Human Experience

While reading this article in Slate about nature reflecting feelings of grief, I came across a quote by Marilynne Robinson (author of Housekeeping and Gilead) from an interview in the Paris Review:

The ancients are right: the dear old human experience is a singular, difficult, shadowed, brilliant experience that does not resolve into being comfortable in the world. The valley of the shadow is part of that, and you are depriving yourself if you do not experience what humankind has experienced, including doubt and sorrow. We experience pain and difficulty as failure instead of saying, I will pass through this, everyone I have ever admired has passed through this, music has come out of it, literature has come out of it. We should think of our humanity as a privilege.

I love how she doesn't diminish pain or place blame for it. She doesn't seek retribution for pain or a way to alleviate it. Instead she looks at pain as something bigger than we are and a way that we are connected to the rest of humanity.

Poetry

The daily poem from Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac shows up on the bulletin board outside the elevator on my floor at work. One of the justices has his secretary put it up. It's supposed to be a secret, but I caught her doing it. On Friday, there was a poem called "The Meaning of Life". It made me smile because it is wise.

Living It Up

Last Saturday night, as Zach and I drove home from an early dinner at The Happy Sumo (soooo mediocre, by the way . . . tasted like sushi straight from the grocery store) to an exciting evening of three episodes of the HBO John Adams documentary , I saw a sign in the window of a coffee shop advertising a concert for a band I sort of like. So while watching the John Adams documentary, I looked up the local concert schedule, and discovered that a band I really liked was playing. I immediately bought two tickets to The Mountain Goats, opening band Kaki King.

So last night we donned the hippest clothes we could find and went to In the Venue for the show. It was awesome. I hadn't heard anything from Kaki King prior to the concert, but she was an incredible guitarist. The Mountain Goats have funny and thought-provoking lyrics. They also have something like five hundred million songs, so I didn't know most of the songs from the first half of the concert. They played Going to Georgia and International Small Arms Traffic Blues, which were both great, and then a few songs with Kaki King. Then they ended with a bunch of songs that I like. They slowed down Dance Music, and I didn't think it was nearly as good slow--certainly less fun for dancing. I think my favorite that they played this perverse breakup song called No Children. Listen to it; you'll laugh. I was sad not to hear Sax Rohmer and This Year, but thrilled to hear You or Your Memory. They ended with The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton. Anyway, John Darnielle and his band put on a great show; he was very funny and appeared to be having a blast, and it was a great night out.

Two observations. First, there are an inordinately large number of very short, very small hipster girls. I am about the most average sized person on the planet, and I felt like a giantess next to most of the girls at this concert. Kaki King included. When she walked into the crowd to sign autographs, for a second I thought she was a kid. And I'm still not sure if the very small girl that kept flashing her SLR in my eye was short or an actual little person. Second, going to concerts hurts my legs. Maybe it was the added fun of the compressed disc, but I thought I was going to die by the time we left. I keep worrying that I'm too old for this kind of fun.

Diagnosis Herniated

Growing up my dad's favorite saying was "Any excuse for nonperformance no matter how valid the excuse only weakens the character." So when I finished the marathon twenty minutes later than expected, I figured there probably wasn't any worthwhile excuse for it. I had some painful miles, but assumed it was my lack of preparation that caused the pain, exacerbated by the pounding, incessant, freezing rain. My back hurt. I couldn't lift my left leg. Pain ran through the back of my knee. My foot burned. I self-diagnosed a hamstring tendon injury, but it didn't quite fit. Then, a week ago, as the soreness subsided, I realized that my left leg was still dragging. More leg symptoms ensued. On Friday I ran five miles (because any excuse . . .) and limp-ran the last mile. After some quick consultation with Dr. Google, I discovered that every description of my symptoms ended with "stop running immediately and see a doctor." That didn't stop me from running three miles on Saturday and six miles today. But I did go to the spine doctor after I ran today. He thinks I have a slipped/herniated disc. At first when I learned something was actually wrong I was a little excited because, yay, not a hypochondriac. Then I learned that I have to get an MRI on Thursday and take medicine, luckily for only twelve days, which has side effects that include weight gain and crazy (seriously). On the bright side, I can run as much as I can tolerate, which is about three miles. Right now my primary reaction is "ugh."

