On communication, professional and otherwise.
One thing I often hear myself say, when I’m in a mood to forgive other people screwing things up for themselves and the people around them: “It’s hard to be a person.”
On a more humanity-wide level—self-inflicted economic disasters, dumb wars and technological developments that only make everything worse—I always come back to another line that seems universally and chronically true: “Human beings: We just can’t help ourselves.”
“ANALysis, indeed,” I chuckled, reading the kicker over this The New York Times piece.
The promising piece itself turned out to be not nearly as helpful as a “Runner’s Life Hack” that I wrote a couple of years ago when I was training—as I am training again now—for a half marathon.
I rerun it, for those who the Times piece left … unsatisfied, shall we say. —DM
***
I try hard not to offer anything useful here, lest Writing Boots readers come to expect something for nothing.
But sometimes I make a discovery that I feel I owe to humanity to share. I’m no Jonas Salk. But the medical intervention I’m about to impart will benefit some of us more often than the polio vaccine. In other words, Jonas Salk is also no me.
I’m a daily runner.
And when it comes to “stomach issues” during a run, volume and viscosity are the name of what is decidedly not a game. Too much of the former and too little of the latter, and disaster can strike—usually, in the way one goes broke: Gradually, and then all at once.
Not to muddy the metaphor, but these catastrophes are also like car accidents, in that they are most likely to occur close to the home—like, right in front of your neighbors, who will never unsee.
Why?
There’s a phenomenon that horse riders know, of a horse “smelling the barn.” That is, when you’re on a trail ride and headed home, your otherwise trusty steed will often catch the scent of the barn and pick up the pace in hopes of returning for some hay, a drink, a rest. When I was little, I had a leather-mouthed old pony take off for the barn in a dead gallop.
“Pony” is a good euphemism for an urgent “stomach issue,” which can similarly seem to sense the proximity of an available toilet, in the course of a long run.
Soon as you get within a few blocks of home, that ole intestinal nag thinks it’s on the home stretch at Churchill Downs, boy.
I have checked with enough other “riders” to know this problem is universal.
It also must be entirely psychological. So, then, the solution must be. And so, I have discovered recently, it is.
When the “barn” comes into the visual or mental offing and that pony stirs between one’s legs, one must focus not on the impending relief.
Instead, one must summon all of one’s remaining powers of concentration and imagination to convince oneself (or one’s “pony”) of the discouraging thought that “barn” is not as close as it appears.
For instance, if the “pony” is within one actual block of the “barn,” one must convince the “pony”—by convincing oneself—that there’s another quarter mile to go.
Fortunately, the human mind is stronger than the “pony’s.” And so when I pick a fictional destination—and I do picture a specific “barn”—a house at an intersection maybe a half mile beyond my house—my “pony” slows to a canter, then a trot and down to a walk, giving me the time I need to make the last block without losing my “stirrups,” sliding off the “saddle” and getting all covered in “mud.”
To my fellow “riders,” you’re welcome. To the complaints of the scatologically skittish, I offer the great Onion headline of yore: “Best Buy’s Employee Suggestion Box Brimming With Urine.”
I was on a panel talking about Soccer Dad at the Printers Row Lit Fest this last weekend, in Chicago. Someone asked a question about how parents can emotionally differentiate their love for their kid’s sport and the kid’s love for the sport. I suggested that a parent might test that by not going to one of their kid’s games, and seeing how that feels—for both the parent, and the kid.
Parents are always bragging about never missing their kids’ games. They brag about this so much that by the end of their sporting careers, you hear the kids bragging about it, too. “My dad never missed a game!”
To which I wonder, “Why the hell not?”
And think, “Didn’t your parents have a life of their own?”
And ask, “Why can’t they leave their kid alone every once in awhile?”
Did it ever occur to these parents that it might be nice for the kid, now and then, to come home from a game, or even (gasp!) a whole tournament, with tales to tell? How it went down, how they played, how they felt, what the weather was like, what the stupid parents said, what the stupid coaches said, and what they themselves said in return? Their own story of their own game: Don’t you think that might engender more of a sense of ownership of their own adventure?
Did it ever occur to these parents that it might be nice for a kid to play an occasional game without feeling the heat of parental eyes following them like hot unblinking lasers all over the field (and up and down the sideline) from the opening whistle to the last?
A former soccer dad I know has a podcast. He interviewed his ex-soccer player daughter after her career, and apologized to her for having had to miss a handful of her games over the ears. She told him she often played better when he and her mother weren’t there. More free. Less watched. He was shocked to hear it.
I saw most of my daughter’s games, from peewee to Division I. The vast majority, I’m sure. But I also missed plenty, because of work obligations, social obligations and also, I’m sure, a few golf trips and motorcycle rambles. In general, my wife and I didn’t believe in suspending our own lives for the 18 years our child lived with us. We didn’t want our kid being raised by two weird parenting bots. No, we believed in living our lives, and showing our daughter what adult life actually looked like. We thought that was part of being good parents, too.
So yeah, we missed a few of her games and tournaments. And those were probably the moments when she understood (or remembered) that her soccer was her soccer (and her life was her life)—not ours.
That seems like a pretty important thing for any kid to know. (And any parent, to remember.)