You know what I’d like to be?
Holden Caufield: “You know what I’d like to be? I mean if I had my goddam choice?”
Phoebe Caufield: “What? Stop swearing.”
“You know that song ‘If a body catch a body comin’ through the rye’? I’d like – ”
“It’s ‘If a body meet a body coming through the rye’!” old Phoebe said. “It’s a poem. By Robert Burns.”
“I know it’s a poem by Robert Burns.”
She was right, though. It is “If a body meet a body coming through the rye.” I didn’t know it then, though.
“I thought it was ‘If a body catch a body,'” I said. “Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around – nobody big, I mean – except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff – I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be. I know It’s crazy.”
Sam Snyder: “That’s not crazy in my book, Holden. Not crazy at all.”
“And Jonathan Loved Him as His Own Soul”
We men like to hide our emotions. Don’t we? Well, maybe “hide” sounds too accusatory. And “like” is probably an unfair characterization of our motives. We men tend to cover our emotions, or push them away, or disassociate ourselves from them to varying degrees depending on how vulnerable we feel in any given situation. We might be able to cope in this way in a large proportion of uncomfortable settings. It may even be necessary in such settings as the workplace, or the in-laws’ house, or the Sunday afternoon football get-together with the buds. But sooner or later, our emotions are caught off guard by the moment and there is no hiding them.
Hiding our emotions in relationships with persons of significance is never a good idea. With all the lumps on my own head, you would think I would have learned that lesson by now. You married fellows know what I’m talking about. If you hide emotions from your wife, you don’t usually enjoy the release of your emotions catching up with the moment. More than likely, your wife catches on a lot quicker than you admit she does and you find yourself in a heap of trouble, Uriah. (Don’t try to obfuscate your obfuscation by sly Dickens references either.)
Hiding our emotions in the workplace is not beneficial either. However, you can’t wear your emotions on your sleeve in a dog-eat-dog environment. Your emotions will be like so many juicy steaks hanging off your sleeves. You will be left in tatters and may even lose your shirt. What we need to do in the workplace is be honest with ourselves about our emotions and find the appropriate channels to express those emotions with the goal of being productive and maintaining some semblance of satisfaction in our work. It’s helpful to have someone to trustfully confide in and obtain direction from in the workplace, maybe a good and seasoned manager. Finding a mentor, even outside our place of employment, is a good idea. Get advice and channel your emotional energies in the right ways. Don’t be a sissy. But don’t be a brute either.
Now, as tough as emotional honesty in intimate relationships is, as complicated as properly handling your emotions at work is, the area of life in which allowing your true feelings to surface is the hardest and the most rare is in the realm of relationships with other men. You men, ask yourself, to how many other men are you able to say the words, “I love you,” with complete honesty and sincerity? With how many other men are you able to mutually discuss your thoughts and the workings of your soul? David, do you have a Jonathan to whom you can turn? Just as importantly, do you, Jonathan, have a David whom you love as your own soul? (I think I lost a few of you. GO READ THIS and come back.) A friendship of the type which David and Jonathan had is the holy grail of manly relationships.
I wager that most men reading this have only experienced this type of emotional honesty with another man to very low degrees. I would wager that these experiences are few and far between too. I would make this bet because such has been my life’s experience as well. I can count my Jonathans on one hand, not including my thumb.
Today, I had an experience that contained a flicker of the emotional honesty of which I am writing. I did not expect it. I was not prepared for it. Yet, by some grace, I was able to let go and stay in that honest moment. I was pulled into it by the most innocuous of lures: laughter. There is perhaps nothing as disarming as a jovial man’s laughter turning to tears due to his gratitude for your being present at one of his most vulnerable of moments. Sometimes just showing up means enough to a man that he sees you as wearing your Jonathan name tag. Given the right set of preparatory circumstances, in this case, a man’s deceased brother lying in a casket at hand, you are Jonathan. The other man shows his emotions. His laughter turns to tears while your hands are on his shoulders and he cannot take his eyes away from yours. You are thereby disarmed yourself and can do none else but shed your own tears, telling him with your eyes, “I love you.”
Then a joke is belovedly made about his brother and you both have an out. “Ha ha! He would have loved that! He had a great sense of humor!” You both are secretly thankful that humor is such a great cover for vulnerability. But you are both even more grateful to God that you saw each other’s true souls and sensed a manly love.