Marathon Training

I've been half-heartedly training for the St. George Marathon for the past three months. It's not how I always imagined training for a marathon would be. For one, I have only run about three times a week with no speed workouts. I'm slow, weigh the same I did when I started training, and when I finished my twenty-mile run last Tuesday, the thought of running another 10K made me want to cry. My original goal in signing up for the marathon was to qualify for Boston--not all that out of the question if I would have started five months ago and run five days a week. Now my goal is to finish, but even thinking about how painful this is going to be makes me wonder if just finishing is even worth it. After a relatively leisurely fourteen-mile run with my sister this morning, I have a blister the size of my pinkie toe on my big toe, a vague pain in my arch, and a triangle of chaffing under one of my arms. The marathon is two weeks from today. I feel queasy just thinking about it.

Bar Results

On Friday I went to judicial conference in Park City. A few of my classmates were there, and one woman took it upon herself to inform all of us that, if it were last year, bar results would come out that day. I could have killed her. I've spent the last six or so weeks purposely forgetting that I even took the bar, much less speculating when bar results would come out. By the afternoon, the entire Supreme Court corridor was in a frenzy. Bar results posted at 5:00, my co-clerk told me after a phone call from another classmate who had no better idea than any of us when they'd come out, as far as I could tell. I went home early, checked the website, left to get my car safety inspection, checked the website, watched Definitely, Maybe, and refreshed the website every few minutes just in case. You can understand why I didn't want to figure out when results would come out. After 7 or 8 I decided that results probably weren't coming out, and put the computer away. The next morning I woke up late, took Huck on a five mile run, and when I came home, Zach handed me a thick envelope from the bar. "You better sit down," he told me. I tore open the letter and scanned quickly seeing the words "pleased to inform you . . ." I shrieked. I think I scared the dog. We celebrated by going to dinner at Takashi with some friends. And for the last few days, whenever I think about it, I'm thrilled that I won't have to spend February holed up studying for the bar. Also, I get a raise, about the equivalent to one Takashi dinner per paycheck. Not much, but I'll take it.

Milli Vanilli

It's no secret that my family has pretty much no musical ability. We can't make it through "Happy Birthday" without laughing because we're so bad. In spite of years of piano lessons, I can hack at best a few hymns to be used in emergencies when the pianist doesn't show up to Relief Society. If it weren't for the piano lessons, I may be able to sing blithely oblivious to the way the notes I sing bear little resemblance to the ones in the hymnal. Singing in the church choir is, obviously, out of the question. Singing anywhere, except along to the radio when nobody but Huck is in the car, is obviously out of the question.

I'm fairly open about my singing ability. I have a funny anecdote about how I lip sync at church and one time in college a new roommate complimented my beautiful voice and my other roommate guffawed because she knew I lip synced all the words. I refuse to be the singer when Zach's family is playing Rock Band, which they do surprisingly often. I thought my lack of singing ability was common knowledge, which is why when I got an EMAIL (another can of worms . . . email is NOT an acceptable mode of urgent communication, people . . . if it's important, pick up the damn phone) from A, my sister-in-law asking if I would sing alto with her for a grandchildren medley of How Great Thou Art at Zach's grandpa's funeral, I didn't hesitate to respond "Nope."

But it didn't work. My sister-in-law called our house to beg Zach to make me sing. The program said that the "grandchildren" would be singing. If I sat out, I would have been the only grandchild sitting in the pews. Which also means that I would probably have to keep my eye on the thirteen great-grandchildren who would be unsupervised during the musical number. During the viewing Zach and I were sitting in the back of the empty chapel next to his mother while G practiced her solo of Come Thou Fount when A came in to encourage me to join in the musical number. "I will if I can lip sync." I told her. "If you can lip sync?" my mother-in-law asked incredulously. "Yeah, I can't sing." She turned to Zach, "How did you manage to marry someone with no musical ability?"

So I got up with the grandchildren. And I lip synced.