulnerable self takes the form of a short bald guy or a tall, clumsy girl, a braces wearing nerd or a chubby kid. Rarely, do we see that inner self as beautiful. She’s awkward or ugly, fat and found wanting. And, so I try tricks to keep myself from being seen in the full light of day while at the same time working on finding a way to do just that. Because in spite of it all, we all want to be seen and accepted. Everyone’s in search of the Superman to her Clark Kent and I may have found the key to finding mine.

I stumbled upon it earlier this year when I found myself “interviewing” my gynecologist during an annual exam. Somehow when I’m doing my job, the glasses come off, the cape comes on and my inner chubby Clark Kent becomes Super Reporter. So, today, after I finished my interviews for my Obamacare article, I googled some bike shops, called them up and explained that I was a freelancer interested both in gathering facts for a potential story and in getting a bike for myself. The story? How does a complete novice, who isn’t exactly fit, go about choosing a bike? The questions they asked me were the same as they would have been if I were just an ordinary customer – what is your experience, what are your goals, where do you expect to ride – but the consequences were different. I didn’t run, I didn’t freeze, I didn’t lie and while I still felt nervous, I didn’t feel fat or naked. There was no hidden self. I had revealed her at the get go. I tricked myself into believing I was wearing my job as an armor, protection from my feelings of inadequacy. The trick was on me  -- Clark Kent and Superman are one and the same, the glasses fool no one. And, that little chubby girl on the playground? She’s a writer who may soon own a bike.

Mirage

 

I use to dream that things could change, until I discovered

A dream dies a more agonizing death than a beloved dog

You cannot put it to sleep and out of its misery

Instead it flails in the sun in the full light of day

The later leaves you a wag of its tail and years of memories

The former only the mocking prospect of what could have been.

Husks II

Walking past the cornfield the other day

I revisited my reformed headbangers

Boomers who’d left the sixties in their wake

My long-haired rockers now shorn

Their garish cranberry locks a respectable brown

Short

No longer rocking or swaying in the wind

Plumper, fatter

They lean in close conversing

Shunning whispered secrets of rendezvous and romance

In favor of meeting minutes and agendas

Respectable

Ready to be plucked up and join society

I miss their nascent days

When long red wisps of hair flailed in the breeze

And their bodies spoke of promise

When they craved the kiss of the sun

Rather than to ripen in its embrace.

I wonder if once in a blue moon

Under the glow of its yellow light

If they may still

Let their hair down

Shake beads of perspiration into the midnight sky

Let loose and howl

For all they’ve lost

And all they’ve gained

For potential

And fulfillment

For the hope of harvest

And the day when it comes due.

Gonna Fly Now

The theme song to Rocky may only have been playing in my head when I entered the door of my house yesterday after a 3-mile walk around the stretch of road we call “The Boulevard,” but it was playing nonetheless. While family, friends and neighbors may walk The Boulevard with ease, I have seldom completed it. But after coming back from Hana, Hawaii where I walked a lot, I decided to keep up the good work and start walking The Boulevard both for the exercise and as a form of prayer and meditation. The problem is it hasn’t been easy and it hasn’t been peaceful. It would be simple to blame my being a desk-bound, out-of-shape couch potato as part of the problem and no doubt I could be more physically fit, but the real issue is my feet. Bone spurs, Achilles tendonitis, and plantar fasciitis don’t make walking easy as I found out when I hiked around Portland, Maine on my recent reunion with friends. A couple of years ago, I saw a podiatrist and physical therapist who fit me with orthotics, but the plantar fasciitis recently flared up even with them in my shoes. It seems my rigid high-arched feet don’t make for easy walking and I tend to supinate, walking on the outer sides of my feet. It helped hearing this from the physical therapist who explained some of my lack of athleticism could be contributed to the fact that my legs were simply not made to do what a lot of people can do so easily. She even told me that certain muscles in my legs were working so hard that they were equivalent to that of a gymnast. I wish my old gym teacher had heard this report.

Still, knowing the reason why my feet didn’t work and my legs turned to rubber when I tried to walk didn’t help me complete The Boulevard, but a new pair of shoes did. I stopped in the New Balance sneaker store the other day to see if they carried high tops. My sister-in-law had a cool pair of red Adidas and try as I might to make a similar pair fit me they were just too narrow. I knew New Balance carried wide widths and if they had high tops I thought I might find a pair there that were more comfortable. They didn’t have any in, but what they did have was a certified pedorthist to offer advice. Although I had never heard of a certified pedorthist after a few minutes talking to her I realized she was a foot expert. She immediately identified the problems with my foot that I had learned form my podiatrist and had fitted me with the proper size shoe. Although I have known for years that my foot measures a size 7, I have been wearing 8s and 9s in an effort to accommodate their width. Sometimes I could go smaller with a 7.5 if I was lucky enough to find a wide-width shoe, but this was rare. I discovered, however, that not only did I need a size 7 with the proper fit to accommodate my high arches and tendency to supinate; I also needed a double E in width. For years, I had been living in the confines of a too narrow shoe. The pedorthist sent me home with my new sneakers and the warning to break them in gradually. I did and voila I managed to complete the whole stretch of The Boulevard yesterday; hence the refrain of Rocky’s theme song.

That may have been enough to proclaim “Gonna Fly Now” but it was my revelation that it wasn’t just my shoe that was the wrong size. For a while now I’ve been shaping myself to accommodate other people's visions of my life, trying to fit within the confines of two small a worldview. As I walked The Boulevard, stared at the expanse growing corn against the blue sky, I realized mine was a double E life and it was time for me to try out the shoe that fits so I can fly.