My fellows, this experience leaves me with the desire to be a better Jonathan. Sure, I could use a man or two to be such for me as well. While that is out of my control, my focus needs to be “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” I pray for grace to do just that, the grace to be better prepared for the opportunities, the grace to lock eyes a moment longer, and the courage to say, “Man, I love you.”
On Making Lentil Soup
“Dad, can you send me the CliffNotes version of how you make lentil soup?”
OK. When I first began making lentil soup, I followed the recipe on the lentils package. I’ve modified it and just do it by routine now.
The first thing to do is rinse the lentils. You want to make sure they are clean and also free of hard, dead-looking lentils. I believe there is a note on the package that says there could even be small stones in there. So, you have to rinse them in a colliander and root around in them a little. You don’t want to chip a tooth on a rock while eating soup, unless you’re eating rock soup. Then it’s the risk you have to take.
Put the rinsed lentils in a pot and add water. Whatever the package calls for, I add 2 more cups. I like it a little soupier rather than thicker. Also, the extra water is a lifesaver when you get distracted and forget that you’re cooking soup. Like if you see a bird or squirrel and run off to try to get a good picture of it for your blog. (CLICK HERE to watch what life is like with ADHD.)
I add a whole onion, usually Vidalia. I dice up a few carrots and toss them in. With a garlic press, I crush up two or three cloves of garlic. I like my soup a little heavy on the garlic. That keeps people away from me for a day or two after I eat the soup. I love soup! People? Not so much.
For seasoning, I use one bouillon cube per cup of water minus one. For example (if you’re not good at math), if I put 8 cups of water in the pot, I use 7 bouillon cubes. I add two (more math) bay leaves, some salt and pepper, dried basil, thyme, tarragon, dill, and oregano. I add all these by “feel.”
Bring the concoction to a boil. Then turn the heat down low to simmer. Put a lid on it, but not too tight. Never let your lid get too tight. Your pot will boil over. Simmer for 45 minutes or until the lentils are soft but not completely mushy. If you get distracted, as mentioned above, your lentils will be mushy. That’s okay as long as they don’t burn to the bottom of the pot. If that ends up being the case, you didn’t just get distracted, you probably fell asleep.
There you have it.
I am also PRETTY GOOD AT THIS!
My Running Confession
“Forgive me Father for I have sinned. It has been nine days since I last went for a run.”
Not only that, I’ve only run four times since Thanksgiving. Granted, one of those runs was 14 miles. But this lack of frequency in running has become a problem. The lack of miles plus the consumption of a whole lot of unhealthy, albeit tasty, foods over the past few weeks has been a bad combination. This situation needs to be rectified ASAP!
To that end, I mustered enough ambition to get away from my desk and out the door at lunchtime today. My lethargic situation had reached a critical point. I blocked off time to address this TODAY. I donned my running gear, scooted out into the balmy-for-December 52 degree afternoon, headed down the road, and within 500 yards I felt: DISGUSTING. All I could think about were the cheeseburgers I’d consumed lately… and the cookies… and the potato chips… and the candy. The occasional banana or apple I’d ingested didn’t carry much weight in counteracting all the nastiness I’d dumped into my belly. Carrying weight was exactly what I felt that I was doing during that first quarter mile. I lugged it all the way through the whole first mile, at which point, I was completely winded, completely discouraged, completely ready to lug my big gut back to the office and accept defeat.
Then I checked the time. Guess what. I had been running at way too fast of a pace. 9:30. No wonder it felt like it sucked so bad! That is way too fast for me. Realizing this changed my perspective on that first mile and on this run in general. I ran a 9:30 mile in spite of walking three times in that mile and with all that junk food clinging to me. I decided I could continue the course. Slow it down a bit. Keep putting one foot in front of the other. Take the long way back to work.
Not far into mile two, the thought struck me: “Forgive yourself.” Oh, please! That’s dumb! “Be kind to yourself.” That’s cheesy! “Think about what you’ve accomplished this year.” That got me thinking. Once I stopped flogging myself for being such a slob over the past few weeks, I was able to start enjoying the run. For three more miles I reflected on the goals I had reached during the course of the year.
I started the year on the couch, down for the count with piriformis syndrome. I ran once each month from January through March. They were monthly test runs to prove that, yes indeed, my hip still hurt too much. I went through several weeks of physical therapy with no satisfactory results. Then I went for a deep tissue massage and that got me over the hurdle of severe pain. I ran a 10K in April, probably too much too soon. It was painfully unenjoyable. Then I ran a half marathon in May. That was a little more enjoyable but still too much too soon. Then I backed off. I took a few weeks off from running and then started from scratch. I cut my mileage way down. I only ran three times per week. In the beginning, I alternated between running and walking every few minutes. Gradually, I was able to increase the running until I was able to run five miles without pain.
Then I got the fever to run races! I got it into my head to run three half marathons within a 30-day period in the Fall. Then, if all went well, I would run the full Philadelphia marathon in November, my first marathon. The line up included the Newport Liberty Half in Jersey City, NJ; the Princeton Half; the Runner’s World Half in Bethlehem, PA. My overall goal was to finish these races and end the year with no pain.
The first half marathon was on September 20. I would have liked to have trained a little better by that point. I was also having muscle spasms in my right calf. So, I showed up in Jersey City with my calf shaved and K-Tape running up each side from the ankle. I never thought I’d shave anything other than my face or maybe my head. But if it’s to facilitate a run, hand me a razor! I did fairly well in this race. I did run out of steam during the second half of it. I did have some trouble with the muscle spasms. But overall, I was happy with my effort.
Next up was the Princeton Half Marathon on October 4. This was an enjoyable race. The course was hillier than I expected. Some of the scenery was a bit boring. My calf was okay in this race but I had trouble with hamstring spasms. I didn’t shave my legs this time, but I did shave a little bit of my… I don’t know if I should say it. I shaved a little bit of my boobs. Just enough to apply Nip Guards. I lost one by mile 5. But, like I said, anything for the run. My energy was better in this race. I made it to mile 10 before I felt any significant drop in my energy. I think the hills got to me at that point. Overall, I was happy with this race too.
Then came the Runner’s World Festival. What I didn’t say previously was that I signed up for all four races being held at the festival. That meant a 3.8 mile trail race on Friday, October 16, a 5K and 10K on Saturday, and a half marathon on Sunday for a total of 26.2 miles for the weekend. How could I resist? The trail race was the first I’d ever done. Indeed, it was the first time I ever ran on trails. I LOVED IT! It required a higher level of focus. It was exhilarating. The 5K went by in the blind of an eye. The 10K… man, that was a hilly course! The half marathon was wonderful. I did not have problems with muscle spasms this weekend. I had started taking daily magnesium supplements. I also included Endurolytes into my long runs. This has greatly reduced the leg spasms. The Runner’s World Festival was the highlight of the Fall. What a thoroughly enjoyable weekend of running!
By the way, I went all out and shaved nearly half my chest for this race. I have resorted to Band-Aids to protect my nips. It’s completely unattractive. I’ve apologized to my wife several times. But, anything for the run!
All had gone according to plan for the first three half marathons. I had completed all without injury. However, my training had not been what it needed to be. I decided to bow out of the full Philadelphia marathon. I ran the half instead.
There is nothing like a big city race: 30,000 runners, the thrill of running through a major city. It’s exciting! I started off with a high five from Mayor Nutter. I did fine until mile 5. Then I had significant spasms in my hamstring. I think it was partly due to my legs being cold. So, I stretched at mile five, used a bathroom, had some water. I slowed my pace and had no further problems for the rest of the race. I finished this race strong. The bonus of this race was the very cool medal with an Liberty Bell that actually rings!
There was one thing that nearly derailed my running after the Runner’s World Festival. I was so jazzed by that trail race that I went to the Delaware Water Gap to run the trails with a friend the next weekend. We did 13 miles. It was heavenly! So heavenly that I went back four days later and ran eight miles. However, in my eagerness, I sprained my foot. The doctor ordered me to refrain from running for at least two weeks. That brought me within 10 days of the Philadelphia Half. I obeyed the doctor. Thankfully, after two weeks, I was able to run a few miles without pain. By the time of the race I was nearly back to normal.
All in all, I’d say I accomplished my mission this year. I’m pain free. I got a bunch of cool medals. The hair is starting to grow back on the ol’ man boobs. I think the best thing I can do right now is forgive myself for the reckless eating and start over again. One foot in front of the other. One mile at a time. Be a happy runner.
***Update*** 12/17/2015 (the very next day) – I won a basket of cookies at a holiday party. Just what I need.
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